#so my whole space is cluttered with items from people or moments that have meant something to me
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Rebirth
(Another quarantine fic...guess this is a thing now...I had a great idea for what I assumed would be a short fic and, lo, it was over 4500 words...)
Shock
Crowley was visiting the bookshop when they learned about the lockdown.
An alert buzzed on his mobile, and he read the article, slowly, into the stunned silence.
“Ah.” Aziraphale set down his stack of books on a nearby table. “I suppose that explains why it’s been so quiet lately.”
“You seriously didn’t notice?”
“I knew something was happening, but,” he flapped his hands, trying to find the words. His mind seemed to be having trouble keeping up with the news. “Oh, I don’t know.”
Crowley frowned. “Are you going to be alright here?”
“I don’t see why not. I have plenty to read, and enough wine to last three months if I must, never mind three weeks.”
“Nh. It’s like the fourteenth century all over again.” Crowley leapt off the sofa, uncoiling in a single, graceful movement, mobile phone vanishing into a pocket. “Really thought we’d seen the end of this sort of thing.”
“Yes, I…” Aziraphale trailed off. He watched numbly as his hands adjusted the books, again and again. “Yes.”
Crowley’s hand appeared from nowhere, landing on his wrist. Aziraphale watched it glide across the back of his hand, fingers twisting around his, guiding his hand towards…something. If Crowley spoke, Aziraphale didn’t hear a word of it.
“I told you, I’m fine.” He tugged his hand free, started to walk away, realized he didn’t know where to go. “I don’t need…I’m fine…”
“I can leave,” Crowley said evenly. “If you want.”
“You don’t have to.”
A creak of floorboards as he stepped closer. “Or I can stay. Long as it takes.”
“You don’t have to.” Aziraphale couldn’t turn around to meet his gaze.
A long pause while Aziraphale waited for a thought, any thought, to drift across his mind.
“You know what we need?” Crowley’s voice was suddenly very loud, full of far too much cheer. “Tea. Good cup of tea. Let’s see…”
While the kettle boiled, Crowley guided Aziraphale with hands on his shoulders until the angel sat in his armchair. Rushed off and returned with a steaming white mug of very strong tea, pressing it into Aziraphale’s strangely cold hands.
“Drink this, Angel, you’ll feel better.”
“Crowley,” he started softly, staring at the mug in his hands. “This mug is for cocoa. The teacups are in the other cupboard, next to the sugar bowl.”
Crowley snorted and somehow launched himself back onto the sofa, landing in a sprawl of limbs. “Well. That’s it for me. Guess I’ll just wait here until the Tea Police come arrest me for my crimes.”
His mobile was back in his hands, but every now and then his eyes (hidden by the glasses, but Aziraphale knew how they moved) flicked up to watch the angel sip his tea.
--
Denial
The next morning, Aziraphale bustled about his shop, putting papers back in order, rearranging books. He’d had the scientific treatises out front, but really that was much to heavy for these times. People wanted nice, light novels. Which meant a complete reorganization.
“I don’t know why you bother, Angel,” Crowley started, trailing behind him as he bustled about.
“Oh, hush. Here, take this…” He handed over the volumes of Pliny’s Natural History, “…over to the Classics section.”
“You have a Classics section? Thought it was all random.”
“Don’t be absurd. It’s there, fourth shelf, next to the cookbooks. And while you’re over there, grab, oh…Frankenstein, I should think, as many copies as I have.”
The demon trotted off, giving Aziraphale a moment’s peace to sort through some books of poetry.
“Seriously, though,” Crowley’s voice boomed across the empty shop. “It’s not like you’re going to let anyone buy they anyway.”
“It’s the principle of the thing, my dear fellow.” He selected a book for his own reading later, then started sorting the rest alphabetically by the first line of the twelfth page. “I run this shop in a certain way, which has remained unchanged for over two centuries. And part of that system is anticipating customer needs and putting out almost, but not quite, what they’re looking for. If you see Candide on your way past, grab that, too.”
A few moments later, a stack of books thumped onto the table, as Crowley continued to show his reckless disregard for the conditions of their spines.
“Jolly good. You know how I like them stacked. English on the bottom, French on top, and mix the copies of Frankenstein with, ah…these.” He slid over a few volumes of Percy Shelley’s poetry.
Grumbling, Crowley began arranging the books. “I don’t know why you’re in such a rush.”
“We need to make the most of this time, before customers start coming back.”
“They aren’t coming back, not any time soon. You know how it goes. It’s going to take a lot more than three weeks, and after that, people won’t be in the mood for your particular brand of psychological warfare for a long time.”
“Nonsense,” Aziraphale snapped, “you’re just upset I’m not allowing you to laze about as you always do. If you’re going to be here for three weeks, you may as well make yourself useful.”
Which was when he made the mistake of glancing up.
Crowley had taken off his glasses at some point, and when Aziraphale met those bright yellow eyes, he entirely forgot how to breathe.
There was a glow to them, an intensity that perhaps had always been there but was usually hidden behind dark glass, filtered, made safe for his consumption, but now –
The angel quickly gathered as many books as he could. “I just need to. These. Over there.” He rushed off before Crowley could say anything.
When he was safely hidden among the shelves, Aziraphale tried to force his hands to stop shaking. Told himself firmly that he hadn’t seen what he thought he saw.
Demons simply weren’t capable of…feelings like that. Well known fact. Oh, he knew Crowley was very fond of him, and he valued their friendship, more than anything. Even more, now that they didn’t need to hide it, meeting like spies in the park, never quite looking at each other as they exchanged notes.
Which was why Aziraphale was absolutely not going to ruin things by saying…by admitting to feelings that Crowley didn’t reciprocate, however much Aziraphale imagined that he did.
Taking a deep breath, the angel stepped back into the main space of the shop. His eyes, of their own accord, shot over to Crowley’s face, but the glasses were back where they belonged.
Good. That made things easier.
Crowley held a stack of psychology texts, studies of human nature and the like. “Right, where does this pile of nonsense go?”
“Oh, put them down,” Aziraphale sighed in defeat. “You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”
“Angel.” He took a step forward, face very serious. “I want to.”
Even with the glasses in place, Aziraphale’s heart flipped over itself. “Ah. Right. Over here, then.”
--
Frustration
They made it almost an entire week without fighting.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to put your feet on my furniture?”
“Why does it even matter? I can always miracle the scrapes off.”
“But I still know they’re there!”
“They’re not there, that’s the point!” Crowley brought his heels down on the coffee table so sharply the teacups and wine glasses clattered against each other. “But what is there is this pain in my back from sleeping on a sofa because you never bothered to get a bed. So if I want to stretch out, I’m going to stretch out!”
“Crowley, you are a guest here, and I suggest you act like it!”
“Oh, I’m a guest now? Then you’re a lousy host.” He slammed his feet onto the floor and stood up, gathering items off the table. “Look at this. Look at all this bloody mess, covering every blessed surface in this shop. Teacups, wine bottles, glasses, plates, don’t you ever clean up?”
“You can just miracle them clean if a bit of clutter bothers you that much.”
“A bit of clutter? A bit?” He marched over to the sink, dropping everything in with a clatter that made Aziraphale wince. “You’re impossible! There’s no way to think with all this – this mess everywhere I turn. And you won’t let me clean any of it!” His long arm gestured grandly, taking in the whole shop.
“Mess? Mess? I’ll have you know this is a carefully organized system of –”
“There are books all over the floor!”
“That’s where they belong!”
“I can’t stand another minute of this – this – this!” Crowley stalked across the shop, fingers in his pockets, with a scowl that could shatter mirrors. “I could be in my own bloody flat, without the mess, with the bed, and no bloody nagging angel in my face every time I try to move!”
“Well, leave if you want! You don’t have to stay, I never asked you to!”
Crowley spun towards him, jaw clenched, too much emotion boiling around the edges of his glasses. “Fine.” He turned back towards the door. “Fine. Have a nice –”
Aziraphale didn’t even stop to think.
He crossed the shop faster than Crowley could, planted himself in front of the door.
“Don’t.”
“You just told me I could leave. What is this, some angelic power trip?”
“I know what I said!” Aziraphale crossed his arms, trying to block the exit entirely. “And I meant it. You can leave any time you want. But not…I don’t…”
I don’t want you to leave angry.
I don’t want to drive you away.
I don’t want to be alone.
But the words couldn’t find their way to his mouth. He just stood there, face hot, eyes blinking far more than he meant them to.
Crowley spun again, and for a moment Aziraphale thought he would simply walk out the back exit.
Instead, he pulled open the metal gate on the stairs. “I’ll be on the roof. Don’t follow me!”
The wrought iron crashed shut behind him.
--
They fought many more times over the next week. Crowley stormed off to the roof, again and again, but he never tried to leave.
Each argument left Aziraphale more and more drained.
--
Depression
“Angel?”
“Mmmm?” He didn’t look up from his book. He’d been staring at the same page for hours.
“Aziraphale.”
Finally, he let his gaze drift up, met the gaze of those black lenses. Crowley crouched beside his chair, folded arms on the armrest. He wasn’t angry now. His voice was very soft as he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Aziraphale tried to smile, held it in place as best he could. “My dear boy, why…why would anything be wrong?”
“You haven’t moved all day. You haven’t spoken in even longer. And that book is upside-down.”
“Ah.” Aziraphale shut the book, placed it aside. “I just need…that is…I’m just…”
“Are you hungry? I can try to make something.”
He felt the smile falling apart. “Oh. No, I’ve…I’ve no appetite at all, really.”
“Tea?”
He shook his head.
“Do you want to go for a walk? We can go around the park. The ducks should be there.” He glanced at the windows. “It’s not a great day, but that just means there won’t be a crowd.”
“Oh, no I…no.” He found he was shaking, and his eyes were very wet. “No. I…I don’t know what it is I need.”
He did, though. But it wasn’t something he could ask of Crowley. Not without jeopardizing what they already had. Their friendship was on tenuous enough ground these days.
And Crowley…placed his hands on Aziraphale’s, gently pulled him to his feet.
“Come on, Angel. Your turn on the sofa. You need to stretch out, get comfortable.”
“You said you can’t stretch out on it.”
“Well, you’re shorter than me. It won’t be as bad.”
Aziraphale let Crowley guide him to the sofa, and settled down on the cushions, lying on his side. It was a tight fit, but it did feel good to be in a new position.
“They extended the lockdown again, didn’t they?”
“Nh. Still no official end date. Could be end of May. Or June. Or September.”
Crowley continued moving around, but Aziraphale didn’t watch him, instead staring ahead at nothing in particular. “Was it always this bad? I don’t remember it being this bad, back in the plague years.”
“Well…different sort of bad, I suppose.” Crowley draped a thick tartan blanket over Aziraphale, wrapping it tight. He hadn’t realized he was cold, but it felt so much better. “But it’s only temporary. We’ll get through this. The world will get through it.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were supposed to be free. Able to do…do everything we wanted…no Heaven or Hell holding us back…”
“Angel,” his voice was so very soft. “We are free. There’s nothing holding you…holding either of us back anymore. Whatever it is you want…”
“No, Crowley. Don’t ask me.”
“As you wish.” He held out a pillow, and Aziraphale shifted, lifting his head up to make room for Crowley to slide it underneath. Instead, the demon squeezed himself onto the end of the couch, pillow in his lap, and gently pushed Aziraphale’s head to rest on it. “Is this alright?”
“Crowley you…you don’t have to do this…”
“Yes. I do.” His fingers gently ran through Aziraphale’s curls. “Are you comfortable now?”
Aziraphale bit his lip, not even able to speak. He just nodded his head, soaking in the warmth, the closeness, the sense of belonging. He hoped Crowley couldn’t see the tear rolling off his nose.
“Right. Now.” Crowley held up the book of poetry Aziraphale had been reading, and opened it to the first page.
All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around til I was come
Back to where I’d started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
“Oh,” Crowley paused, his stiff but lovely voice tumbling to a halt. “Ah, this one sounds a little depressing. Maybe I should…”
“No, it’s…it’s fine. It’s a little long, though, so perhaps…”
“If you want this one, I’ll read it.” Crowley cleared his throat and continued.
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me;
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand…
And so he continued, voice becoming more relaxed across the two hundred lines, fingers tracing gently through Aziraphale’s curls, until, for the first time in many decades, the angel drifted off to sleep.
--
Experiment
The next day, Aziraphale took his cup of tea and his book, and sat in the corner of the sofa.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did Crowley, though he did shift a little bit. Making room? Or pulling away?
They sat like that for much of the day, occasionally talking, mostly just soaking in the silence. It was tense now, but a different sort of tension.
--
The next day, Aziraphale sat on the sofa again, but not quite as tightly into the corner. And the next, and the next, every day moving a little closer. At the end of the week, he was so close they nearly touched.
Crowley still hadn’t said anything to acknowledge the change, hardly even looked up from his mobile. But this time, he lifted his arm, rested it on the back of the sofa.
Taking a breath, Aziraphale crossed that last inch of space, pressing against Crowley’s thigh, curling into the fold of his arm, resting his head lightly on Crowley’s shoulder. “Is…is this alright?”
“You know it is,” and Crowley turned towards him with a little smile.
“Only, I might get too heavy, you know, numb arm and all that. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine, Angel. Whatever you want to do, it’s fine.”
Aziraphale nodded, and tried very hard to focus on his book.
