We Call Them Zen Days

We call them Zen days; times Montse does a thorough cleaning of the house. I don't demand or expect it, so it is her own private demons that drive her to such detailed work: Short version, she was a maid in another life.  As she invests her attention, I focus some time on writing and expressing my current perspective on being. As a side note, I wrote in my Blog about a Relative Universe and in it mentioned a lost band-aid in the shower; Montse just called out to me from the master bathroom shower that she found it. She couldn't say how it appeared on the floor of the shower, but it just did. I conjectured that perhaps speaking of the alternate universe created a vortex-gravity that pulled the lost item back into this existence…(I speak new age) Spooky. Go read my January 20^th post, A RELATIVE UNIVERSE and you'll appreciate the irony.

  So I've had time to digest my rigid routine of servicing needs. That's not a judgment or anything, it is what it is (ugh, I hate resorting to that worn out phrase). There's still plenty to be said about it, but I'd venture a 'this too shall pass' as my alter ego queries 'when?' If I take the bait, I’d guess with a reply like, “soon” then realize I’m talking to myself and I don’t have drugs to blame for that…yet.

So, then, I have no idea what I am talking about other than a grasp of an overarching hope; may suffering result in a resolution I can embrace.

  Something that I thought I'd share under the umbrella of cultivated trust in honesty, how I was feeling about the world as it reveals its raw-often harsh-facts to me. I mentioned earlier how Montse and I are in agreement that we're spent on being in Georgia. Oh, we entertained a desire to reside in Savannah, but later discovered what that really revealed was a desire to be in a Old World style small town that often is but a remnant reflection of yet a European flavor (which of course just so happens to be the allure of the quaintness of Savannah.) It has successfully resisted the influence and change of architecture, anything remotely familiar to this century or the last; save perhaps those unobtrusive niceties such as electricity, indoor plumbing, and wifi.

  So then, we began scanning our vision Northward towards latitudes above the snow line in hopes of witnessing the four seasons, along with summers free of humidity and triple digit heat; New England. In due course, we found that the market value of our house compared to the outstanding balance of our mortgage placed us in the not-so-enviable position of being upside down. The only solution open was that of either foreclosure (with all of its long-lasting negatives) or short sale. It was difficult to swallow that twenty years of investment equated to only deductions on annual income taxes, because there will be no residual equity to speak of...ever. With that reality comes both the upset, the visit of grief of loss in a value closely held dear, and the glimmer of hope for better. The good things are replete. We don't have to do anything in this instant; we still enjoy the comfort and ease of a home; we are clearer on our future goals and ways to get there; and finally that life is a series of releases...successfully I suppose at the very end when we leave the husk of our physical form as the ultimate and inevitable, last surrender. How philosophical I am today?

I forgot to mention the other benefit in facing the impermanence of treasures. It helps me see clear towards those I care about and spend more time reaching to connect and savor more than anything I may temporarily possess.