She sat alone
Drinking red wine
Watching TV
Checking her Facebook
It was a calm day,
She was mellow.
And then….it happened.
She got bit.
By a mosquito?
Or a No-see-um.
But it itched and itched
And there was no assuaging the itch.
Bit by a bug
that kept reminding her
How helpless she was
In the face of a bug that bites.
The air was sweet
With the smell of salt water,
Mixed with the smell of breakfast and coffee.
It was warm, but not hot.
A slight breeze blew,
Cooling friends as they greeted
And talked quietly.
The man under the canopy
Played an acoustic guitar
While he sang
And played the harmonica.
He has a wonderful voice.
His wife sat with us
For awhile.
He’s an actor in his full time job,
She teaches acting.
She’s funny, and sweet.
They are a great couple.
He has a few CD’s,
And my other friend
Sings on one of them.
I’ll have to buy one next time I see him.
Probably Thursday.
I’ve fallen in,
With exactly the crowd I dreamed of.
Artists, creators
People who follow their own path,
And know what that path is.
They inspire me.
I met the man who runs the
Community garden.
It’s 4 houses down from me.
He’s a nice man,
A good man.
I told him,
Part of the reason I wanted to live here
Was that we saw
“Feed the World” gardens
along the sidewalk.
I wanted to live in a place
That does something like that.
So many people know my house.
The bright yellow one
With green trim
And orange shutters
On the corner,
Down the street
From the community garden.
Every time I pull in my driveway,
I love it more.
It’s a happy life here.
No dark shadows.
No memories of men
that I need to forget.
Every day is a new day
A new beginning.
An 11.
Like my house.
Avalon.
It seems odd to have written so many posts, for so long, with really no drama, outside of the moving me and my son stuff. It’s lovely, really, to just go about life and deal with the settling in of my house, with no additional emotional drama. Geez, I hate that stuff, really. I’ve had more than enough in my lifetime.
I guess the sign I saw down here was right.
My son has been working a ton of hours. He’s been upset that he’s scheduled open to close 4 days in a row, 12 hour days. He’s on salary, because he’s management. He’s also been upset because he’s been at this job just over 2 weeks, and had to step in for a manager who left with no notice. My son had to figure out how to do things he’d not been trained to do. As he said, “They haven’t given me the tools to do what I have to do. It’s been trial by fire.” It’s a busy retail cellular service store.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon he called me and told me that the CEO of the franchise called him and thanked him for all his work, for stepping up and doing the job, acknowledged their problems, and would like to give him 2 tickets to Denver’s major league soccer team’s play-off game last night! They are worth $75 each, so it’s like a $150 bonus! He was so delighted! I said, “Bet you don’t feel so bad about all the hours now!” So he and his bff out there went to the game last night. I also told him that I bet he’d have a lot of friends back home who would be jealous! My son played soccer goalie when he quit hockey, he loves the game. Happy for him.
Hoping my friends want to go to the brunch (at which I’ll just get coffee) and listen to some music. Then maybe I can get them to take me to the thrift stores to look for a kitchen table, and a TV stand and some deck furniture.
I missed the sunrise this morning. Got up a little later than normal, didn’t feel like rushing off. Maybe I’ll catch the sunset, maybe I can get my friends to go over to one of the St. Pete barrier beaches and watch it with me. I just stepped outside and the humidity seems way less this morning. It’s a nice break.
I guess its time for me to get to living this easy laid-back life. Love and light everyone. Hope your day is wonderful.
My friend and I went to volunteer at this place, called the Blueberry Patch, today. I had no idea what went on there, what it was. Just that we’d get a $5 coupon for working there for an hour doing something. I did it to meet people.
We parked on the street, and went through a fence. It was this kind of old hippie artists place, with paths weaving through, all kinds of art projects completed and underway. It’s mostly outdoors, there are tents set up permanently, and chairs. A stage and enough seats for maybe 100 people. A house. A labrynth. It’s kind of like a commune, but no one lives there. But everyone takes care of it. These are some pictures.
Beth and I raked out the labrynth. Then the people who run the place brought out plates of cold cuts, cheeses, lettuce, tomato, sliced onions, bread, chips, grapes, cookies. All the people who were volunteering gathered around, made a sandwich, and had lunch together. There were a lot of nice people. Some of them I’d met the other night at the Mangia Cafe. I met a few single men my age. One of them gave me some advice on the shed I need. One woman, somewhere around 70, finished her lunch and lit up a joint.
