Hobbits In Rivendell

Greetings from sunny and warm California. We’re enjoying actual summer, as contrasted with Scotland, which has continued having, at intervals, miserable rain.

Both of us are trying to make up for having taken time off first in Iceland and then during our ill-fated visit to Puerto Rico, so much of what we’re doing is sitting before the computers, fielding interruptions, and working. It’s actually been good – work is the one thing we can count on having, and its parameters haven’t much changed. T. is subbing shorter pieces to magazines with long wait times, so she can have forgotten about them and be surprised months from now; D. continues to make strides in finishing a major project with his coworkers in Scotland by September. T.’s editor has finally returned from vacation and has gotten her revved up for the next novel revision – T’s first stab at writing a mystery. The revision notes say “darker and grittier,” so T’s reading mysteries and watching Hitchcock. And scaring herself.

We’ve been finding the joy in our days, as we’ve been reminded to do. There is satisfaction in the smooth-skinned nectarines, bursting with sweetness – and juice, of the sort that runs down chins and wrists. There is happiness in the eating of mounds of blueberries (suddenly inexpensive, and yummy with yogurt!), baking bread, making handmade, homemade pizza, whipping up vegan chocolate and coconut pies, and more. We’re very much looking forward to settling into a kitchen of our own and doing more experiments with seitan and sausage-making. We rediscover joy, daily, and anticipate its increase. Soon. Soon. Soon. It’s a drumbeat in our heads.

A few times a week one of us will mention how much we miss Scotland. Much of that is because we were “home” there – we had a domicile, community, familiarity, and (at least before having to move) routine. We’re still coming to grips with the amusement and the irony of being called jet-setters – we feel more like we’ve just been bounced all over – jet-setting sounds at least a bit more controlled. But – this time in our lives has been just a little reminder that we don’t control anything. It appears that soon this little epoch – and this little lesson – is coming to a close. Soon. Soon. Soon. It’s a pulse that keeps us going.

The main reason it’s important that we know where we’re going soon – aside from how crazy-making it is to be not in our own place – is that we’ll soon need to begin planning for a return visit to Scotland. Once we’ve settled on the where of rebuilding our lives and community, we’ll be able to determine the when of spending a month or so back with our folks Glasgow. We’d prefer to visit when it’s not snowing, of course, but as we’re going to be planning partially around chorus stuff and partially around D’s work, and Glesga has had nothing but rain and increasing cold… well, we’ll see what happens.

Dear friends in Scotland, it’s 93°F / 33°C outside, and sunny, with a light 20% humidity. We think there may have been a tiny bit of rain last week, during the night, but we’re not completely convinced about that – it could have been a sprinkler malfunction. But – we digress. Finally our ducks are lining up, and will eventually be in a row (for all the good that does ducks). The countdown will soon commence for another launch… soon.

Continuing to plan,

-D & T

Well, friends, we’ve been in California for a few weeks now, but it’s already time to move on to the next adventure. Our “household goods” (i.e., our books, clothes, and kitchen items) should arrive in San Juan, Puerto Rico within the next couple of weeks, and we will arrive in San Juan in just a few short days. We’re hoping that one of the houses we’ve found via online searching will work out, but we’ve booked a week into a hotel just in case we can’t find anything suitable right away.

We’re hoping to find something a bit out-of-the-way, in the mountains where it’s about 5° cooler, but we’ll see how it goes. We have been living out of the same four suitcases for about two months now, and really want to settle into somewhere nice and quiet, and to have some different clothes from which to choose. Of course, neither one of us has anything like the type of clothes needed for the climate in Puerto Rico, so we’ll be a bit out of sorts until we can manage to go shopping – which we can’t do quite yet, because the suitcases are about maxed out in terms of weight already, to the point where we’ve had to weigh each one and redistribute the load.

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After nearly a month of enjoying California, we Hobbits will be Abroad, once again. Many of you have promised to visit. We’re wondering who will be the first to make it to the warmth of Puerto Rico.

-D & T

I go. You go. They go.

Coming and going. The revolving doors of the world are turning still. The week we got home, we discovered that a dear friend had failed to mention the return of her cancer, and had left this world the day we came into town. Today we’ve heard an old acquaintance has died in a rafting accident.

Coming and going.

It’s a little hard to wrap our heads around, and being in this forward motion all the time has robbed us of stopping as we ought, to celebrate the lives of friends and loved ones. And yet, forever moving has also, in a way, created an easy lie to tell oneself; as we move on, everything is as we left it, when it vanishes in our rear view mirror. Everyone is somewhere… and now, somewhere else. Perhaps we’ll just run into them later, at another time…

Coming and going, saying hello, and now, goodbye.

Life has hit Fast Forward, as we’ve been informed that our possessions have somehow reached the port in PR without us. Quelle surprise! — or, as we should say now, ¡Qué sorpresa! The communication we expected to alert us to the ship’s departure from Rotterdam never materialized, and so we’ve been caught a bit off-guard. Now before us are getting to our next destination (check) finding a place to land (pending) and finding the means to get us to our various landing places (also pending). It was good to stop traveling for a moment, anyway, to give T’s lung inflammation and heavy cough a chance to sort themselves out — the hives, at last, have retreated, as has most of the dazed-and-confused vacant stares from jetlag. Dazed and confused stares for other reasons remain. It’s all the coming and going.

