Clutter

  

found this quilt photo for free on the internet

 

Most nights, I dream and often remember the dreams. My dreams are colorful and often of things I don't have in my daily life. They can range from family members, from many years gone by to sometimes people I don't know or recognize what the brain pulled together. The dream this week was like that from years ago and nobody I recognized, but it was fun and ended up giving me a message.

So, in the dream, I was about to clean up a son's bedroom while he was gone somewhere. The room was full of quilts of all sorts and colors. They were spread all over. I began folding them, putting one onto the bed but most into a closet, neatly stacked. A few were damaged and were discarded. When I was finished, the room looked great. The surprise, when the son got home (nobody I recognized from my real life). and I learned that he was thinking more clearly with the room restored to organized.

When I woke up, I thought how the dream applied to life for what clutter does to our brains. It's not just in our homes but in other areas of our lives. For instance, we can be so jammed up with what's going on elsewhere in the world, to ignore what's in our daily lives.

Clutter is a problem in taking photographs with too many images to lose the subject. Or how about with writing and too many subjects.

Basically, I took that the lesson was for me to de-clutter my life as much as I can. Not easy by the way. 

Another day another dime.

 Well,

we can't say another penny as the fed will stop making them. Does that make the many we already have worth more money someday? Probably not unless they have the right images.

My writing on what's happening globally is no better today than last week. The killing in Minneapolis has as much confusing info on it as before. So the victim has four wounds, one in the head from shot through windshield, but one hole through the windshield, not four. Others were in her chest and arm. Who shot those? There are also claims that he has internal injuries from being hit with her vehicle. What makes sense to each side might depend on where they came from in terms of partisan hacks-- either side.

Greenland seems wrong to attack but is it part of global change with new and old enemies changing constantly. Iran-- bad however you look at it. WWIII-- is it on the horizon? I hope not but so much is out of our control, but maybe not what will hurt us.

My own life had multiple problems this week from one of our beloved cats developing a limp that meant she hopped to avoid stepping on one leg. After a veterinary visit and multiple x-rays (plus reducing our bank account), there is no firm answer, but she is getting old. She came to us a stray 9 years ago. We have no idea how old she was.  She is though, much beloved for so many reasons, and we do what we can to keep her as long as possible along with the two others, with maybe a future decision to adopt to have four cats... (fingers crossed on that one).

Then, there is the farm where one of our beloved big old white oaks split off part of it to damage the home roof, destroy the chimney and send one of the broken branches down two feet. Now, that's scary. Insurance is starting to deal with it (maybe) that but doesn't make it less stressful.

Didn't they used to say another day another dollar? I don't think so anymore. 

difficult times

 For me, this is a bad time to write what I feel. I do not know all the facts of many recent happenings; but feeling, I do know that. However, might that change when more facts come out. That's the problem with writing in such a time. Besides, not knowing, I do not want to write what will doubtless upset others. Reading the newspapers does enough of that. I might write about it all someday, when more is known, but not today.

So, I dove into my archives for things I had written years ago, like in 2005. I still very much relate to this feeling for today as a way to get through difficult times. Some say, live in the moment. I also believe that, but my memories are always also part of me today.

Before that, is this quote by Mary Oliver, known by many but always worth remembering.

"“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life."

 

-------

 

I have this yearning right now to be where the sky is big, the land open and not blemished by man's touch-- needful as that touch sometimes is. I'd like to smell the sage, feel the prairie wind in my hair. I'd like to forget for a moment that I am who I am and just be one with the earth. Be where the sky becomes as important or more so than the land beneath, where it speaks to you with gentle or fierce voices and you know somehow that whatever is troubling you is less important than you thought.

The closest I can get to that at the moment though is looking through my pictures, remembering the times in the Big Sky country and listening to the soundtrack to Legends of the Fall.

I am lucky the memories linger in my head. I sometimes think we only do things to have the memories become part of us, that the doing is not more important than the lingering effect on our souls. Some say live in the moment but the moment is part and parcel of all we have been and done. It's not just what we see in front of us but all that lingers within and that we can see when we close our eyes. The moment can likely never be as big as the memories we take away with us and can call back whenever we need to refresh our souls and be somewhere meaningful with someone we love.

So for just a moment I am not sitting at my keyboard but am instead at a trailhead in the Absaroka Mountains and I feel the edginess of knowing the unknown lies ahead. Might a grizzly be down the trail? A big elk? or just a view that will make me catch my breath?

A new year-- according to one calendar.

 Do you make resolutions for a calendar new year? I had some years, maybe from my 50s or thereabouts where I'd do goal statements.  I'd break them into spiritual, physical and emotional. After a few years of that I realized I wasn't changing any of it. Time to think but not write anything down.

 

Soon a new year

It is almost a new year, which seems amazing. I don't have much to say right now, but found a video I had filmed about ten years ago on writing and solitude or not. I hope I come up with something new with 2026. Let's hope for the best for this coming year, as '25 has known a lot of tragedy in the world. 

Not sure what this year was, but it was when still at the farm.

 

Aging has changed me from my 70s to my 80s so far as looks, more then for many years, but my ideas are still the same about writing and what it takes. The cat behind me, I lost a year or so later, and I still mourn her as she was that special cat for me.

  

Seasonal Joys?

 After a week-end of horror events, it takes some time for deep breaths to attempt to recenter for a season of spirituality and love.

When I looked about what to write, I remembered thatI have several books with Christmas in them, but this is where the season, including the Solstice is at its center. I wish I could make it free but the best I can do is 99¢. Rules 'dontcha' know.

