I Am the Weakest Link

It all started with a Cobb salad.

Tasty Tidbit: #1: The Cornhole Game

            From friends come the greatest quotes and tonight’s game is the Cornhole Game

            “Blue hairs love cornholing.”

“You don’t overhand [in Cornholing], too much power.  It just slams into it and slides off.”

Q: “How do you reach it?”

A:  “Reach in and pull it out.  You have to reach around in there, feel around until you find it.”

“Cornhole Championships!”

“Waiting for the big finish!”

“Yep, that’s Cornholing.  Pick one and blow it up.” 

You know you wanna play!

Tasty Tidbit #2: A Kick in the Ass

            So it turns out sometimes I can turn into a real whiney baby.  I don’t mean your average weeper; I am a top grade whiner.  When I lost the shop, I felt like I lost a huge part of myself.  A piece of my identity if you will, despite my best efforts to believe that wasn’t true, however it was true.  Losing the shop meant I now had to focus on what I had been avoiding for the past four years.  Isn’t that a bitch.  How many times have I had people tell me I am a writer?  Probably as many times as I have had people tell me that I am a healer and psychic, though we aren’t going to get into the multiple definitions that those two things can represent.  Tonight, we focus on the realm of writing.  Damn.  Well last Saturday we had a fund raiser through the shop’s new office to raise money for Mr. Redd Head.  On a side note I would like to thank all of the people who stopped by and donated online!  You are awesome!  At this event Leah was doing readings for donation.  I trust Leah’s readings, mostly because when she says something she’s right.  Damn Aires.  I have been in a downswing since the close of the shop and I was looking for the next step.  I know I’m supposed to be writing, but all those lovely negative thoughts were pushing to the surface and I was wondering if I was just deluding myself.  So I hit Leah up for a reading.  It wasn’t so much the reading that got me, although that was very good and very accurate as usual.  It was the conversation that took place just before the reading.  Janis mentioned that one of her clients was talking about a woman named Debbie Bugg.  I’m not sure I spelled her name right, hopefully.  Anyway, Debbie escaped Clarksville a year or two ago.  Janis was talking about how she realized that the woman she was talking to was talking about Debbie.  Peggy chimed in and said that she had just had a connection with Debbie, I can’t remember now if she thought about her or was talking about her as well, I was too shocked.  As they were talking I realized I had, had a dream about Debbie just a couple of days earlier.  After I busted into the conversation with this information it hit me, something that Debbie had told me in the only reading or real contact I had ever had with her.  She said, “I’m not suppose to swear, but you’re a fucking writer!”  Leah’s card reading was accurate, but the chain of friendship and information that was passed around brought me back to reality with a rather large bump.  The Universe Rocks!  Eventually I guess I’m going to have to get over myself and accept, I am a fucking writer!

I Am the Weakest Link!

            Right about now there are a couple of people going, oh yeah, that’s what she said!  In all honesty this is sort of a continuation of the above tidbit.  So brace yourself for additional whiney baby.  It’ll be all right, I promise.  So two things that we need to look at, well probably more than two, but let’s start with that.  One, I have found that people seem to think I know what I’m talking about and that makes me uncomfortable, in fact it makes me feel like a right old fraud.  Second, the problem of identity.  Let’s address this last one first. 

