the old, the new and where the hell did I get all of this stuff

It was in New Mexico where I saw the old and the new struggling to survive. Actually there seemed to be room for both out there on the open rangelands, and I wondered if they would be able to survive side by side. I pulled off onto the dusty shoulder. The dogs, of which I had always referred to as the girls, and now with Harry in the mix, I don't know what to call them anymore, but anyway the dogs got excited when I stopped, so I snapped on each of their leads and we got out. Harry, in all of his excitement and not-quite-two-year-oldness, stepped in my cup of hot tea.

Across the little two lane country road were two windmills. One from another century spinning in the wind and pumping as fast as it could. It was old and dilapidated, but it was doing its job and what a job it has...bringing water from deep in the earth up to the parched surface to water the livestock. The water tank below it was filled to the brim with that liquid gold. Water in a land baked and brittle, after several years of drought and no summer monsoons. The cows were gathered around...the choice was easy...there was no question. They had to walk a long way for a blade of green grass, but the water held them close to the tank. Not far away was a 'new' windmill, larger than life, with its shiny blades reaching to the heavens...this one gathering the wind and turning it into electricity. It, too, has a job, a big one...that of harnessing the wind's power and giving the earth and the people on it a better and more lasting source of power.

We walked and I watched the windmills, my thoughts soaring with the huge silver blades, then coming back to the cows and watching them as they stayed in their 'comfort' zone. Get Up! I wanted to scream... you are missing life. Water is not your only life blood...you must graze and explore. You are just going to lay there and then go to slaughter. Good lord - don't you want to live? But they just laid there in a lump, basking in their knowledge that for now they had water. That was a sure thing. That was me at Sunglow. Sunglow was my comfort zone. The only one I had ever experienced...but I know about stepping out and living the experience. And it is time for me to do that again. I missed the experiences of not knowing...and of doing and of being. I changed at Sunglow. Everything about me changed. I lost my zest for life.

For me, I needed that break. I needed to stop long enough to find my strengths and my passions. I think 10 years overdid it a little, but you get the picture. But I found for me - comfort creates stagnation and with that came all of this stuff. I sometimes wonder if I bought all this 'stuff' trying to stuff my feelings like I do with foods. When I started packing, I was appalled - how in the hell did I ever buy this much stuff?

We are who we are. Some are meant to stay in one place, others are meant to move....
During my younger years while I was raising my children, I moved a LOT. Once I suggested to my mom that she must have been messing around with a gypsy when she got pregnant with me, but through the years I discovered she was the gypsy. So for me, I was meant to move, so while I wait for my 'stuff' to arrive via semi truck, I have to start thinking about why I have so much, and what to do about it, and how to lighten my physical and mental load.