On new years day, 2009, I left my house-mate and moved back to Bucerias. It was cooler there, than before, but still warm.
I had a lot of physical pain, and went to a doctor. He put me on prednisone, and thyroid medicine, and then I had a recurrence of atrial fibrillation.
After several weeks of this recurring, I had to go to a Centro de Salud, and they sent me to a hospital in San Francisco, Nayarit. I was there, in the ER, on a gurney for 3 days. My heart stopped once, and I called family in the US, and they got me a plane ticket and I went to Arizona.
After several more months of Atrial fibrillation, I had a surgery to stop the problem. The surgery was successful, and I had no arrhythmias for 3 months.
I was very weak after the surgery, from complications, and went to New Hampshire to stay with my daughter. I continue to improve in some ways and get worse in others.
I have started a new practice of meditation. I meditate for about 40 minutes. I am also researching how I can live on a small income.
I found out last month, I had been divorced for 3 weeks, without my ex telling me he had filed the papers we had signed in the summer. Very disgusting behavior. Now I have to go take care of some things in Oregon, and meet my 3 new granddaughters. But I also have to come back to NH. It is going to be a long, and cold trip. Let's hope for good weather.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
They tell me this is the sunny time of year here. "Six months of not a cloud in the sky." Well it has been not true this year!
A week an a half ago, the clouds came in the afternoon. They have been doing that lately. Then is got windy, and rained. Then about 10 p.m. we had very hard wind, lightning, and rain. My power went out.
As I tried to peer through my screens, it was just too dark to see, until a streak of lightnening lit things up. To my amazement, the palms looked just like they do on TV when they show hurricanes in the southeastern US. The tops wer absolutly bent over into a tight bundle.
I live upstairs, on the side away from the beach. But my door opens to a breeze-way (a well-named hall) where the rain had flooded the floors and left a puddle outside my room. Things were banging loudly, so I went back in, afraid something would fly through the hall and hit me. My fears were well founded come morning.
Though there were no objects in my hall, other than water, there were trees down, walls and fences down, and power lines as well. Roof ceramic tiles--very heavy had come down in places. Palapas, the palm frond rooofs on some places, were torn up or fallen down.
The open market tents had damages to clean up and roofs to replace.
Many saws buzzed on the street, as clean-up crews cut down broken branches, freed trees from lines, and cut down broken, torn up trees, such as the beautiful orange Obaliscos, many badly damaged in the storm.
I never heard a word on the street before the storm that one was coming. Some later said they heard a bit on the radio. Mostly we were all surprised, as storms don't usually come inside Bandaras Bay, and rip things apart. The last hurricane was (I think) 2002, in Puerto Vallarta, where the Malacón, the grand walkway along the sea wall was torn up badly. This was much smaller, but very intense. the worst must have lasted no more than an hour.
After the storm, I slept the best sleep I had had in 10 years. Being weather sensitive sometimes has its advantages.
A week an a half ago, the clouds came in the afternoon. They have been doing that lately. Then is got windy, and rained. Then about 10 p.m. we had very hard wind, lightning, and rain. My power went out.
As I tried to peer through my screens, it was just too dark to see, until a streak of lightnening lit things up. To my amazement, the palms looked just like they do on TV when they show hurricanes in the southeastern US. The tops wer absolutly bent over into a tight bundle.
I live upstairs, on the side away from the beach. But my door opens to a breeze-way (a well-named hall) where the rain had flooded the floors and left a puddle outside my room. Things were banging loudly, so I went back in, afraid something would fly through the hall and hit me. My fears were well founded come morning.
Though there were no objects in my hall, other than water, there were trees down, walls and fences down, and power lines as well. Roof ceramic tiles--very heavy had come down in places. Palapas, the palm frond rooofs on some places, were torn up or fallen down.
The open market tents had damages to clean up and roofs to replace.
Many saws buzzed on the street, as clean-up crews cut down broken branches, freed trees from lines, and cut down broken, torn up trees, such as the beautiful orange Obaliscos, many badly damaged in the storm.
I never heard a word on the street before the storm that one was coming. Some later said they heard a bit on the radio. Mostly we were all surprised, as storms don't usually come inside Bandaras Bay, and rip things apart. The last hurricane was (I think) 2002, in Puerto Vallarta, where the Malacón, the grand walkway along the sea wall was torn up badly. This was much smaller, but very intense. the worst must have lasted no more than an hour.