            When the shop closed I was okay with it.  I understood why it was happening, and I was looking forward to getting started at the new office.  I went to PA for my tour of poop stained toilet paper, and came back somewhat refreshed, if not more appreciative of a sewer system that can handle toilet paper.  I came back and realized that I had nothing to do.  It was about a week before I broke down crying telling myself that without the shop I was useless.  The shop had given me the opportunity to use my talents and that was gone.  Now what?  I equated the shop with the usefulness of my talents.  It took me a minute to realize that I had taken on the shop as a part of my identity, something I strive very hard not to do.  Without the shop I wasn’t important.  It took a day more to break that down.  I was having yet another crying fit about my uselessness when a thought rolled into my head, when the shop closed did I suddenly cease to be me, or have the talents I had when the shop was open?  It was a good question.  Good enough to make me slow up on the waterworks.  Did the shop give me my talents, such as organization and a good memory, or did I have them before I went to the shop and they just got honed by what I learned there?  I knew I still had a good memory, and the only reason I haven’t got my house organized is because I’m in some kind of struggle against it, but that’s for another blog.  I still had everything I had when I walked into the shop when I walked out, so what was the problem?  Part of that problem, and this is a guess, is because finding another job and applying myself to that job means I have to let go of the shop once and for all.  I fear that means losing other things as well, mainly of course, my friends.  I don’t have the easiest time finding and making friends, and losing them is unthinkable.  So I put up this lovely block, which I am now conscious of, to slow myself down.  Which means I have to take a chance, I have to move on.  I can’t linger and allow myself to keep the shop as my identity, it’s not who I am, not now, not ever.  I’m Sara Pulvermacher, and I’m a lot of other things too.  Time to embrace change.

            Going back to the first item on tonight’s whiney baby list, people seem to think I know what I’m talking about.  In some cases, I suppose I do.  It makes me uncomfortable though.  To be honest it makes me think a lot of Angel.  I have lost friends because they put me on this pedestal and then when I can’t do or say what they want me too, or when I just can’t handle the pressure anymore, the friendship goes to crap.  My one friend Lana used to call me all the time begging me to give her some guidance because she believed that I had some answer that she didn’t.  Though there were other factors involved that friendship ended.  I have another friend that does the same thing now.  I have to stop and wonder why that happens.  I must play some role in it.  For my second friend it was that I introduced her to the spiritual world.  I opened the door and she flew through it.  That can come back to bite you.  Not that you shouldn’t help people or introduce people to new ideas, but sometimes a little bit of a good thing can be very bad.  I have one friend that had a reading, not from me, four years ago and is still going off that information.  She often calls asking me questions whether I think this is in line with her reading.  I have tried to tell her that in that much time, things have changed, but she doesn’t hear me.  I think part of the reason that I stay in the background is because I don’t want to be number one, or five or twenty-two.  I’ll take whatever number is last, thanks.  I don’t want to be responsible for answering people’s questions.  It’s too much responsibility.  Because what happens when you can’t answer the question?  What happened to people seeking out their own answers?  Shouldn’t people search for their own truths?  I realize you could argue that people need a guide, or someone to help them take that first step, I’m just not sure that person should be me.  I have no more knowledge than the next person.  I get confused just like everyone else, and like everyone else I sometimes ignore what I know I’m supposed to be doing.  

            That’s when I feel like I am the weakest link!  I am the first one to question myself to death, to analyze something until there is nothing left to analyze and then I analyze that.  I am also a lousy liar apparently.  If I did something wrong, you can tell.  I’ll throw myself on hot coals and admit my weaknesses.  The one thing that I wish is that I could use that same energy to admit my strengths.  Then it could be someone else’s turn to be the weakest link! 

Death of a Porcupine

SAVE REDD!!  Redd is a kitty kitty that was found by a dear friend of mine.  He is sick and looks like he may have been shot by a BB gun.  My friend is doing her best to raise the money to get the cat the medical care that he needs, but she needs help and so does Redd!  For those of you in the Clarksville area, Celestial Esscents is having Readings for Redd on Saturday July 23, starting at 10:00am.  If anyone is able to come, please do.  All money will be donated to take care of this precious pussy cat.  If you are not in the Clarksville area, but would still like to help please feel free to contact me and I will get you additional information! 

Tasty Tidbit #1:  There

            I would have thought that after seven days of close quarters with my family I would have more material to write about, but I don’t.  Nothing of significance happened while I was away.  Oh we went to town a couple of times, but aside from that there was nothing.  No grand lessons, no revelations on the subject of life.  Usually, I journal when I am in PA, but not so much this time, unless you count a couple of recipes.  I also didn’t do any meditating, except once for just a couple of minutes.  All in all, I have no idea why I went.  I was glad to come home.

