2014

Look for it.

Turn things inside out.

Let your heart be soft.

Let the past rest.

Begin now.

Be willing.

Be astonished.

Happy New Year, my friends here. Thank you for your company. I treasure you. I hope we walk into 2014 together.

I hope you are astonished.

Love, most sincerely,
kj

What Happened in 2013?

1. i am not beyond stealing a good idea. my friendthe walking man has asked his readers to list the highlights of their year (aka "shit happens")  what is your condensed version? Here is mine, except I would add I am actually happy more than sometimes.  

   love kj

   
   

   kjDecember 28, 2013 at 8:3PM

   i bought a house in ptown
   i left my job
   my daughter had a girl
   i had a knee replaced
   i'm still confused and sometimes happy

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   kjDecember 28, 2013 at 8:39 PM
   

   oh and my Mother went in a nursing home.

   
   

Warning: I Won't Be Able to Help It...

 I've always written about Provincetown but it seems I am going to be here more and in all seasons, and I have a new camera, and I almost can't believe the beauty.

So I might drive you crazy talking about Ptown again and again. But honestly I hope not and I don't think so. Because this place is flecking awesome and I am psyched to show you: 

 JB and I are here until New Year's Day. This is the beach at the end of the day. 

But I'll start earlier: 

JB and I are putting this place of ours together. Little by little we decorate. (To refresh: we've improbably managed to buy a house in Provincetown on Cape Cod in Massachusetts and we are in delightful shock. We still live in Western Mass. but we're trying to be here whenever we can and it's possible (probable?) we'll end up living here.) 

I think we are doing a good job design-wise  :^)

Today I am going to show you some houses near us. They are in the order of our walk:

I know this is a tree not a house but this tree is so cool.

Nothing fancy, just a public entrance to the beach just a block up the street (oh yes!)

If you see variety in the architectural or economic structure  of these houses, that's because there is. It's become much harder to modestly live in Provincetown and that's a concern. This is all the more reason somehow that JB and I are going to be secure here. 

Not that most of Provincetown is houses. It's a condo town too, with squished waterfront spaces everywhere. 

And this is again the end of the day This photo is not altered. The sea and sky here are just unbelievable.

So fare warning that herein in these here parts there will be more words and  pictures of Ptown. I can't help it. Don't make me. :^)

love 

kj

Free Advice & Happy Holidays

I'm writing this on Christmas Eve Day and as always am amazed by what I've learned and what I cherish. 

This has been a year of transition for me and for the planet. It's an unsettled world and I think that makes it difficult to feel settled in every day life. Yesterday I came across somebody's advice about important things to do before you die and it got me thinking about my own advice.  

So here goes: here are the things I offer as helpful and important for a happy(ier) life. 

1. Never take the sky for granted. Look up and you are guaranteed to see changing sometimes gentle sometimes ferocious beauty. Guaranteed.

 2. Know what you appreciate. This is a new fence for our place in Provincetown. It has created an actual yard from a tiny plot of land. Every time I look at it I swoon. I can't say why, but I know the fence has made me happy.

3. Be on the lookout for your favorite colors and covet them. A scarf, a pillowcase, a window box: bring your colors into your life and let them soothe you.

4.  Time, place and circumstance determine when it's right to indulge guilt free and when it's best to be prudent. This is true of people as well as chocolate. 

5. Hold on to  people who matter and add festivity and support to their lives whenever you can. Send a card and decorate the envelope. Call more often when times are tough. Be a kind good person at every opportunity.

 6. Appreciate blessings and good fortune and recognize when you have it. 

7. Slush and tough sledding? Or simple beauty? This is the same principle as seaweed or starfish. You can't ignore the tough sledding and seaweed but there is always more. 

8. Loss happens. Longing hurts. Several years ago I thought my heart would never heal. Now I know that people and memories will always live on inside me. Seeing it this way has helped me immeasurably.

9. Things don't always need to be precise. Fog can illuminate and protect in ways that clarity cannot. 

10. Look to be astonished. Look and keep looking for anything that exalts and astonishes you.  Do you see the leopard in this photo? You have to believe there is a leopard to be seen, because there is. 

Tonight JB and I will share our table with good friends and tomorrow we will for the first time travel to our daughter's house for Christmas day. It will not be the Christmas we have had in past years and there will be new people at the table and changes in tradition and routine. But through it all we will share the day with four blessed much loved little children and I will see my Jessica secure and happy with her family and I will be grateful for JB in my life and I will look up at the sky and think about my new fence and …..  and….. and…..

Happy holidays, dear friends and visitors. Thanks for being on this ride with me.

love 

kj

Not So

I cried this weekend. A lot. 

Christmas is my favorite season. I am energized by the hustle bustle and I delight in executing the giving part: I choose gifts thoughtfully and I bake and decorate give-away cookies and I reach out to people whose importance I too often fail to affirm.

JB and I have been arguing. Jess is on a work project and missing in action. I am such a small part of the kids' holiday festivities. 

I cried for all of this. What set it off was a tiff JB and I had in the paint store. Hurt feelings and rising anger over what type of paint to choose for the bathroom walls? Yes, just that. We are both astounded that neither of us can seem to foresee when we are going to overreact over stupid slights and frightened that we can't seem to figure out why this keeps happening. 

We're working on it. I move from feeling alone in the world to knowing that I am with someone who wants to work out problems as much as I do.  Hope strongly floats in a relationship that has lasted thirty years between two people who need not question their love for one another. But it's not easy either.

Sometimes Jess reads my blog so that part of my tears is more delicate. I know one thing: I will never ever want her to feel anything less than solid and at peace and good about our love for one another. We live two hours apart. This means I am not in the day-to-day life of her and Mike and the kids, and I am not on the immediate-help list when they need immediate help. This also means that sharing the holidays with my daughter and grandchildren is limited. I guess I realize that this season more than others. I'm sad I'm not sharing my just baked cookies or the Santa train at Look Park or the secret whispers and anticipations of Santa's arrival with them. JB and I could move closer, and I believe we would if asked or needed, but I don't think that feels right to any of us right now. If there is some middle ground solution to feeling more connected, I haven't found my part in it yet.

So I cried. For the better part of a day and night. My feelings welled up and the my tears wouldn't stop. My friend Renee, who died almost three years ago, as gracefully as a person ever could, called this kind of sadness "healing tears." 

I stopped crying too. I just stopped. JB and I talked and wrapped presents and went out to dinner and finished some shopping. We reaffirmed. As I write this, I know I am solely responsible for how I deal, how I feel, what I choose to do and how I choose to interpret what happens and what doesn't.

In part I am writing this post because I know it's important for everyone to know that none of us has a perfect life. At this time of year, when the message is to impossibly reach for an impossible perfection, I'm on record that I cried. 

And now I'm not.

love

kj

Happy Time

A celebratory weekend with JB and friends in Provincetown. There are both person made and natural decorations all around in this coastal community.  We are doing everything and nothing at our leisure.

Another achievement in my holiday list of seeing, doing, and sharing with special people and places.

I am still grateful.  I hope this may be true for you too.

love
kj

Hahaha

I'd like to offer little holiday gifts here and there on my blog. Forgive me if forgiveness is needed: here is my first offering:

So this woman goes to the doctor and among other things informs him that every time she sneezes, she has a mini-orgasm.  The doctor asks if she's taking anything already for her condition.  She says, Yes, pepper.

Hahaha,
Love
kj