--
They walked sometimes, when the weather was decent.
At first, Crowley kept his hands in his pockets, Aziraphale’s were folded behind him.
Then, one day, looking at the bend of the elbow in that black sleeve, Aziraphale took a chance. Slipped his hand through, linking arms as they walked. It felt very silly.
Crowley stopped, looking at their arms for a long moment.
Aziraphale squirmed, not quite sure how to extricate himself from this. “Er, sorry. I wasn’t…you don’t…we don’t need to…”
Pulling his hands from his pocket, Crowley shifted his arm, tucking Aziraphale’s hand into the bend of his elbow. “Is that better?”
Aziraphale’s face felt very hot. But he brought up his other hand, folding them together, as couples used to stroll, arm-in-arm, around this very park two centuries before. He thought his heart might burst.
“Yes…thank you.”
They started walking again and said nothing more of it.
But every walk after that, Crowley offered his elbow, and Aziraphale took it.
--
One night, after a few glasses of wine, they sat on the sofa together, talking of people long dead.
“No, I swear,” Crowley laughed. “I never met him!”
“You can’t be serious.” He refilled his glass and settled back against Crowley’s arm. “I was so certain Diogenes was one of yours. Asking questions, getting into fights with other philosophers, ignoring every rule of good taste.”
“No, that doesn’t ring any bells.”
“Let me see. He used to sleep in this big old amphora in Athens. Oh, and he carried a lantern around in broad daylight.”
“No, I…wait!” Crowley laughed. “Not the I’m looking for an honest man bloke?”
“Yes! That’s him! I knew you met him.”
“Well, once. I thought he was drunk. I sent him to that bar near the bathhouse.”
“You sent him to – Crowley! That was my favorite bar!”
“Was it?” His face was a picture of innocence, completely ruined by the grin stretching across it. “I had no idea you were there that day.”
“Oh, you foul serpent!” He swatted at Crowley, nearly spilling his wine. “You know, that man followed me for a week after that! Kept asking me to define words and explain social mores so he could dispute them – it was an absolute nightmare!”
“Really? Sounds like it would have been a great conversation.”
Aziraphale huffed. “Well. We agreed on the subject of eating breakfast in the marketplace. Strongly disagreed on the subject of urination, amongst other things.” Crowley made a sound that could be called a giggle. “It’s not funny! He only left me alone because I happened to cross paths with Plato and he found someone better to chase around.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t love it.”
“Since you put it like that,” Aziraphale said, in as dignified a manner as he could manage. “I am an angel and I love all beings. Though, of course, there are some beings I love much more than others, and some who test my patience –”
“Do you?”
Aziraphale lifted his head to meet Crowley’s gaze and oh for the first time in many days he noticed just how close they were.
Crowley had taken his glasses off again, and his golden eyes glittered, burning with an intensity that Aziraphale could no longer deny.
“I. I should.” Aziraphale swallowed, trying to force his heart to behave. “I should give you some space. Let you get some sleep.”
Crowley leaned a little closer, and suddenly all Aziraphale could see were his lips, still wet with the wine, watch the shapes they formed as he whispered, “You don’t have to.”
Aziraphale stood up as fast as he could. “That’s quite enough. I know how you get when you’re sleep deprived.” He picked up both glasses and brought them to the sink.
Then he returned and settled into the corner of the sofa, placing a pillow on his lap.
Crowley stared at it, then at Aziraphale, then back at the pillow. “Are you sure?”
“Of course, my dear. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Crowley slithered up the sofa, settling his head on the pillow, pressing it back into the curve of Aziraphale’s stomach, wriggling to get as close as he could.
Aziraphale waited until he was settled, then let his hand fall, gently brushing through the bright red hair.
--
Decision
Every day, Aziraphale looked at Crowley and asked himself, What’s holding you back? In truth he’d been doing that since long before the lockdown started.
One day, he realized there was no good answer to that question.
He stepped before the sofa, before Crowley, so that their knees almost touched. Took a few practice breaths. “Crowley?” He hadn’t meant it to be a question.
The black lenses drifted up, away from the mobile phone, to meet him, face unreadable.
Aziraphale took another breath. “I have something to tell you. It’s, well, it’s rather important. And it might, it might change things…but I don’t think it should. I don’t…you understand I don’t want things to change between us, but…that is…there’s something you should be made aware of.”
Crowley slowly put his phone aside and settled more comfortably. “Do you want to sit down?”
“No, I think…standing might be best?” He wrung his hands. He wanted to pace, as he had the dozen times he’d practiced this speech while on the roof, but he needed to stay here, needed to keep meeting Crowley’s eyes, no matter how he reacted.
“Alright. What is it you want to say?”
Oh, dear. He’d forgotten his speech. Aziraphale scrambled to remember the highlights.
“Well I…that is. I’m an angel, as you know.”
“Do tell.”
“Crowley, please. I’m an angel. And as such I…I am a being of love. I love all beings, even disgusting philosophers and customers who put their fingers on my books. But there are, well, there are some beings I love more than others. Some of them, you know, quite a lot more.”
“What are you saying?” Crowley’s fists clenched where they rested on his knees.
“I’m saying…I’m saying…” Aziraphale looked away, just for a moment, just to gather his strength. Then he turned back and said, as firmly as he could, “I love you, Crowley. Quite a lot, actually. Probably more than anything else in Creation. And with such intensity that I’m rather surprised it hasn’t destroyed me yet.” He took a deep shaking breath. “And I know…I know demons don’t experience love the same way angels do. I’m not asking you to feel the same. And I don’t want it to change our friendship, which is more precious to me than…than anything in the world. But. I thought you should know. I love you.”
“I…” One shaking hand rose to adjust his glasses. “You’re right, you know. Demons don’t…don’t love the way angels do.”
“Well.” Aziraphale nodded, trying to keep his face from crumbling. “That’s…that’s…I expected…” He started to back away.
“Wait.” One of Crowley’s hands landed gently on his hip, stopping him from moving away. The other pulled his glasses off and set them aside, but he kept his eyes downcast. “Let me finish. We are different. I don’t see the same way you do, not as many colors. But I still appreciate a sunset. And…and I don’t hear the same way, can’t catch all the little details like I used to, but I still like all the same symphonies as you.”
His other hand reached for Aziraphale’s waist, and the angel let himself be guided forward, stepping between Crowley’s knees, so very, very close.
“Aziraphale…I know I don’t feel love the way you do. I could never love every being. And I think if I loved with the intensity you do, it really would tear me apart. I’m not like you.” He finally lifted his eyes; they were full of tears. “But, Angel. You are…” He swallowed. “You’re my best friend. My family. My home. And every bit of love I have, it’s yours. Only yours.”
Aziraphale leaned forward, resting his hands on the back of the sofa. He was too lightheaded to stand anymore, but he never wanted to move from this spot. “Are…are you saying…?”
“I love you, Aziraphale. Yes. I really, really do.”
Their foreheads met, resting against each other, just as the first tear rolled down Aziraphale’s face. “Do you…do you think it can work? An angel and a demon, loving each other?”
“Only one way to find out.”
He could feel Crowley’s breath, steaming across his jaw, while those hands still burned where they held him. “I…we’ll work it out. A little at a time. And you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, I promise.”
“Mh. Aziraphale.” Crowley’s sharp nose brushed against his. “I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me since we got those oysters in Rome, and if you don’t –”
His lips found Crowey’s and they melted into each other, his arms around his demon’s neck, Crowley’s around his waist, and it was quite some time before either of them spoke again.
--
Integration
Some days later, Aziraphale lay stretched out on the sofa, reading a book. Crowley draped across him like a blanket, head tucked under Aziraphale’s chin, half-asleep, listening to the sound of his heartbeat. Aziraphale’s arm seemed to move of its own volition, wrapping around Crowley, holding him in place, making little circles on his back.
“Any word on when the lockdown ends?” Aziraphale wondered.
“Ngk.” Crowley peeked at his mobile, but he hadn’t been paying it any attention. “No. But if they don’t make a decision soon, I’m going to have to head back to my flat.”
Aziraphale’s hand froze. “You don’t…you don’t have to…”
Crowley pushed himself up until he could meet Aziraphale’s eyes. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. He never wore them at all anymore.
“That is,” Aziraphale said quickly, “You can leave if you want, but I’m not…you can also stay. As long as you like. After the lockdown ends. However…long…”
Crowley smiled. “Angel, I do have to go back. All my plants are still in Mayfair, and can you imagine what they’re getting up to unsupervised?” He leaned down and kissed the bridge of Aziraphale’s nose. “As for staying as long as I like, well, that has a certain appeal. But not until you find a place for my bed. And my television. And my fine art.”
“Dearest, I’ve seen how you decorate, and I assure you that is not fine art.”
“I have a sketch of the Mona Lisa!”
“Yes, but you also have a pornographic sculpture –”
“They’re wrestling, Angel!”
“—and I believe that cancels out all of your da Vinci works.”
Crowley settled back against Aziraphale’s chest, but something was clearly bothering him. After a moment, he muttered, “I don’t know if there’s…room for me in your life.”
“I will make room for you, dearest.” He kissed the top of Crowley’s head as he thought. “There are a few rooms upstairs. It’s meant to be a flat, I think, but I’ve always used them for storage. We can clear those out easily enough and move your things in. And the plants can go on the roof. We’ll set something up to keep the pigeons off them. That should do for the rest of the lockdown, don’t you think?”
“And…after the lockdown?”
Aziraphale pursed his lips. “I think at that point we’ll be ready for a vacation. Perhaps someplace towards the coast. I’ll close up the shop for a bit. We can find a nice little cottage and…” He found his hand was rubbing across Crowley’s back again. “And stay for as long as we like. Months. Years. Decades. Whatever it takes.”
Scrambling to sit up, Crowley looked down at Aziraphale incredulously. “You’d really…why would you leave this shop, leave London?”
“Because, my love,” he took Crowley’s hands. “We deserve a break. We deserve a place we can both call our own. And we deserve a chance to work this out, together, without any interruptions.” He sighed. “We could be there now if I hadn’t been so slow to say anything.”
Crowley bent down and kissed him on the mouth, pulling his breath away. “It was perfect, Angel. All of it. Every moment. All six thousand and twenty-four years. Don’t ever think differently.”
“Fine.” Aziraphale kissed him one more time, then sat up. “But no more delays. Let’s go measure out your new rooms immediately.”
He took Crowley’s hand, twining their fingers together, and led him up the stairs to start their new life.
--
(Thank you for reading! The section titles are based on the Kubler-Ross Change Curve, though I found a few variations. Granted I went into this knowing how the story would go, then absolutely just looked for the model that matched my story.
The poem is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Renascence,” or at least the first few lines. I felt the depression and frustration evident in the poem, where the speaker moves through her emotions to new love and acceptance of the world, were very appropriate...)
(Oh, also I broke one of my rules and let Crowley have his sappy I love you speech. I figure we could all use it these days.)
#good omens#good omens prime#good omens fan fiction#ineffable husbands#aziraphale and crowley#aziraphale#crowley#oblivious aziraphale#aziraphale loves crowley#crowley loves his angel#emotional h/c#hurt comfort#love#quarantine fics#Ill Omens#cw: quarantine#first kiss#love confessions#love conquers all#love for the ages#My writing
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This is my contribution to the @daredevilexchange, a fic for @valinorbound using the prompts, Foggy, Karen, and Matt setting up their new partnership, a post-Defenders reunion, and team as family.
“What do you mean you haven’t spoken to any of the other Defenders?” Foggy asked as he strained to squeeze a conference table into the space above Theo’s shop. The Three Avocados, as Foggy liked to call them, were busy trying to convert space previously used for storage into a semblance of a lawyer’s office.
Foggy and Karen were trying to treat Matt’s vigilante side job like a normal extracurricular activity. But it was proving to be a little harder for them than if Matt had taken up, say, the violin. Foggy thought that Matt was better off in a team up, rather than working alone - safer that way - and had brought up the Defenders. It turned out that Matt hadn’t spoken to any of them since the Midland Circle debacle.
Matt, after trying to duck the question for at least five minutes by attempting to clear some clutter from what was soon to be their waiting room and keeping up a running commentary of what he guessed the items were, had finally mumbled something about not having seen them since the building had come down. He hoped they would drop the subject, but judging from Karen’s quick intake of breath and the fact that Foggy had completely stopped all movement for about 10 seconds told him that this was never going to happen.
“Matt, buddy,” Foggy began, “I saw them after it all happened. When we all thought you were, you know,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, “dead.”
Behind him, Karen rolled her eyes, but stayed silent, emptying out an old file cabinet she hoped they could use.
“And, let me tell you, man, they were pretty broken up about it. I mean, you stayed down there when they all came up. That leaves a mark on people. Hell, Matt, YOU leave a mark on people, and you really need to get better at the whole,” here he stopped his futile efforts with the table and leaned against it, “you know, communicating thing. Starting with NOT LETTING PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT YOU GO ON BELIEVING THAT YOU’RE DEAD.”
“What Foggy is trying to say,” Karen interrupted, shooting Foggy a look over her shoulder as she approached Matt, “Is that even if you don’t team up with these people again, you should at least let them know that you’re ok.”
“I’m sure they’ve heard by now,” Matt answered them dismissively. “It was a little hard to miss Daredevil’s return; it was all over the news!” Hearing both Foggy’s and Karen’s heartbeats start to pick up, he asked, “What?”. They were both getting worked up about something, but he really just wanted to focus on what they were doing - making a fresh start for the new Nelson, Murdock, and Page and making sure they were ready to open the doors on schedule.
