Down The Drain

and with this length of rope one might hang himself OR... one might go out and lasso whats truly desired....

This is the good news as well as the bad, when we folks are presented with a string of any kind -

I laugh a lot about the remarkablity of coincidence

I think a lot about how rudimentary life is and how everything leads back to everything that came before

Karma and karm-again

All my problems cycle to water, return and initiate with, are founded in and lead back to it, when broken down.

Noticed especially in the last years, water has resounded in all my strife and in all honestly, in all my joy.

As of late...

I've struggled against the pipes in the old, grey house... what flows or currently what doesn't it seems.   

First back up and now simply no pressure.   None whatsoever.  Who would ever have thought that not having pressure in one's life might not be quite nice.  

I'm at the lake house and a dense, brown, rust scented substance spews out of pipes that literally groan when pressed.   

After a visit from the highly apologetic and notably pleasant plumber, out of frustration I lead dogs and kids to the water's edge where everyone, no matter how cold the lake is, seems to simply crave entry. 

 It is irresistible.   

I cannot win. 

I tread endlessly.  

I came for the water and the altitude and the age of the place, but it is the very water, altitude and age of the place that drains me, like water from a leaking bucket, when what I sought all along was replenishment. 

12,000 he said.

12,000 I thought.

Has nothing to do with money, but it has everything to do with fighting the tide and that has everything to do with everything wrong and everything right in my life and life in general.

Our adult body is approximately 50 to 75 % water.

We are submerged in fluid prior to birth.

It cleanses us.

We consume it constantly, hidden in all forms, solid and liquid.

With each breath we release, there is an "insensible loss" of water,

we simply cannot live without it, but we can survive quite some time without most anything else.

Water is everything we need and yet in excess it floods and kills us (think tsunami)

without it we shrivel and die

While in search of it, in all convenience, it costs us constantly and can ruin us or our beloved crap at any time (think mold)

If love is like oxygen

then water is life

we are nothing without it

In every goshdarn situation, good or bad, I learn something and maybe this is why I've learned to stay so calm in bad situations.

Because I know that in everything big or small, wet or dry, there is something to find, something to learn, some way to grow, something to gain, even when we lose.

Man would never have sought the cave, if not for the rain...

About my mother, here in my life...

From where I sit, I can see my tree, big and colorful.
From here I can smell the pine.
From here, from where I sit at my desk in it's Christmas tree induced relocation to the den, on this soft and subtle morning, it's Christmas.

My mother sometimes sends me little letters about my blog.
She encourages me to write a book.
I have.
She didn't like it.   (nor did I)
So...

Recently in a note from my mom, in regard to one of my blogs about my life and actually about my death, titled Obits and Other Nonsense, she asked me what might be said about her and about her life.
This morning, from where I sit, looking at my very, very large tree, with my large dog beneath it, after having driven my own precious daughter to school, a simple thing I do daily but something I treasure more then I can express, while I sit here sipping coffee afterward, I realize that everything I write, most things I do, a lot of what I feel and much of who I am is directly related to my mother and the life she lives.
Like the Beatle's song, She's Here, There and Everywhere; in all my days, in all my moments, in all my accomplishments and in my errors, my trials and tribulations, my choices, my misgivings, my laughter, my cooking, my skin, my breath, my children, in my shoes, but not in my sewing (she makes beautiful quilts - I can no longer thread a needle).    Bits and pieces of my mother's life exist in every word I write.

We tenants of the womb never truly vacate our beloved landlord.

I hope you know Mommy, in my life, I love you more...

2+0+1=3

There's a theory, at least in my life there has been; my Mother always said that death happens in threes.   Since millions of people die daily I gather the meaning is more personal or relative and that it indicates quite simply that we lose things in 3s, like people and opportunities, sentimental treasures and other gifts...

I feel like I lost something today, but I can't put my finger on it and I certainly can't place three fingers on anything...

Grandma Jenny, at the young old age of 95, give or take, got booted off the Wii bowling league at the senior community where she resides today.  Recent blindness in one lovely eye has made her a less desirable bowling partner it seems.   I realize I loved her bowling days, mostly because she loved them so.
Bye Wii Bowlers.

My daughter and I have finished reading The Outsiders.   
I've torn through that perfect novel at least three times in my life, maybe more, likely four.   
I remain forever in love with Soda.
I'm gonna miss Johnny - again.


And whats the third thing killing off my day?   

