Memory Jar 2022/2023

 

*sometime in February, 2023?

this would have been our 9th year of Memory Jar posts, but I dropped the ball...or was I three weeks in my new apartment after having lived in the car for half the year, and had no idea where the Jar even was?  I remember watching Rocky on New Year's Eve '22/'23 because I'm making it my new tradition to do so, and I watched the whole Rocky franchise (up to Creed 2) this past New Year's.

2022:

my list ~

Z graduated BOCES

Z got into his 1st choice college

Z got $100 fitness scholarship

standing with the guitar teacher during the kid's last solo

Medicine Day

Vermont Corn Maze

Being invited to work at AW

Getting an apartment!  yay!

Hannukah at the local synagogue

making Z spit eggs by saying "Peanut Butter Falcon!"

breakfast sandwiches

"Tantar, make Mama some perogies"

grateful to have my son home with me

 

his list ~

skipping

catballs

have a Snickers

300 lb. leg press first try

burgers

climbing to the top of the rope

pre-workout

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

September 26, 2024

I just finished my ritual of burning the memory slips before starting the process of filling the jar up again.  it mostly took me that long because I don't really have a great place to burn things in this apartment other than the porch, which makes me nervous, so I burned them a few at a time in my bathroom over a fireproof tray, with the ventilation fan running.  then I took a look at my facebook activity log starting all the way back in January, and wrote down the good times I felt important enough to share with my social media network and friends, and put them in the jar.  I will ask my son to take some time out of his increasingly busy life to add a few, and I'm sure after some rudeness, eye rolling, unnecessary aggression and argument, he may oblige me a scrap or two with a word or so.  we'll see.

here's why it's important to me:

I'm making Aliyah.

(for those of you who don't know, that means I'm moving to Israel.)

 

it's going to be increasingly important to me to figure out ways to stay in touch with my son (who won't be coming with me), and our small traditions that we shared while he was growing up in my care, as he feels the inevitable need to pull away from me.  not that he has much choice if I'm leaving the country...but it is time to strike out on his own, even if I'm the one doing the 'striking'.

and we have almost a decade of memories showing the same tendency, as his lists have gone from running in tandem to mine, while we enjoyed many of the same happy moments, to his moving year by year towards his own joys and experiences, as they should.  I'm not 'in on' several of the moments he shared, as I'm sure readers can tell, and similarly don't understand.

we've had a rough couple of years.  from the ongoing need to move constantly whether it be from eminent domain, the landlord selling the building, or only having a one year lease so my son could graduate high school with his class (for which we were grateful), to my mother dying, and the general hormonal bullshit that I had to put up with between my male teen and my own peri/menopause.  then we had homelessness and non-college-preparedness before we were both finally able to settle down into decent work situations and figure out where our lives were, individually, and in relationship to each other.

at the moment, we're both in a pretty good place.  the Young Man is fine, and I'm going to do my best to stop talking about him as much as I do, because he's an adult now, and I owe him his privacy, but I'm sure news of him will sneak in here and there because he's my baby and I love him the most.  let it suffice to say that he has a good job that he enjoys doing, a few good friends (one of whom he is intimate with), and enjoys an active social life pursuing his interests and hobbies.  I was working at a job that I really liked, doing work that I felt was important, until the underlying toxicity of the administration that I had been overlooking in order to keep paying my rent finally caught up to me, and I walked out in frustration one afternoon.  it didn't take long before I had another job doing similar work, and in that case, it was the administration that got frustrated with me for pointing out the inconsistencies in their policies, and how it was actively harming their guests.  no worries...I got another job offer a few days ago, and will probably get another one before the week is out.  I can get jobs - I sometimes have a hard time keeping them.

if you're familiar with this blog, and have visited the 'freebooting' tab, you'll see that I've engaged in a wide variety of work activities, and have never settled on a 'career' because I am a multi-disciplinary artist who rarely has the necessary time or space to engage with my art as I'm so busy hustling to survive all the time.  for instance - there are 78 unfinished drafts for posts on this blog.  38 of them are from 2020, 26 are from 2021, 6 from 2022, 5 from 2023, and 3 so far this year.  if I manage to publish this post, there will only be two from this year.  we'll see...