After we were done there, Beth and I went shopping for washers and dryers for my house. I discovered I had a problem. My little closet is not big enough for the dryer. It needs to be 37” deep and it’s 34”. Plus there is no vent for a dryer. The guy was here that put up my mailbox today, and he said he could vent it into the attic, but I’d have to be willing to take off the door to the closet and leave it there. Then we came up with the idea of putting the laundry in the shed I’m going to get. But really, we’d just need the dryer out there. There is old electric service to the shed, it shouldn’t be too hard a project to wire it up so the dryer could work out there. Have to think about that one.
We decided not to go to the concert at Blueberry Patch tonight. The video of the band was kind of weird, not really our kind of music. Beth and I were tired from being on the go all day. Pat had a stomach issue so didn’t want to go. They are having a celebration in a few weeks, called Burning Brother, a mini-mini Burning Man. It will be fun. We won’t miss that one. We might go to Mangia Cafe tomorrow morning for some Sunday morning music. After that, I don’t know. Maybe go thrift shopping, see if I can find a TV stand. Maybe sweep off my back deck. Maybe go to the beach, if there isn’t rain in the forecast.
They are predicting that by next weekend the temperature will be in the low to mid-80’s, with only a slight chance of rain, which means it won’t be nearly so humid. So, if we don’t go to the beach this week, we’ll go next weekend. I’m ready to work on my tan, lol.
Loving life in Florida. Love and light……
I arrived at the fishing pier with the first rays of daylight. The sky splotched with gray rain clouds and patches of grayish blue. On the horizon over St. Pete Beach across the bay, the sky is pink. There’s a nor’easterly breeze, strong enough. It’s still balmy, which surprises me. In my old home a nor’easterly wind foretold cold weather.
The tide is very low. Probably due to the new moon. Tides are always more pronounced when the sun and the moon share the same sky. The derelict sailboat which broke loose in the recent hurricane sits high and dry on the shore this morning, amid mud flat now exposed. Now I know why I saw someone out clamming one morning, with a rake and hip-waders.
I can see rain falling from some of the clouds offshore. Since the breeze is blowing that way, hopefully they won’t rain on me.
A little slice of day glow pink appears above the horizon where the sun will come up in 15 minutes or so. I have not adjusted to how late the sun rises here, nor how the days are almost exactly 12 hours, and how the difference between the length of a summer day vs. a winter day is about an hour or two. No months where it’s dark at 4:30 in the afternoon, and no 15 hour nights.
Life just continues on in its laid-back way here. Going to watch a local band tonight with friends. We can volunteer to help set up the place and then get in free. I think it will be a good way to meet people anyway.
There were just a bunch of fish jumping, as if being chased. When they stopped, I could see a small dorsal fin sticking out of the water. Maybe it was a small shark, herding smaller fish.
The sun is almost up. It’s been a pleasant, solitary sunrise this morning, though I was greeted with a “good morning” by s few of the fishermen on the pier.
Edited: it was not a shark, but a dolphin. As I got up to leave it began swimming around the end of the pier. This is as good a picture as I could get.
The day begins, peacefully. Full of gratitude and love to be able to watch the morning unfold.
Love and light…
My niece used to, 20 years ago, model for Elite Modeling Agency. They were a big name in that industry then. I have no idea if they are now. But we used to look at her and wonder how we got someone in our family that looked like her.
And then we remembered…..how awkward she could be. Trip over her own feet. Or a chair she was about to sit in. She was a good sport, she always laughed harder at herself than anyone else laughed at her.
I’ve found it awkward in my life to not be able to speak my truth. My friend here, Pat, has had an online relationship with this guy who purports to be in the service, who has a couple of times told her he’s coming home to the US, to see her. Promising her a relationship, a future. (So far he’s not asked her for money, and she has none to give him even if he did.) She wants so badly to believe him. I am pretty sure it’s a bunch of bullshit. He’s supposedly gonna be here in a few days. I am pretty sure he will come up with some grandiose scheme as to why he suddenly can’t. Or will disappear. He will break her heart, but I can’t say this to her. I can’t judge, and besides the heart will do what it’s gonna do. That’s one thing I’ve learned for sure, against all odds.
So it’s awkward, to hear her talk about him, and what he’s promised her. So awkward. So hard not to shake her and say, “What are you thinking?” I just tell her, I hope it all works out the way she’s dreaming it will.
So how do we deal with awkward? I think it’s by not judging. Trying to be non-judgmental is not always easy. But, it gets easier with practice. We never know what burdens someone else is carrying, that make them say or do things that might be awkward to reply to, in truth.
In the case of my friend, I’ve known her 50 years, but there’s a huge gap where we were out of touch. Still, I know where she came from. And how hard her life has been. I don’t want to see her hurt, but I also don’t want to throw rain on her parade. I mean, what if he’s telling her the truth? I told her, “you can’t know what the future is going to bring, but if he makes you happy now, just go with it.” And she is. She even asked me to take her to the airport to pick him up. I said I would….a promise I’m sure I’ll not have to keep.
