a traveler's heart song

there are songs made of confusion, chaos, leaving and love.

there are bags made out of recycled pop bottles that can hold your pens, journals, postage stamps.

there are political revolutions made out of heartaches transformed.

there are bicycles that fold up so small you can put them in a suitcase.

there are podcasts with poets who are no longer living, but yet still are sharing wisdom -- heartfelt, wholehearted.  and books about daring greatly, falling down, rising strong.

there is green grass (so green it glows), blue sky, white clouds, yellow dandelions. 

there is cold air -- brisk, fresh.  and warm air that turns sea to mist.

there are ways to navigate that require no instruments, ways to travel that require no movement. 

once I stood on a mountaintop and breathed in the sky.  

today I have a headdress made of clouds, boots made of waves, jewelry made of stars.  

 

~ by dawn on a mountain, April 2016 and dawn on a sailboat, August 2016

 

Rainy day. Repairs. On the water in Rhode Island...

Rainy day. Repairs. On the water in Rhode Island.

Yesterday was laundry day. Laundry day is a little different when you live on a boat on a mooring ball in the middle of a bay.

Today we are doing important maintenance and repairs on the head (toilet) hoses and holding tanks of #SVDeepPeace .

Tomorrow or Thursday will be bilge cleaning. Yum! (No. Not really.)

This little book (see photo below) is helping me keep my sense of humor. It was left on the boat (with loads of other very useful things) by the previous owner. Each time we open another drawer or look into another storage space we are overwhelmed by the previous owner's attention to detail and organization skills. We are super lucky to be the owners of this particular boat.

There are some not fun parts of boat ownership and some steep learning curves, but this is true of almost everything. Most of the fun things come with their own particular challenges to overcome. Once we get the chores done, the fun can begin. (Right? Someone please say I'm right about this.)

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My beautiful, smelly life.

What? Smelly? Yep. The boat cabin has a bad smell, actually a couple of bad smells. We have spent the past two days trying to determine the sources and fix the problem. One of the smells is just your basic run of the mill mildew. A thorough cleaning from top to bottom will get rid of it, most likely. The other is more like porta-potty and has the effect of making me insta-irritable. Ah. New adventures and new challenges. Found a book online that promises to help solve ALL boat odor problems. It only comes in physical form, so my goal today is to find a nearby address where I can have it delivered ASAP.

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for Adam

For Adam who is in Rhode Island doing what needs to be done to close on our new home/sailboat while I am in Colorado attending my son, Jordan's, graduation from airplane mechanic school.

By the end of today we could officially be the owners of a 43 foot Shannon sailboat named Deep Peace.

We are feeling very, very lucky, and not just because we found such a great boat. We have had a lot of lucky breaks in this life. We don't take our good fortune for granted. We are so grateful.

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What was the question?

What was the question?

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”   ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

 

What are the questions *you* are living today?  

 

Here are some questions I have been asking myself:

If (and please note that this is a playful, curious if), If it is true that some higher or broader or metaphysical *ME* has invited all of the events, situations, and people that populate my life;  What is that *ME* trying to teach me?   In other words, What can I learn from this situation or this person?  

If there is some deep truth in this quote by Rabindranath Tagore, “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”;   How can I be of service in this very moment? 

If it is true that a practice of gratitude brings joy;  What can I be grateful for in this very moment, in this very situation, in this very interaction?  When is the last time that I practiced “Counter-Intuitive Gratitude” and how did that affect my physiology, my emotions, and my outlook?  Have I taken a moment to be grateful for the gifts I have been given and for the beauty right in front of me? 

If it is true that we live in a “post fact world” (as the author of this article postulates:  http://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/ );  How can I come to know the most important truths?  

If it is true that we should be very careful about what we ask for;  What do I *really* want?  What do I deeply yearn for?

How do I want to be in the world today?  What do I want to contribute?  What do I have to offer? 

 

What do *you* deeply yearn for?  

What are the questions you ask yourself in your daily life?  

 

Me?  I usually find that if I just come to a full stop and sit quietly and listen inside until it gets very quiet in my bodymind, something soothing and nourishing and difficult to describe in words becomes apparent.  Sometimes it takes a longer amount of quiet than other times for this to happen.

 

 

 

Where to begin?

Since we bought this domain name (circumdance.com) and opened a SquareSpace account with the intention of learning (in a leisurely manner) how to build a website and keep it up to date.....

~ We sold our house (to former AirBNB guests) before actually putting it on the market.  April 11th, 2016 to May 25th (closing day) was a whirlwind blur of activity.  We had hoped to get the house on the market by Dawn's birthday (April 11th), but we knew we were going to miss that date because we wanted to complete a few more house projects before officially showing it.  Instead, we were informed that Brittany & Michael definitely wanted to buy it and were ready to go under contract.

~ Dawn went to the Colorado Democratic Convention to be a Delegate for Bernie Sanders on April 16th & 17th.

~ We helped Dawn's Mom find an apartment and move into it.

~ Adam worked his last day as a Pitkin County Sheriff's Deputy on May 18th, wrapping up an 18 year long career in Law Enforcement.  (Hey look, we match, Dawn's career at 9-1-1 was also 18 years: 1995-2013.)

~ Dawn hosted her last AirBNB guest at Sol House and let go of her coveted status as an AirBNB SuperHost.

~ We downsized from a 2300 square foot home on 3 acres near Carbondale, Colorado to a 29 foot long RV with no permanent parking place, two weeks before Adam's entire family arrived for their already planned Colorado vacation.  

~ to be continued.....   I have to go meet with a boat broker right now (Noon, July 11th, 2016)

Confabulation Challenge

In the spirit of April Fools, I offer you the Confabulation Challenge.  

Confabulation is, basically, a very specific kind of making shit up.  It is an awesome superpower.  Actually it's a super common power.  Pretty much all of us not only can do it, but we do it quite often, without even realizing we are doing it.  (One of the main reasons why eye-witness accounts are unreliable and shouldn't be solely relied upon to condemn people to jail or worse.)

In my mind Confabulation is the three way lovechild of Story Telling, Can't Remember, and Pattern Recognition;  not too distantly related to Spin Doctor, Placebo, Nocebo, and Liar Pantsafire.  All of these are in the common, human superpower family.  

"Art is a confabulation. Perhaps only with the addition of confabulation can art deliver its wizardry and magic. Scientifically defined, confabulation is the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories. In the art of art, falsehood gets to a deeper truth."

 ~ Robert Genn

Confabulation

    ▸ noun:  (psychiatry) a plausible but imagined memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered

    ▸ noun:  an informal conversation

So what's the challenge?  

Just for today (or for as long as you like) tell yourself something fabulous about you.  

Something like.....

You are a creative, wise, witty, lighthearted, healthy, strong, flexible, loving, creative, sexy genius.  

Now spend the rest of the day "remembering" all the ways this is true.  Prove it to yourself.  

Then tomorrow, or next week, or whenever you like, you can try the same "trick" on a loved one....  prove to them that they, too, are the best versions of themselves, by "remembering" all the times that they were fabulous.  

It's a fun game.  I promise.  You could even ask my friend, Cate.  We play it all the time when we are together.  Remember, Cate?