Day 31 - Litchfield Beach

It's hard to believe the month is over.  Will leave in the morning so today is one of just sitting here and relishing the environment one last day.  Brother Jim left an hour ago to return home to Hilton Head.  We had a delightful time together as we always do.  I'll be hoping to see him at the Pond sometime in January………Words fail me.   I'm simply being.   It's as though time is standing still.  Not an unpleasant feeling but unusual.  It's almost as if I'm still in my meditation state - which ended I thought an hour ago.

Day 29 - Final Draft of the Month

Well, here it is Sunday morning and a huge storm is raging - see the windswept palmetto tree!  The wind and rain should stop by mid afternoon when Jim is scheduled to arrive.  Just a few minutes ago I finished the third draft for this month.  I've got it on a thumb drive and ready to go to Office Depot and have it printed - don't know if I'll look at it again before I pass it on to another reader.   This has been a truly productive month and actually even FUN.   Who knows, maybe I'll turn into an author yet!  Certainly the setting for my work has been perfect.  Won't get onto the beach today, but haven't missed but one day yet.  A wonderful way to break between writings.  Perhaps you'll enjoy a small write I did in my journal a couple days ago:
Ocean waves scream to shore
Sunlight streams toward me
a pathway
to where?
to what?
Light
Infinity
my Self

Six and Six

Spirit works in mysterious ways.  During my meditation this morning a new title for my book came to me - "Six and Six for a Happy Life. "    Intrigued?  The whole book is about the six activities and six values that make me happy.  Now, what does Spirit have to do with this?  As I sat watching the sun begin to peek over the horizon, six pelicans flew south right in front of my glass door  (which faces due east)  over the water only a short distance away from the shore.  This confirmed my choice of words.   But, what is particularly interesting, a few minutes later, five flew back north.  What does that mean?  For weeks I've been cogitating about one of the six values - control.  I mean to write the next book about how my values have changed over the last couple of years while I studied the Medicine Wheel and became a trained shaman.   What has changed?  Control has been changed from trying to control everyone else and instead controlling my ego.  A new value has become paramount - compassion - it will replace control.  I expect I will find many of the other values have morphed into something a bit different, perhaps drastically different in the last 15 years even though they have worked perfectly during that period.  But, I must STOP looking into the future and FINISH this book! Sometimes, I get things turned upside down.

Haymonds on Christmas Day 2013

Well, here we are - having fun as usual. There is a more sophisticated photo but this one is more fun.
Christmas Eve parties were truly fun, but there's nothing like having the whole family together in one place - and it was especially convenient to have Muriel there to be the photographer!  You're looking at my two sons, their wives, and my five grandchildren.  And, all of them are much better looking than they appear here!  I pray all of you had just as much fun together with whoever was in your presence.  (whomever?)  I'm back at the cottage after napping off all the brunch food and champagne and the drive back was a piece of cake.  Almost nobody was on the roads either on the 23rd or today!  Hope it's as easy driving back to the beach in the morning.  Happy Holidays!

Christmas Day

Greetings!  I woke early when I heard Santa's reindeer prancing around on the roof.   Everyone else here is still asleep - the kids are 14 and older now, but they promised we would meet at the tree at 7:30. Here's a photo of my first-born Tate and me hamming it up at a neighborhood party last evening where we had just popped poppers and everyone is wearing the enclosed "hats".  Tate's split because, as he said, "the more I think the tighter the hatband becomes till it finally began to split."  Count on Tate to get serious enough to actually THINK at a party.  We had a grand time with the whole fifty or so of us participating in singing the Twelve Days of Christmas as a sort of a round with different groups portraying the individual animals, etc.  FUN!  Mrs. Santa Claus also visited and led the game. ……prior to the party, I enjoyed a beautiful celebration at the Methodist church Luke's family belongs to along with Susan's mother, Muriel, who drives up from The Villages each Christmas.  We'll all be together for brunch at Luke and Susan's at 11:00 and opening our Secret Santa presents.  I'll probably take a short nap before driving back to the Cottage for the night and return to Litchfield till January 1.  I am now ready to begin editing the new latest draft (I've lost count now).  LIFE IS GOOD!

Day 20 - Pelicans, Cryptique Board, etc.

Guests left so I'm back at the writing big time.  Spent an hour on the beach in a chair editing and soaking up sun at the same time.  Otherwise, nose to the grindstone inside.  Strange how easy it was to get back to it.  And, actually I'm enjoying it.  While guests were here Jesse helped get a new website initiated for me and the photo was taken by him.  Isn't it amazing what one can do with a computer!……. It's been really amazing watching pelicans migrating.  One morning there were six or seven groups of as many as 20 of them all flying south right by my window!  Each day for the last week anyway there have been groups all flying south.  Surely some will stay behind?……Yesterday was a detoxing day - been absolutely totally disregarding good food habits too long so went for just liquids yesterday and feel much better today.  (No, no wine, no beer, just good stuff.) . . . Found a "Cryptique" board here and a couple of good session with it while guests were here - very similar to Ouija boards - hadn't used one of them in ages - fun to get answers to my questions!  Much quicker than meditating for hours on end!  But, I'm still at that, too.  Become pretty natural feeling at this point.  Still not able to say I'm "blissed" out, but some peaceful moments.