Seeing that Foggy was about to yell again, or possibly pull his hair out in frustration, Karen placed a hand on his arm and took a step forward, “Matt, don’t you think that they might want to hear it from you? Whatever the four of you went through down there, it was pretty intense. And then to think that you stayed down there when they all got out. That had to have been difficult for them. I think you owe it to them to at least let them know that you survived.” As she spoke, Karen moved slowly toward Matt, as if toward a skittish cat. “They may not love you like we do, but I’m sure they’d be happy to hear from you again if you were to reach out.”
Matt sighed, running his fingers back through his hair and turning away for a moment. They were right. He knew they were right, but at the same time, his plate felt awfully full just then. The Yakuza seemed to be trying to make a play for the hole left by the Hand, he, Foggy, and Karen were attempting to get their new partnership underway, which meant a lot of physical work as well as paperwork, and he was making more of an effort to be a better friend to both of them. This meant trying to juggle a worklife, social life, and his nightlife, and he lived in constant fear that one of those balls was going to drop on his head.
The thought of reaching out to three more people, even if it was just socially, was more than he really felt up to at the moment. Admitting that, however, was something that he just didn’t think he could do right now, either. He couldn’t see their faces, but he could picture the sympathetic looks that Foggy and Karen would give him, as well as the requisite pep talks and encouragement to cut back on his nighttime activities if he so much as hinted that he was feeling a little overwhelmed.
After a moment, he decided that the only way through this was to admit that Foggy and Karen were right, and call up the other Defenders. Maybe he would get lucky and a quick phone call would suffice.
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Murdocks don’t get lucky, Matt thought as the limo he sat in propelled him through the city. We get hit, we get up, we use pain to keep us going, but we never get lucky.
Matt’s hope and plan went off the rails with his first phone call. It was to Jessica, who first hung up on him, then called him back to yell at him until he had to hold the phone away from his ear fearful of hearing damage. She hung up on him again, then called back, clearly inside a bottle, to yell some more. It took him two days before he recovered enough to call Luke, who was overjoyed to hear from him, but a lot more sane about the call than Jessica had been. Fewer expletives as well.
The call had gone so well, in fact, that he immediately called Danny, a decision he was now regretting. Danny had also been overjoyed to hear from him, and had immediately suggested that the four of them meet and catch up. “You don’t have to do a thing,” he promised over the phone, “I’ll arrange everything. Hey, did I tell you I bought that restaurant we all met at? Yeah, after the car came through the front window, I sort of had to in order to avoid being sued. Anyway, it’s mine now so I can host you all there for a reunion dinner! I’ll call the others and set it up, how’s the 20th work for you?” Given that it was the 1st, and the 20th seemed ages off, Matt agreed and hung up the phone wondering what he had gotten himself into.
The next few weeks flew by as they continued getting Nelson, Murdock, and Page up and running. They were officially open for business, and the word about the hot shot pro bono attorneys was spreading. Karen was almost never in the office, off following some lead while Matt and Foggy did their best to keep up with the unending stream of people who flowed through their doors.
They were so busy, in fact, that Matt had completely forgotten about his dinner with the Defenders until a limo had pulled up outside of the shop one evening, and a beaming Danny - he could actually hear the man smile - had him by the arm and inside the limo before he had time to blink.
Any attempts Matt made at stalling or entering the restaurant quietly were thwarted by Danny, who pulled him inside, while calling out enthusiastically to the others the whole time. Matt was immediately greeted by a punch to the gut and an, “Asshole!” from Jessica, who was clearly still mad at his failure to communicate the fact that he was still alive. He struggled to get his breath back while he felt Luke watching him, “I’m STILL not giving you a hug,” the bigger man told him, his hands folded inside his hoodie, “But I am glad to see you, man. Glad you’re still with us.” And with that, he good naturedly swatted Matt on the arm while Matt tried not to flinch, remembering the wallop he had just received.
Luke moved off toward Jessica, who Matt could hear pouring shot after shot of what smelled like cheap whiskey. Guilt flooded him for a moment as he faced the fact that his decisions had caused this pain. But, he had promised Foggy and Karen that he was going to start doing better, so he took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was coming next.
Danny, who hadn’t let go of his arm as if afraid Matt was going to turn around and leave again, pulled him further into the restaurant toward a table in the back that was already filled with food. Given how much Danny could eat, that wasn’t surprising. Matt seated himself and began to toy with this knife and fork. For a moment he was actually thankful to be blind, as it meant he didn’t have to make eye contact with anyone as the others seated themselves at the table and dinner got underway.
The meal started out somewhat awkwardly with Danny doing most of the talking. Eventually, Matt managed to get a word in edgewise, and apologized to the others for not reaching out sooner. There was a brief pause while the others let him squirm for a moment, and then things relaxed and the evening became a lot more, if not fun, then at least enjoyable.
So enjoyable, in fact, that when Jessica announced she had to leave to follow up on something, the other three decided to join her. A lot of whiskey went into this decision, but Jessica had said this was a routine surveillance, after all, so what could go wrong?
____________________________________________________________________________
Matt cursed the Murdock luck again as he ducked what sounded an awful lot like a computer printer flying at his head. The paper tray had come loose and was sliding outward in one direction while the power cord whipped around in the other, making a whistling sound that distracted him. He dodged the printer easily, but the cord caught him across the face. He grabbed it and used it to swing the printer back at the thug that had thrown it at him, knocking the guy backwards so that he stumbled into the man standing behind him, taking them both out.
Jessica’s “routine surveillance” had turned out to be on a very angry and destructive executive who had been caught slipping back into his office presumably to destroy evidence that showed the fact that he had been appropriating funds. Jessica was acting on a tip that the scumbag was planning on leaving the country soon, and she was hoping to gather evidence of this tonight.
A security guard clearly on the man’s payroll spotted Jessica taking pictures, though, and all hell had broken loose. The next thing any of them knew, they were engaged with several hired goons who had clearly been instructed not to let them get away. When the hired thugs realized that they were clearly outmatched, they became desperate, throwing everything but the proverbial kitchen sink at the group. It didn’t really matter in the end, but it did slow the Defenders down enough that the evidence was destroyed before the executive was out the door and into a town car. This led to a heated argument about whether they should follow him, or simply turn over the images that Jessica had managed to take before the shit hit the fan and walk away from the mess. Matt was personally torn on the subject; this wasn’t normally his game, but he hated to see guilty people slip away. Luke was all for turning over the evidence and getting out of there before someone called the cops on them, and Matt was leaning toward agreeing with him, but Jessica and Danny were outraged and argued that it wasn’t enough to simply send some images when the guy could be anywhere within an hour.
In the end, it was decided that Matt and Danny would trail him while Jessica and Luke got the images into the right hands. Thankfully, the guy was easy to trail from the rooftops, and they were able to keep reporting on his whereabouts while Jessica and Luke got the info to her client, who was able to go to the police with his case.
It was dawn before Matt made it back to his apartment. He managed a quick shower and a quick nap before he dragged himself into the office for the day. For the first time in ages, he actually considered calling in, but he knew that if he did the others would worry, and he had enough guilt to deal with. Making them worry wasn’t something he could bring himself to do just then.
Foggy and Karen were waiting for him, both of them clearly eager to hear about how his evening had gone. Matt could hear them talking excitedly when he entered the shop and headed for the back stairs. They were hoping that he had enjoyed himself and that maybe he would consider working with one or more of them in the future, which Foggy felt would be safer for him in the long run, to have someone watching his back, what happened at Midland Circle notwithstanding. Matt was touched, and had to pause for a moment before he let them know he was there. He didn’t want them to realize that he had overheard them. That, and he was pretty sure he looked terrible after last night, plus he was moving a little oddly due to Jessica’s punch, which had left him a very sore, and black and blue stomach.
He could smell coffee, though, and in his rush to arrive on time he hadn’t had any yet. He was so desperate for caffeine he was willing even to drink the coffee if Karen had made it. In fact, he might have to ask her to make him his own pot; he was so tired he was afraid he’d end up doing something dumb like forgetting to put the carafe under the stream.
Pausing outside the door, he straightened up, suppressed a hiss of pain from his bruised abs, and plastered a smile on his face. He knew he looked bad, but he wasn’t sure exactly how bad until he went in and heard both Karen’s and Foggy’s heart rates jump up about 50 beats a minute each. They were both silent for a moment before they rushed him, talking at once.
“Matt! What happened,” Karen asked as she ran to take his cane and steer him toward a chair.
“Matt, buddy! What the hell happened last night? I thought you were having dinner with Danny, Luke, and Jessica!” Foggy was alternating coming in close and quickly backing up again, obviously not sure what to do. “You look like shit, buddy. Don’t tell me you blew them off and went out Daredeviling,” Matt could hear the frown in Foggy’s voice and was quick to reassure him.
“No, no, I did meet up with them. I swear. And it was nice, really. I mean, Jessica punched me in the stomach when I first walked in,” Matt paused as he heard Karen’s sharp intake of breath. She reached a hand toward his stomach, but he brushed it away with a shake of his head. “I’ll be fine, really. And I did deserve it. I realize now that I shouldn’t have left them hanging like I did. And, can I get some coffee? Please? I was out till dawn, and I haven’t had any yet.” He trailed off, his head starting to pound from caffeine withdrawal. He must have looked as bad as he felt since Karen got up to fill him a cup without asking any questions.
“So, what, did Luke and Danny take turns on the rest of you? It looks like you got smacked in the face by a whip,” Foggy had finally succumbed to his need to be close to Matt, and was gently turning Matt’s face toward the window with his fingers so he could get a better look at the damage.
“Actually, it was the power cord from a printer,” Matt said sheepishly as he took the cup of coffee from Karen, “Thanks,” he told her, “this is exactly what I need.”
“A power cord?” “From a printer?” Foggy and Karen spoke over one another in their confusion. Matt had to laugh in spite of himself.
“Yeah, I know, it sounds weird. But… trust me we did have a great time. It was a little awkward at the beginning, but then we relaxed and it was good to catch up. I apologized for not having reached out sooner.”
“And they whipped you with a power cord?” Foggy interrupted. He and Karen were both confused, and starting to wonder if Matt had hit his head.
“No, no, that happened later,” Matt laughed. “Jessica needed to go to check up on something for a client. We decided to follow her, and if I’m honest a lot of whiskey went into that decision. Things went a little sideways, which is where the printer came from. I’ll spare you the details, but the cops arrested the guy just before 4. We split up then and I made it home before 5, grabbed about two hours of sleep and here I am. We agreed to stay in touch, though, maybe make dinner a regular thing if not the fighting.” Matt smiled at his friends, who he could tell were torn about how they felt on this subject.
“Well,” Foggy began slowly, “are you sure you want to be here today? No offense buddy but you really do look like shit. In fact, I’m not sure you should see any clients; I think you’ll scare them.”
Matt started to protest, but then paused, weighing Foggy’s words. It was true his appearance might be off putting to some of their older clients if Foggy and Karen’s reactions were anything to go by, and it was also true that he was trying to be more open about how he felt with Foggy and Karen - part of their agreement when they decided to work together again, but he honestly didn’t want to leave either, despite how gnarly he felt. He decided to come clean.
“Yeah, I know I probably look awful, and frankly I’m not feeling that great either, but I think I’d really rather be here with both of you than home on my own.” He paused to try to get a read on the others, but they were still and silent, heartbeats steady. More nervous now, he continued, “I could just hole up in the back, take care of the back end details, Foggy you could handle the face to face for the day,” he trailed off, as the others were still not giving him anything to work with.
Evidently, though, they had both come to a decision, “Sure thing, buddy,” Foggy said, standing, “Why don’t we clear off that table near the closet and you can work there for the day. It’s kind of hidden behind those weird Chinese screens my mom stashed up here, so no one will see you. And besides,” he said, with a glance at Karen, “I think I speak for both Karen and myself when I say that we’d probably be happier to have you here with us where we can keep an eye on you than have you off on your own, knowing that you’d be likely to jump off a fire escape or something just to help an old lady across the street.” He was smiling, Matt could hear it in his voice. Karen said nothing, but refilled his coffee cup and went to start clearing off the back table.
Matt smiled at Foggy in relief, glad to finally have no secrets between him and his friends - his family.
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Creating Sacred Space
Part III of Sacred Space
Finding a place that feels sacred to us is great - places like nature, or buildings - but we can’t rely on going to these places each and every time we want to experience the sacred. I believe that we are sacred beings in and of ourselves. Because we are sacred, and because we have the ability to manifest our desires, we can therefore create sacred space.
Creating sacred space all comes down to an intention. We know that we want to have sacred space - but what does that mean to you? What sort of connection are you looking for? How do you want your sacred space to feel? Personally, I love old cathedrals. I’m a big fan of architecture, I love the history of old buildings, and the detail in the carvings and sculptures is superb. When I step inside a cathedral, I can appreciate that quiet stillness within - it’s conducive to prayer. It’s the sort of energy that you feel in libraries - it makes you want to whisper rather than talk, to be on your best behavior because you instinctively know that the spirits and deities can be connected to within this space easily - and they might already be watching. But if I linger in a cathedral for more than a few minutes, I start to feel suffocated. The stillness and structure is okay for some, and I can appreciate the beauty, the energy, the vibe - but ti’s not completely right for me. I need my sacred space to be peaceful, safe, welcoming, and joyful. I need a space that if I feel like meditating, I can; if I feel like dancing, I can’ if I feel like singing, I can; if I feel like crying, I can. I need freedom to express myself in any way that comes to mind.
