Blissed Out and Heavenly.

Calm

I have been very,very bad. The universe has been a delicious fruit, that I have been devouring like a starving animal. Every moment has been momentous, every second, a seductress. This is not mania, this is my entrance into the Now. And until this moment, my Now was just too enthralling, too alluring to sit down and write. Oh, I sat. I sat and I lounged with ecstatic stupor, and I laid back on hammocks by the river and big cozy gypsy beds while warm summer breezes kissed my skin. But I could not for the life of me pick up a damned pen and write.

I wanted to, I started many times (and by start, of course, I mean opened a notebook and giggled at it), but then succumbed to gazing idiotically into space, possibly drooling, falling back in love with the world around me, and myself within it.

P.O.V. Waltz

This week I was vacationing on a magical piece of river property belonging to a good family friend. Nestled somewhere between the Kettle River and The Afterlife, I was blessed to be able to spend some time here alone to commune with The Goddess (or Whomever), and was gifted a mighty thunder and lightening storm. It could be seen from across the river, but only touched my little place of divinity.

I hauled water from the creek to boil for dishes and drinking. For a better part of the week I was joined by my some of my very favorite people, but on Wednesday they all went away and left me as alone as I have been in YEARS. So clearly I was dressed like a pirate. Tie-pants, a bandanna and even a clever sash, I sliced fruit with my buck knife, smoked rolled cigarettes and wore my headlamp to the outhouse.

I pretty much lived in that hammock.

When I made the decision to pack up all of my necessities and ditch the rest, uproot my daughter and blow the proverbial Popsicle Stand , at best I hoped that by simplifying my life, quite possibly to the point of boring, I could negate the need for toxic  medication and learn to use my own strengths to balance myself out. I had no idea that I would be embraced into the bosom of nature and taught to see the majesty that is Now.

I have never been happier.    In. My. Life.

This lacks the delusions of grandeur I experience with hypo-mania… ok, I will admit to some possible whimsical thought crescendos. And I have been finding myself a bit more… erm, randy than usual, but in the swell of summer and in the very womb of Nature, even breathing feels like making love.

For as long as I remember, I have always wanted to live in a school bus. My mother and older sister lived in one before I was born, and being genetically nomadic, the mobility appeals to us on many levels.

My Summer home

This is a custom made bus, that my best friend’s husband built, worked and lived in for many years. It is the top half of one bus welded to the bottom of another.  It is bigger that some apartments I have lived in.

Gypsy Palace

I began the summer by picking organic cherries at a local orchard. I would sleep in a tent the nights before a harvest wake up at 4:30am to pick. We had to stop before the fruit got too warm, become soft and bruised. That was usually around 11 or noon.

There was a lot of bending of my comfort level in those first weeks. I had never slept in a tent alone before, and on the first night we heard a bear just outside. A FUCKING BEAR. Soooooo cooooool. Not even joking. I had never been too good with heights either. Not skyscraper, or gondola type heights, those I am fine with, it’s not death I am afraid of. My fear resides in the land of inconvenient pain. I am talking step stools on which to change a light bulb. Those kinds of heights. I almost fainted when I had to climb up to a first story balcony window after locking myself out. but here I was on 6- and 8 ft. ladders clinging on to a branch with one hand an leaning waaaay back to grasp at the berries with the other.Very exhilarating indeed!

God, it was gorgeous. At dawn everything looks touched by magic anyway, but these cherries looked like precious jewels against the backdrop of leaf and sunrise.

My daughter is away in Canada until next week when the whole family will join together to celebrate my grandmother’s 85th birthday. I know I should be using this time to figure out my life, and plan for Autumn. The job market here is abysmal (as almost everywhere else), but I refuse to let it bother me. If this is where we are supposed to be, I am confident that the Universe will provide the way, but that doesn’t mean that I can get away with not putting in the work.

Right after my nap.

Kiss Lovies! May your summer be just as grand!

~CTW