Maybe it's that my old dog Dais is becoming annoying (more so then usual even).  If she bowled, I'd kick her off my Wii team.   I think she's not long for this world, just my gut instinct on dogs and life...

And my young rebel without a cause dog is still under the weather, after having gone all Bad Santa on me, devouring a chocolate advent calendar on Thanksgiving whilst I was out, which led to him nearly dying of Pancreatitis.  Dogs really shouldn't snack on cocoa, especially out of spite.  

But nope, it's not just those things, is it?

Maybe it's tonsillectomies for sweet boys of mine
Christmas tree pine needles on the hardwood floor
Shorter days
Longer nights
Yesterday's heartbreakingly beautiful sunlight coupled with unusually strong, striking winds
Perhaps it's the irreversible length of my growing "to do" list
What to wear to all the parties coming up with people I don't know or care for while the ones I love are doing the same thing somewhere else without me, otherwise fondly known as the holiday season...
Maybe it's that something over is over and something starting has started and things will never be the same.    I suspect that even if I read the exact same unrevised, beloved book over again, it won't come across the way it did the first time.
Maybe it's that the long year is ending and though it was iffy at times, 2 0 1 3 was kind of a beautiful number.

I sure hope Ponyboy made it to college...

Obits and other nonsense...

She was very silly.

She had an active imagination.

Needed lots of attention.

If I died at 12, this is what people could have honestly said about me.

If I died at 25, they'd have easily said the same things, for the most part.

If I died today, what would be reported in regard to me and the life I lived?

Two people would say I was their daughter.

Two would say I was their mother.

Four, their sister.

Countless their friend.  

A handful would say, "she was my best friend".

Quite a few would say they loved me.
Some believed - purple was her favorite color.

Some, I'm guessing two, maybe just one, oh hell maybe none - who really knows  --- might say I was in fact the true love of their life.   

Some might say she was one of the nicest women I ever knew, but they'd be exaggerating a little.
Some might claim  - "She hurt me"  (hey I'm sorry)

Maybe there'd be some who'd say things like, self involved, but I don't really think so.

Hopefully they'd say, "she showed up when she promised she would.

She carried her own load, did her work, didn't complain too, too much".
Bank would say she paid her bills, as evidenced by good credit.

Who would know to point out; she got goosebumps over things like hawks circling in the sky, the notion of mountain lions in the brush, old architecture, big waves, berries on the vine?
Most of her wardrobe was black.
She wore age inappropriate bikinis with reckless abandon.
She resisted the urge to jump when up high near an edge of any kind, just to see what it was like.

Would anyone know that I never ran out of toilet paper and why?  

Would anyone know how I struggled not to lie, but sometimes did, how I barely ever cried, how I didn't feel much physical pain, so much so that I damaged myself irrevocably at times.   

Could anyone say how I worried mountains over those I loved or have I hid that like physical pain as well?

Some might call me one of the funniest girls they ever knew, but maybe that was so long ago that it would have to go on the she died at 25 column.  

If all anyone said about me was that I meant to do no harm, well then I guess my life would have been a decent one.

I can say this for myself, my own epitaph (in third person of course...)  

She loved largely.

She would have stayed here forever, if possible, just to see everyone she cared for was safe and sound.
Baking relaxed her.
She never gave up on the notion of romantic love, no matter how futile it seemed at times.  (fits in the ages 12, 25 and very old indeed columns)
She made a ton of mistakes.
She considered herself an expert kisser.
She practically never read directions.
She preferred bread to meat.
She loved books.
She made a ton of mistakes, so many that it clearly bore repetition...
She was truly very glad to meet you.

the papergirl

No skateboards.
No skooters.
But no superballs? Seriously are they saying do not bounce your tiny ball outside?  

Come on.  Come on.   Come on.  Come on - y...

We might as well say, no fun whatsoever.

First few months here in Nazi American, aka Townhouse heaven/hell - to say I've been stifled and frustrated is an understatement.   I love/hate it so very much.
All I care one bit about is Boy and Girl and their providable happiness and so I considered moving, suing, crying, running, fighting and moving/crying some more over skateboards, skooters, bouncy balls, when it truly sank in that rules were not meant to be broken, here at least.
    
Because nothing is ever perfect, I decided to join em rather them beat em for now and this meant getting involved  and it meant things like delivering the monthly news letter, which in my case includes shoving it under doormats, delivered via skateboard with a 10 year old boy of course.   