Tasty Tidbit #2: And Back Again

            While the trip to PA was uneventful at best, the homecoming was a bit more explosive.  No sooner had I said goodbye to my mother when I had an overwhelming attack of emotions.  More like a train wreck of emotion.  I was walking through the living room and the next second I was crying.  When my husband asked what was wrong I had no idea, which just makes me look like a crazy person, or at least a super hormonal woman.  The only thing I could tell him was that I felt like everything was about to change, but that’s pretty standard for me, nothing new there.  I had no idea why I was crying, but it did take a couple of days to get myself back to “normal”.  You would have thought someone died the way I was going on.  Everyone is fine by the way.  Though I have no answer as to why I was crying I can say that once over it, the feeling I got was one of release or cleansing.  Maybe I just needed to get it out of my system, who knows.  I’m just glad that the waterworks decided to relax a bit.  Don’t want to end up being called a whiney baby. 

Death of a Porcupine

            I should have known better.  On our arrival to the backwoods of Pennsylvania I forgot that my grandparents, aunt and uncle, tend to kill any intruding animal that wanders into the fenced area.  I was dragging my suitcase down the grassy hill when I saw movement.  I thought it was a cat at first, but then I realized it was a raccoon (at least I thought it was, turns out I was wrong again). Stupidly I pointed it out to my grandmother who was waiting for us on the front porch.  She walked around to get a better look and that’s when the yelling started. 

            “Porcupine!   Davey, get the gun!”

            I swear to God my uncle, God love him, came out wearing a wife beater and jean shorts, gun in hand.  He ran to one side of the house but my grandmother was already yelling for him to go around the other way.  I was protesting the death of the raccoon/porcupine thing.  I asked them not to kill it which was a pointless gesture, but I had to ask just the same.  There were two shots and then the shouts of backwoods triumph.  The porcupine was dead. 

            My grandfather explained that Sasha, the family dog who is now deaf, but has a nose like you wouldn’t believe, tends to end up with a face full of quills.  Not only is it painful for her, but it costs a hundred dollars every time it happens.  I was the heroine of the evening.  Saver of dogs, spotter of porkies, I didn’t feel like I had saved anyone.  Though I was glad that Sasha would be spared a nose full this time, I took a moment to ask the porcupines’ spirit to connect up; though I’m not sure it was interested in listening to me.

            I realize that back in the woods, my grandparents have to work hard to protect what’s theirs, but I have always had a probably with the killing of the wildlife.  I can remember my grandfather killing treed raccoons, and my grandmother killing the patio furniture in an attempt to kill other raccoons.  Rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks all are dispatched with, in the same fashion.  I try to see it from my grandparent’s point of view.  They carved a home out of a place that was once surrounded by forest, pioneer style in a way.  They fenced in about an acre of this land and called it their own.  They planted trees and tilled the earth to put in a garden to feed the family.  It’s important, one might even call it a part of their survival.  I just wish there was a different way to deal with the wildlife. 

            On one of our evening walks my mother starting talking about her grandfather, my great grandfather.  Their farm is just across the road from my grandparents drive and we could see the big old white farmhouse every night when we walked.  There have been a lot of changes to the house even in the past year.  Siding was put on, and although it’s still white the house doesn’t look right.  It looks too modern to be over a hundred years old.  For the first time it didn’t feel like my great grandparents home, but someone else’s.  I wander, back to my great grandpa.  My mother was telling me that when he planted his crops he used to put three seeds into the ground.  One was for the family; the other two were for the wildlife.  I was surprised by the story, but my mother said my great grandfather respected the land and the animals, except groundhogs.  I guess he had something against groundhogs; he liked to blow them up.  I suppose we all have our faults. 