After the storm, I slept the best sleep I had had in 10 years. Being weather sensitive sometimes has its advantages.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Courage Come Slowly
Courage Come Slowly
I titled this site "courage come slowly" because that is how it seems to come. Slowly. Not by leaps and bounds of new courage to do or to be, but by little realizations of "oh, I did that, and maybe that does work". "Oh, I think I CAN live with this, or that", or tolerate a fear long enough for it not to be a fear anymore. Solo life is a scary thing to me. In this precess of coming to another country, I am finding that solo does not mean alone. Solo is my state of living without a partner, but alone, I am not. I make friends all the time, and the ones I made last week are better friends this week, and on and on we go, ever growing closer.
I have so many more strengths than I did a year ago. I panic less, I tolerate more, and I begin to recover from a long and painful marriage. Now, everyday has happiness in it. I have peace. I am hungry to learn new things, and have more strength to do so. I am less afraid of the world. I am becoming "me". My physical health is improving, too.
New opportunities are on the horizon, and I hope to be completely on my feet within the next 2 years. I feel appreciated here. Why I don't feel appreciated in the U.S., may have something to do with the way a lot of people view art and artist in the U.S. Art is is widely valued in the U.S. as a precious gift. Is seems to be looked at with an aw, but also the attitude of "not ever going to make you money". The same attitude my family expressed when I was a child. The implied message being that if you didn't make money, you were worthless as a person. How many artists have received the question, "So when are you going to get a real job?" ---too many.
How is it that we say so little encouragement to artists in the U.S., and then pay billions of dollars for the products of creative people? Every movie, TV advertisement, magazine, photo, print, and sign, are the works of creatives. Did you know that every item you see in a film, was placed there with intent? Every jar, can, spoon in a kitchen, every shirt, every stain on every shirt, every fluff of soap bubbles, etc, were placed there by artists of costume and set design.
Watch the film, The Bucket List, again. When the character sits in the soap bubbles and talks, the scene flips from one character to the other. Watch the scene carefully, for the position of the soap bubbles on his chest. If you observe your own bubble bath, you will see that the bubbles tend to minimize with time, and slip down the body. But somehow his bubbles get more fluffy, and slipped UP his body, in a scene that seems to take seconds. This just made me roar with laughter at how I was "into" the film, and then realized that is is still a work of art, not a real thing happening. It is a "story" that is in motion. It is lovely and sweet, and and creative, and it is art--and we paid millions of dollars to view it.
I titled this site "courage come slowly" because that is how it seems to come. Slowly. Not by leaps and bounds of new courage to do or to be, but by little realizations of "oh, I did that, and maybe that does work". "Oh, I think I CAN live with this, or that", or tolerate a fear long enough for it not to be a fear anymore. Solo life is a scary thing to me. In this precess of coming to another country, I am finding that solo does not mean alone. Solo is my state of living without a partner, but alone, I am not. I make friends all the time, and the ones I made last week are better friends this week, and on and on we go, ever growing closer.
I have so many more strengths than I did a year ago. I panic less, I tolerate more, and I begin to recover from a long and painful marriage. Now, everyday has happiness in it. I have peace. I am hungry to learn new things, and have more strength to do so. I am less afraid of the world. I am becoming "me". My physical health is improving, too.
New opportunities are on the horizon, and I hope to be completely on my feet within the next 2 years. I feel appreciated here. Why I don't feel appreciated in the U.S., may have something to do with the way a lot of people view art and artist in the U.S. Art is is widely valued in the U.S. as a precious gift. Is seems to be looked at with an aw, but also the attitude of "not ever going to make you money". The same attitude my family expressed when I was a child. The implied message being that if you didn't make money, you were worthless as a person. How many artists have received the question, "So when are you going to get a real job?" ---too many.
How is it that we say so little encouragement to artists in the U.S., and then pay billions of dollars for the products of creative people? Every movie, TV advertisement, magazine, photo, print, and sign, are the works of creatives. Did you know that every item you see in a film, was placed there with intent? Every jar, can, spoon in a kitchen, every shirt, every stain on every shirt, every fluff of soap bubbles, etc, were placed there by artists of costume and set design.
Watch the film, The Bucket List, again. When the character sits in the soap bubbles and talks, the scene flips from one character to the other. Watch the scene carefully, for the position of the soap bubbles on his chest. If you observe your own bubble bath, you will see that the bubbles tend to minimize with time, and slip down the body. But somehow his bubbles get more fluffy, and slipped UP his body, in a scene that seems to take seconds. This just made me roar with laughter at how I was "into" the film, and then realized that is is still a work of art, not a real thing happening. It is a "story" that is in motion. It is lovely and sweet, and and creative, and it is art--and we paid millions of dollars to view it.
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