It was good to pause briefly mid-move in order to see friends. We’ve enjoyed reconnecting. However, we have found the truth of the matter is that it’s not possible to see everyone. We figured this out on our second visit home, when we had guests visiting until past eleven, and our flight left at four a.m., and we didn’t have the heart to say, “GET OUT, we have to pack! We have to sleep!” (Trust us, we’ve gotten the heart since then.) Self-preservation, better late than never, has finally kicked in, and despite dearly wanting to see everyone, and get in touch, (we owe several folk emails, and quite a few acquaintances, friends, and family we owe a meal or a chat) we know better: it’s not going to happen. We’ve wanted to spend more time with you, but between the illness (T.’s superpower right now is apparently Snot Creation) and the general busyness (Oh, yes, we’re still working during the week; D. on contracts, T. on yet another huge editorial project), we haven’t managed it. Please know it is our stated intention to be in the state more often, and we’re sure we’ll catch up to you around the holidays.

That seems an awful thing to say, with the number of people we love being lost – but the truth is this: we love you now. We love you whether or not we have face time with you. You can stay in this world or leave it, knowing that. Even if we don’t see each other again for awhile, we thought of you while we were here, and in our hyperbusy lives, we are working to prune things away to create more time.

It’s magical thinking, maybe, that there’s something we can do to produce more of something both finite and infinite, but I think, if we’re quick, we can find it – a moment for our hands to touch, clasp, and squeeze, as we go through the revolving doors called Life.

Coming and going. To everything, there is a season, after all, so perhaps now is our season to fly by quickly, and hurry on to our next destination. You are in our hearts, and we hope we’ll see you as we pass.

You probably have them, too — the sort of friend who always has an appropriate song for every occasion. T. is usually that for other people, but we have friends who can manage to find a show tune or a horrible 80’s ballad (our dear Mr. S.), cantata or hymn selection to suit every mood. This week it was our friend Laura, a Minnesota poet and teacher, who provided the lyrical goodness to our mood.

We’d been discussing the fact that almost every move in a person’s life provides to them opportunities – often unlooked for, and sometimes overlooked – to restructure, reorient and reinvent themselves. The truth of the tautology “wherever you go, there you are” is proven by the fact that while people can change, they usually …don’t. And yet, when we make an effort to live deliberately, we know that we need to take advantage of every opportunity to get our brains unstuck from a rut, and our habits out of a groove. And so, the angst and the struggle of moving is put to good use.

We have bought toys – not electronic ones, necessarily, but real ones, cheap ones, like jacks and marbles and magnets. We’ve drawn and painted and knitted and (badly) crocheted. We believe in the transformative power of play, and hope to always include it in our lives. “We’ve had our second childhood,” T. joked. “It’s time for a second adolescence.” It was said in jest, but what does that even mean? What do we want out of our lives this move? There’s always a new direction in which a person can be pointed.

The word comes from the Latin adolescere and the literal meaning is “to grow up.” Taking that “adolescence” statement seriously, during the growing-up transition, a child grows into their body, and begins to expand their mind. Their emotional development exceeds the simplistic action-response loop it goes through in childhood, and the child evolves as a person. Sounds like a worthy goal, no?

We’ve paid attention to our bodies before – but it’s all too easy to get into the rut of merely worrying about aches and pains and expanding waistlines, and otherwise ignoring a machine which is made to give us much more than we ask from it. Our bodies don’t fail us until they absolutely have to — and serve us incredibly well. What can we do to better them?

Our emotional and mental development never really stop – we are big old geeks, and always smile at the snarky “Every day’s a school day” phrase we often heard from friends in Glasgow. It’s generally sarcastically meant, but it’s true – you do learn something new every day, and why not? We hope to continue to do so forever. We also hope to live out the phrase, “life is too short to be petty.” We realize that pettiness is kind of a personal besetting sin, and we’d really like to learn (and relearn) to just … let things…go. Our new favorite phrase, instead of being disagreeable and defensive is, “You think so?” We’ll let you know how that one goes.

And this is the song which brought goes with our thoughts of the moment – by a group called Five for Fighting (yes, there’s a meaning behind that name). The song is called World, and a hat tip to Laura again for sharing it:

World

Got a package full of wishes
A time machine, a magic wand
A globe made out of gold
No instructions or commandments
Laws of gravity or indecisions to uphold

Printed on the box I see
Acme’s built a world-to-be
Take a chance, grab a piece
Help me to believe it

What kind of world do you want?
Think anything
Let’s start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts   now

Should there be people or peoples
Money, funny pedestals
for fools who never pay
Raise your army, choose your steeple
Don’t be shy, the satellites
can look the other way

Lose the earthquakes, keep the faults
Fill the oceans without the salt
Let every man own his own hand

What kind of world do you want?
Think anything
Let’s start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now

Sunlight’s on the bridge
Sunlight’s on the way
Tomorrow’s calling
There’s more to this than love

What kind of world do you want
What kind of world do you want
What kind of world do you want
Think anything

Let’s start at the start
Build a masterpiece
History starts now
Be careful what you wish for
Start now

–“World”, click for the song itself; lyrics by John Ondrasik, Five for Fighting.

This is it, – the boxes are unpacked, the new name is on the mailbox. Who are you going to be? What are you going to change? What can you make of this next epoch in your life? Even if you haven’t moved, the sun comes up on a fresh new day, every. single. morning. Choose. Make it good: History starts… now.