Building Bridges

Sitting in the living room in Southern California on a gray Sunday, I pull my sweater closer about me. I’m projecting myself into the new (for us) house in Northern California, where it is a bit cooler, and rainier, and more exposed to the elements.

Heretofore, I’ve been unable to imagine living anywhere else but here. Today, the image of the new living room pops in my head as I sit on this old couch that will be against a new wall, but in similar relationship to the coffee table and other furniture as it is now configured in the old house.

Old house. New house. Same spouse. I can’t grouse.

Together, we decided to move. Together we are chucking and packing. Together we grumble about how hard it is to say G’Bye to friends, family... even familiar strangers - like María, the egg lady at Sunday’s Farmer’s Market. We’ve watched her kids grow from lap-sitters to minding their own stalls on Sundays. María always asks, “Como está la nieta?” How is your granddaughter?

Today, I hugged her. Who knows whether I’ll ever see her again? Perhaps not, but it's the amazing heart magnet of that very granddaughter María asks about that pulls us northward. Go we must! Irresistible!

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Younger daughter Megan made a scrumptious apple pie for Thanksgiving here. 

I watched Thursday morning, and marveled at her adept fingers as she double-crusted her creation and adorned it with shiny egg-glazed dough leaves.

Some of the dough is left-over in our ‘fridge. 

I roll it out to make some heart-shaped sugar cookies for Mark to take to the new house. He’ll hang out there for a few days, and meet with some carpenter folk to get some odd jobs done before we move-in. I'll stay behind, finishing up my work with clients… oh, and packing and chucking, chucking and packing. 

Building bridges from old to new seems easier with continuity. I hope he may be able to taste the love… here and there.

It is odd, and a little bit sad to think of not being in the familiar surround. It’s odd, and a little bit exciting to think of all the newness we must acclimate to... it’s the “top of the roller coaster” kind of exciting. I must remember that it doesn’t go straight down, but rather round some curves and up again. Aaah... that’s better. Knitting a bridge takes imagination. I can see myself crocheting and looking out at the rain falling on the new backyard. I can hear the same thirst of the land slurping up the divine moisture.

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I wonder if all Californian’s can manifest rain by imagining it falling where ever we live?

Did a conscious Creator whomp up the Garden of Eden by imagining it? 

Could we build a bridge from this crazy world in which we live, to one in which life is valued, Earth is honored, and animosity, greed, and war are such dim memories that we cannot find our way back to the old way of being - simply by projecting ourselves into the future by way of our imaginative thought waves? 

I’m going to try it out. I’ll let you know how it goes... from Oakland; site of the next adventure.