maybe to love is not so strange
2012
Ok. So. The past year and the year to come.
2011 had a lot of transitions. The word “transitions” makes me smile because we do so many transitions riding horses, and we work for those transitions to be clean, precise, forward. Not muddy. Not sloppy. Walk-trot. Trot-halt. Can-ter. Not rushed. With good rhythm. Without bracing. So much.
2011 had a lot of transitions. Our foundation bred goat, our dog, our big horse all died, all very significant to our lives and the life of the farm. But three new goats came and while they haven’t yet proven their usefulness to the farm, they seem on their way. And two new dogs came to stay, as well as some temporary puppies. And the little horse came. My life at barn one became unbearable, but in that I learned something about my power (like, if I put on a bearskin – and the truth of that matter is that the bearskin is coming back out too, but only for one person who dared to hug me instead of shake my hand in a business deal). And I found a life that has at least different potential at another barn. The hours are harder, the riding more, the work easier, the owners of my own cultural milieu. I found some people and some horses that I really really like at the new barn, no surprise. I think it is a place of much loyalty, a place to grow. Two cars died, four were junked. Someone bought the neighboring land for next to nothing (although the property assessors probably won’t decrease “land values” because of it for tax purposes). My goodness, even the stupid neighbors have taken down their light up swans over the holidays.
Some of those transitions made it seem to me to be a hard year.
Plus we had no girls’ weekend mostly because of my new job and me being unwilling to take time away from it a month after I got it.
But in the garden it was a year with a lot of cooperation, really the first year where we all worked at it, although as always I would be considered the slacker there. One daughter got much needed braces, without tooth extractions or jaw work. The house, while still somewhat of a mess (I can’t imagine living in a museum) got some areas of organization that work for what we’re doing now. The cottage industries continued to come ever more into their own. The family began some studies as a group. And as in the job, there is a lot of potential floating around.
This past year gas and food prices went up; technology and land prices went down. There is a lot of unrest (OWS) and unease (Tea Party), and not only at home (US) but the world over. The internet has made censorship all but impossible, with the only exception seeming to be the totally closed N. Korea. Although people with an ax to grind won’t ever even look at the other sides’ information, if talk radio is not balanced by NPR (and vice versa), well, there are consequences. You choose the method, you choose the results. It ain’t pretty, that one-sidedness (like only working your horse to the left). The entire world is in denial about there being an actual limit on the amount of energy available to be consumed, a limit to growth, a limit to jobs, an actual meaning that affects your every day choices to morality.
I do think there will be huge changes coming for the world in 2012. I still so vividly remember when the first inklings of 2012 came into my head. I don’t know what those changes will be and I don’t have any predictions. I suppose the thing I think possible that would be the biggest cataclysm would be lack of food. Americans think their grocery stores are always full. Dear fat people: you won’t always have access to 8000 calories a day. Or to unlimited medical care. I think gas will be $5/gal by the summer, although it will go down again when even people like me find they can’t afford to go to work anymore. I believe that what is considered wealth might well change, for the masses and for the elite. I believe that if you write down what is right now, next year the world will indeed have come to an end by having changed more than you can even think about right now. I believe as much as the world changed between 2006 and now, it will change that much in 2012 alone.
What I wish/hope for 2012 is: more love; more room; less defense; more cooperation (without punctuation)
Those transitions bear more work: you know up-down-up-down develops balance, strength, collection, self-carriage. I'm also pretty sure I need some Dan Fogelberg music back in my life -- do you know how many Dan Fogelberg song lyrics I looked up to find the title of this post? I think I'm in a really good place to be full of myself, to not shrink. I think I am with the greatest set of people ever. Yeehaw.
6 comments:
I think you are too. :-)
I love your blog, and always look forward to seeing you show up in my rss. We've had a year of transitions, so I can feel what you are saying, with one caveat: I am fat and have never ate let alone had access to 8,000 calories a day. Not even close. Nice bit of stereotyping :/
sorry but stereotypes happen. I've never personally seen a fat person who didn't seriously eat a LOT. And move very little. Also, get a profile. I dislike Anonymous!
And also on the fat, while I could relate anecdote after anecdote, in that particular paragraph I'm talking about our level of consumption, the arrogance of our sense of entitlement. And facts is facts, when I was a kid, one kid in my class was fat and now that kid would almost be a normal kid. People eat too much. People who are not fat are not not fat by accident or by luck but by a series of choices that by and large go against the culture, the dominant paradigm.
btw, I have a BMR need for calories of nearly 1300/day -- and that is if I stay in bed. Hubby's is 1800. So fat people have to eat an incredible number of calories and move incredibly little to stay fat. And that is just science and fact, not stereotype. Just as is the fact that western types exploit the people and environment of the rest of the world to maintain our lifestyle that Cheney said wasn't negotiable.
Choose differently.
and just continuing to think on this: can the idea of "fat" be thought/talked about without "people who are fat" being talked about? This reminds me of my cousin the school teacher who takes it as a personal affront that my children are not in school and that I don't think government education is the best thing ever. She says, and I quote, "You can't say that. I'm a school teacher and I love those kids."
I saw a friend yesterday who is obese. I hadn't thought of her at all in regards to this post. Or anyone specific (again mostly because I was thinking about the whole overconsumption of our culture, which happens to be exemplified by the obesity of people). But at the same time, fat doesn't generate itself.
. . . .
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