I have acquired a new super power. It is a hyperreal sense of smell.

Although usually a pretty adroit smeller on it's own, with the season's change here the last two weeks (we're definitely in summer mode), my nose has gone into overdrive.

Last week, I was able to detect a honeysuckle bush from over a half a block away! I had a friend walking with me and she said, "there's no honeysuckle," until we came upon it several minutes later. "Woaaah, how'd you do that?" she inquired, shaking in her shoes.

Feel My Super Power!

Please stay tuned, as I am unsure if I will use these powers for the forces of good, or for the forces of evil. It's a dead heat right now.

Of course, this morning, while I was while walking the dog, I could intensely smell dog pee on a particular corner. Walk by it every day, no prob, no smell. Pthhhhh.

Rethinking here: This may indeed be no super power, but my kryptonite. Aargh.

yesterday, the sweetest thing happened.

there is an older lady (in her late 70s, i'd say) who walks her dog by our house every day. she lives up the end of the street, and a few houses over the next streeet. she stops and chats once in awhile...really surprised us once when she walked right up into the yard to see what we were doing. we were like, "well, hello!" she wanted to see stuff up close and to chat.

yesterday evening, she came to the door, and presented my husband with a little frog statue...

made of resin.
sitting on a lily pad with little reeds sticking up next to him.
very smiley.
prerequisite hues of green.
about, oh, 5-6 inches tall.

said to my partner, "i just love walking by your yard every day, it is so lovely. i thought this little guy would be right at home in front." *frog handoff occurs*

so, as ugly as the damn thing is, it will live out front, like a gnome.
i'll move him around, for my amusement...maybe even make him a little froggie shrine. lol.

i'm getting all choked up writing this...silly. but it is so *kind*.

Nothing really matters/
Anyone can see/
Nothing really matters/
Nothing really matters to me...


Had this moment of epiphany last week, after feeling frustrated about work and life's niggly issues. Was caught up in the moment of multiple petty annoyances and left the house to attend a networking meeting with a midwife in the area.

Drove away from the house and had a calm settle upon me. It became so clear that all of this --job frustration, the asinine government, the daily grind -- really doesn't matter. Too often we are (I am) so caught up in the pain of it and it, whatever it is, goes away, changes, moves along it's merry way, whether I buy into it or not.

Web sites go away or they stay. Most of the work I have done in my web career has gone the way of the dodo. Nothing I do or say really matters -- what freedom!

Far from being an attitude of apathy, this just made so much sense in being freed from so much angst. I am conscious that it is all about impermanence, a deep principle of Buddhism, but to feel this on a viceral level, and to feel the joy in it, was new to me.

It was like feeling waves of life folding over me, and receding, without being bashed around or concerned about drowning.

Of course, epiphanies come and go, and even they play into the impermanence of it all. Do I feel so grounded today? Not necessarily. But I experienced that moment once, and it becomes a touchstone for me; smooth and round and flat and solid in my core.

Returned from Strawberry Music Festival renewed...gawd, all that feeds me comes from the forest and giant trees. So funny, to be so certain of that. It is the same when I am on Mt. Tam -- I do not know where the trees end and I begin.

My friend William im'd me and asked me how the visit home was. Of course, knowing me as he does, he nailed it. Nor Cal is home, and that spreads out to Yosemite and places, I'm sure, that I haven't been while awake or in this body. It's such a primal belonging, such a cellular (ahem, and not as in Cingular) memory. This is where I come from, is this is where I'll become ash.

Time camping in the woods stirred up old longings, old wishings, old connections. Parts of me that were once alive, and now are stored in neat eucalyptus and lavender-lined boxes -- waiting for another part of this life to happen and grow, or for death, and another time to reach fruition -- were shaken and poked, mostly rising up in intense dreamscapes. Early morning was the time to sort through, like a miner and his screen, picking thru rocks to find gold.

Time in the trees made me more emotional, more in touch. I hadn't realized how much I've dulled, in these suburbs, just as a survival mechanism. It became clear again, how much I'm covered in dust in Ventura. But, Ventura has it's purpose, I am convinced, despite the layers of gunk I gather there.

What to do? Watch it...see what comes from it all, I guess.

On practical notes, I've landed a good freelance gig with MSN. Nice chunk of change for some freelance writing in the fitness/health channel. Done stuff for them before, will be nice to put on the "will work for money" writer hat again. Or, at least I tell myself that. Typically, I am insane when writing for money. It's a sign, isnt' it? Of something...

Had a good networking meeting with a midwife in a large OB practice here in Camarillo today. She was helpful, nice, open...and confirmed too much of my negative impression of here. Many moms here are first-timers at age 20-23. Second timers, two years later. !!! Not well-educated. *Sigh*

So frustrating.

Have to keep my mind open, concentrate on the opportunities, not the present community.

And, there's always web work. %o/