Tonight, a day later,  last block undelivered stack of newsletters rested on my counter waiting.  

My houseguest went to bed and I went to work.

Big dog and I, long, long after dark, stack of papers, solo cup in hand, half digested Tirmasu in my tummy, caffeine in my blood and oodles of confidence coursing through me, until I realized that walking up to strangeers doors to slip a piece of paper under their Welcome Mat at nearly midnight would become my own private reality show, all live, all real, all the while...
There are cats in the bushes, correction, were cats.
Sometimes people have lives and leave their nearly grown teenagers home with a handy-dandy gallon of Minute Maid and vodka.
Some adults go to bed early or late or not at all.
Fights are had, blinds and windows are open - Oh my.
Silence surrounds us. 
Silence is broken.
For big dog, just so many things to pee on.
For me, not necessarily a tube top but strapless just the same, does not go well with a leash, 100 lbs of aggression and fistful of newsletters in the dark, Solo cup long discarded, (whomever, forgive me).
Not everyone has a welcome mat.
Security lights are not in fact all that helpful.
Car alarms stink.
I love the night sky.
I feel terribly happy.
I feel terribly alone.
I wish someone was with me.
I'm glad no one is watching.
I hope that I never have to do this again,
I may always volunteer to do this very thing.

Once finished I realize it was the most fun I've had in a long time, delivering the news in the middle of the night to middle class America.
I don't know if thats a good thing or  a bad thing, likely both.

This is your local News carrier (literally) 
Stay Classy 
California...

Bless This Mess

Ticked.

A rock hit my windshield and shattered my lovely perspective.  No longer did I gaze at the mountains lying on top of one another like a pack of sleeping puppies as I sped along the roads Friday for a weekend away with kids and dogs.   Not even the transforming clouds could distract me.

I had no choice but to see the blatant break in smoothness, the fracturing of blissfully clear glass, the spiderwebbing crack in my relatively new windshield.

It was the start of many flaws in our weekend.

Furnace didn't lite.  Oven didn't heat.  Vacuum didn't suck, but the truck driver who struck my stone wall, leaving it crumbling into the street for me to repair does.

And to top it off,  my finicky plumbing acted up.

Why?

How come?

What for?

Why do things have to break down in succession?   

In effort to escape the mounting mess, I took kids and dogs to water's edge and there we played a while and I let go of my frustrations.   When I returned to the brokedown palace, I willingly caved.  I called the trusty old contractor, who's been there for me before and claimed my defeat against mounting decay... but wait, theres more.

He came, he saw, he conquered and I am the conquest.   

help me please ----

This reliable, glass eyed fella has built up my stoop, filled in the gaps, stuccoed walls and reached places I cannot with paint and brush as well as boosted my ego for a year or more, with unearned compliments and on this very day, when everything turned to crap, he found whatever it takes to  profess some sort of deep felt love for me.

I didn't get it.

But I'm starting to.

It's complicatedly simple.

   We love the "thick of it".  We people love the mess, but not the making of the mess or the cleaning up of said messes so much.   

We humans love to dwell in the impossible, the hardship, the trouble, but we don't relish the reparation and we don't want to recognize the production of disruption that leads to destruction.

I don't want to deal with everything breaking and I don't want to not be able to fix the mess myself but the mess was mine the minute I bought into the whole idea of something belonging to me.

(he likes me because I need him and that feels good - right?)

Awful job of saying simply... 

I want the glory but not the guts.

Everyone probably does for the most part, at one time or another.

After the uncomfortableness with the contractor, I felt sort of lost in myself and the life I live.

It lead to one of those domino effects and as annoying as it is to be grounded in reality, there was something sort of blissful about getting real with myself.   My old, silly and apparently lovable self.

Today I left something on the stairs and I walked up and away from it.

Today I felt the love everyone sent me on my birthday.

Today I accepted the compliment from one eye.

Today I loved the liar and hated the lie.

Today I realized that the reason I want the grey house to exist is so that I can show my love to those I live with and know.

Today I looked hard for an answer to a question.

Today I opened up to a yes I worried was a no.

Today I understood something unknowable about another's problem.

Today I committed to doing the work everyday.

Today I understand that -

a)  the mess itself is temporary.  

b) The making of the mess comes from some sort of blindness, some misrepresentation or overshot ambition.

Which leaves ... 

c) the cleaning up of this mess - 

and I see that there-in lies the reward.

