One year ago today, I grabbed up my pussycats one by one and clutched them to my chest, ever so tightly, so that none could get away from me, and slagged through my snow-filled front yard, the yard I knew like it was a part of me for having shared it for more than 35 years, and one by one stuffed them in the car. They screamed and cried. Whitey crawled under the passenger seat and hunched and clutched the carpet with his claws. I had made -- for me -- a Bold Decision to move the family into the New House, before it was ready for Prime Time, but also before the Old House became such a bare and horrible place that living in it was unbearable.
So began four months of busting my butt to make life bearable again, to make a new home.
Acclimating the cats to the new place proved to be even harder than acclimating myself. It was horrible at first.
It's all here on the blog. It was an experience that I would liken -- frivolously, because my life was never at stake -- to being plopped down in the middle of a land war.
Tonight I stood in the bay window at the side of my house and looked out on the neighborhood. A HOME that I am comfortable and happy in stood behind me.
We lost another Family Member along the way. But the survivors are comfy and safe. Even content.
There's still work to do. I am not where I want to be in terms of reclaiming my life as a creative person. But -- in the year just passed? It was unreasonable of me to beat myself up for failing in that regard, when I had so much infrastructure to rebuild.
But now the launch pad is built. To deeply mix my metaphors, I've begun weaving the cocoon. I need to stop whipping myself, and give myself the slack to re-develop. These things don't happen overnight.
Something in looking back at where I was a year ago at this time makes me think that it can possibly, maybe, be done...
-- Freder.
PS -- The Green Children. Check 'em out. Good music for a rebirth.
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