Gaps

Over the last week, I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about the gaps between the life I’m leading and the life I want to lead. The life I want to lead is outside, helping the environment and it has a partner, good friends and homesteading in it, along with lots of laughter and fun.The life I’m leading now doesn’t have most of those things. (My life DOES have lots of wonderful things in it - though for a few reasons, including the impending winter, I’d been focusing more on the down side recently.)

But not for naught! The challenge is to constructively learn from these feelings, and to grow into a better person. It took all of about 30 seconds after I complained last weekend about feeling lonely for me to realize that the solution is entirely within my control. It’s not reasonable to expect Mr Right or my next best friend to come magically driving up the dirt road! If I want local friends or a partner, I am going to have to work harder at it, both inside myself and in the outside world.

So I did stuff last week to meet people. On Thursday night I went out to dinner with 9 people at an Albany, NY brew pub. Today I went to Jenna Woginrich’s place and met more people, including Jenna. Jenna is the author of the Storey book Made From Scratch, and the blog Cold Antler Farm (www.coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com).

After so many times of starting over, I have a bit of a formula for it. The first step, which I had put off for almost a year, is to get out and meet people. Try many different things. Some of them won’t be appealing in the long run but, and this is where so much of the work lies, I have to try. Distance and mountains is no excuse not to do the work. Eventually (measured in months or years, not weeks), some of it will pay off in strong, supportive, local relationships, which is the big gap in my life these days. Of course, I fully expect I'll have a good time while doing this work.

Below is a shot of Jenna leading a dulcimer workshop earlier today. The dulcimer is a neat instrument and now I want one! Good thing they're cheap.


The sun is setting now, and all the animals are inside in various poses around the wood stove. I started a fire last night and have kept it going since then. When I came home from Jenna's it was toasty inside - a very nice thing to come home to! Good thing too, because tonight is supposed to be COLD.