The process of elimination, the ridding of problems and deletion of issues; this work leads to something worth holding on to.

There in lies the gift.

Gives new meaning to a plague my mother hung on the kitchen wall when I was a kid;

"Bless This Mess"

Go figure

,

the while

It's been a while since I watched a film, beginning to end, in the middle of the day.   The word decadent comes to mind.

It's been a while since a friend came to my door early, unannounced, without a preemptive text -  then promptly sat on my bed chatting to me as I picked out something somewhat amazing to wear.

It'd been a while since I felt steel bars in the palm of my hand as I swung rung to rung cross the monkey bars in the school yard.  I vaguely recall opening my tightly clenched hands and truly letting go...

It'd been a while since I experienced the simple thrill finding a secret path to walk on brings.

It's been a while since I felt like my good old self again and it's been longer still since I'd called my old self good.

Every time I'm patient, every time I resist or hold on or hold out or hold still just to let go, I'm grateful.  

I only regret the things I do and rarely what I don't do, because most often what I don't do is only not done because I already did something, something other then let go.

We love who we love and love who we do for a reason and we don't who we don't... and there, there is everything we need know.

It's been a while since I landed on my own two feet.

It's been a while since I realized those feet are awfully good at landing.

Roll Over

I had to confess, as we drove out of town and toward the desert this morning.

"Venus" I said, "despite my love for him, I've been kind of glad that he's been gone"

There was an under current of stress in my life and has been since the very day we met.

But the past weeks, ever since I sent him away, that stress just wasn't part of my days... 

 And this morning, every mile closer to him, I felt that stress stretch cross my heart.

Female - Male relationships are complex, no matter what the species.

Sprung from his cell, he appears to be a new man.   

Confident.

Calm.

Joyful.

Diligent.

Disciplined.

P R O U D

He's new.

He's licked his bad habits.

Now only I can screw him up.

Funny, I'm profoundly aware of my bad habits; my lack of discipline, diligence, pride, calmness and even a lack of uninhibited joy.

Shame on me.

Where are they and when did they...

hmm,

Maybe I need rehab.

You know I'm no good....

Welcome home Lover Boy.

"lie down"

the cake nazi

If I could take it back, I would.

It's funny, the thing that might make me a good parent, is also currently the thing that's making me feel like a bad one.

He bit her.   

It's inexcusable.

I know...

and so I said, out loud, in front of others, "You don't get a Birthday party!"

and at the time I meant it and at the time it felt like punishment befitting a hideous crime.

A tame boy, biting his older sister at a hotel, on vacation with a group of friends is a pretty awful thing.

Now, months later, closer to the actual Birthday birth date, it feels like a crime to not throw a party for a boy who'll turn ten just this one time in his one and only wild and precious life.

Because I love him, I have to teach him how to behave.

Because I love him I want to shower him with gifts and attention and celebrate the day he was born.

Because I love her I have to protect her from biting brothers.

Because I love them both, I have to follow through and be "of my word".

Son of a...

I guess it's, "No cake for you"...

Love stinks.

Accidental Amazingness

I picked him up, just like always and just like always, I felt a happiness roll up inside of me just seeing him.

"Today at school", he said.

I prepared myself for an ordinary tale of things that happen on a routine basis to my 9 year old boy.

for example;

*I got a paper-cut

*The teacher told us...

*My side hurt while running in P.E.

*Somebody passed gas.

But not this...

"Today at school" he said,  "I accidentally saw heaven".

He'd been out on the playground gazing up at the sky.   He described to me the clouds; big and beautiful, a little dark, stacked one behind the other.   Then, some of these clouds he watched separated so that he, quite by accident, 

glimpsed heaven. 

  

"Its orange Mom", said with a secretive certainty one might imply as they shared a simple truth about what was taken in, like they'd unintentionally had a look up some girl's skirt as she climbed the jungle gym.   No doubt what was seen.   

"Isn't that great?" he stated more then asked.

"It is great", I replied.

"I can think of nothing better then seeing heaven, especially not on purpose".

and I see heaven too...

Every time I look at you.

blackberries in the house...