Where you create sacred space is entirely up to you. Some of us are fortunate enough to have physical space to devote to this - a shelf, a bookcase, a dresser top, an end table, an entire room, a back yard, patio, deck, or gazebo. Others are limited to a shadow box on the wall, or a box that they take out and put away when finished. Some feel that they can’t leave their sacred space up for long out of fear of retribution, criticism, or judgment; others simply don’t have the space or aren’t ready to declare to their household their beliefs or practices. These people can always utilize the astral temple.
I highly recommend having a physical space somewhere in your home simply because it gives you a point of focus. It doesn’t have to be in a separate room or closet; it can be in a communal area. Your sacred space should be designated as such: sacred. It can be a chair, a desk, a corner of the room that no one uses. It’s helpful to have a place to sit comfortably and a surface for displaying sacred items nearby.
When I designate a space as sacred, I look for a few things:
Does this space feel safe? Safe is different for everybody and depends on your situation. If you’re living with someone who doesn’t have the same beliefs as you, who may criticize, judge, or cause you harm, then the space is not safe. For me, safe means that I can relax fully. If I can’t relax, I can’t meditate and utilize the space for spiritual connection.
Does it have good lighting? I like my sacred spaces near areas of natural light - i.e. windows or sliding glass doors. This might be drafty in old houses or apartments (like I am), but being able to see clearly during the day, to sit in the sunlight or bask in the moonlight is great. Not every room or space will have access to direct sunlight or moonlight, but it’s definitely a bonus. I like situating myself so that I’m facing, at least in part, the source of natural light. I also like to make sure I have sufficient lamps or electric lighting for night time. There’s no point straining your eyes because you’re going for a “witchy vibe” - be practical. If you plan to read or reference written materials or symbols, you need lighting. This often means having more than a few candles for ambiance.
Is this space comfortable? I injured my tailbone years ago, and then my lower back a couple years after, so having something to support those injured areas is a must. If I plan on sitting on the floor, I need to have a rug (because we have carpet over a cement slab that gets cold in the winter), a pillow of some sort (to support my tailbone), and an extra pillow for bad days. If I plan on sitting on a chair, that chair needs to be comfortable - the seat needs to be soft, or else I need to add an extra pillow there, my back needs to line up with the back of the chair while my feet touch the ground, and the back itself needs to be straight or as straight as possible (for my personal preference). If you share this space with other people, you need to be comfortable with them coming in and out. I live in a one bedroom apartment with my boyfriend and our cats. There’s really only three places to go - the bedroom, the bathroom, or the main living space. I had to learn to be comfortable with the fact that my cats are curious and will decide to sit on my lap, rub up against me, take over my pillow if I shift or get up for a sec, or try to use my chair as a scratch post. I also had to become comfortable using my sacred space knowing that my boyfriend can walk in (or through) at any second. I used to use my sacred space when he was at work, but when covid hit the U.S., he started working from home and has ever since. His work space is in the bedroom so that he can close the door to keep the cats out while on the clock. This leaves me with the main living space.
Do I have enough room? Of course, this depends on what you want to use your sacred space for. Is it meant for meditation? Prayer? Dancing in a ritual circle? Painting or creative works? Yoga, tai chi, or other movement? Will you perform magick here? Is it just a quiet place for you to be still and practice mindfulness? Will you need a space to store things away when they’re not in use, like incense, candles, tools, or books? The last thing I want to do is get up and go all over the apartment (or house) looking for, gathering or putting away supplies when I’m done - I want it all in one convenient spot. Even if that means temporary storage - like only keeping the book I’m currently reading in the space and not my whole bookshelf.
Now that I know the purpose of my sacred space, and it fulfills the above requirements, it’s time to make sacred space. I do the following:
Clean. If it’s dusty, dirty or cluttered, it won’t work. The space needs to be clean and tidy.
Arrange my space. This is when I’ll figure out the best spot for a chair, lighting, a table (such as an end table), and any supplies I might need.
Decorate. If I’m going for a certain vibe, I want to use colors and patterns that support that energy. A space for meditation might include colors of cool blues, grays, and blacks. A space for creativity might utilize bright patterns and primary colors. If I plan to pray or connect to a specific deity in this area, I might want to use colors associated with religion (for me, this is purple) or for the specific deity. You may also want to add items that further cultivate the sort of sacred space you want - wall art, figurines, crystals, water fountains, visual items for ambience. There are no rules here. If it feels right to you, then it’s right.
Purification. I don’t always do this, but it can be helpful. For me, purification is the act of stripping away all energy in a place. I don’t want to do this in my sacred space; I want to utilize the energy already there and transform it. Classic purification techniques include smudging with sage or incense, using a besom (broom) to move the energy symbolically, or calling the elements and using the elements to purify the space. When you get rid of the energy in a space, it’s always important to call in an energy to replace it, or else the same old energy will accumulate over time. I like to burn rosemary, if I have the option, or a gentle incense, like lavender, with the doors or windows open to let in fresh air. In my practice, rosemary transforms energy into a higher vibration, while lavender calls in peace and tranquility. I might use essential oils in a diffuser as well (but I always have a window or door open - some essential oils can be harmful to pets!). I utilize ceiling fans and space fans to facilitate movement, so that any stuck energy is forced to move, transforming it into active energy. Fresh air is always invigorating, so I try to open a window or door, even if only for a few moments (it can get pretty cold in Ohio).
Dedication. Once I feel like the energy is just right, I declare a space sacred and give it a purpose. It’s as simple as stating your intention: “I declare this space sacred.” “I declare this space a sanctuary for my mental health.” “I declare this space a temple for the gods.”
Energy. Now I like to add my own personal energy to the space. To do this, I make myself a channel. There are several methods that are helpful in connecting to the energy of the earth, sky, the gods, the universe, etc: chakra balancing meditations, integrating your Upper, Middle and Lower Selves through visualization or meditation, or the classic Tree Meditation. Once I’m connected, I draw energy through my hands and I infuse the area that I have claimed as sacred. It can be a sphere. It can be any shape that you draw on the floor. It can fill the entire room, wall to wall. It can simply be directed to a surface in the sacred space - such as an end table that you plan on using as an altar or shrine. It can be directed to the entire room. It can be focused on your chair. It can just hang in the air. It can be any way or any thing you like. I do this because I want the space personalized - I want it to feel like me, feel like the sky, feel like the earth. I might channel the energy from a deity. I might work with a single elemental energy. I might only use sky energy. I might focus on the energy of the stars, or the season. It might even be energy used for a single purpose - healing, peace, fertility, prosperity, protection. When I walk to this area of my home, I want to feel an energetic difference. It helps get me into the right mindset, mood, and vibe for the sort of work that is associated with this space.
Deity. If I’m working with deity, I might ask them to bless this space, or acknowledge it as a space that they may feel free to visit. I want the deities and spirits that I work with to feel at home - my home is their home, my temple is their temple, my sacred space is their sacred space. I let them know that this is my intention. When I pray, I conclude with a line that states something along the lines of “go if you must, stay if you desire; my home is your home.” I generally do this areas that I use for prayer, or for areas that I use as a shrine to that deity.
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Saturday, 18.4.2020
Total: 2,263,056 cases, 154,827 deaths.
Australia: 6,565 cases, 69 deaths.
Western Australia: 544 cases, 7 deaths.
Oh, indeed it’s been quiet. The street upon which I live -- two lanes, urban -- is suddenly without the grind and gears of cars, white noise, hiss and sputter. Sirens have reduced. Even foot traffic and the sound of other humans: reduced. Instead I can hear -- actually hear -- the whisper of tree-branches quivering in the wind. And the chitter of birds, who now feel safe to roam and preen along this usually noxious street.
Work is also quiet. I am thankfully now on holidays. Without kids, the character of school has been unrecognisable: calm and still, but for the faint and soothing hum of air-conditioning -- of the building itself! -- which I heard as I tapped away on my keyboard, or drew an instructional image, or recorded a video on my own time, at my own pace, without interruption.
“Sir sir sir sir sir” -- all I usually hear, all day long. You cannot understand the relief I have with it suddenly gone. Do you -- or do you now have to work from home, with children squirming and squawking at your feet all day long? The arbitrariness of this whole thing is flabbergasting.
I thought we’d have six months of coronavirus quiet. But here in Australia the tone is becoming cautiously triumphant. People are out in the streets -- albeit quietly, in small groups, ‘exercising’. The gloom seems to have lifted. Although I’m sure we all secretly check the ‘corona count’ each morning and notice, with weird emotions, NYC’s numbers continuing to remain sky-high, literally orders of magnitude beyond Australia’s aggregate. Again we are saved by our geography, our interstitial luck down under.
Does anyone else feel disappointed? My friend E does: she said part of her was keen to witness “all the bloody carnage”. Part of this must be the impulse toward living through drama, witnessing history etc. Maybe it is just a polite way of saying “I want to go back and see the accident”. But this one has some political strings, doesn't it? Eventually it will be written about, remembered. They say to keep a diary -- anecdotal evidence. Which is what you’re reading.
During the pandemic, certain things have been delightfully and noticeably different: Advertisements have pivoted towards the sanguine -- “We’re all in this together”. We can of course see through the motives of these commercially-sponsored PSAs. But the tone, the modus operandi -- it’s a number of degrees different. There’s literally less for many -- most? -- people to do, so there’s less to navigate, negotiate, or with which to deal. There is less clutter. (I’ve been listening to album after album at home, all in their entireties, whilst painting, whilst writing, whilst reading.) I feel good.
Politics have changed. I’m not sure anyone expects this to last. But in Australia -- ‘coup capital of the democratic world’ for the past decade -- petty politicking has virtually stopped. Instead we have bipartisan agreements, quick legislation, the Opposition Leader stating “This is good legislation” of the Liberal Party’s stimulus packages. The bipartisanship has been astounding -- and for me, a 35-year-old politically-engaged Australian -- it’s been a first. I can’t believe it -- to think it took a pandemic. But will anything permanently change after the hibernation, or will business-as-usual prevail?
Trump is President of the free world. Authoritarian China is rising and indeed risen. Australia has a Prime Minister -- currently successfully leading us through a historical crisis -- who at some point in the past half-decade managed to take a lump of coal -- yes, a physical lump of coal -- into Australian Federal Parliament, to laugh and pantomime at those on the left or in the centre, as though to say ‘Oh, look at this scary piece of coal -- what threat is poses to us all!’ Imagine if Scotty-from-Marketing took the advice of climate scientists as seriously as he seems to have that of public-health experts. Is there not a howling incongruence to all of this?
This is the kind of status quo whence I was hoping for a change. The pandemic has personally galvanised me -- more energy, more purpose. It has helped me cut through years and years of chronic pain and significant pain-induced limits. My housemate says “remembering is the hardest part”. To her great disappointment, she claims her Spanish countryfolk -- big victims of the the GFC, unemployment and the government's corrupt austerity measures -- forgot very quickly. Straight back to the old normal of TV soap operas with wine at night. But am I alone in feeling the raw and real struggle of being alive through this? Do you not feel there is more thinking and less action -- or at least more bloviating, non-essential, circular thinking -- in normal life? Your schedule, your commitments, your finances. How do you go about forging a single fucking minute for yourself, on any given day?
What will a post-virus world look like? Already interesting discussions around surveillance have emerged: contract-tracing through a governmental phone app. This actually is a circuitbreaker: how will you react? Will you give it thought, engage, research? Will you be honest with yourself and all the data you already willingly hand over to the big, mono- or duopolistic tech companies? How is this different from a democratic government asking you to provide your whereabouts for a clear public-health measure, for the safety of all and health of the economy? Will recovered citizens be enlisted to work essential services, as the super-immune? Will Newstart remain Jobseeker forever, with its new level of payment? Will Biden beat Trump, and will it be in part due to the latter’s handling of the pandemic?
I guess things really are destined to change, or already have. My great disappointment at things returning to normal might itself be reactive. Maybe the changes will be discreet, tangible, slow-burning -- unlike the onset of all this. Maybe change isn’t always revolutionary, at least not in appearance.
This has not been a war -- years have not passed, the young and middling have been spared, we have all had water, heat and electricity and, if we are so lucky, the creature comforts of home. There has been no random nor political violence, along with its attendant fear. But I do hope the world doesn't just wake up to business as usual.
Perhaps I am most disappointed with the fact I won’t be continuing my own ‘coronavirus quiet’. As a teacher at a private school, it was possible students would withdraw their enrolment if the shutdown and its economy continued. This might eventually have meant the relinquishment or teachers. I thought this could have been a real possibility. Initially it was scary -- no one wants to lose their job. But then I considered it a bit longer: I have savings, the job might be waiting for me on the other side of the shutdown, I’d have a whole lot of time to do what I want. And what would I do?
The plan was to volunteer to step down from work under two provisions: 1) I be offered my job back the moment an opportunity opened up, 2) my manager provide me with a glowing reference should I end up needing a job someplace else. I think each of these were feasible. And what would I do at home?
I would take the JobSeeker payment of $1100/fortnight. I would live even more frugally than I currently do -- possible. I would pay off my mortgage for a while, see how it goes. If not well: I’d renegotiate my mortgage to interest-only payments for a while. I would cook, I would write, I would paint, I would arrange and make. I would talk to friends and family over the phone. And then cook more. I would actually get to sleep on time, without the need to check my phone. And I would awake fresh as a morning daisy, hopefully every day.
But if they’d have me, for three days a week I’d also volunteer. I would volunteer in the office of my local member of parliament: John Carey. A state MP, during this he has been posting daily photos of himself at various small businesses -- offering them support, drumming up business. When the pandemic first hit, he arranged for volunteers to support the elderly throughout his electorate: proxy shopping, welfare phone-calls etc. (Turns out everyone was already covered by neighbours and family -- a good sign.)
I don’t care what they may have put me to -- stapling things? Alphabetising items? It didn't matter. I just want a change. For a while I have thought the way might be to volunteer during my six-week annual summer holiday in the central office for the Greens. But my health, my hang-ups have stopped me. All it takes is for a measly pandemic to throw things around a bit.
Yet schools go back next term. Enrolments at my school probably won’t dip. Likely -- and thankfully for many, including a part of me -- it will be the great relief of Business as Usual. Will I have the chutzpah to forget my pain -- this really is all that’s stopping me -- and follow through on this strong desire to work in a different industry, in politics or social service of some sort?
And will anyone ever remember the pandemic, the quiet, the change. Will they remember The Hibernation -- the time and space to stop, and look, and think and feel. This is and has been such a unique opportunity to take stock. I can’t help but feel that here in Australia, we are so lucky and managed the whole thing so well that nothing much will change. Already PM Morrison has announced the way forward involves IR-reform and tax cuts. We’ve heard all this before. It’s the same old shit as the pre-virus world.
You might even call it an anticlimax.
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A time when then killer showed mercy.
(Two people asked this one, consider it a joint answer.)
FRANK DISCUSSION OF ASSISTED SUICIDE UNDER THE CUT
“Mercy, huh, grayfaces? Funny word. Sort of abstract word that I don’t like to use – I never had any patience for that sort of thing. Thing is, when I think about mercy, I think of a person so pathetic that you can’t help but let them go. Now, there were plenty of people who were pathetic near their ends, but I can only think of one time when it drove me to let him go.
“It was 1955. We were at Teufort and I get a letter saying that that somebody wants to hire me for an odd job. Phrased like that, odd job. Letter was handwritten on a piece of notebook paper, not all typewritten and fancy-stationary like most of my contract requests. And I said, fine, I know I’ve got a reputation around here. Maybe it’s just the leader of some small-time gang.
“Letter had an address on it and said that any time is fine. So I went over on a Saturday. Address belonged to an old farmhouse , really old. Sort of thing you could tell had been built in the 1890s, multicolored pastel paint scheme and all. It had been really pretty once upon a time, but now the paint in peeling and part of the roof had collapsed. Shingles were gone and you could see right into the shadowy interior.
“Now, I grew up in a rough building myself, so I wasn’t too worried as I knocked on the door. Skinny man with two days’ worth of five o’clock shadow opens up and says I can come in. But I can barely think about him, because I’m almost knocked over by the smell that came out that door. Like an outhouse and a compost pit and petting zoo all at once. Kind of glad that some of the muscles in my face don’t work because I don’t know how I managed to keep my expression neutral.
“So I just stand there a moment, trying to get used to the stink, and he repeats himself. ‘Come in, please.’ He had such a soft voice, I could barely hear him, even though we were all along in the desert.
“Now, I’ve seen plenty, and I always told myself I wasn’t afraid of anything, so I went in. And I’m not going to lie, by the time I’d taken ten steps down that dog-trot hallway, I wanted to scream. The hallway is cluttered with, fuck, there’s no other word for it, garbage. Armchairs with springs sticking out of the cushions, piles of books all stacked up like blocks. Clothes, not folded in the dresser, but tossed her and there like a teenager’s bedroom. Dead potted plants and crumbled-up wrapper from food and old lamp with tattered shades and no light bulbs and god knows what else. Something moves, and I look a little closer. It’s a skinny, mangy cat.
“And about then, I realized the stink was coming from cat shit.
“All this was in the front hallway, mind you. We had to bob and weave around the clutter. Anyway, the man takes me to, well, a room. It’s piled with so crap that I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a living room or a kitchen, or whatever. Couple more cats moving in the shadows, and there was a corpse lying on top of a box. I shit you not, a dead cat, in this house, already gone stiff and looked kind of dried out. Why this man couldn’t be bothered to get rid of his dead cat, I’ll never know.
“Anyway, the only thing clear in the whole space was an ottoman, and he said I should sit down. I said, ‘No thank you, I’ll stand.’
“And he said, ‘Fine,’ in his soft voice and sat there himself. Pulled a gummy old revolver out of his pocket, and after that, he pulled out an old wedding ring. A nice wedding ring, big chunk of ice and all. He held out the ring in his open palm liked he expected me to take it, and he said, ‘This is all I’ve got to pay you.’
“I didn’t know what to do, so I picked up the ring. Couldn’t bear to hold still any longer.
“’Pay me for what?’ I said.
“’Pay you to shoot me,’ he said. ‘They say you don’t care about killing people.’
“I took a step back and something squished under my heels. Probably cat shit. But something about that ring made me realize that I knew this man. I’d seen him, with his mother, at Tuefort’s secondhand store. I went there a lot, mostly to buy old clothes that I could refurbish to look new. I’d seen them a hundred times, the son trailing on the heels of his mother. They didn’t talk. Usually just picked up a few items, books, candles, sewing patterns. People muttered about them. Said the boy – the man– was melancholic and couldn’t work. Said it was a disgrace for a man in his thirties to still be dependent on his mother, and any good, hardworking American ought to find some pride or else get a good strong rope with with to hang himself.
“You have to understand. This was common talk, in those days. People thought nothing of it.
“All this is going through my mind and the ring is in my hand. It’s warm from being in his pocket.
“‘This isn’t the kind of killing I do,’ I said.
“’You got to,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to shoot this.’ Points at the gross old gun. ‘I don’t want to mess it up.’
“’Where’s your mother?’ I said. ‘What’ll she say?’
“’Passed last week,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to break her heart.’ He sits there a moment, staring at me, and says, ‘You got to help me, Miss. I’ve been waiting for years.’ He stands up and holds the pistol’s handle towards me.
“By now, I’m shaking, and I’m not gonna deny that I was scared. But – god forgive me– I think I understood what he wanted. On some level. So I told myself that this was no different than any kill that happened in my torture chamber. Except this place was worse than any torture chamber I could conjure. If I shot him, it would be quick, and hadn’t I always told myself that I wanted to die quickly?
“So I took the gun and I told him to sit. Checked the gun. Locked and loaded, decayed as it was. Walked behind the man and put the muzzle to the back of his neck. ‘I’m going to count to three and pull the trigger,’ I said. ‘You’re sure about this?’
“’Thank you,’ he said.
“I counted to three and pulled the trigger.”
Here, Bea sighed and shook her head. “This whole story makes me want to get a drink, you know. But I’m so close to the end. Might as well finish it.
“Gunshot shook the house and I could hear the rattling of objects as the cats spooked. Man didn’t even let out a whimper, just slumped forward, forehead on knees.
“Next thing I know, I’d run out of the house. Dropped the ring on the way out. Accidentally forgot my sun hat, too. Once I was outside, something prompted me to leave the door open and kick out a few windows. Guess I was thinking about the cats. Then I walked all the way back to the base under a blazing afternoon sun. Got sunburned something awful. Doc was snappish at me at he sat me down in the infirmary and put some cool rags on the burns.
“‘Why weren’t you wearing your hat?’ he said.
“’Left it at a client’s house,’ I said.
“‘Why didn’t you go back and get it when you realized your mistake?’ he said.
“‘Couldn’t stand to,’ I said.
“’You were scared to go back to a client’s house?’ he said. ‘Since when are you scared of the little things?’
“‘Since now, I guess,’ I said. And I just let him grumble and take care of me.”
#this turned into a mini-fic#i don't know how or why#it's pretty dark but this is a bea blog#things tend to run dark#this was my initial idea when asked about a mercy kill#so i ran with it#asks
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Minimalism...
“The things we own ending up owning us.”
Tyler Durden in Fight Club
I am a firm believer in the old adage: when the student is ready the teacher will appear. The teacher can appear in the form of a person, a book, a song, a documentary, a film, or a chance encounter. Some would call this divine intervention, fate, karma, or life teaching us lessons. Whatever you wish to call it, there is no hiding the fact we sometimes are tapped on the shoulder by some life force to show us a different perspective.
Recently by accident I happened upon a documentary on Netflix called The Minimalists. While watching it I had an a ha moment in my life. The documentary is about two thirty something best friends who, realizing they have dream jobs, six figure incomes, huge houses, and huge debt and are living what most consider the American dream, decide to walk away from it all by becoming minimalists. When I first heard the term minimalist, I thought, hmm what’s this some guy living in a tent? In reality however it means living within your means without a lot of junk to clutter up your life giving you more time to focus on the really important things in your life.
Everything they talked about in the documentary rang true to me. Here’s where the teacher/student adage mentioned above comes in! The most important message I got was to explore this lifestyle and the innovative ideas these two bright young men discovered and were living. They were clearly “walking the walk.” Minimalism is not a one size fits all, cookie cutter recipe, so I decided to explore a bit more. Being a reader, I discovered they had published two books, so I jumped on Amazon and ordered them both.
While I awaited the arrival of the books, I began thinking about some of the messages in the documentary. I began asking myself questions about the things I had acquired over the years and what purpose they served then and now in my life. My eyes opened. I started with my closets, and embarrassingly found myself filling seven 30 gallon trash bags with clothes I no longer used or wore! Talk about an eye opener! Realizing I had shirts, pants, and coats which I hadn’t worn in years got my head wrapped around just how much “stuff” I had accumulated to clutter up my life.
And so after a few trips to the local clothing donation box, I felt a twofold satisfaction, first I was actually going to help someone who possibly had no clothes, and second I was un-cluttering my life. This was just the tip of the iceberg. I mean does one man really need fifty baseball caps? I’m a single guy who lives alone, could I possibly need 25 coffee mugs? Probably not. Questions I would ask myself again and again as I started to un-clutter my very cluttered life.
In a few days, the books arrived and I flew through the first one in no time knowing I would read it again and again, and savored the second to read slowly and digest the thoughts and ideas. While this was going on, I began the slow and laborious process of going through my house room by room, cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer and cleaning house literally and figuratively. To my amazement, it got easier the more the momentum was gained with each discarded item.
But what was I going to do with all this “stuff” I didn’t need anymore? I mean the clothes were easy I donated them to a local clothing bank. The idea hit me to have a tag sale and sell things I was no longer using. Items I felt at some point in my life that I just had to have to be happy, content, satisfied. The tag sale would help me un-clutter my life and any money I made would go directly to paying off debt.
And so with each item I picked up, I asked myself three questions; had I used it in the last 90 days? Would I use it in the next 90 days? And if the answer to both of those were no, then I would ask myself the all important question, did the item add any value to my life? Realizing some were sentimental items this question became very tricky. Yes they were sentimental items, but did they add any value? This one question above all is without a doubt the hardest I had to ask and answer when cleaning house.
I heard a voice from the documentary and the book which basically said, our experiences are with each other, not with inanimate objects. Wow! Talk about a cultural shift in beliefs! As I began to ponder this posit, it meant letting go of an old tried and true belief I had which was I must hold onto “things” in order to have a relationship with the person who gave it to me. So if I threw out the cracked coffee cup someone gave me five years ago sitting on the shelf covered in dust did that mean I didn’t have a relationship or experience with that person? Hell no! It was a dusty, inanimate object cluttering up my life. It was my belief system that was holding me back. My belief that in order to hold onto or keep a bond with someone required me to keep items they had given me was ludicrous to say the least.
Let me pause here and say I’m not advocating throwing out any/all sentimental items if they serve a purpose. I kept family pictures and items which were sentimental AND served a purpose. A beautiful clock adorns my bookcase which was a gift from my godfather. It has sentimental value and it serves a very utilitarian purpose. It’s the bric a brac and stuff I never looked at, let alone used that I deep sixed!
Over the years I had confused adding value with sentimentality. I found items stuffed on shelves in the back room in the back of bookcases which I couldn’t honestly recall had been gifts, or if I had purchased them at some point in my life. Realizing I had moved those “important items” from the front room to the back room to make more room in the front room for more “important items” was a sign it was time to get rid of stuff. It’s a vicious cycle of not being able to let go of anything because I was associating more pain of throwing the item out than I was pleasure of having an un-cluttered life.
Each sentimental item I picked up made me realize that my experiences with the person who gave it to me existed in my mind NOT in the physical thing in my hand which I hadn’t looked at or used for years. My experiences with friends and people I love will forever be etched into my mind and I don’t need an item stuffed into the back of a closet to enable me to enjoy those experiences or remind me of them.
I’m sitting in my living room looking at six big plastic tubs filled with stuff, next to them are six cardboard boxes of books, and next to them are another five large cardboard boxes filled with more stuff. These items are lined ten feet into my living room from my front door and these don’t count the things I can’t fit into boxes! There’s hat racks, a desk, several chairs, paintings I’ve taken down from the cluttered walls to name a few. How did I ever accumulate so much stuff I ask myself? I’m a single guy who lives alone in an 1100 square foot house and yet I have all of this stuff packed up and ready to sell and in all honesty it looks as if I’m getting ready to move out, but my house doesn’t look empty by any means, it looks much more open that’s for sure.
The garage is next and it takes me the better part of a day to pull down metal automobila signs, gather tools I haven’t looked at in twenty years, and sort through things I know I’ll never use and that are also collecting dust as the things in the house were. I find brand new “just in case” items still in their packages neatly sealed awaiting the apocalyptic emergency I was sure was going to come when I purchased them. I realize I have purchased many items over the years for a one time use and could have borrowed them from a friend had I just had the foresight to ask rather than run out and buy it as I’ve been conditioned to do all my life.
Being a musician means I have LOTS of musical stuff some of which I haven’t touched in years, others which I touch daily and with love and creativity. I ask my three questions and list a bunch of musical equipment for sale online. Keeping just the instruments I know I play and create with, means they add value to my life. Selling instruments that lay under my bed in cases collecting dust gives me great pleasure and hopefully some well needed cash. Luckily, I find a buyer who wants to buy the whole lot, lock stock and barrel! I come home that night and pick up my Martin acoustic guitar and strum a chord and hear the beauty of the space I have created around me both physically and mentally. This guitar is a keeper, it is truly one of my passions. In the days that follow, I find I don’t even miss the instruments that are gone.
The tag sale day arrives and it’s taken me nearly four hours to unpack everything, put it on tables, price it and move it outside. For two days I watch stuff go and I feel great about it. The joy of seeing people getting excited about getting a “deal” on my stuff is exhilarating. It was a lot of work, but at the end of the day most of the stuff sold and the stuff that didn’t sell, went to my neighbor who is having a tag sale in another month or so at another location. I couldn’t be happier, she couldn’t be happier. Three boxes full of books were donated to the local library without much fanfare, I simply went there when they were closed and put them by the front door, a gift to the librarian and anyone else who gets to read some of the magnificent books I had already read and was keeping for no good reason.
While my house is much emptier than it was, it certainly is not comprised of empty rooms and barren walls. It’s much nicer looking now, much easier to clean and much easier to spot things I no longer need, want or that don’t add value to my life. As I look around I wonder if having so much stuff made me a hoarder. I mean I’m wasn’t ready for A&E to come shoot their show at my house, but the fact sinks in that I had way too much stuff. I was a bit of a hoarder, albeit a very anal retentive, OCD one!
The really good news is that in a little over two weeks time I was able to pay down my debt to the tune of $5000 just in selling things I hardly looked at or used! It’s incredible what I was able to do with just the slightest change in my behavioral pattern and belief systems. This journey for me isn’t over, it’s a never ending one. Once the clutter was gone from my physical surroundings which was a very cleansing and liberating experience, it allowed me time and space to focus on what’s really important in my life; relationships, and embracing and following the passions that I have which are music and writing, which have become center stage for me.
Relationships that were toxic or relationships in which I wasn’t seeing a mutual sharing of respect needed to be reevaluated and in some cases terminated. One case in point involved someone who I would constantly call to see if they wished to go out to dinner or to spend time together and they always found a convenient excuse not to be able to go, however, when they needed money or a favor, I was the first on their call list. I realized I needed to distance myself from this relationship. While not entirely severing it, it was time for me to take a break from being the one who always initiated contact and invitations. Will it survive? Who knows? What I do know is I know have more free time to dedicate to those relationships where I do get mutual satisfaction.
To date I’ve learned some valuable lessons while embracing minimalism:
1. There is a big difference between need and want
2. Most of the things we think we need, we merely want
3. A person can get by without 80% of the things they own
4. Experiences exist with the person NOT the object
5. Sentimentality does not equate to adding value
6. The things we own end up owning us
7. Ask better questions, you’ll get better answers
8. Un-cluttering your life is liberating and cleansing
9. Relationships can be burdensome, get rid of the bad ones
10. New habits and behavior patterns are worth looking into if it leads to positive changes in your life
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Overwhelmed? Here’s How to Create ‘Blank Space’ in Your Life
I knew that something needed to change when I’d walk in the door, drop the keys, and start spiraling. My house isn’t messy, but it’s not tidy either. I’d sit on my couch, feeling overwhelmed after a full day at work and an environment that seemed out of my control, and snap at my husband about the crumbs on our counters. The smoke alarm going off during dinner could bring me to tears.
All of these reactions stemmed from my high sensitivity, which craved a calm, stable home space. Instead, I constantly associated our home with stress, and I didn’t know what changes I could make in order to calm myself down.
I struggled to understand why my husband ignored the clutter strewn across the coffee table or nightstand, or why I would feel so overwhelmed at the idea of ignoring the few chores I know would set me up for the week and giving my attention over to a Sunday packed with activities — even fun ones.
It wasn’t until I read about the need for “blank space” that I started to understand that home was not a haven for me. But I could make it one.
HSPs Need Their Blank Space
Highly sensitive people (HSPs) don’t like being busy, and we don’t like it when our homes aren’t sanctuaries. We require time to process the world around us because we feel everything so much more deeply than others, and we require quiet space to do that.
What I didn’t realize was that by jumping from thing to thing, or walking in from work to a sink piled with dishes, I was interfering with my brain’s natural need to reset in a calm environment.
Blank space looks different for everyone, but it simply means giving your brain some breathing room by quieting your thoughts about obligations and worries, and eliminating (as much as possible) those things that stress you out. Blank space helps us focus on what we can control by streamlining some of the common stressors and routine tasks of our lives, and giving us permission to reset in between larger, more complex demands.
For HSPs in particular, blank space can clear away some of the triggers that tend to ramp up our emotions and give us the mental timeout we need to engage with the wider, louder world.
How I Made Room for Blank Space in My Life
For me, the process of creating blank space was first about recognizing my triggers and what made me feel overstimulated. These included walking into a house full of mess or clutter, feeling like I had too many tasks and no plan to complete them, and feeling like I was losing control because those small things were piling up.
While I have larger methods in place to help me work on these triggers (exercise and counseling), I also started to research the changes I could make in my daily routine to help manage my sensitivities and keep them from spiraling into something that caused a large, overwhelming reaction.
Once I was honest with myself about what I needed in order to process and keep myself from spinning out, I started taking steps toward creating blank spaces in both my time and my home. A lot of this centered around acts of decluttering and cleaning, as I found that visually freeing up space not only made me feel more at peace, but also helped me not to get so emotional. And I stopped packing my schedule — or letting others pack it for me — and made sure I had time built into every day to reflect and dive inward.
Like I said, though, it looks different for everyone. Here are a few tips to help you start cultivating more blank space in your life so you have a happier headspace and a happier home space.
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4 Tips to Create Blank Space in Your Life
1. Take 15 minutes a day to spot clean and put things away.
As much as I like the idea of just being able to ignore chores until a designated day, the fact was that letting laundry pile up or crumbs sit on the counter was not going to work for me. Setting aside fifteen minutes after work helps me know that I have time to address things that are bothering me in my home without making me feel like I need to deep clean the whole house. Bonus: the constant, smaller cleaning tasks help make the deeper cleans go more quickly.
Feeling like I have control over these tasks has made me less short with other members of my household and helped me to feel more relaxed when I am at home. Of course, it’s all well and good to say this, but actually finding the time meant moving something else. For me, that meant getting honest about the fact that my after work Instagram scrolling habit wasn’t about destressing, as much as it was about avoidance. If you can find a fifteen (or even five minute) habit that isn’t serving you, try switching it up!
2. Get rid of items that were creating a mess.
If there’s less there, there’s less to clean. While I love decorative objects and knicknacks as much as anyone, the reality was that having a dozen candles on the coffee table that held zero sentimental value (and rarely got lit, if we’re being honest) made me feel like I was failing at organization and made it more difficult to clean and maintain my home. Getting rid of some of these things and adopting a more minimalist aesthetic allowed me to stop spending brain space on them and kept me from stressing over clutter.
3. Develop systems to deal with small tasks right away.
I find to-do lists key for managing tasks and helping me avoid the stress spirals that can quickly engulf me as a highly sensitive person. However, some of the smaller tasks on my lists were taking up more space in my brain than the time it would take to do them. I made a rule for myself that I would deal with any task that took less than a minute immediately.
This meant that I spent fewer moments worrying about everything I had to do and had more time to concentrate on longer, more satisfying projects. The beautiful part is that it can apply to non-household tasks as well. Try simple shifts like automating bills, streamlining your breakfast choices, or muting or deleting apps that demand your attention with little interruptions. For tasks that can’t be dealt with immediately, free up space in your mind by chunking things (like responding to emails) at a certain time, which allows you to not be distracted by decisions they may require constantly.
4. Reframe the idea of downtime.
Like a lot of other people I have talked to, I place a high emphasis on productivity. For me, checking items off a list is a great way to manage some of the anxieties that I deal with on a daily basis. While I’m always an advocate for using time wisely, I also needed to give myself permission to relax in order to reset my brain and achieve some of the calm that is so essential to functioning in our modern world.
I have worked to reframe my view of these activities, so that I no longer see myself as lazy. I know recognize how these breaks help me to be a kinder person and allow me to engage in more stimulating activities, knowing that I will have a reserve to help me reset and take a break from these triggers.
Your particular feelings may not be the same as mine, but I encourage you to take an honest look at how you can create blank spaces in your own life, and how this can help you feel more balanced and whole. HSPs require time and space to process our lives, and if either of those are harried or messy, we’ll be even more overwhelmed at the end of the day. Whatever your particular needs might be, I hope you will find, as I did, that respecting them helps you create more space for joy and peace in your life.
You might like:
Why Your Physical Environment is So Important If You’re an HSP
14 Things Highly Sensitive People Absolutely Need to Be Happy
How to Speak to Loved Ones About Being Highly Sensitive
The post Overwhelmed? Here’s How to Create ‘Blank Space’ in Your Life appeared first on Highly Sensitive Refuge.
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Eleven Phone Calls and a Voice Message
It only took three months to get this job interview… she couldn’t believe it. So many people had said how tough it was to get a job in this business, and yet, she landed her first job interview in only three months! After embellishing her résumé and trying to make it look as interesting as possible, with no working experience what-so-ever, and sending it shamelessly to several email addresses, finally, the reply she thought she would never get, appeared magically in her in box, that hot February afternoon.
She suddenly realized she had to put together the perfect outfit. She didn’t have any money to run out and buy something in such short notice, and no fashion designer (or in her case, fashion designer to-be) would show up in just any attire. She wanted to blow them away at first glance. She wanted to look unique, smart, elegant, but still unpretencious... The thing was, in the other hand, she didn’t want to stand out too much in the street. The place where the interview would be held was Flores (A not so safe neighborhood in Buenos Aires). The idea of standing out too much around that area made her feel anxious, in addition to the butterflies in her stomach she was already getting about the actual interview. She had to get very creative for this outfit. She tried on and looked for any alternative uses for every item of clothing in her closet until she was finally sort-of-happy with an outcome.
The day finally arrived. She took the bus that afternoon and sat there for an hour until it finally got to her stop. It had rained the whole morning, so the streets were slippery and dirty. The ground cluttered with scattered leaves, branches and mud. Wearing heels hadn’t been a smart move. She was trying to walk as fast as possible, doing her best not to stumble on anything or step on any muddy loose tiles along the sidewalk. That would be very unfortunate after so much prepping, not to mention she would look quite stupid with a huge stain of muddy water in her clear shoes.
The streets were quite empty, and the stores around didn’t look like what she had pictured. Every store she saw had overwhelming amounts of clothing pilled up in the windows, in what was trying to be a display. She was beginning to feel a bit concerned... But, suddenly, between what looked like some sort of garage and a little restaurant, she spotted a very wide window with clothes displayed in a way that resembled what she had had in mind all along. It had the street number she was given in the email. “Thank God!” she thought, and hurried inside.
The place was huge. It almost took the entire block. The lights from the high ceilings bathed the bright white walls making the sparkly black and white tiles shine. Clothes cascaded from the top of the ceiling down to the floors. Her jaw dropped in astonishment while staring at the amount of clothes hanging there. It seemed endless. If that was the amount of clothing she would have to design, she might have to think twice about this job offer. She started feeling a little overwhelmed.
A Korean woman greeted her.
“Are you here for the interview?” she asked.
“Yes, they told me to ask for Patricio.”
“Oh! Yes, I’ll have him called, he should be around.”
She offered her a sit in a little waiting space that was right next to the main desk.
Those words started echoing inside her head. “He should be around”… How professional could that place be if they didn’t even know where the recruiter was, or even worse, if this guy wasn’t even around for the interviews! Luckily another Korean guy greeted her before she started getting more paranoid. They shook hands.
“Hello, Gabriela, I’m Patricio. Please, come this way” he made a hand gesture pointing onwards and led the way.
They crossed what could be an inside garden behind a glass wall that separated the very big and long store from what she thought could be the offices, and went up a set of stairs into another building. While they were at it, they came across with many people who were carrying all sorts of clothes backwards and forwards. He greeted everyone on the way. The energy was hectic.
They entered in what seemed to be an office, or a soon-to-be-office. It was half as big as the store downstairs, which was still pretty big, but the only things in this room were a desk, a computer and a pair of office chairs. He turned on the lights, as the window in the office didn’t bring much light. While he sat down he offered her a seat in the chair that was left.
