SOME MOVING LEVITY

Image by Ciro Marchetti

Yes, I'm getting more and more overwhelmed at the amount of work, the number of details to be attended to, and the coordination and planning my move to Santa Barbara, California at the end of this January is requiring. However, all this is not only well-balanced by the joy of why I am doing all this, but moments of laughter as I face these various questions and challenges:

1) I have many, many rocks, ranging from big and quite heavy, all the way down to mini-mini's that I've had on various altars and shelves around my large apartment. As shipping charges are by the pound, I can't take them with me. (Sob! Most are from Block Island, R.I., my favorite place on this planet.) I've placed them all on a shelf by my front door for when I have my house give-away and sale, with a sign that says "Take any or all, and give them a good home." From past experience I know some will actually be taken. "But what will I do with all the rest," I've been thinking for days. "Do a sneak-by midnight rocking of the neighborhood front yards?" (P.S. When my friend and downstairs neighbor saw the sign yesterday she agreed with me that it would not only be fine but nice to put any left over rocks in the backyard here. A zen rock garden ...)

2) Every time I work in either of my two email accounts I think "Oy, that's something else I have to do to lighten up, clean out my email folders." Sheeza Mareeza! My email folders don't have to be packed for Fed Ex by-the-pound ground shipping! ROTFLMAO....

3) In all I have to figure out and do and deal with concerning this move, the thing giving me the most grief and laughter is a big, broken down couch I have had in my third floor apartment for 23 years. When my roomate at that time and I got the couch second-hand, because it is so bulky and long it would not fit up the stairs. So the Salvation Army guys had to rope it and bring it up over our third floor terrace, which included taking off the glass terrace doors. However, they had no rope, but they did have a huge donated box of men's ties in the truck. So they knotted the ties, end to end, and used that as rope. OY! I had thought I would have to have friends reverse that process (argh!!!!), with real rope, of course. But it occurred to me that what I've been joking about doing might actually be a possible way to go: rent a hacksaw, have the couch hacked into two or three pieces, and cart those down the stairs. I've already requested an estimate on renting a hacksaw. Can you believe it? Starting in Your Neighborhood Theatres Today: "Chainsaw Massacre Part XX: The Embedded Couch."

* * * *

‘til next time, keep (California!) dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.

PHOTOS FOR MEMORIES OF MY ELMHURST HOME

These photos of me were taken very recently in the front end of my long, large apartment, before I knew I'd be moving. I'm in all of them because they were taken specifically so I'd have a better photo for my blog. The front end is the half I've been inhabiting, while I've rented out the back half. Fortunately, the kitchen is in the middle, so it's almost like a roommate and I have had two separate little apartments.

This first photo is the one from which I cropped my new profile picture and I can clearly see my resemblance to my mother in it. It was taken in what would normally be the dining area, but which for me is more an extension of my living room. You can see more evidence of my love of Block Island, Rhode Island in the throw on the wall behind me. And every self-respecting Witch has a broom (on the right, near a bamboo flute):



I see my resemblance to my father in this one. I'll be taking cane cuttings of the dracena next to me to California. (An old haiku I wrote about it -- outgrowing my home/the dracena I raised/from a sprout.) I've had it at least 15 years and we've been through a lot together:



Here I am in front of my Tarot shelves (decks and books). That long vertical thing on the left, behind the flowers, is a glass didjeridu (which I have to sell, though I am taking my agave and bamboo didjeridus). The poster coming out of my head is The Fool card in The Thoth Tarot. By the way, I really do have eyebrows! :-) They're just white, like my hair. What's fun about this photo (at least for me) is you can see my Jewish/Russian great-great-grand aunt's nose. I'm not sure about the actual number of generations, but it was a very old photo I'm remembering seeing. My stepmother exclaimed when she saw it "There's Patty's nose!"



Here's a better view of my Tarot shelves. You can see some of the special boxes and pouches (that I crochet) I keep them in. The poster on the left is of The World card in The Connolly Tarot; the glass didjeridu is clearer here; and that's Ganesh to the right of the flowers. That blue rectangle growing out of my head is actually propped up on a clock on the wall behind me. :-)



This is of my corner "office;" that's one of my printers on the right. Those masks I put together from a fabulous book of masks I was given as a gift. (I'm taking the rest of the unassembled masks in the book with me, but will be giving these two away.) The two posters, left to right, are The Two of Disks (Pentacles) and The Six of Disks (Pentacles) in The Thoth Tarot.



I'm winking in the above photo (I prefer that to calling it squinting :-D) and it feels that all I've done is wink and 23 years have gone by in this apartment. I hope this next two and a half months of sorting, tossing, selling, giving away, cleaning, and packing goes by in a wink, too! Then again, maybe I shouldn't be wishing my life away, but savoring even these times of work- and emotion-intensive change, as change is really all there is. Ah, how appropriate, that's one of the meanings for The Two of Disks in the above photo: "The only stability is change." A good thing to remember.

* * * *

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blogs ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL and ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT.