Getting started when it didn't snow like they said it would

 Is anything ever simple? I'm in the mood to find something that is...usually some kind of work, for me. Too cold to work outside, though I am hoping for snow as that simplifies things for me. I just want to watch it fall while I eat some comfort food. I always like it when nature takes over and shows us the folly of taking every activity and human impulse so seriously. Maybe not always...but I am willing to surrender to nature.

Surrendering to life, I guess I am practicing, but I'm going to keep doing the things I do until something prevents me from it. I climbed up into the very large apple tree last week to cut off some of the highest branches in my ongoing effort to keep the size contained and the branch direction downward, or at least not upward. Made some progress and thoroughly enjoyed it, knowing the whole time that anyone seeing me up there would be horrified. Actually I am safe...I have places where I can sit straddling big branches with plenty to hold onto when I do move around. I make sure I have three points of safety in every position or movement. I've never even come close to falling or slipping when I'm in the tree. I make sure to come down before I get too adrenal or tired, and I only spend an hour or less up there every year. Every year I figure it's the last time. I've been a tree-climber my whole life and I will be sad to not be a tree-climber. But age is coming, always coming for me. 

My workload as a screenprinter is still quite do-able and my schedule is really quite light, as I have lots of inventory and only need to add a few things to the retail. June might be a little crowded as I have a short family reunion back east in June, but I don't anticipate the amount of overwork I have done in other years. I'm planning on OCF at the moment but still worried about Covid. My goal at this point is to start a transition to ending my booth there. I still need the money so it will be a few more years I guess, depending on how it goes. I don't think I have some of the people involved who used to be. I think the young people have moved on. Some of the elders have maybe as well. But nothing about doing that event has ever been pinned down that tightly so I'm used to some uncertainty. The 4th of July is an unwelcome wrinkle this year but I'll find a way. Problem is that once my stuff is out there, I have to be out there, and it's too hard to get it all done with a Wednesday arrival. So we'll see. I'm still fantasizing about simplifying. I can do it!

Speaking of fantasy I've been watching one of the adjacent properties to my house as it sold and is now a rental. They built a fence right across the backyard which divides it in two, and I'm wondering if they are trying to do that permanently. If so, I wonder if I would want to try to buy the half that I look out upon. I got pretty excited about that. I'd get a lot of sunnier space for gardening, two apple trees, a cob house, a shed, and would have a big yard instead of a small one, plus control of the vegetation that hangs over the fence. It was a fun fantasy for a minute. I could maybe even leverage it with my good credit and savings. But of course then I would be in debt, for the rest of my life, and would have more property tax and insurance to pay and probably a maintenance nightmare with the cob house. It's not a dwelling, has no plumbing or electricity, but I could use it as a studio or guest house and could love that. All in all I think I would be super happy with the whole prospect but it is not something I will really pursue. It doesn't seem to be currently listed anyway, but I wouldn't even have this house if it had been a decision just up to me...I'm just not a risk taker. I needed a push. So the reality that I have no partner to lead me through something like that is just a limitation I can't overcome. Same for any big project...I'll just put those off until I'm somehow forced to deal with them. I sort of plan to do them, then just don't until the proverbial ship sails and a realistic decision is made. Same for a lot of things. Decision-making is hard, and procrastination is much easier.

So I'm waiting for snow and whiling away my day writing down my thoughts. I'm not deciding right now about something really important that I just learned about last night. I did want to commiserate with someone, so I told a friend this morning who said all the right things, and that was helpful to clarify what I should, think I have to, or actually must do. Nothing right away. It's something that weighs heavily in my life so needs to have careful thought. It's not simple, but there are simple ways to deal with it. The complexities are a mix of projection, drama, and things I have no control over. I have the ability to set those aside and not consider them. Making the decision and outcome a clean process and resolution are very high on my list of ways to handle this. I figure if I give it a few days the projection and potential drama will settle out of it and what would work best is not to feed those. If I just do my best and plan to be my best self, I can rely on myself. I have a good record of that and now that that's settled, I can move onto the next thing: what am I doing today to be productive?

It's not snowing and it's the middle of the week and I have many choices, so I'm going to pick one. Maybe a couple. Being productive settles me down and makes me happy and feeling like I deserve a reward so then I can eat something delicious and read something from my towering piles of books and maybe doze a bit like all the old people do. Knowing me I will probably pick a couple of projects and do something on each. I've learned to keep projects at a point when there is something easy to do to get started again, so I can just launch in. Now that I've written something (which is productive, as it keeps me typing and spelling and trying to articulate which are important skills) I could get busy writing something more. 

Okay, revising the script it is. I have been advised that all of my lines need to lose the grammar and structure and get punched up to sound like comedy. This is a style issue...I think my long sentences are funny, but this is not a mainstream opinion. I'm not writing "my script." It's not "my show." Ego has to go and the job has to be done to fit the needs of the troupe, audience, goals of the event, and the moment we are living within. I hope I can channel all that into my edits. It's tricky, but a good problem to solve without having to get up out of my chair and fight the kitty for another spot. I'll just keep writing, but on another page. Maybe snow later for a reward. Could probably go ahead and start eating the comfort foods, because no one is watching. And none of it really matters, in the very big picture.