Holiday novella

For me a Christmas movie or book has to have certain qualities. 

The novella, A Montana Christmas,  moves forward a few years ith  the ranch family in From Here to There. Rather than a romance as such, this is more a slice of life story. It has all the characters from FHtoT as well as some new ones. There is a bonus short story with A Montana Christmas-- Curly learns a lesson.

 
Snippet from A Montana Christmas:

~~~

When Helene heard the truck outside, she went to the door to open it for her smiling uncle and Curly as they stamped the snow from their boots.

“How’d it go?” she asked at the two, who were grinning as though they had been up to something.

“What part?” Curly asked winking at Rafe.

“The doctor part, of course.”

“Oh that,” her uncle said pouring himself a cup of coffee and ignoring her frown. “Doc let me go. Looks like I’ll live to be eighty after all—if I don’t ride with Curly driving again that is.”

“Dangnabit, I did not take the corner that fast,” Curly grouched as he took a big sip of the coffee with a satisfied smirk.

“What else were you up to in town then?” she asked not ignoring the original grins she had seen.

“Little shopping is all and don’t ask for what,” Uncle Amos said. “Tis the season and all that.”

“Speaking of seasons,” she said, “with Christmas just three weeks off, I was thinking we should make some plans.”

“More than the usual with Nancy, Emile and the boys?” her uncle asked.

“I was thinking yes… Phillip will be here, I hope. I’d like to have the dinner up at our house. How would that be?”

Amos shrugged. “Never no mind to me if it don’t matter to Emile and them.”

“I invited too?” Curly asked.

“Of course, and a girlfriend if you wish.”

Curly snorted as he leaned back against the counter, crossing one boot over the other. “Women are too danged much trouble. Not gonna mess with one again. I’m too old anyway.”

Now it was Helene’s turn to snort. “You are still a handsome man, Curly, and you know it. What happened with Sherri?”

Amos was the one to laugh that time. “She found out about Jan and that was pretty much it for both of them.”

“Good riddance to both. Women just wanta own a man.”

“Maybe you haven’t found the right one yet,” Helene suggested.

“He’s been married three times. Maybe he’s right to give it a rest.”

Obviously to divert that direction for the conversation, Curly asked, “What you going to cook, Helene, not that I’d be picky or anything.”

“Just traditional fare.”

“So long as that means turkey, dressing, cranberries, mashed potatoes and lots of gravy,” her uncle said with a grin. “I got no complaints. But what’s this planning business about. Throw a spread, open some presents, isn’t that about it? What’s to plan for?”

“There are the numbers. I’ll call Nancy to be sure they can come.” She glanced at Rafe who had said nothing. “You will come also, won’t you?”

“Where else would I go?” he said with a grimace as he shifted positions and manned up to another sip of the potent coffee.

“If no one minds, I’d like to include a few others. One or two that might have to sleep down here.”

Uncle Amos frowned. “My sister coming?”

“Heavens no.” She laughed. “Mother is in Palm Springs with her bridge buddies, and Dad is off with Sharron to wherever it is she convinced him to take her this year. No, not them. I’d like to ask Phillip’s mother, sisters and brother.”

Curly choked on a swallow of coffee. When he got his voice back, he asked, “Phil okay with that?” His look said he doubted it. 

 Available at Amazon: A Montana Christmas

 

Dreams and Crumbs

 

This work of paper art is currently at the farm. We bought it at an art fair in Jackson Hole Wyoming. As you can see, I was pleased to find it. Photo taken June 2008.

Some of how I think may come from growing up at the end of a gravel road, at that time on the edge of a wilderness. Lots of time alone for thinking and reading. It might also have led to my political beliefs, which since 2018 are unaffiliated, not uncommon in Oregon to not belong to any political party. I have views that relate to issues. They do not fit exclusively with either party in the United States of America. One party has some of my beliefs when another moves to others. Frustrating.

I see people who might seem honorable but too often, they seem to fall under one side or another, as that's how it's supposed to be given our system. When they deviate from the 'rules', they lose political and financial support. It's rather cultish with how they have to fit under the bubbles. Even many voters find bubbles most comforting.

Recently, I had a dream where a guy, black and handsome, was selected to be a detective, but the title wasn't the end of the criteria. It required 'crumbs' to define that that meant. I woke up thinking that it was true for religious and political titles. Crumbs in the dream meant how the tasks were filled in. It wasn't just a title but what did that title mean.

Crumbs? Well, dreams can do what they want, but I can see how that works in baking. It's the crumbs that fill out the cake. In life, it is the meaning of the tasks that fill out how they operate.

When people elect someone from one party or the other, they expect that party to do what they want. It's not about what we as a country need or want. It's what their party expects.

So, recently when someone went to a rally for a politician (very much of a party person based on his voting and what he said), he finished his speech, to their delight, "It will take time, but I believe we can take it back."  

What did that mean? Take it back from those who last elected it? I assume that's it and happens on each side. What about others? Never mind as it's all about one side winning it all?

What about the oath of office for a Senator?   

 "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Never mind, as it's all about serving a party, for whatever issues it supports. Time and again, we see that play out or the politician is pushed out. I don't know how it got this way, but it sure appears it is. And a lot of voters like it. I do not, and I respect those few politicians who can vote what they feel is best-- no matter what their party thinks.

Do I think that no one should belong to a political party? Not really, but can they do that and still support other kinds of issues? Do they need to see opposing leaders as wrong, theirs always right, and ignore realities? Quit thinking as the party does it for them?