I have a lot of work ahead of me for this upcoming move, and I've once again been doing my best to whittle down my belongings to what I can take overseas with me, and there are years of backlogged art projects that are getting dragged out of the closet for me to force myself to contend with.  I haven't been doing that badly, and several finished products have made their way to their final destinations, and it has definitely been clearing my energy to see those items come to fruition.  there are some bins that are harder to deal with than others, and I'm in the middle of one of those, now.  talk about memories!  

so we're back to the point I was making at the beginning of this post, which is that our family tradition of saving memories to reminisce over at the end of the year hit a snag due to my lack of financial solvency, as I haven't yet gleaned the secret to being a single working mother who can give my art the same time and energy I need to devote to my 'job' so I can manage to keep a roof over our heads, and all that.  the Memory Jar didn't get filled because I was working.  the posts didn't get finished because I was working.  the art didn't get done because I was working.  I made more money this year than I ever have in my entire life.  and that was amazing.  but what did I have to sacrifice for it?  it was when I got fired and decided to move to Israel that the projects got dragged out of the closet, so here we are.

2023 was all about the Benjamins.  make more doing less.  I gave everything to my employers and the people we serve, and had barely a thing left over for me, let alone anyone else.  I ate well, I upgraded my wardrobe & my phone, got some work done on the car, did volunteer work in the community, and served on a city council committee.  I donated money.  I also experienced more anti-semitism than I ever have in my entire life, mostly in my workplace, and after that, in community spaces meant to offer mutual aid.  I learned that people will take every single thing you give, and offer only their ingratitude in return.  I watched people die in the streets while our representatives in the government slept soundly in their appointed mansions.  I lost a lot of fair-weather friends claiming to be sisters-in-arms when I demanded that these staunch feminists acknowledge the atrocities of October 7th, which they continue to deny matter, let alone the plight of our dear hostages, still being held captive by genocidal terrorists.

but these are topics for a different post.  like I said, 2023 both was and wasn't great, and none of that made it to our jar.  but the slips from 2022 got burned and buried, and there's a '2024' tag on the jar now, with a pile of new slips in it.  I hope more get added, and I look forward to reading them with my son on New Year's Eve, however that may look.

I look forward to hearing from you again ~ 

memory jar posts past:

2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 - 2021 - 2022 - 2023...

travelogue

on July 30th, 2022, my son and I packed up a moving truck and our car, took our cat, and headed to Montpelier, Vermont.  having lived in Vermont for 12 years, I couldn't wait to return after foolishly leaving the Green Mountains for New York State when my son was 3 years old.  you see, I grew up in New York, and when I left, I swore I'd never go back.  but I took a chance on repairing relationships with my family before all the old people died, and while that went swimmingly at best, my chance to go back to Vermont has finally come.  I mean, it came 15 years later than I originally intended, but my son wanted to graduate high school with his class, so I stayed for him, and we had some good times along the way.  but graduate he did, and not only is he going to go to college, he's going to college in Vermont, and I couldn't be happier!

 

so proud of my Teen!

 

well, I could be happier, if we're being honest, because unfortunately, the housing we thought we had ended up falling through.  not to worry, though, because I am in intrepid traveler, and though it's been a challenge to get through this experience with a pissed-off, stressed-out teenager and his rather demanding cat, I am navigating these waters as best I can with the tools I have.  so I thought I'd tell you a bit about how that's been going...

we originally landed at the house of someone I used to know (more on this in the last post), and spent the first few days of August settling in, enjoying the gorgeous late-summer weather, and starting all the processes of establishing residency, such as transferring my car registration/insurance/driver's license, looking for more permanent housing, and going to job interviews.  unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to leave our landing pad much sooner than anticipated, and without having made any advance plans, fell prey to the price gouging at local hotels like the Best Western Plus in Waterbury - Stowe.  now, to be fair, this was a cushy room that came with two gigantic fluffy beds (I prefer a firm mattress), lots of pillows, wifi, tv, lots of parking, a pool and fitness center (much to the Teen's delight), and a delicious buffet breakfast that included most American favorites, and then some.  they claim to be pet friendly, but we were so fried when we got there, we forgot to ask, and just chose to sneak the cat in, and keep the room immaculate so they would never even know she was there.  we ended up staying two days and splitting the bill, which ran us about $300/night each.  though the Teen really liked the accommodations, I didn't like the price.  oh...I forgot to mention the tub!  it was HUGE!  and I filled it all the way up with hot water, and had a good soak.  the tub alone was worth the price, but at those rates, there was no way we could even afford to stay as long as we did.

 

while my chronic lower back issues didn't appreciate the softness of the bed, our cat Nahiri certainly did!

