It has been awhile since I’ve written. 2020 has had so many twists and turns I haven’t been able to sit and collect my thoughts for months. I enjoy writing, so it feels good to be using a keyboard again.
At the beginning of the year, I chose the word “enough” as my guide, and it has been a grounding and essential choice. I’ve used it to say no to activities, to be brave, to give myself pep talks. Then, of course, Covid hit. I have never considered myself a great homeschooling mother, but yet, the transition wasn’t as hard for me as I though it might. I’ve never taken my kids to daycare, even when they were young and I was just starting my business. There were times it was extremely tough, but I have no regrets. Going back to caring for them full-time and working was natural (except for the math….Dad had to take that on. I was lost after fifth grade level). It was a bit of a relief, in the beginning, to not be running from one activity to the next. I hope, when things return to normal, we’ll still decide to keep some “slow” in our lives.
When the shutdowns hit, we were wondering if we’d be re-enacting 2008. Unlike 2008, however, we are in much better financial shape. We’ve built a small house with a comfortable mortgage, no other debt, and have savings. We weren’t quite prepared for the toilet paper crisis like everyone else, but we live in Wyoming. We simply used our outdoor living lifestyle to pivot as needed with all the shortages, and it wasn’t a big deal. I am so grateful we have wide-open spaces to roam, because not a lot changed for us. Lockdown was a chance to go for another run. I also took the challenge of sourdough on when yeast was nowhere to be found, and I’ve loved it. That would never have happened without Covid.
There were rough patches too. Dave had to quickly let a few of his employees go because jobs he’d been counting on dropped off right and left. That was hard for him. His company is small. The guys on his crew are close-knit. But he didn’t know what else to do because the work simply vanished.
Then, another curve ball.
He started getting phone calls from New York, California, Nevada, and Texas. People wanted out of the cities. We’ve watched in amazement as the land prices doubled or tripled this summer, and everything that was for sale, sold. Dave is now at least a year out again on work, but has other challenges. Covid created shortages on materials, which tripled in price, and at this point he still can’t get windows for his jobs. Most of the glass manufacturers are in California, and they use the atmospheric air to create the glass. Since they’ve been burning all summer, the air quality isn’t good enough, so they’ve stopped even giving estimates of when windows will be in stock. That’s just one example, and everyone in the home industry is scrambling to find alternatives as best they can.
Pony Club commenced locally. As its DC, I felt strongly by June that the kids needed to have some form of gathering, so we went into our riding season full-time. Competitions out of state were closed, but we made the most of our time as a club.
And for whatever reason, I’ve had the second busiest year, if not THE busiest year, to date for my interior design business. I woke up every morning being grateful for our health and for our work.
{A recent install picture}
In so many ways, we simply weren’t being destroyed like so many other people around the country.
We did get some major things done around our house. Dave finished the steps and sidewalk between our house and garage. He also put in a basketball hoop for the kids. We’ve spent some fun evenings shooting out there together.
We finally got gutters installed and so we won’t have to fight what we called “the stairs of death” this winter. I finally started a garden, and this fall we planted our first two trees in our front yard. We chose a flowering crab (with the tiny apples) and a maple tree. They made the place feel more complete already, although our yard is far from done.
Next summer we hope to put in the automatic watering system, and I think I’ve decided to plant one more tree in our front yard so we have three. Eventually we’ll have a bunch of Canada reds lining our driveway/canal. I’d love a couple of apple trees in our horse pasture, surrounded by a cute fence to protect them, as well as some pine trees in the corners of our arena that get weed-infested.
The bright spot of the year was having a healthy baby. No, not me. My mare. It was quite a process hauling her to Idaho to a facility that could handle frozen semen and AI, but she finally took and delivered a healthy filly at the end of July. To my knowledge, this is the first purebred Akhal-teke to be born in Wyoming.
But 2020 wasn’t done pulling punches. It was upheaval all around. One of my best friends moved. So many close to me were dealing with tragedy of one form or another. Death, divorce, and every struggle imaginable. It seemed like every day I’ve woke up to insane heartache from people I love. My own dad got released from the hospital last week for blood clots in his lungs. He’s here, for which we are extremely grateful, but others aren’t. I’m not going to dive into all of it…you have your own struggles that your working through too.
Why so much? Why now?
I don’t have the answer. You can give any explanation you want, but there really isn’t a reason. I could probably fill a museum with the tragedy I and my family have experienced at this point. I don’t say that to ask for sympathy…there’s just been a lot that’s gone down in my 38 years. I’ve never found comfort in the attempt to find the “why”. The only thing to do is to CREATE a reason and purpose for yourself out of the ruins, because none of it makes sense.
So, with heaviness, we head toward the last quarter of the year.
I think I’ll end this post with what might seem like a silly meditation, but it’s been helping me keep my anxiety at survivable levels. It’s from Thich Nhat Hanh:
ORANGE MEDITATION
“Take the time to eat an orange in mindfulness. If you eat an orange in forgetfulness, caught in your anxiety and sorrow, the orange is not really there. But if you bring your mind and body together to produce true presence, you can see that the orange is a miracle. Peel the orange. Smell the fruit. See the orange blossoms in the orange, and the rain and the sun that have gone through the orange blossoms. The orange tree has taken several months to bring this wonder to you. Put a section in your mouth, close your mouth mindfully, and with mindfulness feel the juice coming out of the orange. Taste the sweetness. Do you have time to do so? If you think you don’t have time to eat an orange like this, what are you using that time for? Are you using your time to worry, or using your time to live?”
Leave a Reply