            I puzzled over the issue of wildlife versus survival while at my grandparents and am still pondering as I write this.  I’m not sure what the best answer is.  Just because you plant some extra seeds doesn’t guarantee that the critters won’t eat everything you planted leaving you and your family with empty bellies.  As far as I know that didn’t happen to my great grandparents, but there is always that chance.  Maybe it’s a quantity thing, I don’t know.  My brain was going haywire.  When I got home not only were my emotions a mess, but I came home to a mess.  My meditation room is still in a relative state of chaos.  After making some porcupine/wildlife notes I starting doing a little cleaning.  One of the things I picked up was a white bag that was sitting on the floor, it didn’t feel like there was anything in the bag, but knowing me I double checked.  I reached into the bag and felt something long, thin and very pointy.  I pulled a plastic bag out of the white bag, and I was more than a little surprised to see four porcupine quills. Now what do you make of that?

Back to Pennsylvania

For those of you who are regular or not so regular readers of this blog, this is just a little note to let you all know that there will not be a posting next week.  I will be out of town in a place lacking internet and toilets that can handle toilet paper being flushed down them.  With so much to look forward to, I feel confident that the follow blog on the 21^st, for those of you who need a date, should be interesting. 

Tasty Tidbit #1:  Lazy

            July 2^nd was pretty cool.  That was the day or rather evening that we spent celebrating the Fourth.  A bit premature I admit, but fun none the less.  My husband, Teresa, and I headed to Brenda’s house to enjoy a cookout, hay rides, and over a thousand dollars in explosives.  I have just a little bit of a pyro in me.  I would use Brenda’s code name but I can’t remember it.  I suppose I could make up a new one for her but I wanted her to know how much I appreciated that night out.  For the first time in a long time I was required to do nothing more than sit on the sidelines.  To be honest I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I was given the mission of yelling for Brenda’s husband; apparently I have talents in the loud and obnoxious department.  I just have that special way, lol.  Instead of running around taking care of guests or setting up tables, I sat on my duff.  Our group offered our services, but the point was for us to relax. I admit I wasn’t sure exactly how to do that.  I figured it out though.  It was wonderful not having to run anything or run at all.  Just sit and watch things blow up, making pretty sparkly colors in the sky.  The paper lanterns and the balloons were awesome too.  The laziness got so bad that during the fireworks I stopped clapping and started using my singular yelling talent.  Instead of clapping I yelled, “I’m clapping with my mouth.” No I wasn’t drunk, didn’t even have a single beer that night, just had fun.  So thank you Brenda, for helping me remember that being lazy once in a while is a lot of fun!

Tasty Tidbit #2:  I spell Hell: D-M-V

            Oh yes ma’am.  Today I got to experience that most necessary and soul crushing experience called the DMV.  I managed to elude the establishment for a couple of years, but with my license expiring the day I am supposed to be leaving on my trip and that I’ve moved and now live in another state I decided that avoidance was no longer an option.  I had heard rumors about this DMV, be prepared to rot in a chair while waiting.  In Wisconsin they didn’t have chairs so I thought I was prepared.  I brought every kind of paper that I thought I would need; my husband’s orders, our lease agreement, three bills, my social security card, my birth certificate, a current LES from the hubby, and a blood sample.  When I arrived and after I had stood in line for the standard minimum state required length of time, I made it to the counter where the nice lady there informed me that I was missing a piece of paperwork, and that they required a urine sample, not blood.  The piece of paper, my marriage certificate.  So like a good little girl I drive back home, locate my marriage certificate, and drive back.  More waiting.  I get my number, great B250.  The number on the screen was B240, wow only ten numbers between me and freedom, this should be a friggin’ breeze.  Not.  The first hour we got all the way up to B242.  If you think I’m kidding, you’ve never been to a DMV.  By this time my urine sample was cold and my eyes were starting to twitch.  It took another fifty-five minutes to get me to the counter.  Five minutes later I was released back into the wild with an ugly picture and the strangest sense that someone had just sucked two hours of my life out of my body.  I think they keep it in a barrel in the back room.  Thank God I have three years before I have to go back.  I made it all the way to the car before I realized they never asked for the urine sample. 