Day 18 - Guests Again

Got in a couple days of hard writing beginning editing of what I had printed and then….Hallelujah!  Todd, his son Jesse and Joice, Jesse's wife, arrived last evening for a couple days of helping me relax and get ready for another focused writing period before Christmas.  Here's Jesse and Todd at work on computer problems.  What would we do without our kids to help us handle these hi-tech tools!  Joice completed the jigsaw puzzle - which took me four evenings to complete last week! - and so today we'll continue with who knows what?  Tune in tomorrow for more exciting adventures of Jaquie at Litchfield Beach.

Day 16 - 148 pages in a notebook

Yesterday was a big leap forward!  All by myself, I finally figured out how to make pdf files, get them onto a flash drive, and get all 148 pages printed at Office Depot - they are neatly arranged in a notebook - the meat of the book - now need an intro chapter and contents page and it will really look like a book!  (This is the former title, 4th or 5th one by now).  Already I've made deletions and changes in the first 4 pages - so I have much more work to do.  But at least I've got something beginning to resemble a book!  This is the 5th time I've done this so far.  By now it doesn't bear much resemblance to the first draft. . . To celebrate I got my hair split ends trimmed off at Great Clips and then to Wal-mart and bought some new undies, a candle,  and a new watch - old one died a few days ago.  Since the band was worn out and the new watch was only $26 I replaced the thing. . . .Still a bit cool, in the fifties, but looks like back into the 70s by the weekend!  WHEE - more time sitting on the beach in the sun.  Last week I actually got pink feet!   Amazing how rapidly the tan disappears. . . . . Fun watching the pelicans all fly south in straight lines - several groups do that in the mornings.  Need to watch to see if they fly back north in the evenings? . . . Disappointed to find the local coffee shop is closing.   A neat place for coffee  or tea or ice-cream and sitting on couches and reading - but enough business - so they're moving up to Surfside and selling out stuff.  Got a beautiful red hurricane-lamp-type vase for a buck - the Wal-mart candle looks serene therein.   Time to get to work.

Brookgreen Gardens

Last evening Sara and I joined hundreds of other people walking through the sculpture gardens and enjoying  a wandering bagpiper, an Irish group, and carolers along with other musical groups.  The photo of Sara photoing the tree gives you just a tiny idea of what we beheld!  50 acres of sculpture gardens with over 5000 candles. All the walks were lined with luminarias and volunteers were busily lighting them as we got there a bit before dark.  And unbelievable electric lights (such as these strung from the live oak trees).  It was truly a magical place and time.    We ended the evening with shrimp and grits and hot chocolate in a tent set up specifically to feed the hundreds.  Many different caterers were serving a multitude of great food!  We agreed that the remarkable thing was how well organized the whole affair was and how very pleasant all the people were - both the guests and the servers and other workers.  First rate - as, of course, Brookgreen Gardens always is.

Gray Morning

Supposed to be a rainy day today - began very gray - here's my thoughts:

A Gray Morning

A calm
Sun is sleeping
All is quiet
except
ocean waves from afar
reach in and speak
break loose
and dissolve
into the smooth sand.
Energy 
from the other edge
feeding my soul. 

Day 13 at Litchfield Beach -

All twelve sections of the book have now been edited on the computer!  On my way today to get  it printed so I can begin handling paper.  Still need Introduction section and perhaps an Afterword.  Sara's arrival last night is a JOY!  Hadn't had a conversation since December 1 when I left the Pond for the beach - other than with the desk clerk here when I checked in and a brief Hello each morning when I collect my breakfast items and come back to my villa.  Time for some communication and Sara makes the best kind - the wine last night helped, of course.    Sara's recuperating now with her glass of tea on the porch while I finish up morning post and then we go find Office Depot.  Already Sara is talking about renting a villa here in January!

Foggy then BRIGHT

You gotta see the difference in yesterday's fog and this morning's bright sun.  Unbelievable!  All day yesterday truly thick fog blanketed the whole area.   Today it's cold, but even through the screen - bright sunlight!   All is going well.  Good writing both days - today's the most fun - writing about reading romance novels and my sex life!  Such as it was  and isn't!  Two more sections out of the 12 to go now - travel and center stage.  Hope to get those today - writing seems to be accelerating with practice.  Or, maybe I'm just eager to get it over with?  Not really.  This is a totally fun trip I'm on. Do miss the yoga - only done one session since I came but will get in another today - neck is getting stiff.  Too much hunching over the laptop. Have to keep reminding myself to lower my shoulders and stretch out my neck.    Time to get back to it.

