Memory-Evoking

While traveling to Tennessee last week, I patted myself on the back for selling my home and moving to Ann Arbor.  No trip downstate.  No stay over in a hotel, or car-parking fees at the airport.  I took a shuttle from my apartment to the airport.  I didn't have to worry about someone mowing the lawn while I was gone, watering my plants, or worry about forgetting to shut the garage door!

My flight was an hour and a half and I was walking out of the plane to meet up with, and hug, my sister, Jeannie.  I still have many transition adjustments to make after moving, but they seem to be falling into place as time goes by.  My apartment is so small I'm amazed at how quickly I can clean (thoroughly) the whole place.  When I have company, I rarely let them in the kitchen, there isn't room enough for two to stand, side by side,  in the kitchen.   No pets are allowed in my apartment, so I'm not even tempted to get a cat or a dog.  I probably will get some fish, like guppies this winter, but that will be the extent of "Pets".

Kitchen Window in Apartment

I have less things to use as "Busy-Work" to avoid the challenges I have in writing, music, personal studying, painting and interpersonal branching out.  When I was at my home, in Gaylord, I had an over-abundance of avoidance strategies in place.

Painting wall and trim, washing windows, sweeping three porches and the pole-barn, shoveling, mowing, trimming trees, picking up branches in the yard (daily in spring/summer/fall), raking leaves, raking leaves, raking leaves.  (I put it three times because it took more than that to get to the bottom of all the leaves in the fall and spring). Planting, weeding, thinning out flowers and plants in the flower garden, trimming my burning bush and yellow bushes, mulching, watering, sweeping cobwebs off of every section of the house……Wow, I forgot how much time I expended on "do-overs" to maintain a home.  As fast as the seasons go, I can spend more time enjoying, rather than beginning and ending the season and how they relate to a home and yard.  

Yes, I admit, I do miss driving up the driveway and seeing my tulips, lilacs, and other "memory-evoking" plants.  The crab-apple tree for Mother's Day.  The white pines, brought home as seedlings from the girls in kindergarten.  The blue spruce for Father's Day.  The huge boulders Harry got from his employees when he retired from the postal service.  The maintained, winding path through the woods with its memories and seasonal surprises.  The deer sneaking in the back yard to eat the acorns.  The turkey flocks, tip-toeing in a line through the yard behind the trees (acting like they aren't being seen).  The squirrels chasing each other from tree to tree.  The great-horned owl calling out in the night.  The red fox taking a short-cut through our woods and yard to get back to the small lake behind us.

But, as I write about each off these experiences, I can bring back the portraits of each scene.  

I can hear the tons of snow crashing down the metal roof when it has reached its limit.  I can see the brilliant colors of maples, aspens, oak and other trees in the fall sunlight.  I can see the bus stopping out front, picking up the Johnson girls, across the road, brakes squeaking as it stops.  I can see the Granahan family walking past our house, exercising their legs.  I can see the garage sale signs on the corner of our lot in the spring, designating neighborhoods nearby.  I can hear the snowmobiles roaring past in the winter, the huge snowplows rumbling by to open up the snow drifted Schuss Lane.  I can even hear the girls and their friends playing basketball out on the court, the ball bouncing in rhythm to their voices.  

I'm happy with my choice to downsize and transition to another phase of my life.  It's not without traumas and frustrations.  No life is (except in our story-spinning minds).  My new adjustments come with new challenges to my imagination.  I have to create what I picture to be me.  What I picture to be my life.  There's no manual.  Just like there was no manual when I began a new marriage, or raising two girls.   I can go the "Trouble-shooting" page in my mind of experience, and try to apply what I know, from my past.  Or, I can just try different approaches I have no clue about.  A lot of it is like play, if I keep myself from doing too much "WHAT IF….."  thinking.  

My Dining Table in My Apartment

I saw a quotation on a wall while in Franklin, today.  It fit with what I was thinking about today.

                              We do not remember days.  

           We remember moments.

My New Home Sweet Home