There are awkward silences, when you know something should be said, needs to be said, but is not for reasons unknown. It’s awkward, because there is no opening for the truth, when there’s no communication. There is no opening for understanding, when there’s no communication. Yet, usually an awkward silence is shared by two people who care for each other, but fear of vulnerability has closed a door, or maybe built a wall.
Some awkwardness is easy, like my nieces, to deal with. We all laughed, we never judge in our family, we only love. Some awkwardness is hard, like that the ongoing issue with my friend. But I can only love her, and not judge her for being foolish with her life. An awkward silence? Yes, deal with it with love, and non-judgment, and trust the universe to figure it out.
Awkward is something everyone is, and everyone deals with. Remember to love yourself and the others. Remember not to judge yourself, or the others.
And trust….that it will all work out the way it’s supposed to.
Love and light, all.
This was written for the SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday) prompt, which this week is “awkward”. To find out more about this prompt, please go to Linda G. Hill’s website page https://lindaghill.com/2016/09/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-116/
Some things can’t be said
Only felt, and remembered.
Silence is painful.
Some things can’t be felt
They’re buried, hidden by fear.
Fear causes chaos.
Memories remain
Some are hard, some a blessing.
Lessons from them all.
By Deborah E. Dayen
Picture from Google Images
Quiet day today. I drove out to another side of town, in search of a CVS. That was really just an excuse, I just wanted to go in the other direction, lol. I found the store, in the small town next to mine. Pretty little town, but more commercial, in a nice way. I also went to the post office to pick up the mail they’ve been holding. I had a letter from someone who wanted to buy my house. I guess that’s a good sign, but I just pitched it. Not selling for a LONG long while.
I came back, put some more stuff away. A new friend texted me, because she left something in my car last night. She came over to get it and the two of us went to the library in town, then off to get ice cream down on Beach Blvd, lol. How Florida does that sound?
She gave me a tour of the town, some things I hadn’t had a chance to see. We went to the Clam Bayou, which is a nature conservancy with all kinds of paths for walking an biking through it. It’s right on the water. She also took me over to the Boca Ciega Yacht Club, which is really just a club of boaters, that love boating and water. We were able to walk in, ask about their sailing lessons, just walk around it. Not fancy at all. Just people like me who love the water.
This town is about the same size, population size, as the small town I lived in in CT, 12,000. Yet it has all these wonderful things for the people who live there. Community theater, a big beautiful library, a wonderful senior center, a yacht club, artwalks, galleries. Tomorrow there’s something going on at a place called The Blueberry Patch, and there will be music, etc. There is always something to do. Always. I even found a center today that does sound healing and I’m going to call them and see what kind of sound healing. It could be gongs! That would be so awesome.
When my friend left, I noticed my ceiling fan was making a little noise. I shut it off, and got up on the ladder, to see if there was something loose. As it turned out, I could see the tail of one of those little lizards sticking out of it!!!!! I pulled the tail out and it broke off. I was completely grossed out. There was another little piece about a half inch long hanging out of the crack in the fan (I think it was a dried up leg) but I couldn’t find my needle nose pliers to pull it out. Poor little lizard got all the way to the fan and died…..Geez. I turned it back on and it’s not making noise now, so I suppose it was the tail whipping the blades as they spun.
I am starting to get less freaked out by the wildlife here. Giant bugs, lizards, fire ants….. I guess they are a fair trade for the balmy breezes, beautiful beaches, and lack of winter. I mean, I can’t be squeamish when I live alone.
My friend Pat, the painter, is going to start designing the sign to go outside my front door on my house that will say “Avalon”. It really is the place of new beginnings, and healing. So happy the universe conspired in my behalf to land me here.
Life is good. Gonna look for a movie on TV tonight, after I eat dinner. All is well.
Love and light.
Shimmering skin heats
Passions in the recesses
Where love is hidden.
Touching in the dark
Prescience forecasts the future,
Longings unfulfilled.
Dreams awake yearnings
Long asleep where abandoned
Wait to manifest.
By Deborah E. Dayen
Image from Google Images
Black moon rises dark
Unseen, but still ascending.
Reflect and intend.
Begin new cycle
Combine the old with the new
Always, love all ways.
I knew that it was the new moon, but when I did a little google search I found out this is a “black moon” today, because it’s the 2nd new moon this month. The last “black moon” was in March 2014. During the new moon, the moon rises with the sun, and travels across the sky with it, so it is unseen. New moons are always the time when we should reflect on our lives and set our intentions.
By Deborah E. Dayen
learningtolivelikewaterblog.com 
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