Day 10 Writing at Litchfield

The last four days have been very productive.  I've now finished this draft (6th one) of 8 sections out of 12.  I'm at the point where I'll be looking for a place to print out these and feel safe trashing the earlier 5 drafts of this stuff.  It is becoming easier to trash as I discover how much material I've created - probably still hanging on to too much, but that's not the point at this stage.  My goal is to get all sections perused, edited, and together in one file so that it begins to actually look like a book rather than a loose collection of possibly related writings.  I'm somewhat disheartened at times at the length of time I've already spent on this project - 3 years? -   and then I recall Joan Borysenko telling me her first book went through 14 drafts!  Fourteen!  By the way, I still think her first is her best.  "Minding the Body, Mending the Mind" is by far my favorite…….I also remember another author saying in answer to the question "How long did it take you to write this book?"  ----"40 years."  It was his first best-seller.  Perhaps more interesting to me this morning is how much I am enjoying waking and writing at whatever hour - 5:30 this morning.  At first awakening, the words flow so much more freely than after I've gotten distracted by some need - like the propane gas bill at home I had to argue about by phone yesterday.  When the distractions occur, I take a walk on the beach to recover my freedom.  Here's one more photo of serenity.  To be colder the next few days, so walks may be shorter - but still, the gentle roar of the waves crashing onto the shore is a constant thing here - inside my villa I'm only about 25 yards from the water.

Beach Findings - Day 6

Each day I find a surprise on the beach.  Today it was many small stones.  Yesterday it was a pretty-well-intact sea urchin, a strange 3-cornered stone, and an intact pen shell, both halves attached. My guidebook says you must be lucky to find one half of a pen shell intact, and you are "very lucky" to find both halves attached.  The shell is very thin and about 6 inches long. On the sea urchin, the tiny hole at the top is the anus, the mouth is on the down side.  That's the camera strap in the lower right corner.  The stones are new to me.  Don't recall ever seeing stones on a South Carolina beach before.  I'll try to get a photo of them tomorrow.   Wonder where they come from?  The ones I picked up today are smooth and mostly yellow-tan in color……..  Writing is still going well.  But today was such a beauty I spent several hours sitting on the beach reading a romance novel and soaking up the sun - too nice to be inside, especially since forecast looks like tomorrow will still be nice, but probably some rain and then - Sunday will be very much colder.

Early Morning Fog at the Beach - Day 5

If I didn't know better I'd think I woke up in London!  A thick fog.  Sun has been trying to break through for a while but still hasn't made it except for a few moments at a time.  Then when I walked over to get my complimentary instant oatmeal, cereal bars, frozen strawberries, sweetened yogurt, etc. I remembered Eugene, Oregon - how miserably gray it was for nine months out of the year.   Not foggy, but drizzling rain from September to May - not even enough for an umbrella for the locals, which I became rather soon when I discovered I was the only one carrying an umbrella.  Still enough for the clothes to always be damp and the closets full of mildew.  Once I swore I'd go back sometime when we had enough money to afford a dehumidifier!   Anyway, this is now beginning to clear and will be in the 70s again today.  Here's my screened porch which runs in front of the living area and master bedroom.  There are two more chairs to the left outside of the photo.  Writing is going very well.

Book Work

It's working!  I have now developed a plan that appears to be workable.   Finally have a solid table of contents and a pattern for sifting through the dozens of pages of writing that have lain dormant for more than a year and actually pieced one set ( 1 of 12 sections) together and have it in a new file on my computer fit for someone to read!  So, with that accomplished, a plan, I should be able to make much more rapid progress.  Had two nice 30-minute rapid-fire walks on the beach (74 degrees) a good meditation this morning, and another romance novel I can begin tonight!  What more could a woman ask for?  Oh, I have that too - some scrumptious German Chocolate   SO delicious dairy free coconut milk frozen dessert!  soy and dairy free - to die for!  Soo delicious I only ate about a 1/2 cup last evening.  Also, of course, a bit expensive.  Anyhow, all is well here - three more days of near 80 degree weather!  Hopefully not so much wind tomorrow so I can sit on the beach and roast my winter body in between work sessions.

Rising Sun at Litchfield Beach

Meditations are going very well - First evening one, yesterday.  Here's what I saw this morning from my bench.  And yesterday afternoon at low tide - facing south - my villa is just this side of the tower building.  A few walkers and runners but not often or many.  Did finally get a bit of writing done - first day, so not astoundingly interesting, but a start.  Also read a good romance novel, so I'm fired up now.

Remembering

A poem following a meditation:

Remembering

At last I see colors
Pink dots
Four, then two
then four again
Become baby blue
then tiny white lights.
Feminine and masculine  
into Me?
Am I remembering?