 

from there, we still weren't entirely sure where to go or what to do, so we ended up back in my old college town, at a local campsite I knew of, but had only been to once for some reason I can't remember.  the proprietress there is pretty sharp, and figured out that we were homeless, so I just told her the whole story, and while she agreed to let us stay for a few days, she insisted we have a tent, and not sleep in the car.  since my tent and camping gear are buried in the back of the storage space because I didn't think we'd need them (mistake) we ran off to the closest big box store I wouldn't normally shop at (but these weren't normal circumstances) to buy a tent, some blankets, and food that can cook over a fire (burgers).  we spent a perfectly lovely few days by the Winooski River at the Onion River Campground.  now, if I had planned to go camping, this is definitely the kind of place I would choose.  it's clean and quiet, with a rustic bathhouse, trails, blueberries to pick, and plenty of room between campsites.  many of the folks there were set up for long stays, and I admired the effort they put in to making their campsites appear homey, with outdoor furniture, fenced areas for their pets, flowers and plants, twinkly lights, wind chimes, and more.  I want to be one of those people someday!

 

we were camped on 'the beach', which you can see on the map at the link.

now, our cat has never camped before, or been in a hotel room, or traveled long distances in a car...and she did not like the tent.  in the middle of the night she started pacing around and yowling, then she started scratching to get out, so I got up (I wasn't really sleeping anyway - lower back issues) and took her in the car so she couldn't slip off into the night.  neither of us was happy, and I got no rest.  I think we may have spent another night or two in the car before deciding to spring for another motel room, this time the Marshfield Inn & Motel, and their glorious pet-friendly room #8 for $124/night!  my mom enjoyed staying at the Marshfield Inn a few times back in the day when I lived in the area, so it felt nice to be there again, now that my mom is gone.  we were exhausted from bouncing around, catching random meals here and there, and dealing with the cat's distress, so it was nice to have a respite where we could all sit comfortably in our own space and stretch out, the cat could take her harness and leash off and move around freely, we could shower, connect to wifi, make use of the mini-fridge and microwave, and I could SLEEP on a Firm bed (praise all the deities!).  it was a good few days. 

after that, when we'd been driving around without a place to go for so many hours I needed to get off the road for everyone's safety, we got ripped off at the Comfort Inn & Suites at Maplewood who said we could have a room for $220/night, but charged my card $320 instead.  when I went back to the front desk to discuss the issue, the receptionist was incredibly rude, though eventually agreed to refund me $100.  she didn't, but she did refund me $50.  when I called to complain about that, they called me a liar and hung up on me.  so who cares about the amenities there, because they suck, and no one should go there, ever.  and their breakfast was bland and tasteless.  ugh.  I hate them so much for taking advantage of me like that, and I'm getting angry all over again!  luckily for us, the Marshfield Inn had another pet-friendly room available, so we jumped at the chance to stay there again.

this room - room #9, still a bargain at $144/night - has a small kitchen that comes with a mini-fridge/freezer, counter &  sink, a hot plate, and pots and pans to cook with.  also some cups, dishes, utensils, and other amenities.  I can't even tell you how happy my son was to be able to cook a few meals!  to be fair, he much prefers the fancier hotels with the pools, fitness centers, and squishy beds, but I'm happier in Marshfield with a fan rather than a/c, the peace and quiet, the hiking trails and swimming holes, the general stores, and the view.  while we were waiting for the room, we took a ride up to Danville where I remembered from my college days the American Society of Dowsers had a little bookstore and a labyrinth.  the bookstore was closed, but it was lovely to walk the path overgrown with mint and clover that smelled so good as my sneakers gently crushed them, soaking through with morning dew.  and once we saw a sign for the Great Vermont Corn Maze, there was no stopping my pursuit of joy within all the chaos!

 

the labyrinth path is a bit overgrown, but if you know the way, you can find it ~

 

the corn maze was great fun - there are options to explore the BIG Maze, which "covers 24 acres and is approximately a 3 hour hike complete with 100' of bridges", but we did the Scenic Maze because I figured "a 40 minute hike through the BIG Maze using directions found along the way" would be enough of a challenge for me, and it definitely was!  we also chose the option to collect 4 'journey stones' along the way, but I liked them better than the reward you were supposed to turn them in for, so I kept them, and bought the reward anyway!  the kids' area looked like so much fun, but I was struggling at that point, and didn't have the stamina to play.  the little store at the end of the trail had candy, ice cream and drinks, t-shirts, postcards, and other little ephemera to commemorate your visit, as well as an aerial photo of the mazes through the years (all the way back to 1999!) so you could see the areas you hiked through if you took notes, which we did.  they're also a beef farm, and we would have bought some of their beef if we had known we would have a way to cook it later!  as the kids say, "100% would recommend"!