“So, as you could see downstairs, we are a big retail store, and we sell clothes by bulk. Most of our clothes are ordered in from China, but we’re looking forward to making our own designs. As we already have a designer who builds some clothes for us, we would like to have an assistant designer who can look into what’s coming on the next season’s trends, mix it with our style and hand that information to the designer so she can apply that to what she’s working on.”
That sounded heavenly! She loved to make trend researches! That job was meant for her!
“For this interview, what I would like you to do is go online and look for images to create a clothing line mixing the style you were able to see downstairs and what you think those clothes are missing. When you finish, email that file to the account we wrote you from and then you can let yourself out.”
“Perfect.” She said. “Do I have a time limit?”
“Yes, make sure to finish before 6PM, that’s our closing time”
That gave her enough time to make whatever she wanted! She was super exited!
After she nodded, Patricio turned around and left her alone in the office. With a shaky hand she turned on the computer, clicked on the browser and started her research.
That office was very different from the rest of the building, or at least what she had been able to see. It was so calm, no one entered in any moment. That made her feel quite uneasy. As if she had actually been abandoned at that place. The only thing that made her feel a bit more at ease was she could hear someone talking loudly in Korean in the background. She turned around for a second and saw another door she hadn’t noticed before, far back behind her. “Probably another office.” she thought to herself. She was being way too paranoid. They wouldn’t leave her all alone there!
It felt like she had worked for two hours when she finally sent the attachment. She checked the time on her cellphone. It was 5:40. No one had entered in that room in that whole time, but the sound of the loud voice was still there. She started wondering if this guy would reply, or even show up again at that office… it didn’t feel right to just leave now. She didn’t know what to do. She was getting anxious. She checked the clock again. 5:50… “Shit, what am I supposed to do?” she thought. “This is so awkward! They shouldn’t leave people completely alone like this in an interview!”
The lights faded and the place went dark all of a sudden. She jumped on her seat. The voice behind her went mute as if the person had vanished into thin air. Her heart started beating fast. She was agitated. “It’s probably a power line problem, this area is full with those issues” she thought, trying to calm herself down.
She stayed put in the silent dark for what felt like an hour. “They wouldn’t leave just anyone here… would they?” She checked the clock again. 6:07. She jumped from the seat, grabbed her purse and hurried out the door. The stairs were even darker.
“Oh no no no no!!! Fuck! Fuuuuuuck!” she was suddenly desperate.
In the bottom of her purse was her cellphone. She grabbed it and turned on the screen to use it as a flashlight. She hurried down the stairs. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. This was not possible… there was no way that could be actually happening! God, How was that even possible? It felt like she was in the middle of a horror movie.
Everything was dark. She ran towards the glass wall in the inside garden where there was still a bit of light. There was a closed door. She tried to open it. It was fucking locked! She looked up from the handle, way ahead, at the front of the store. An iron curtain had been completely pulled down. The store had been closed. She was locked in.
“Please help!! Heeeeeelp!” she screamed up, at the top of her lungs, at the only piece of sky she could see in that tiny square garden… no one answered. Not even a noise. No one could help her. She was too far from the street door for someone to hear her.
She started hyperventilating, trying to come up with something… anything she could do. Breaking the glass might injure her, and being so far away from the main entrance, which was a locked iron curtain, could result on her bleeding out completely …
The first person she though about was her mother, but she couldn’t bring herself to call her. This situation was way too much for her mother to handle.
She phoned her boyfriend. Maybe he would come and be able to do something from the other side!
“Baby! They left me locked in!” She cried desperately
“What? What do you mean?? Where are you??”
“I’m at the clothes factory, everybody left without knowing I was still inside!”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ll fucking kill them! Hang in there! Just breathe! I’m on my way!”
That didn’t calm her down, but the sound of his voice gave her a little boost to try and look for any other way out.
What else could she do? She was going back upstairs when she spotted a surveillance camera. “An alarm!” she thought. She had to make the alarm go off and someone would have to come and check it out! She started jumping hysterically in front of the camera. Nothing happened. “Fuck!” she was feeling defeated… Patricio's phone number! She remembered she had saved his cellphone number just in case. She almost dropped her phone while desperately trying to unlock it. The phone rang, but no one picked up. It led to voicemail. Leaving a crazy desperate message was a better attempt to get out of there than nothing at all.
“Patricio, it's Gabriela, the recrutee you interviewed today. I was left locked inside the store. I beg you please come let me out, I'm getting desperate.”
Redial. Again voice mail. Redial... She redialed eleven times and still no answer. She clumsily sat down in the floor, closed her eyes, looked down and grabbed her forehead. She started breathing slowly in and out.
The wall that used to be white was now dark grey as there was almost no light left in that garden. Finally, the phone rang. That was the best sound she had heard all day. It was Patricio. He had listened to her voice message and was rushing to get her out. “Thank God!” She thought while sighing.
Some minutes after that phone call a ray of light came out from what seemed to be an opening in the iron curtain at the front of the shop. Patricio came in through a little door and rushed to the main desk where he opened a hidden compartment and popped half of his body in, looking for something. The frigging keys! He took out what looked like a janitor’s keychain. For a second she felt shattered. The last thing she needed was a key mix up while still locked in. But he quickly found the opening key while approaching the door and unlocked it, letting her out.
While crossing the door she noticed he was as shaky as her. Apparently, they both were in shock. He was silent, keeping his eyes to the floor. She was waiting for him to do or say something… Anything to make that moment at least less awkward.
He placed his hand on her shoulder and tried making eye contact.
“Are you ok?” he asked.
She didn’t want to talk about anything that’d just happened. She just wanted to run home and cry.
“Yes, thank God you got here fast!”
“I know, I’m usually at home at this time. I coincidentally thought to buy something ten blocks away. That was really fortunate!”
She just nodded. She didn’t know how to react.
When she finally came out she saw her boyfriend rushing around the corner and hurried towards him. They hugged for a minute and then, he took her home.
A week later she got a phone call from Patricio. He wanted to know how she was doing. It turns out he and the rest of the staff got to watch the tapes caught by the surveillance camera and he was worried about how she might be doing. She told him she was ok. Thankfully she got over the experience quite fast, she actually stayed in only for a couple of days until she was able to face the street again.
She ended up getting the job some time after that phone call. This incident was just a prelude from what ended up being an abusive eleven-hour-long job she wasn't able to bare. She resigned 3 months later.
Six months after she left, they called, begging for her to come back. They had to hire 4 different people to replace her, but they were still hoping she would lead them.
She rejected the offer.
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Trading average for adventure: How one couple ditched it all to live aboard in Puget Sound
I always felt slightly out of place sitting at a desk from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. every day, returning home to a beige house in the suburbs, crammed into a tree-lined street elbow to elbow with all the other houses, all looking just about the same. I had a hard time finding a place I loved to eat, to shop, to spend my time and my hard-earned money because, for me, nothing in the town where we lived had any sense of originality, no character, nothing whatsoever to develop a connection with. That’s what I craved: connection. To my community, to the people with whom I shared this collective space.
I’ve found that nothing worthwhile ever comes as a result of a carefully laid plan. God (or the universe or whatever you believe in) laughs at plans. Plans are simply our way of attempting to gain control over our lives. So it came as no surprise to me that the end to this way of life came hurdling at me like a fastball to a newbie batter. To put it simply: I lost my job. My husband, Jim, had lost his almost a year earlier, and the time had come to make some big decisions. Fast.
Should we get new jobs we didn’t love simply to keep the house? Did we even need the house? Were we willing to continue putting our dreams of being full time wedding photographers on hold simply to maintain possession of the structure that housed our things? And if not, what else were we going to do?
A visit to friends in Seattle, less than a week later, provided all the answers we needed. We loved the area, the thought of being closer to our friends sounded like so much fun, and over lunch on the last day of our visit, Jim threw out a wild idea he only half meant at the time: “Maybe we should buy a boat and move up here and live in a marina.”
The idea was crazy, wasn’t it? Who just up and sells everything they own to move onto a boat in a new state? Well, apparently, we do. We had fifteen hours’ worth of driving home to find a reason we shouldn’t make this crazy plan a reality. We never found one.
It was easier than we thought to part with the “things” we’d amassed over the course of our lives and our relationship. When the options were to hold onto wedding gifts we’d barely used and a library full of books (which, by the way, were my pride and joy) or to go off and live a life of adventure, a life that truly felt like “me,” the decision was simple. Suddenly, those things that once felt so important, so critical to survival became just “things,” items that stood between us and the life of our dreams.
Don’t get me wrong. It was an emotional time. We had spent almost five years building a home together. The house we sold was our first, and we had created a space that we loved, that was our sanctuary, and it was not something we parted with lightly. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks as I said goodbye for the last time, to our garden, to the shelves Jim had built into our library, to the kitchen I’d prepared so many meals in. It was a sacrifice for the life we live now. But it was worth it.
With Jim’s truck packed to the brim with all the items we would need for our first several weeks in Seattle, we pulled out of his parents’ driveway before the sun was up. We drove north fueled by Dutch Bros coffee and an adrenaline like none I had ever felt. This was a new kind of adventure for me. It was terrifying…and it was amazing.
We’d decided (after 12 hours of sailing lessons on a practically windless lake and one tour of a Pearson 30 on the Sacramento River) that we were going to live on a sailboat. Jim called on every listing he could find on Yacht World and within the first 48 hours we had a whole two boat tours lined up. The first was a Catalina 34 that was just a tad over our budget…and needed far too many tads’ worth of work for our beginning comfort level. The second was a custom Endurance 37 that ended up being the best boat we looked at by far. Not because she was our boat, but because she brought us to our broker.
Sue at Capital City Yacht Sales was a godsend in our boat-buying process. She did more than show us boats and help us find the right one for us, she took us under her wing and helped us figure out exactly what we wanted and what we didn’t, she drove all over the Puget Sound to show us boats and pulled me off the ledge when the trawler we fell in love with and made an offer on (yes, I said trawler) ended up not being the boat for us. She started this process as our broker, and I am so happy to report that to this day, we call her our friend.
Finding Sue was our first bit of luck in the boat-buying process, but it wasn’t our last. Seattle area marinas are notoriously hard to get into. Every single one we visited had a waiting list at least a year long just to get a permanent slip. And in order to join the waiting list for live aboard status, you had to have a permanent slip. It was starting to look hopeless.
While visiting the Port of Poulsbo, we fell in love with the quaint little town and decided it was time to actually put our names on one of these lists. It was the only list we joined, and we were number twelve. But here we had the option of winter moorage at their guest docks while we waited for a permanent spot. It was the best opportunity we’d come across.
Port of Poulsbo.
Meanwhile, the deal for the trawler had fallen through and we were madly running around looking at boats. We had to find one before we returned to California to photograph a wedding at the end of the month, and time was rapidly running out.
We knew Willow was the boat for us the second we stepped into her cabin. We even had a secret signal, and Jim and I stifled a laugh as we both signaled at the same time. Her owner, Peter, spent almost two hours showing us every inch of the well-maintained Islander Freeport 36, including all the little quirks and potential problems he was aware of. We called Sue the moment we left the boat and told her we were in love. Again. I hadn’t been sure it would happen a second time. That trawler had seemed perfect, but next to Willow, it was just another boat that wasn’t our boat.
We made an offer and hit the road for California, cutting our trip shorter than we’d planned in order to get back in time for our survey. As we were packing our bags the afternoon before our drive back north, the Port of Poulsbo called and offered us a permanent slip. Everything was falling into place.
Signing the papers for Willow.
At the end of October, we will celebrate our first year living aboard Willow. Only a month after being put on the live aboard list in Poulsbo, our names came up and we became official.
This past year has been like living a dream I never knew I had. Tiny living definitely suits us and we’ve found our tribe in our fellow liveaboards (and lots of non-liveaboards!) in our marina and in the community around us. Our friends and family ask us how long we plan to live on the boat, and our answer is always “as long as it still feels right.” At this point, I can’t imagine it not feeling right.
Sure, it is an inconvenience to walk up to the marina bathrooms to take a shower in the winter when the introduction of additional moisture into the boat can cause problems, but it is a small price to pay for the kind of life we live. Other small prices to pay: lugging groceries down the dock at low tide. Having to shop twice a week because our fridge is small. Pumping our waste tank. Walking the dog in the rain. Dealing with leaks. Refilling water tanks mid-shower (we do shower in the boat in the summer). Parking half a mile away from our front door. Lying awake in a wind storm as our lazy jacks slap against the mast. Losing a can of pumpkin at the bottom of the pantry that is about half as deep as I am tall.
But if those things are the price of waking up every morning on the water, of having the freedom to cast off our lines and be on an adventure at a moment’s notice, of watching the sun rise over Mount Rainier with a steaming cup of coffee and my best friend in the whole world, the lovely sounds of bells from the church up the hill ringing through the air, of living a simple life free of clutter and “things” that don’t bring me joy, in a community that I feel a deep connection to, then that is a price I am gladly willing to pay.
Read More Here ….
