On Holiday from Real Life

Update: Found out there's a hotspot in the campground so I brought the laptop just to be able to communicate with my daughter, who's due to arrive here this evening. Hi, blog friends, from lovely Big Sur, California!

It’s time to shut down the busy brain for a while. We’re off to Big Sur and the beautiful California coastal redwoods this week for an annual AA campout, where the only challenge is the hike to the restrooms at night. I always come back grateful to have a bathroom with toilet, tub, and hot water in my own room. At the campground, this is my own room:

We leave behind the challenges of maintaining hearth and home. This month has been especially taxing. A new computer required, thanks to the rogue sprinkler that watered my desk through the open window. Unexpected and costly automotive work on our 11-year-old pickup was another blow. I’m thankful we had a savings account. My head, as usual, wants to add a cranky “But” to that last statement, but I won’t let it.

Got almost no sleep last night, thanks to my head and its itty-bitty-shitty committee. So I’m punishing it by making it stand in the corner today. This is what it looks like:

Notice the condition of its nose. It has suffered from nosing around in places that are none of its business. In AA, we are reminded over and over again that our business is between our noses and the back of our heads. Everything from our nose outward is none of our business. When I try to exert control over the world Out There, I’m mucking about in someone else’s business without skill. My head likes to think it is skilled at that work, but I’ve noticed a total lack of success in that department and I suspect my head suffers from denial and delusion.

So, it’s off to the woods with us, without cell phone coverage, wi-fi, or any other distractions. We sleep in a tent and cook on a propane stove, and there are no schedules to keep, no bills to pay. Well, I can’t forecast the bills part. Lord willing, and the creek don’t rise….

And I got a big miracle sendoff: My dead watered computer rose from the dead!!!! The mail came as we were packing, and in it, my resurrected friend!!!! The tech guys, whilst doing the autopsy, found the corpse still breathing, patched it up and sent it home. Miracles happen!!!! I'm a happy camper! (And I had just got the new "puppy" trained.... Well, I guess our young housemate has got herself a computer, courtesy her grandfather and me. It was a happy moment all around.)

In the Forest Primeval

In the green light of the forest
you heave the ax over your head
and swing it down to bite the log
with a solid whack!
I ready the stove, the cast-iron pans,
doing the womanly thing
watching you crack the logs,
and in this forest primeval
it all feels so perfectly right
right now.

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This is a Friday Flash 55, a tale told in exactly 55 words. It’s hosted by the G-Man, Mr. Knowitall, and you’ll find dozens of storytellers on his blog today.

A Few Days in Paradise

The California coastline was blocked by fog most of the way north, but this one shining cove revealed itself for my camera. We've stopped the car about halfway up to Big Sur for this shot, all those mountain ranges on the right still to cover.

I'm half crazed with the tiredness that follows such a trip but wanted to check in and say we made there and back. We had women's meetings, men's meetings, bonfire meetings, art meetings, decoupage meetings, and sculpting with found objects meeting over the picnic table. On the right is flying Root Man, and he is held up by granite and Flying Root Woman and the breath of its maker, 6-month Julia, on the right.

Julia is one of those newcomers who Gets It. She has been the joy of the past six months and is on her ninth step. She doesn't even mind when surrounded by old timers and middle timers and people who would could be her mother's age (moi).

We had the usual hodgepodge of AA people from our county. People shared their choice dinners, and Joe took up one of his blue-ribbon carrot carrot cakes and his ever-popular scones.

I didn't hike much because my hips are bothering me, but I did take a nice slide in the river unexpectedly, and found the water very nice, thank you.

This is our Earth Mother on the left and her black Mustang. She makes outstanding fajitas and maintains a loving curiosity about everything. She nearly has three years of sobriety and is another one "getting It." The shot on the right is our farewell espresso at Gorda with Julia and Joe ready to hit the road home. And home is where the heart is, right? Just be thankful for what you got, and where you go, be blessed by God.

No redwood trees photophraphed, no banana slugs, nothing of wide nature in her glorious best, but here's one of nature's own sculptures:

Things I am grateful for today:

Safe travel on a curvaceous road. Short AA speakers who get right to the point of how they stay sober today. The sound a river sings at night. Laughter. Beautiful daughters and aunts who babysite our critters while we're gone. My sobriety today. Espresso. Granite and feldspar. The heat here will be falling 20 degrees tomorrow.

And blogging. I missed my blogger while I was gone