I'm not able to celebrate Independance Day with much joy today. Im freightened because of the direction we are going right now. I am very cognizant of the responsibility each and everyone of us has at this time to stay alert and build community wherever we can that is safe and nurturing and healthy for our children and grandchildren!
Therefore, I am going to try and make since of a few things for myself with my updated writing today about what I am feeling at this moment in time after the last few years of the many changes that have occurred in my life.
2021 was the first year of our semi-retirement (fully retired) at the end of June in 2022. It coincided with the selling of our home and business of 24 years and our move to Sudden Valley which occurred in December of 2020. The plan to move started with my back going out for the first time in my life and the realization that we could not care for a three story house and business on a 1/4 acre lot any longer. We put our house up for sale and it sold in three weeks. There were very few homes for sale that would give us the freedom to "age in place" so we began looking at condomniums. They were few and far between as well. We found one we liked and in just two months we had put our home up for sale and moved to our new place.
Well the first few months were very difficult. I was still healing, could not drive yet and the move had exhausted us to say the least and it occurred during covid. The year of 2021 was also the first heat dome I'd ever experienced. After the heat dome experience in 2021 my husband and I decided to use some of our retiremnent funds to have heat pumps installed in three of the rooms of our new condominium. We were put on a waiting list and finally in the spring of 2022 we had air conditioning and a much more economical heating system. The electricity and heating system had gone out five separate times in the winter of our first three months and it was very costly at that. With only electric heat, when it went out it got pretty cold after eight hours on a snowy day. So to offset no heat at all we used more of our retirement savings to have a gas fireplace installed so we had heat when the electricity went out. We learned quickly that the electricity going out in Sudden Valley was an all too common experience in the winter.
I am updating my writing today to gain focus on my life at this point, right now. Maybe my experiences and story of my life in general might be helpful to others. For example, recently in the past year I've been noticing how my diet effects inflammation in my body and how I'm gaining weight, which has never been an issue for me before the age of 70. I will write more about how I am trying to manage this issue in a later post.
Here then is the little updated vignette about how I needed to change how I spend time in the sun came about.
Before my seventies the warm weather and even very hot sun was never much of an issue for me. I love the sun! Here in the PNW we sun worshipers gravitate to any sun we can get. I was raised in Northern California from the time I was 2 1/2. My mother is from Colorado and my father, who was born in New Mexico, was raised in the pan handle of Dalhart, Texas where I was born. When I moved to the PNW the climate was very different and while I love it here and really do like the rain, I quite enjoy the sun, the smells of the dry land and the heat of the day.
Climate change has changed much in the way I believe we need to choose to take care of our Mother Earth and ourselves. Tracey Chapman writes in her song, The Rape of the Earth, "The sun is hotter than ever before," and that was in 1995, from her New Beginnings album. Long time big fan of all of her music! So anyway, on the day the amount of time I spend in the full sun, even in the PNW changed, I really did not realize the damage to my skin until the next day. I've learned that because my skin is thinning, I burn more easily. When we went to Bowman Bay on my birthday at the end of May in 2022, I did not wear a hat all the time and I was surprised the next day to discover that my face had sun burned. My forehead and nose later peeled and my lips burned causing blisters that took over two weeks to heal. Very unusual for me. So...Wearing a hat is a must! Sunscreen of course. New ways to consider self care.
The other thing I noticed is how easily the heat effects my body in general. In June of 2021 when we learned the heat dome was coming we went shopping for cooling fans at the hardware store. This was still during covid remember and we did not go inside stores at all or on any regular basis. We needed to make sure we had plenty of food, fruits and veggies and ingredients easily prepared for simple protein meals. With no ice maker I made ice all week filling up the one tray we had, while making batches of green tea to keep in the fridge. I gave Chuck a haircut at his request! Really not sure what the expected and unprecedented 95-105 degrees over the next few days would be for us here. We learned we could not go for walks after trying to go out in 90 degree heat. We limited the times of days we chose to walk. Not something we would have ever considered in the past.
Somewhere too there is much to share about what happened in 2023 and the first six months of 2024, however Im still processing the last year and a half which as I think about it has been stable finally and continues to be filled with blessings and grace from God as we build friendships in our new community while at the same time continue to nurture ourselves and family and long time previous friends ♥ I have done quite a bit of writing recently and getting back to writing on my blog this last year or so has been very inspiring for me and does actually reflect my thoughts on life over the last year and a half.
While I now believe that these experiences might be about the thinning of my skin as I age, along with the many transitions of what it really means to slow down and do better self care as we practice aging in place, my gravest concerns are the choices we make together to take care of each other. It is of course about Global 🌎 Warming and what we need to understand about our choices...which ARE real...all of it is frightfully real and it is certainly not business as usual...by celebrating our freedom with out conscious awareness of what we are all facing. Now. At this time in our lives!
We each have a responsibility to ourselves, to each other, to the least among us, to our children and grandchildren and to all of humanity to stand for the right and freedom of choice to continue to build a peaceful society. A coalition of peace built on strength that nurtures each other in good and caring ways that were taught to us by our ancestors from their sacrifices...as we nurture and care and heal our blessed home...Our Mother Earth. Our collective community. A community free from anti bias retoric and brutal hatred and malice and violence at every single turn and corner. Peace to live in a non-violent society.
This is what The Grandmothers mean in their message: "Turn away from the latest distractions and come home."
I dedicate this writing today to all my beloved friends who are grandmothers and all I do not yet know who are standing strong in their heart power of home for themselves, their families, and humanity. Thank you for calling me back home today♥
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