Community

People ask how I'm liking retirement.  They ask how the assignments are working out.  M, my slow travel expert, asks how I'm connecting with people and places while I'm traveling. Do I have intentions to become part of the communities in which I stay?  If so, what will I do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to see what's available to me?

To answer the first two questions:  I'm loving it. I was  mainly exploring during my time in northern CA, as well as setting up logistics.  And of course, I started with the sister trip in May, and in June had a week with G in San Francisco and its environs.  Now I'm in the first few weeks of my second longest assignment:  Claremont, CA. I'm trying to set up a practice and writing schedule. I am following through on my daily texts and 4 minute diaries and budget entries, but otherwise  I'm most successful at walking dogs and swimming laps in the house pool.  Other than feeling guilty for being so unproductive, I'm ridiculously happy with this. I send messages about the triple digit weather to obviate my guilt:  see, it's TOO HOT to explore, my asthma kicks in if I'm out in this poor air quality for too long, etc etc.  But really, I need to stop focusing on that. As Abraham (Esther Hicks) would say, I need to activate something better than guilt, something more vibrationally satisfying than asthma.  Or, as the Buddha would say, I need to stop focusing on desire, the desire to be an admirable self.

In my need to be productive, I am not seeing the reality, which is perfectly delightful.  I have dogs to cuddle, books to read (or listen to), tomatoes to harvest from the garden, good pinot grigio to drink.  When I feel sleepy, I go out to the pool, usually sans suit.  I take a slow breast stroke/scissors kick towards the deep end and the sitting garden, looking at the tall bird of paradise trees, the flower arch with bright pink blooms, the little smiling turtle light.  At night, the arch is outlined in tiny white lights, and the solar lights in jars line up along the pool.  I reach the end of the pool and lean back for the even slower side wiggle back stroke.  At the shallow end, I flip my feet under me and go back towards the garden and the deep end.  The water is warm later in the day, cool in the morning, silky on my skin.  Sometimes the surface is dusted with pollen and little seeds and occasionally I dodge a fuzzy insect body, pushing it towards the filter or away to the side.  Although I am swimming laps, I do not count them or work at them.  I swim until I don't feel like swimming any more.  Sometimes I lie on the lounge chair, baking both sides before sliding back into the now-chilly water.  Sometimes I read, sometimes I listen to an audio book, the ipad carefully placed in the shade under the plastic side table.  Sometimes I nap, but not too long.  Even with sun-screen, I don't want to hazard this heat for too long.  The dogs come out through the kitchen flap and circle the pool, watching me and then finding a shady place to wait while I finish what I am doing.  They are very attentive to me, as the source of food and cuddles and walks.

I did look into some things to explore.  As with Santa Rosa, my host had some ideas of things to do:  the Huntington Gardens, the Arcadia Arboretum, 4th of July fireworks, the Botanic Garden, Monday night concerts in the Park, Temecula wineries, Santa Monica 3rd street shopping, Long Beach, Descanso Gardens.  Then, as M suggested, I looked into ways to be part of the community.  The Chamber of Commerce had a calendar of events and activities for Visitors, and I discovered the Claremont Forum as well.  The result is a Google Calendar filled with events that I may or may not attend:  outdoor concerts (it's TOO HOT), the weekly Farmer's Market, art exhibits, Shakespeare in the Park (Much Ado, and Hamlet, quite the contrast.) Those were not really ways to connect with the community, so I looked at classes and music offerings.  I am now involved in the Vocal Forum, classes put on Wednesday nights by the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, and as an offshoot of that, I'm singing in their summer choir.  On Sunday, the communion music was provided by an excellent violin/flute duo, so I approached the violinist after church and asked her about local amateurs with whom I could play (she was clearly a professional.)  She took my number, and we'll see.  Today I connected with a fabric artist who teaches Japanese at the Claremont Forum, and we're booked for a single session at $50 to get me started on my studies in preparation for the December gig in Nagano.

These are all pleasant ways to occupy my time, but they don't feel necessary.  It's nice to have something to write about in my daily texts, of course, and it soothes my guilt to think that I'm being productive. The vocal class even got me to get out my violin and do some practicing, thereby justifying both my Housesitter Profile title (Musical Librarian) and the space and logistical issues caused by lugging the instrument around.  Today I practiced voice, violin, and Tai Chi Chih, And now I'm writing.  So, see?  I'm being productive!  

But....I don't really feel invested in any of this.  I am happy just being.  My day has a pleasant arc to it:  wake up to the meowing cat, pet the dogs.  If it's early enough, take a walk, either before or after breakfast for all 4 of us.  Sit with coffee and toast and the crossword.  Check email and Facebook.  Then progress with the day.  Do I need to go shopping, clean up the house, water plants?  Do I have something scheduled for the day?  Do I want to log into Tutor.com and float, in hopes of some tutoring sessions?  Do I want to write?  Practise?  Swim?  Listen to an audio book and knit?  Write?   Call a friend or family member?   Eventually, I take a nap, sometimes inadvertently.  Soon it's 5 pm, and time to look at the evening. If I have nothing scheduled, do I still need to walk the dogs?  Go to class?  Log in for a tutoring session?  I need to send a text to the folks who are tracking me, reassuring them that I'm still alive and well.  And the next thing I know, it's time for bed.  The dogs, who have been following me all day, follow me there as well, and we all settle in. I don't feel like I've wasted the day, but what have I done?  As I texted once, don't know where this day went. Surely I didn't spend the whole day sitting under a dog and coloring online?  'Fraid so.  And that's fine.  When it's time to get active, I'll get active.  And phooey on the whole meditating (Buddha) and examining (Plato) options. That's another sort of desire, it seems, the desire to reach some sort of meaning or nirvana, to have purpose in my life. Right now my purpose is to keep someone else's fur babies happy, and that seems sufficient.

All of this begs the question:  am I lonely?  I don't seem to be.  The difference between working and living in a community and house-sitting in random places seems to be one of focus.  When I was caregiving for E, I was living like this, but I felt trapped by the 24/7 responsibility of it, and I felt like I had to get out in the larger community and make music and see people.  When I was working in libraries, I felt trapped by the schedule, and my health was compromised so that I didn't get out into the community enough.  Now, I'm in a 24/7 situation of sorts, but I am free to get out when and how I want. And now I find that I don't want to get out much.  All of that need for community and activity was apparently manufactured by some other need:  the need to escape my entrapment.  I find that, while  I miss my PDX and ABQ and Taos and WitsEnd peeps, and I feel wistful about the various groups with which I've been involved, I'm not lonely. It helps that I have the internet, but mainly it helps that this is what I want. 

I think about this. L, when she was dowsing, said that I needed a community.  When I was video chatting with W, she said that people who live happily into old age do so when they are in a community.  So, the question seems to be, what constitutes a community?  Is it the physical contact?  I get that with the dogs and cats.  Is it the emotional contact?  I get that through correspondence and chatting.  Is it meeting needs?  I get that through emergency contacts and activism. Is it passion?  I don't seem to have that, but I do manage to find music wherever I go. Is it relationships?  That's the missing link, it seems:  can relationships be sustained long-distance?  Does a community need to be local?  Are the social and personal networks sufficient?  Now that I'm no longer trapped and I seem to have what I want, do I have what I need?  Do I have a focus?  Do I have a community?

Time will tell.  Or my heart will.  Or both.