To read an excerpt from the book, please click on the following link:

ashaveilbook.blogspot.com

An excerpt from The Pleasure Palace, my romantic comedy, can be found here:



Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Time Passages

I just got back from working on my Lompico house, as CG watched Ella when I went to dance.  I then went up to Lompico, took the trash can in, and worked on the current project, the hall closets.  One has been completly cleaned out.  I was about to throw out a bunch of Christmas lights, but had an instinct to plug them in. They all worked!  I then neatly stacked some e-waste in the kid's old room, Thursday, I will get all that to a local e-waste disposal place (I think I can bring it to the dump for free, but there is also a place in town that takes it).  I brought down a bin of Legos for Thistle to play with, eliminating a Star Wars soldier with a gun (I'll probably remove the gun and let her have the figure, as it is kind of cool).

I've a ritual now when I am done with work there; I bring along some tea in an insulated travel cup, or make some when I am there.  When the work is done (this week mostly emptying and cleaning cabinets and closets, and a very thorough vacuuming as well), I like to take a chair out onto the deck and spend a few minutes maintaining gratitude for my house.  I wish my children had not had to live with such poverty and sadness there, although we had many, many good times and moments of happiness, especially after I found Al-Anon.  I do not know how to make the sad times up to them except to honor their lives now and try to help when I can. 

I always turn every light out in the house and sit out on the deck in the dark.  I ask Spirit for the things I need (including a new roof and deck, the most urgent things for that place!) and the "power to carry that out," as they say in twelve-steps.  On clear nights, the stars are amazing and you can see the jets going into San Jose Airport; the kids and I used to watch them on clear nights and sometimes their lights would illuminate the deck!

It was a lovely night, the sky quite gray, and the screech owls calling very softly; there are owlets in a nest up in one of the redwoods, and I could hear them making little squeaky sounds.  I thought of my children, and the child I am raising who has not yet seen this house (she can't until it is 100 percent clean and safe inside and out).  So many people helped me when I was a single mother, struggling in every way.  I thought especially of my sister, whom I greatly miss.  This song ran for a long time though my mind until it was time to go (I think this version shows some vintage pictures of Detroit, and they are rather interesting):







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