02/05/2010

Beth Owl's Daughter site has the Hermit as the card of the week and as she wrote this is the perfect card for this week of Imbolc. Time to go within,time alone. This week has been dedicated for me to cleaning and organizing here in our home. I love knowing that the bathroom and the kitchen are clean and ready. For what?? I don't know but perhaps for the Mother who is always near in the form of candles and incense and good food prepared for those I love and live with. Earlier in the week I felt that old resentment regarding housework and the resentment gathered in my shoulders and arms and then I realized that actually I am home taking care and I am supporting those I love who are now in school and getting all their skills together. I loved this and have been cleaning and ordering with energy and light and encouragement. I have the wonderful kittens who at six months are almost cats to keep me company. The big cat Bebe sleeps a lot in the rainy days but she does like to walk outside into our yard.
After the landlord's new fence was put in it turns out that it is much taller than the old fence and Bebe cannot get over the top. Bebe loved to lay under a bush in the neighbor's yard and watch the parade on the big street that the neighbor's yard and our driveway face. Steve and I saw her there many days. Now she has to stay here in our yard which has some nice places but is not "outside".
Today I am cooking lattkes and applesauce and some of the frozen fish I got for almost nothing at the market.At least that is for dinner. Steve said that he had not had lattkes and applesauce for years and we just happen to have many potatoes and apples so that is dinner.
Friends are coming for the Superbowl-we are not football fans but Steve and I have always rooted for the Saints and this is so exciting. I am cooking vegi chilli and guacamole and chips and I will make cookies probably chocolate chip. Maybe some potato skins for dipping in sour cream and the chili. Hope we have fun.
I think that I am moving through depression into a new phase in my life. I didn't understand that i would need to come to terms with being retired. I also wasn't that grounded in understanding my actual age. there was some little dark aarea that still believed that I could just go out and start a new way of earning a living. Well, the people who seem to be getting old and who are still working are about 20 years younger or perhaps 10 hears younger.
I have enjoyed resting and working at my own pace while ignoring the fact that I couldn't maintain the pace of commuting and then helping people deal with the insecurity of trying to live on Social Security and a pension, while keeping the budgeting and verification process timely. I had grown weary of the system knowing that most of what I did was unnecessary and even more would never do anything other than harass folk over eligibility for medical coverage. All the nitpicking just started to exhaust me and made me sad and depressed but I had an identity there that I relied on and that I once really wanted but which I outgrown the people I knew and loved as co-workers and friends and lovers and some enemies were all gone.
Also, I was a Great Society kid. I had access to welfare and school grants. I was actually protected by cash and food stamps and Medi-Cal and I was shocked by how hard it was to live on the wages I earned. The security I had known was part of Johnson's Great Society and I was blessed by that liberal trust in human beings. By the end of my career though the world was dour and mean and little minded. the people I was working with were for the most part mean and small having been raised in Reagan's society of flat out competitive race for all the money one can get hold of. Liberal philosophy pretty much hidden while the social light had turned into a spotlight to help the strong and fast to locate more treasure.
I remember when women started shaving their bodies and getting everything waxed and wearing more underwear and high heels and in the past five years clothes are tighter and more inhibiting. I even see some women holding purses with high heels and very tight clothes and feel lonely knowing that these young women are not reading the books I read nor are they wrestling with the same issues.
Oh pew!! I am ready to go grate potatoes for the lattkes. and to get ready to staart cooking the sweet little patties that will be so nice for supper. Happiness: almost everyone in this family accepts meatless meals although I never demand that anyone go vegi with me-they just do because that is what I offer.