Back to Pennsylvania

            Doesn’t sound like a horror story does it?  In truth it’s not.  Uncomfortable, yes.  Grating, yes.  Nerve wracking, definitely.  So why go you ask, because that is where it all begins, at least that’s where my story begins.  I suppose if you want to be technical it’s where most of my family’s story begins, on my mother’s side.  My mother called me a few weeks ago asking me to go with her on an annual trip to the back woods of nowhere.  I don’t have a problem with nowhere; I do have a slight problem with what is waiting for me in nowhere.

            PA as I always call it, even if it’s not technically correct to write it that way, has always been a source of comfort to me.  When my parents were getting divorced I went there for most of a summer, just me and the woods and the wood spiders.  I sat on the rock in the middle of the creek and watched the sunlight dance.  A couple of years ago I needed to get away from everything, even my precious animals, I went to PA.  I spent two weeks recharging my batteries.  I sat in the middle of a gravel drive and meditated.  I wrote an entire notebook of ideas and journal entries that I’m still sorting through.  My mother and I like to play a little game where we compete to see who gets my grandmother to say their full name the most; oddly enough I don’t always win that one.  For years going to PA with my mother was a blessing, a chance to get away, time for the two of us to just be together.  As things do, PA changed and I’m not sure why.

            Maybe it was just time for me to grow up and stop seeing PA as the magical getaway, but I don’t believe that, not really.  It wasn’t just that my grandmother is so outspoken about her religion, she’s told me enough times that I’m going to hell to make me laugh, though out of respect I don’t, usually.  I blamed it on the religious element at first.  I was tired of hearing her rhetoric, tired of hearing how everyone in the world was going to hell but a handful, her handful.  I have no problem with people having different ideas or beliefs than me; I just don’t need them rammed down my throat.  But it’s not the religion.  That’s who my grandmother is, period.  Accept, move on.

            There’s also the head biting, meaning she has this habit of being my sweet old grandmother who yells, can you hear me now from the car window at the Verizon van, to someone who tries to eat the face off somebody because they ask how my uncle in the hospital is doing, it’s a weird transition.  Sometimes she forgets things.  She forgets to turn the stove on, or off.  She forgets that she just told us the same thing three times and tells us again.  She forgets that she is seventy-two and that she has two knee replacements and at least one hip replacement possibly two.  She forgets and she falls and she gets up and she falls. 

            She also pauses.  As we are walking to the car, she’ll just dead stop.  She doesn’t walk very fast so it’s not abrupt, but it can be a little startling if you are walking behind her not paying attention.  When my grandmother stops she always looks around.  Not real fast like you are trying to cross an intersection, but slowly, taking everything in.  Then she’ll point to something in the garden, or to some tree next to the fence.  She’ll talk about the color, how much rain there’s been, how the sun is affecting the bean crop, where the birds are nesting this year.  Always some detail.  Small, insignificant.  When in a hurry these pauses seem to take forever, until you begin to appreciate them.  My grandmother can tell you the history of the trees in her yard and in the surrounding forest.  She can tell you about each stump, and when each flower will bloom.  My grandmother is amazing.  Yet she makes me uncomfortable.

I remember the first time I felt the need to leave PA, the first time it no longer felt like a safe haven.  The first time that my sanctuary dream was shattered.  My grandmother was recovering from a hip replacement surgery.  The second one, I think.  My mother was helping her in my grandmother’s bedroom and I was called in to help.  There on the bed was my grandmother, a strong powerful woman that you just don’t screw with because you will lose.  She was laying there, my mother supporting her.  My mother was trying to help her pull an adult diaper on.  My mother asked me to help support my grandmother while she worked the diaper up.  After we got that on we put my grandmothers socks on, I put on the right one.  The next time we came to visit, she fell the day before we got there breaking a couple of ribs.  She had been bending over pulling a weed out of the rose bed and down she went.  We didn’t play our game as much that year, laughing hurt her too much.  The last time we went, she was different in a way I can’t describe.  There was a meanness in her.  Maybe it was always there and I didn’t notice it before, I don’t know.  And she kept forgetting.  That worried me more than the mean streak.  My grandmother is changing.  My grandmother is getting old.

