Time's a-flyin'

This has been quite the two weeks or so. Began a temporary full-time gig at the library where I work. I'm so not used to getting up early in the morning four times a week (and commuting through rush hour traffic three times a week, which will become exponentially worse when school begins August 25th - Lord help me, and everyone else). Then I went and got strep throat. Why not? It's a good weight loss program because you can't really eat anything solid. So now my best friend is Amoxicillin. And hopefully my best friend won't harm me while healing me, as is the way of modern medicine.

I'm supposed to be at work right now, but strep is keeping me home. It's difficult to be in a customer service position with major laryngitis, so I'm hanging out with the cats in my nice air-conditioned villa while it suns, clouds, storms, and whatever outside, and I'm taking care of personal business like checking out what's left of my finances, paying bills with that little bit of money, researching how to interview well because there's a job interview coming up sometime in the near future, catching up with friends and family on Facebook, trying to eat something substantial so I don't fall over from weakness when I go to work tomorrow, and searching for this blog because for some reason Blogger decided that this blog belonged somewhere where it was not born. 

I've heard a couple of interesting things in the last few days. When I was in Publix, one of the middle-aged cashiers said something to a customer or one of her coworkers (I wasn't really paying attention) about how when she looks in the mirror now, she's shocked at what she sees because she still feels like a teenager inside. A couple of other older women commented on the same thing. And I went -- Geez, I'm not alone in this paradoxical puzzle. Hallelujah!

The other viewpoint I came across showed up on the History Channel program, "Alone." Ten men, trained survival experts from around the U.S., were placed in widely separated spots on the isolated northwest corner of Vancouver Island in the late autumn, totally alone, no camera crew, no phone (except a satellite phone for rescue), no one nearby to talk to (except for the occasional bear, wolf pack, or cougar). Each man's one and only companion was a camera that logged his unique experiences while performing as a journal of his time spent on the island. One of the last four men, just before he tapped out, said something I found profound. He said (to paraphrase) that places have feelings and that if you bounce from site to site in this area and never find what you're looking for, that means this particular place doesn't want you there. I interpret this to mean that each place (and that can mean a neighborhood, a city, a county, a country, whatever) has a specific vibration and if you keep trying to meld your personal vibration (spirit) with this specific vibration which is not aligned with your spirit, you will always find discord, and maybe even harm. This was like an Oprah Winfrey "aha" moment for me. This is exactly what I've been doing here in Tampa -- moving from here to there to there to there to there for decades, trying to find where I fit in, never finding the place where I feel alive, peaceful, and creative. I felt that once -- on Lopez Island. That was several years and I'm a different person now . . . or am I? Is it even possible for me to settle down in one place, in peace and harmony with my environment, or am I wanderer at heart who has squashed her nomadic spirit, limiting it to a few miles in one city in one county in one state in one country? Maybe I'm really an adventurer and I don't know it. If only there was a Google for the human spirit . . . .