Still here and still waiting

I had a dream last night that my agent told me that I need to be at my new job on March 9th and that it was on a Saturday. I changed the calendar and saw that March 9th was a Tuesday. I talked to him last night and he had been to the consulate and it is very likely that I will be leaving soon. I am running out of food soon, but I don't want to buy any food as it would be a waste, and I still have some in the house.

My projects have been lying idle because there is no way I can finish them and send them out before I leave. I have been writing, however, every day in my journal and in this newspaper forum that is very instructive in the editing process and in dealing with skills that needed to be sharpened. For instance, I tended to believe people when they gave me "facts" that sounded logical and true. I have since learned not to do that and to take apart whatever is written on the page. Also, I get easily distracted when someone wants to wiggle out of being caught in a falsehood by changing the subject. I should have learned this a long time ago, but I didn't. When writing in a journal, I also don't allow myself to do the same.

I have said many times in my journal and elsewhere that reading and writing feels the same at times. I also read with a pencil and now with a open laptop so that I can look things up. I don't let things slide such as not knowing for sure what a word means or who someone is. I just look it up immediately. I learn a new respect for some writers whose references are right on track and others who did not do their homework which is often rare but it happens. It creates avenues of reading that I did not have before.

I have also slowed down in reading and look more carefully at writers' skills. One writer that I really admire is D.H. Lawrence. I love reading his work. I am hoping to read more of his work. I am reading "Rainbow" now. After "Rainbow", I am planning to read "Women in Love". He could really make the English language do what he wanted it to do. He would describe the landscape and I would see it in my mind's eye.

I go out to Whiskeytown Lake and I know I could not describe what I see out there. A few weeks ago, I saw odd and wonderful colors swirling in the water of the lake, and I thought I was imagining it. I have looked for it and not seen it since. I have the added problem of not believing myself or other people. This is not good for being a writer. Lawrence did not have this problem. He was very sure of himself as a writer and believed in his vision of what he saw and what his message was. This lack of confidence is one of my problems that I am trying to solve right now and has been for as long as I have been walking on this earth in this life.

While I was out at the lake today, I was able to go anywhere I wanted as it was very overcast without rain. I could park anywhere without worrying about the sun baking me in the car. There are several places with wonderful views and few people to create lack of privacy today. I was reading about Ram Dass and how he considers himself to be a lucky man because he dies in his life and starts a new life. To him, that is the middle path not thinking about the past and nor formulating what will be the future. I realized that I never understood what the middle path and mindfulness was until that moment and how they blend into each other. Dass who is now living the life of a man trying to get over a massive stroke doesn't think about not being able to play the cello or not driving his mg or that he has to have people to help him get out of bed and wipe his bottom. He is in a new life and doesn't consider his past life's events nor thinks of future events.

In my life, I have had to get over many traumatizing events and most of the time I have carried them around in my back pack, remembering them, getting mad at the same people who were unkind to me and often those same people are not alive anymore. That is a lot to carry in a back pack and it has been very heavy to cart around everywhere I go. Now, as I look at a tree and can see only the bark, the knots and the branches further up I can see that is really all that is there. I can put down my pack and follow the middle path too. Yesterday really isn't there anymore and it doesn't matter at all. I have died and it is in the past. It is like remembering past lives. I remember some of them, just bits and pieces, but it really does not matter because the people I knew then are spread out in the universe doing their own new lives now.

It is so interesting to just stay here and remember and to wait and not know which road I will be taking and which road will be the one not taken. In this case, the decision will be made by others. I have a feeling whatever the decision it will be another "small death" and another adventure is on the horizon.