One - 
Blackberries appear, navy blue and plump, begging to be picked and eaten all along the trail to the lake
Two -
Girl likes school
Three -
He loves me
Four -
He loves me not...
Five - 
He loves me

I woke alone and drove up early today.  I sped on the freeways, navigated the winding side roads I've come to know and love.  I stopped at the bakery and expertly ordered the things I find most spectacular; carrot and blueberry muffins, apple pie burritos, cinnamon crisps.  I got to the house, opened the windows - I literally, just like in the story, The Night Before Christmas, in anticipation of Santa, "Opened the windows and threw up the sash..."   Excited about the arrival of my father to the lake house I bought almost a year ago in the mountains.    He's never been here yet and for good reason.   He's not been well and it's a hard drive and can be an inhospitable landscape for anyone under the  
weather.   But today he's coming.  
Count blessings once again...

He came.
We ate.
We spoke about and thought of the ones we love who exist far away from us.   We mentally brought them here,
We walked to the water.
We took a photograph to remind us.
We laughed, reminisced about lakes before this one and times gone by. 
We walked some more.
I effortlessly recounted my blessings as he left before darkness fell.

1) My daughter seems to be okay in school and thats huge...
2) My son is just the same as ever, but even better if possible; perfectly adorable, despite life...
3) We three found a home that we like and we moved into it...
4) My Dad survived cancer treatment and is doing well...
5) I am a decent juggler, doing okay with the hand life dealt me
6) I survived Crossfit this week, despite being lazy in regard to it all summer and I love it more then ever...
7) I have friends and family I cherish and admire far more then I can express...
8) My father was here and he loves me and I love him right back...
9) The sun is setting on the beautiful blue lake...
TEN

Ten is a toughie, because I feel this odd sense of emptiness or something along those lines.
Ten is - I don't have a designated "boyfriend".   (wtf)
Ten is pathetic.
Ten is a piece of  _rap.
Ten is a mistake
Ten is possibly a blessing in disguise.
Ten is maybe simply this... I cannot touch or feel the man who loves me, but there are several men who love me despite my best efforts; like my brothers and one or two who will not be present no matter what I offer up and then there is my father who loves me absolutely and so maybe I need to look to Our Father Who Art... you know where... who gives me this day and my daily carrot muffin...

How about this for TEN -
It's blackberry time at the lake.

And how about a bonus, how about an added number like... ELEVEN - everything is possible...

go on and grow...

The wisest folks of all seem to tell us that most people are fearful when it comes to change.

I can see that.   I can see that in almost everyone I know, even the biggest, strongest, smartest. 

Now that's scary.

I'm afraid to say, that I am not - I am not afraid of change. 

Nope.

Not me.

I embrace it.  I cause it.  I look for it.  I wait patiently and also impatiently for it.  
I need it really. 

I may in fact be a little addicted to it and I've been wondering 

how come.

Why do I constantly need to have change or progress or alteration?   

Was I always this way?

Yes, I was, I realize, which leads me to this...

What on earth will I do when things are as they should be and change no more?

Of course things will always change, but I won't be able to keep up the pace of progression I've induced for the past decade and especially the past eighteen months or so.  So... then what?

Recently in a strange turn of events, my big, bad and I do mean bad dog, well he took a bite out of me. 

Yup he did.  

I know.   What a sh_thead.

You know what I did?

I changed him, am changing him currently actually.

I sent him away to be reconditioned by some hopefully highly capable dog whisperer.

He should come home quite tame, fundamentally altered.   

Fingers crossed.

Here in my new home, settling in, I can feel myself slow down intentionally in the work that I've planned to do, in the things I am determined to change.   Why?   Because once it's done, well,

 then what?

Maybe I am fearful of sameness, stagnation. 

Maybe I'm afraid of completion.

Why?

I think I know why and the answer does in all honesty concern me, which is a softer way of saying it frightens me.

When I finally run out of things to change, I will in fact be left with the task of changing nothing other then myself.

And when I do, I will have a different answer to my own question, "Was I always this way?"

Nope.

Not me.

 go grow yourself

N A N C Y

It's hot and she is done in, turned off to whats outside her.  She can only feel herself and herself feels overwhelmed.   

She's a perfect cut of fresh beef, left on the grill too long, moving past pink to overcooked.

With all her new books and all of her new fears, we turn and we leave.

We exit the middle school gates and walk through the heat mirages clinging to the surface of hot pavement before us.

I start my car and try not to look at my daughter's tense face.

My phone rings and it's a friend in the know.

"Tell us what teachers she has", my friend asks.

I take the new school schedule from my daughter's clenched hand.  I un-crumple the damp page and I read the list of hard to pronounce, foreign sounding teacher names and classes my special child will begin in just a few days.

