What an interesting journey life can be. . . and sometimes, just when I am wondering whether I've settled in for a while and nothing big's going to happen (and the old question "Is this what I really want" begins to haunt me again), my life is upended.

An early interest in the Simplicity movement back when I was working full time and setting up a big house and yard and buying clothes (to play the working game) kept me asking myself, with regularity, "Is this all there is?" (collecting stuff, eating out because there's no time to cook, never feeling I had enough time to BE). Of course, I knew it wasn't, which is part of what fueled my anger toward our culture, toward myself.

And now, I will have a chance to actually use what I know to be true (and what I've visualized through unexpected fires or simply walking away)----that sometimes it's good to clear away all of the extraneous stuff in order to make room for who we are now.

We finally received news from the Big Corporation that my husband has lost his job. We are fortunate that we were only four years away from planned solvency and his own retirement and that, even having to discard that plan, we can pay our debts and probably survive well enough on my little retirement earnings, though likely excluding health insurance, which is a concern. My studying Healing Touch and Reiki may have had more than an esoteric purpose.

We will be selling most of our possessions (and letting go of many more things we've been clinging to for too long----like college papers, like too many books and furniture), and then finding a small place in the country near the Smith River. Or so our plan goes now. 

Okay. I can do this. I think. After all, it's what I've been wanting, in many ways. I've been missing my pal, my husband. I've been hating the noise of the town. I've been wanting to try my dream of living with less in the country, gardening more and having more animals around.

So now----my husband's former sense of Responsibility----has been wrenched from his once-clinging hands, and we are released to live another dream, one with less security, fewer possessions, and a great deal more SPACE! Tipping over into elderhood is not necessarily a time of sitting on the porch and rocking away one's remaining years, checking off failing body parts one by one (please forgive me for being facetious).

Stay tuned if such adventures interest you, my dear handful of blogging friends.

Smith River, near Rock Creek Ranch