 

"mayday!  mayday!  I appear to be piloting this vessel incongruously named 'French Toast' through a large field of corn, please advise!"

 

after another few days at the Inn, we had another night in the car before stumbling upon the Firefly B&B in Lincoln.  they claimed to be pet-friendly, yet hadn't counted on someone traveling with a cat, though after chatting with her a bit about our situation, the proprietress - Issy - agreed to let us stay as long as our kitty stayed in the room, and generously discounted our room to $90/night (cash or check only - no credit cards).  that was fine with us, as we were getting up early the next morning to head to our storage space to pick up my son's trunks and bins for college, and we needed a safe place to stash the kitty while we drove back and forth all day.  it was hard, but we got it done...well, the Teen got it done, I was mostly useless other than as the driver.  then I cried as I made my way back to the Firefly alone, for my first night as an empty-nester, without even a nest.  good thing I stopped for a creemee on the way back...if you don't know, in Vermont, soft-serve ice cream is called a creemee, and it's pretty serious business in this state.  we all have our favorites, and we swear by them!

 

this one came from Papa Nick's in Hinesburg - it was Bragg Farm good, but not Dairy Creme or Crossroads good!  😀

so, my son's 'summer of homelessness' ordeal is over, and he has a little bit of time to relax into his new surroundings and collect himself before classes start in a few days.  I've mostly been parking in places like the two local synagogues that I know of, and my old college library parking lot to take naps, but I can't ever really get a full 5 hours of rest in the car, let alone more.  and then I'm falling asleep every five minutes, and shouldn't be on the road.  so, I finagled a deal with the innkeeper at the Marshfield Inn & Motel for one of their pet-friendly rooms for a week, at a greatly discounted rate (just under $400 for 6 days).  they gave me room #9 again so I have the little kitchen, and I think the cat feels safer here because she's already been here a few times.  I can't believe it's been almost a month of this already, and I still don't feel any closer to being settled in terms of having housing, any social services, or a job.  there's no way I could keep a job with all the moving around, and sleep-deprivation!  so I need some help to pay for the room this week, and I've mostly been using my time here so far to figure out where I'm going to stay next, and see how many tarot sessions I can fit in while I'm stable enough to do a few readings.  

 

magicians

 

I haven't made it up the hill to visit the person who's caring for my houseplants in at least a week, and I do need to visit my plants, I miss them so.  the Teen is being standoffish with me and not answering my texts, and the cat misses her favorite human and is being overly clingy.  I'm hoping to see if I can't find someone to foster her for a bit while I navigate the 'next step', whatever that may be - and I hope it's some form of employment, because I need the cash.  if you can't tell from the above commentary, all these rooms and driving around have blown a hole in my finances, and I still have expenses to cover, including helping the Teen out with any college related needs, and litter/food for his cat.  and let's all keep a prayer in our hearts for my dear car, without which, none of this would be possible.  I hope you enjoyed this 'trip around Vermont', and that you feel compelled to send some funds our way - I'm happy to offer you a tarot reading in return.

this is a link to the gofundme a few of my friends set up

this is a link to my paypal

thanks!

the landslide bringing me down

you know, I'm not much of a Stevie Nicks fan, though I've always liked the song "Landslide"...I kind of hold her responsible for millions of hippie chicks in lacy gowns thinking they can appropriate an ethnic slur against Roma people as a lifestyle and culture...but if she didn't know, she didn't know, I guess.  it's 2022 now, and we should all know better.  apologies are being made.  awareness is being raised.  it's not ok anymore (someone alert Cher, as well, please).

 

 

I watched a video this morning of Stevie singing "Landslide" in front of a video memorial for her dad who died in 2005, and of course it made me cry.  lots of things make me cry now.  used to be, I didn't cry at all, and was proud of it.  then I learned to not be such an impenetrable stone all the time and to be proud of the fact that I had enough heart and soul to cry.  then I had a baby and couldn't watch tv any more because the news made me cry...and commercials.  now, as I approach what I consider to be my 'official menopause date', I can and will cry about anything and everything, because my heart is simply broken completely open by the wisdom and humility of life (my personal Kabbalah). 