The post Trading average for adventure: How one couple ditched it all to live aboard in Puget Sound appeared first on YachtAweigh.
from http://yachtaweigh.com/trading-average-for-adventure-how-one-couple-ditched-it-all-to-live-aboard-in-puget-sound/
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Trading average for adventure: How one couple ditched it all to live aboard in Puget Sound
I always felt slightly out of place sitting at a desk from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. every day, returning home to a beige house in the suburbs, crammed into a tree-lined street elbow to elbow with all the other houses, all looking just about the same. I had a hard time finding a place I loved to eat, to shop, to spend my time and my hard-earned money because, for me, nothing in the town where we lived had any sense of originality, no character, nothing whatsoever to develop a connection with. That’s what I craved: connection. To my community, to the people with whom I shared this collective space.
I’ve found that nothing worthwhile ever comes as a result of a carefully laid plan. God (or the universe or whatever you believe in) laughs at plans. Plans are simply our way of attempting to gain control over our lives. So it came as no surprise to me that the end to this way of life came hurdling at me like a fastball to a newbie batter. To put it simply: I lost my job. My husband, Jim, had lost his almost a year earlier, and the time had come to make some big decisions. Fast.
Should we get new jobs we didn’t love simply to keep the house? Did we even need the house? Were we willing to continue putting our dreams of being full time wedding photographers on hold simply to maintain possession of the structure that housed our things? And if not, what else were we going to do?
A visit to friends in Seattle, less than a week later, provided all the answers we needed. We loved the area, the thought of being closer to our friends sounded like so much fun, and over lunch on the last day of our visit, Jim threw out a wild idea he only half meant at the time: “Maybe we should buy a boat and move up here and live in a marina.”
The idea was crazy, wasn’t it? Who just up and sells everything they own to move onto a boat in a new state? Well, apparently, we do. We had fifteen hours’ worth of driving home to find a reason we shouldn’t make this crazy plan a reality. We never found one.
It was easier than we thought to part with the “things” we’d amassed over the course of our lives and our relationship. When the options were to hold onto wedding gifts we’d barely used and a library full of books (which, by the way, were my pride and joy) or to go off and live a life of adventure, a life that truly felt like “me,” the decision was simple. Suddenly, those things that once felt so important, so critical to survival became just “things,” items that stood between us and the life of our dreams.
Don’t get me wrong. It was an emotional time. We had spent almost five years building a home together. The house we sold was our first, and we had created a space that we loved, that was our sanctuary, and it was not something we parted with lightly. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks as I said goodbye for the last time, to our garden, to the shelves Jim had built into our library, to the kitchen I’d prepared so many meals in. It was a sacrifice for the life we live now. But it was worth it.
With Jim’s truck packed to the brim with all the items we would need for our first several weeks in Seattle, we pulled out of his parents’ driveway before the sun was up. We drove north fueled by Dutch Bros coffee and an adrenaline like none I had ever felt. This was a new kind of adventure for me. It was terrifying…and it was amazing.
We’d decided (after 12 hours of sailing lessons on a practically windless lake and one tour of a Pearson 30 on the Sacramento River) that we were going to live on a sailboat. Jim called on every listing he could find on Yacht World and within the first 48 hours we had a whole two boat tours lined up. The first was a Catalina 34 that was just a tad over our budget…and needed far too many tads’ worth of work for our beginning comfort level. The second was a custom Endurance 37 that ended up being the best boat we looked at by far. Not because she was our boat, but because she brought us to our broker.
Sue at Capital City Yacht Sales was a godsend in our boat-buying process. She did more than show us boats and help us find the right one for us, she took us under her wing and helped us figure out exactly what we wanted and what we didn’t, she drove all over the Puget Sound to show us boats and pulled me off the ledge when the trawler we fell in love with and made an offer on (yes, I said trawler) ended up not being the boat for us. She started this process as our broker, and I am so happy to report that to this day, we call her our friend.
Finding Sue was our first bit of luck in the boat-buying process, but it wasn’t our last. Seattle area marinas are notoriously hard to get into. Every single one we visited had a waiting list at least a year long just to get a permanent slip. And in order to join the waiting list for live aboard status, you had to have a permanent slip. It was starting to look hopeless.
While visiting the Port of Poulsbo, we fell in love with the quaint little town and decided it was time to actually put our names on one of these lists. It was the only list we joined, and we were number twelve. But here we had the option of winter moorage at their guest docks while we waited for a permanent spot. It was the best opportunity we’d come across.
Port of Poulsbo.
Meanwhile, the deal for the trawler had fallen through and we were madly running around looking at boats. We had to find one before we returned to California to photograph a wedding at the end of the month, and time was rapidly running out.
We knew Willow was the boat for us the second we stepped into her cabin. We even had a secret signal, and Jim and I stifled a laugh as we both signaled at the same time. Her owner, Peter, spent almost two hours showing us every inch of the well-maintained Islander Freeport 36, including all the little quirks and potential problems he was aware of. We called Sue the moment we left the boat and told her we were in love. Again. I hadn’t been sure it would happen a second time. That trawler had seemed perfect, but next to Willow, it was just another boat that wasn’t our boat.
We made an offer and hit the road for California, cutting our trip shorter than we’d planned in order to get back in time for our survey. As we were packing our bags the afternoon before our drive back north, the Port of Poulsbo called and offered us a permanent slip. Everything was falling into place.
Signing the papers for Willow.
At the end of October, we will celebrate our first year living aboard Willow. Only a month after being put on the live aboard list in Poulsbo, our names came up and we became official.
This past year has been like living a dream I never knew I had. Tiny living definitely suits us and we’ve found our tribe in our fellow liveaboards (and lots of non-liveaboards!) in our marina and in the community around us. Our friends and family ask us how long we plan to live on the boat, and our answer is always “as long as it still feels right.” At this point, I can’t imagine it not feeling right.
Sure, it is an inconvenience to walk up to the marina bathrooms to take a shower in the winter when the introduction of additional moisture into the boat can cause problems, but it is a small price to pay for the kind of life we live. Other small prices to pay: lugging groceries down the dock at low tide. Having to shop twice a week because our fridge is small. Pumping our waste tank. Walking the dog in the rain. Dealing with leaks. Refilling water tanks mid-shower (we do shower in the boat in the summer). Parking half a mile away from our front door. Lying awake in a wind storm as our lazy jacks slap against the mast. Losing a can of pumpkin at the bottom of the pantry that is about half as deep as I am tall.
But if those things are the price of waking up every morning on the water, of having the freedom to cast off our lines and be on an adventure at a moment’s notice, of watching the sun rise over Mount Rainier with a steaming cup of coffee and my best friend in the whole world, the lovely sounds of bells from the church up the hill ringing through the air, of living a simple life free of clutter and “things” that don’t bring me joy, in a community that I feel a deep connection to, then that is a price I am gladly willing to pay.
Read More Here ….
The post Trading average for adventure: How one couple ditched it all to live aboard in Puget Sound appeared first on YachtAweigh.
source http://yachtaweigh.com/trading-average-for-adventure-how-one-couple-ditched-it-all-to-live-aboard-in-puget-sound/
from http://yatchaweigh.blogspot.com/2017/09/trading-average-for-adventure-how-one.html
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Trading average for adventure: How one couple ditched it all to live aboard in Puget Sound
I always felt slightly out of place sitting at a desk from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. every day, returning home to a beige house in the suburbs, crammed into a tree-lined street elbow to elbow with all the other houses, all looking just about the same. I had a hard time finding a place I loved to eat, to shop, to spend my time and my hard-earned money because, for me, nothing in the town where we lived had any sense of originality, no character, nothing whatsoever to develop a connection with. That’s what I craved: connection. To my community, to the people with whom I shared this collective space.
I’ve found that nothing worthwhile ever comes as a result of a carefully laid plan. God (or the universe or whatever you believe in) laughs at plans. Plans are simply our way of attempting to gain control over our lives. So it came as no surprise to me that the end to this way of life came hurdling at me like a fastball to a newbie batter. To put it simply: I lost my job. My husband, Jim, had lost his almost a year earlier, and the time had come to make some big decisions. Fast.
Should we get new jobs we didn’t love simply to keep the house? Did we even need the house? Were we willing to continue putting our dreams of being full time wedding photographers on hold simply to maintain possession of the structure that housed our things? And if not, what else were we going to do?
A visit to friends in Seattle, less than a week later, provided all the answers we needed. We loved the area, the thought of being closer to our friends sounded like so much fun, and over lunch on the last day of our visit, Jim threw out a wild idea he only half meant at the time: “Maybe we should buy a boat and move up here and live in a marina.”
The idea was crazy, wasn’t it? Who just up and sells everything they own to move onto a boat in a new state? Well, apparently, we do. We had fifteen hours’ worth of driving home to find a reason we shouldn’t make this crazy plan a reality. We never found one.
It was easier than we thought to part with the “things” we’d amassed over the course of our lives and our relationship. When the options were to hold onto wedding gifts we’d barely used and a library full of books (which, by the way, were my pride and joy) or to go off and live a life of adventure, a life that truly felt like “me,” the decision was simple. Suddenly, those things that once felt so important, so critical to survival became just “things,” items that stood between us and the life of our dreams.
Don’t get me wrong. It was an emotional time. We had spent almost five years building a home together. The house we sold was our first, and we had created a space that we loved, that was our sanctuary, and it was not something we parted with lightly. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks as I said goodbye for the last time, to our garden, to the shelves Jim had built into our library, to the kitchen I’d prepared so many meals in. It was a sacrifice for the life we live now. But it was worth it.
With Jim’s truck packed to the brim with all the items we would need for our first several weeks in Seattle, we pulled out of his parents’ driveway before the sun was up. We drove north fueled by Dutch Bros coffee and an adrenaline like none I had ever felt. This was a new kind of adventure for me. It was terrifying…and it was amazing.
We’d decided (after 12 hours of sailing lessons on a practically windless lake and one tour of a Pearson 30 on the Sacramento River) that we were going to live on a sailboat. Jim called on every listing he could find on Yacht World and within the first 48 hours we had a whole two boat tours lined up. The first was a Catalina 34 that was just a tad over our budget…and needed far too many tads’ worth of work for our beginning comfort level. The second was a custom Endurance 37 that ended up being the best boat we looked at by far. Not because she was our boat, but because she brought us to our broker.
Sue at Capital City Yacht Sales was a godsend in our boat-buying process. She did more than show us boats and help us find the right one for us, she took us under her wing and helped us figure out exactly what we wanted and what we didn’t, she drove all over the Puget Sound to show us boats and pulled me off the ledge when the trawler we fell in love with and made an offer on (yes, I said trawler) ended up not being the boat for us. She started this process as our broker, and I am so happy to report that to this day, we call her our friend.
Finding Sue was our first bit of luck in the boat-buying process, but it wasn’t our last. Seattle area marinas are notoriously hard to get into. Every single one we visited had a waiting list at least a year long just to get a permanent slip. And in order to join the waiting list for live aboard status, you had to have a permanent slip. It was starting to look hopeless.
While visiting the Port of Poulsbo, we fell in love with the quaint little town and decided it was time to actually put our names on one of these lists. It was the only list we joined, and we were number twelve. But here we had the option of winter moorage at their guest docks while we waited for a permanent spot. It was the best opportunity we’d come across.
Port of Poulsbo.
Meanwhile, the deal for the trawler had fallen through and we were madly running around looking at boats. We had to find one before we returned to California to photograph a wedding at the end of the month, and time was rapidly running out.
We knew Willow was the boat for us the second we stepped into her cabin. We even had a secret signal, and Jim and I stifled a laugh as we both signaled at the same time. Her owner, Peter, spent almost two hours showing us every inch of the well-maintained Islander Freeport 36, including all the little quirks and potential problems he was aware of. We called Sue the moment we left the boat and told her we were in love. Again. I hadn’t been sure it would happen a second time. That trawler had seemed perfect, but next to Willow, it was just another boat that wasn’t our boat.
We made an offer and hit the road for California, cutting our trip shorter than we’d planned in order to get back in time for our survey. As we were packing our bags the afternoon before our drive back north, the Port of Poulsbo called and offered us a permanent slip. Everything was falling into place.
Signing the papers for Willow.
At the end of October, we will celebrate our first year living aboard Willow. Only a month after being put on the live aboard list in Poulsbo, our names came up and we became official.
This past year has been like living a dream I never knew I had. Tiny living definitely suits us and we’ve found our tribe in our fellow liveaboards (and lots of non-liveaboards!) in our marina and in the community around us. Our friends and family ask us how long we plan to live on the boat, and our answer is always “as long as it still feels right.” At this point, I can’t imagine it not feeling right.
Sure, it is an inconvenience to walk up to the marina bathrooms to take a shower in the winter when the introduction of additional moisture into the boat can cause problems, but it is a small price to pay for the kind of life we live. Other small prices to pay: lugging groceries down the dock at low tide. Having to shop twice a week because our fridge is small. Pumping our waste tank. Walking the dog in the rain. Dealing with leaks. Refilling water tanks mid-shower (we do shower in the boat in the summer). Parking half a mile away from our front door. Lying awake in a wind storm as our lazy jacks slap against the mast. Losing a can of pumpkin at the bottom of the pantry that is about half as deep as I am tall.
But if those things are the price of waking up every morning on the water, of having the freedom to cast off our lines and be on an adventure at a moment’s notice, of watching the sun rise over Mount Rainier with a steaming cup of coffee and my best friend in the whole world, the lovely sounds of bells from the church up the hill ringing through the air, of living a simple life free of clutter and “things” that don’t bring me joy, in a community that I feel a deep connection to, then that is a price I am gladly willing to pay.
Read More Here ….
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