Maybe that’s an obvious statement, maybe not so much.  The powerful woman I knew as a child and even as an adult has somehow shrunk, become smaller.  It reminds me of one of her flowers that blooms and then begins to wilt.  My grandmother is wilting and it hurts for me to see it happen.  I realize we all wilt, if we make it that far.  Still it bothers me.  Maybe that’s why I don’t want to go to PA, maybe that’s why I don’t want to wander in the woods anymore.  I want to hold out my hand so she can steady herself as she moves up and down the single step in their home.  I want her to stand straight and tall again.  I don’t want to see the spark slip away.  I don’t want to say goodbye.  I realize I’ll have to, eventually.  If I go to Pennsylvania I have to face it, if I stay home I can live in my memories.  So tomorrow I’ll pack my bags and Saturday I’ll head back to my sanctuary and learn what life has to teach me.

Montage

Favorite Quotes of the Week:

Quote #1:  Welcome to the Cow Planet.

Quote #2:  Can we make the Kool-Aid grape?

Quote #3:  I like a good swelling.

Tasty Tidbit #1:  Welcome

            I thought I would take a moment to welcome baby Cecelia Marie to the world!  Beautiful little Cece joined us on this adventure June 27^th.  We love you!!

Tasty Tidbit #2: 2:34am

            It’s a little early for me, but in a way this is a good thing.  I had been debating on when to write ‘Ritas today.  Tonight is the gratitude ceremony for our shop, so things will be running late and with cleaning going on and potluck cooking I didn’t see when I was going to fit this in.  I guess works.  I just hope I can get back to sleep.

Tasty Tidbit #3: Understanding

            I meant to write this tidbit last week during my tidbit extravaganza, but I forgot.  My bad.  But we’re here now so it’s all good.  Over the past few months I have been advised by several people, Mardi included to reconnect with my father.  I had connected with him last year around my birthday, but things went south rather quickly culminating in me basically telling him to piss off.  It’s not the way that I like to do things, I was just mad as hell.  Thirty whatever years of pissosity just poured out of me into an email.  During the expo and before it, I was started getting the message that I needed to patch this relationship up.  Not one to ignore a message, though I did put this one off for a while, I swallowed my pride and wrote an apology letter to my father.  I was surprised how quickly he got back to me and that he was still interested in talking with me.  We have exchanged a couple of emails now and he even sent me a birthday card, something I haven’t seen in I couldn’t tell you how many years.  Then Father’s Day showed up.  I’m not used to celebrating Father’s Day for a few reasons so it kind of snuck up on me.  In fact it was about halfway through the day when I realized what day it was.  Of course, I thought about my dad.  Emotions mixed and I found myself torn.  Though I appreciate that we have been able to say what we needed to say to move toward healing, I honestly don’t feel a relationship coming on.  In other words, though we have reached a point of understanding, I don’t see it going beyond that.  I had toyed with the idea of going up to Wisconsin to visit him.  I had gone as far as telling him that I might do so, but that I wasn’t sure of my plans.  Sometimes things just are what they are.  On Father’s Day the same thought kept rolling through my mind, you have to be and act like a father to qualify for Father’s Day, at least in my perspective of the world and that wasn’t what I felt. I debated, writing an email saying Happy Father’s Day or don’t.  The answer ended up being don’t for me.  I don’t see us actually having a father/daughter relationship, more a relationship of understanding between two adults and that’s okay.  I never thought it would be, I thought that if I didn’t have a real relationship with my father that I would have a hole in my heart, that somehow I was not loveable enough.  Instead I have found that I am loveable, that there is no hole (the one that had been there was simply created out of my expectations), and that it’s okay to accept that my father and I are never going to have anything more than understanding.  I believe in this case, understanding is enough.