As I accidentally murder one name after another, my friend interjects, "OH YOU ARE SO LUCKY!   That last one, she's a life changing teacher!"

A cool chill runs through my overheated body and I smile in total and complete relief.

Here it is, the gift in all of this hard to handle change...

The shade spot on a sunny day.

The hidden, bubbling creek secreted in the desert.

The much hoped for but not expected break.

The cant help but sigh after a day of pursed lips.

The unforgettable teacher, the one who for no reason you can explain at the time, changes who you are and leaves you irrevocably improved in ways you will never understand until you are 48 years old and you wake up and read a letter from your mother telling you that your  life changing teacher is coming to the end of her own precious and much appreciated life.

Then suddenly you know the words, but you don't want to say them, because if you do, then things are welcome to move forward.

I'm kidding myself I know, but sometimes I believe I can control the universe and the events that affect my own world.

Like... If I never say goodbye, then no one can actually leave me.

I loved this teacher.

She made me feel special.

She made everyone feel good and included and strong and comfortable in high school.   Impossible ways to feel at an impossible time in young people's lives but she did it and whats more, she made it look effortless.  

When I met her again near the lake where my mother lived, in my twenties, I felt as though she climbed down from the distant place she must have existed all these years, Mount Olympus - - after all, teachers are not humans.

She wasn't real until she reappeared into my life, this time we were peers, friends, drinking buddies, lovers of the lake, appreciators of beauty, complimenters of one another's talents.

She watched me as I became a wife and mother, then just a mother and not a wife.

She came thousands of miles and stayed in my home, I went happily and felt blessed to be asked into hers.

We laughed, we told truths, we opened up to one another.  We ate, we drank, we sang, we lived and it was heaven to know her this way.   Like children we swam, hunted and picked berries in the woods, walked, talked and played together.  

She was even more of a life changer for me as my friend then she was as my teacher.

My tears blind me.  

I can find but can't seem to use my words.

I can only tell you that I loved her, that I admired her and I cherished the time I spent with her.   I am so much more then grateful to feel that she loved me too.

If I ever doubt that God exists, I should think of this person and what she meant to me and of my great fortune in having had her not once, but twice in my life - as my teacher and then

as my beloved friend.

How blessed I have been.

Nancy, you are my hero.

I loved you then and again and still now and I always, always, always will.

high cost of a quick fix...

In the movie, As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson's character says, "people who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch" and I happen to agree with the sentiment.  Metaphors are annoying, even more so when they're accurate.  

And so my tiling problems are also relationship woes.

Bare with me.

Here we go....And the miraculous thing about miracle cures is that they rarely cure anything at all...

I globbed this gluey substance on a pointless, seeping shelf in this shower of mine and it promised to prevent leaks, but it took very little of my time and cost very little of my money and worked, well, it worked not at all.

I googled grouting and found this detailed, tedious route to caulking that gave me tiling nightmares.  No kidding.   

So what am I left with?

Shoot - the middle ground.  How dull.   Somewhere between the quick fix and the all day labor lies the answer.

Not the simplest cure, nor the most daunting task, but somewhere in between a nightmare and a quick fix rests the solution, for tile, for shower leaks, for cracking grout and for every single, ingle thing-le.  

Because we're all just tiled together, we're all mosaics, bits and pieces held in place by some thick substance, added onto over time and tacked together with cement, glue, spit and love, collagen, ligaments and maybe some butter or olive oil.

We're all structures in need of repair or remaking at different times and there may well be no easy answer and the good news is, it doesn't have to be so hard to find the solution.   There is this lovely place called middle ground which I can't help but liken to somewhere along the lines of "Stepford", but thats not fair at all.

When something is leaking like a sieve or squeaking like a wheel it needs attention, but knowing how much is the hard part and giving too little leads to a certain result and giving too much is almost as detrimental as too little, because giving too much takes away from who we are and leaves us with less then... 

The middle ground, as lacking in passion as it seems, is really the place where you can be the most creative, the most alive and even the most in-love, in every regard.   In the middle area, you're more free to experiment, not taxed too the max and not happy-go-f-cking lucky.  You're in reality and you're invested, but not enslaved.   When you temper things out, you can actually feel connected, be in reality, aware of your situation and then you can deal with anything.

So whether I'm solving a caulking issue or a talking issue, I hope to find the do-able midland.

The space between easy and hard is where you'll find me waiting for you.