Looks like I’m gearing up again for my once-a-month spurt of blogging. I would like to get more regular with this blog. The culprit is me over-scheduling myself. I am apparently not yet used to not having a job, and being healthy: two blessings I’m very grateful for – which have led me to think that I can do all the things, all the time. I have to learn to moderate. Otherwise, I won’t have the sense of expansiveness around time that I would like to have.
But there are so many things I am not doing at all, that I still want to add into my schedule! One thing I really would like to add to my schedule is art. I have a lot of art supplies and ideas, but I’m just not getting sat down to do it.
Eventually, I am going to cut back a little bit on the social activities. Group gatherings are very stressful for me. So why am I doing so many of them? They are a means to an end. My goal is to make a few close friends in Tucson. I’m attending group events in order to meet potential new friends. Once I have a few close friends (and I’m making good progress with that), I will go to less events. Maybe then I’ll have time to do some art?
I’ve made some very good friends while volunteering at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Here is a picture of me working on a recent morning. It’s been in the 70’s or even low 80’s during the middle of the day, but quite cool in the mornings.
We are putting up lights for Christmas. It’s a huge task, an incredible number of lights, and takes a couple of months. My volunteer group only does a very small part of it. Most of the work is done by garden staff, and the tree lights are done by professional arborists.
Here we are setting out luminarias along a wall near the café.
My volunteer group is a small group of 6-8 of us, and we really enjoy each other. It’s also a very beautiful way to start the week.
In addition to all the social activities I keep scheduling, I’m also trying (again) to get a handle on all our physical stuff. Too many things! John and I are drowning in household goods. I seem to always think I need new and better things. And as I’m getting older, I’m failing to remember anymore where everything is. I’m really trying to reduce the volume of stuff and get it all organized and labeled and put in logical places.
I don’t enjoy the task. To put it mildly! Everyone sees all my carefully labeled items in my closets and they think I’m an exceptionally organized person and must love organizing. But it’s really the opposite. My natural state is complete disarray, but along with disarray comes vast amounts of frustration because I can’t find anything.
Also the visual impact of disarray is confusing and overwhelming for me – like the chaotic sound of an orchestra warming up. If my brain can’t make easy sense of what it hears and sees, my brain fries. If things are where they belong, then my brain doesn’t have to continually figure out what it’s looking at. Clutter everywhere can be a visual onslaught for me.
I’m ok with decorative items sitting out, and frequently used items sitting out on the kitchen counter, because they stay in the same place all the time. My brain gets used to them and expects to see them, so it’s not confusing. I don’t actually have to have a minimalistic house. I just need a place for everything and everything in its place. And I need to buy less, and give away more. Easier said than done, though.
I just want a simple, quiet life and a few good friends. But between trying to reduce chaos in my house, and trying to get out and make friends, I am keeping very busy!
Here are two of my new friends, a married couple, Dana and Chris.
Dana is a retired engineer and does a lot of environmental volunteering, and Chris is a retired nurse and is now a textile artist. I met Dana while volunteering at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, and now we go to the gym together. I think I’ve mentioned Dana before.
Typically I would not be interested in exercising at a gym. It’s too loud and confusing! Too many people! But I just follow Dana and she keeps me on track, which allows me to block out everything else.
Also it’s a good gym, where they strongly discourage clanging the weights and grunting and other types of startling noises. How do they do that? With cute little sayings on the wall, like, “If you’re grunting, you better be in labor.” It sets the expectations and helps keep the sudden loud noises to a minimum. Still, it’s crowded and loud and challenging for me. I always lose count of my sets, but Dana counts with me – and continually reminds me to breathe, lol. It’s like having a personal trainer but for free. I’m very grateful for that, because without her, I would not go to the gym.
If you’re wondering why I like music events when I’m so noise sensitive, it’s the same principle of an orderly house vs. a chaotic house. Music is (generally) an orderly form of noise, so my brain can track it and not be overwhelmed by it. And if a concert is too loud, I can just wear earplugs. I’ve thought about bringing earplugs to the gym, but it won’t help the fact that the noise is chaotic rather than predicable. Plus, I need to be able to hear Dana.
The other thing that’s great about this gym is that it’s so close to where I live that I can easily ride my bike there, even in the heat of the summer. And it’s very affordable at the basic plan, which is just the machines and weights (not the classes or the pool). Chris takes the classes, including the aqua aerobics. She has invited me to go to the classes with her, but I don’t like following along in classes, and I don’t like public pools (I’m so grateful to have my own). So I just lift weights with Dana.
I am really enjoying biking places when I can. I don’t like to bike in traffic, but I live quite near the bike loop. We did that intentionally – proximity to the loop was one of our top criteria when house hunting. Near the loop and with a pool!
My bike is very old and I would really like a new one. John has been diligently keeping it running for me, but it’s time to replace it. That’s yet another thing I haven’t found the time to do – sit down and research what type of bike to get. And we need to decide which bikes to get rid of, because we can’t just keep collecting stuff! We have several bikes, all of which are very old. We really need to get rid of all the cruddy bikes. Right John? Lol, we are both challenged when it comes to getting rid of stuff. The stuff he’s willing to get rid of, I’m not, and the stuff I’m willing to get rid of, he’s not. Of course.
Yesterday I saw this pair of fancy bikes on the back of an expensive Sprinter van, and I thought yeah, that whole package, yep, that would work for me.
Thus we muddle along. Hopefully in the next week or two I can try again to get caught up with this blog and put up pictures of our recent camping trips, among other things.
But first I really want to get the backpacking equipment back into bins – it’s currently exploded all over my screened porch. And the guest bedding is also in piles everywhere. I’m trying to get it organized better. And my Halloween and Dia de Muertos decorations are still up. I put up an ofrenda this year. I’m hoping to post about that too, among other things.
And then of course, there was the election. I do care about that and there are things I could say about it. But I feel like you already have plenty to read on that topic. So I will just stick to stories that are strictly my own. I did not volunteer at the polls or door knock, but I have friends who did, so that might come up in my blog. Or not. We’ll see!
Another thing I haven’t mentioned is physics. I’ve been trying to read physics books for several months now. Not textbooks, but books written for educated adults about all the new science in the past few decades. I’m interested in reading about physics because as I get older, I’ve been more curious about reality and our place in the universe.
I’m not finding the answers in religion, which is based on a very outdated scientific understanding of our world. I don’t know of a serious religion that has evolved to incorporate our increasing understanding of reality, although there have been a few flaky attempts made at times. So I’m just going straight to the science books to try to understand what science can tell me about who we are and how is it that we’re here. I’m not finding the answers in science either. But it’s fascinating and amazing how much we’ve learned about the universe in the past few decades since I was a kid. It’s also amazing and discouraging how very little of it I seem to be able to understand. It’s completely counterintuitive.
I had hoped to be able to write a blog post summarizing what I’ve learned and recommending a book list. But I’m really not there yet. Not sure I’m ever going to get there, but I’m continuing to try. So far all I can say is this: reality isn’t what we think it is. And there’s a lot more about our universe that we don’t understand than we do understand. Maybe eventually I’ll have something more intelligent to say than that.
So lots going on, lots to tell you about, and not enough time to do it all! I’m also, ironically, reading a self help book that suggests we stop over scheduling ourselves (rather than continually trying to optimize our productivity). Which is apropos because apparently retiring doesn’t automatically cure the tendency to stay overly busy. We do that to ourselves.
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