Montage

            I had no intentions of writing about the shop this week.  I tried to write four different topics before finally giving in and writing this one.  Tonight is the gratitude ceremony for our little shop, Celestial Esscents.  The cleaning is finished, the boxes are gone, and what we have left is what we had when we began, nothing. 

            I first saw the stain glass window sticker from the technical college next door.  I was in the parking lot with my mother who had just signed up for classes.  The stain glass intrigued me.  What sort of shop had stain glass?  I was pulled, like so many others, like a moth to the flame.  I decided to check it out.  Leaving my mother at the car I walked around the low chain link fence.  The yard was green, the little house was white.  I wasn’t sure if I should knock or just go in, so I choose to just go in and ask forgiveness later if necessary. 

            As I walked through the door I took a deep breath.  The most wonderful smell hung in the air. A mixture of candles, incense, essential oils, and magic.  My kind of place to be sure.  The woman who would be my boss for the next four years greeted me at the door and then continued her conversation with another woman.  She was talking about some psychic, a young man.  I was pretty sure I knew who she was talking about but some verification was needed.  She told me that I was correct; Frank was doing readings out of the shop here.  The timing was perfect; my birthday was just around the corner.  Before I left I booked myself a reading and an energy session.  I also made a daring move; at least it was daring for me back then.  I told the woman that if she ever needed a volunteer I was ready and able to help.  She regarded me for a moment and then asked for my name and number.  I was slightly amused since she had just written all of that down, but that as I soon learned was Peggy’s way.

            As my reading day approached I grew impatient for a call back from Peggy.  I wanted to work in that shop.  It had always been a dream of mine to work in a metaphysical shop, now I had a chance, I didn’t want it to slip away.  I should have known better.  Peggy did call and I did end up working my dream job for four very special years. 

            Some of those years were tougher than others.  I was actually away from the shop for just about a year.  Those were difficult times, but I learned so much and grew so much that by the time I was ready to return to the shop I was a different person altogether.  Stronger somehow through my experience.  Though I was sad to be away for so long, looking back I see how important my time away was, and I don’t regret that time or the lessons I took from it. 

            When I returned to the shop after my year of learning, it was like no time had passed at all.  It was like a couple in a relationship that breaks up for two weeks.  You don’t stop counting the time together just because of a misunderstanding.  So I never count my time away, in some ways I believe I was always there, if only in spirit. 

            This past year plus has been yet another series of learning experiences.  We celebrated our bond with the community by hosting the Harvest Blessings Fair.  I look on that fair with great love.  Everyone worked to the point of exhaustion.  We gave our all and then some and I was proud to be a part of it.  The day was bright, but chilled you to the bone.  We had asked for sunshine but forgotten to specify temperature. We attempted hot chocolate, but weren’t fully prepared.  I remember standing on the front porch before the fair started, before the vendors and service providers had set up their tents.  I looked out and I envisioned a fair, and that’s exactly what we got.  We were not only able to do a great day of business and collect lots of memories that included hot dogs and the corn man, but we were also able to collect a van full of food for the local food pantry, right when they were in need.  Divine timing indeed.

            Tonight is the final moment of Celestial Esscents.  True we will probably be back tomorrow to clean up after tonight’s festivities, but after tonight it will truly be done.  A piece of me aches.  It aches at the memories, the pictures that run through my head of good food, good friends and good conversations.  Potlucks and classes, readings, energy work, and facials.  I laugh to think of playing The Game, and I tear up when I think of those days gone.  But new days are coming.  New memories are aching in their own way to be made.  Laughter waits impatiently to be shared.  Life is waiting for us to raise our arms to the sky one last time on the launching pad and let go of what is past its time.  Joy is calling our name.  Tonight as this chapter of my life comes to a close I am both smiling and weeping.  I am truly blessed.  I watch as the door closes and listen intently for the opening of the window.