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Maybe making a list will light my way. A list different from the one I have with me right now (three oranges, one red onion, watercress, good black pants) and the one sitting on the counter at home (thank-you note to Mary, mail package, call Helen re lunch, water plants, etc.).
These are do-able tasks, which is why I like them. Sometimes I even pad them with notes like "file nails" just because it is so satisfying to cross off completed efforts. And, as satisfactions go, "file nails" is pretty easily achieved.
But a life list? Isn't it a little late to begin itemizing what it is I want out of life? ("Ask not what you want from life; ask rather what you are willing to put into it." But I paraphrase.) Many people make life lists of things they want to see or do. But nothing comes to my mind for such a list, except perhaps "see Aurora Borealis" and the closest I'm going to come to that is a video of it.
Okay. Make a durned list. Perhaps some good will come of this.
1. Rediscover joy. (Yeah. And next, how about "hang on to it this time"?)
2. Well. That was it. That's all I could come up with. Too many phone calls yesterday. Talking to too many people discombobulated me. A relative described her current life as a "trailer park soap opera," which is close to the truth, if a bit dramatic. And then last night I learned that my oldest granddaughter has just been told she can go on point in her ballet class. Congratulations, my dear. But I didn't really want this to happen. I wanted her to become enamoured of modern dance or jazz dance before she got sucked in to the romantic, painful life of a ballerina. And then, by a strange coincidence, two of my brothers called.
3. Really, this time. I'm determined to make this list, difficult as it seems to be. Okay. Figure out whether it's better to dwell on the current state of mind, with the goal of understanding it and being able to write about it for the elucidation of others, or to work like mad to get away from it, since it seems to be poisoning the well.
4. This is utterly pointless. Okay. Here it is: Know why everything has shifted. Is that vague enough?
I hoped that listing things would clarify what's going on, what I need. But it's not working. Nothing's working.
I spent the last two days making four dozen gift bags, using up remnants of precious fabric I've saved for twenty years. I guess that was my admission that I'm not going to be sewing anything important in the future. My crafting days are over.
But it was fun to whip out bag after bag and throw each one on the floor beside the sewing machine. And then when I had run through all the fabric, I ironed each bag, ending up with a neat, crisp pile of gift bags of all sizes, ready to be sent out into the wider world.
That's the kind of thing I need to put on my list. Something concrete: make more gift bags!
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