King Solomon w/birds

 

I'm dropping my son off at college tomorrow.  that's...huge.  on a number of levels.  first off, I've raised my baby alone from the moment of his conception.  I will not negate his father's contribution of the minimum amount of child support required to be in compliance with the current laws, but to be clear, his involvement truly has been minimal, for which I have apologized to my son profusely.  my son has very little family other than me - he didn't really get to know my Sapta (maternal grandmother) before she died, and has little memory of her, though he does have fond recollections of my Zayde (maternal grandfather).  my dad and his parents were long gone before my son was born, and though he had my mom in his life until she passed last year, we weren't always on good terms with her.  there was a brief minute when my brother allowed his three kids to accept their little cousin as a member of their family, but he cut what loose ties he had with me/us, irreparably damaging those relationships, and they will most likely take more work than most people care to do to repair them, so I don't have much hope that they will be.  my point is, this kid has mostly had to figure out how to be in this world on his own, with his closest non-Mom people being his guitar teacher, his show director, and his wrestling coach, in that order.  so...yeah.  a mostly solo project with some honorably mention-able supporters.

 

 

do you know how I got my son into the prestigious and expensive Paul Green Rock Academy?  I emailed Lisa Green and offered to do any number of things for her in exchange for a scholarship - write, edit, proofread, take photos, answer phones, scrub her toilet with my toothbrush.  so she agreed to a meeting with me where she explained that she had people doing all those things for her, except scrubbing her toilets, so she let me clean the building in exchange for my son's lesson and show fees.  and not only did I do everything in my power to go above and beyond for the Green's and their Rock Academy, my kid did, too.  when Paul and Lisa left, and Jason and Acacia took over the school, we didn't know if he would be allowed to continue, but they generously allowed him to stay with the program on a full scholarship until he graduated from high school.  I don't know who pulled what strings behind which closed doors in order for that to happen, but I will forever be grateful to them for that gift.

so here we are, after 18 (19 counting my pregnancy) years of this journey, in the same place we started - homeless in Vermont.  how did we get here again?  well...as a single mom making minimum wage, I can't afford an apartment anywhere in the United States on my paycheck, so I jumped at the chance to apply for a section 8 voucher, which has almost saved us from homelessness over the past decade, though not entirely.  a lot of landlords don't like doing the paperwork that section 8 requires, so refuse to rent to voucher holders, which is illegal, but there are a million ways around it.  one of which is to count on the fact that voucher holders don't have the money/time/knowledge to take them to court, and if they did, and they won, they still wouldn't have a place to live.  it's a lose-lose situation.  I had been living in Vermont for over a decade when my son was born, and when he was 3, I took a chance on moving to NY to be closer to my family...it didn't work out.  we stayed in NY for another decade and more, as we simply moved north near some friends of mine from the 'old days', though after not so long, I found myself regretting leaving Vermont at all.  

 

just one of many beautiful views in VT

 

Vermont was a dream I would return to after the boy was grown and didn't need me anymore.  Vermont was where I would go 'next', as with me, there's always a 'next'.  there were plenty of times I would have gone before now, but my son wanted to stay with his class in school until he graduated, so I stayed for him.  I cooled my hot feet and stayed put to the point of breaking, but I made it.  we still had to move fairly frequently as our rentals kept getting yanked out from under us by unscrupulous landlords raising the rent past my affordability, the State taking over the land through eminent domain, or other unscrupulous landlords taking advantage of the pandemic to sell their house/my apartment to an airbnb developer further adding to the issue of local workers not being able to find or afford housing in the communities in which they work and live...  but we managed to stay housed for a good stretch, and I did spend a good amount of time looking for apartments in VT before we pulled up roots in NY and moved, and though I wasn't able to find anything by the time we had to leave, I did have a place to land when we got here.  or so I thought.

what do you do when someone you've known for 20 years and more calls you up one day and says they're doing really well with their recovery?  that they're housed, in school, taking real steps towards getting their life back on track, and seeking employment?  what if they're really excited to hear you're coming back, and want to help support you on the way?  what if they see you not finding housing and offer up their living room as a place to call home for a minute, until you find what you need?  am I a poor judge of character?  do I make the wrong friends?  trust the wrong people?  well, let's look at my son's dad - 98% absent during the child's life, so much so, that when my young man screwed up his courage enough to ask his stranger of a father for a couch to crash on for a week (yes, dude lives here in Vermont), he wasn't overly welcoming, nor did he offer any financial help.  loser?  maybe.  I don't want to make excuses for him; I've been doing it for far too long for no good reasons, including my own pride, and his skill as a guitar player.

so our crash pad crashed and burned when it turned out my friend wasn't as in recovery as she thought she was.  she had a relapse, and used it as an excuse to behave in an abusive manner towards me.  the fact that she chose to take her relapse out on me when all I'd ever done was be a good and loyal friend to her was unnecessary and frankly unconscionable.  she's fooled me more times than it should take for someone with good self-esteem to walk away from.  and I regret letting the dreams in my head let me believe I could trust that someone was as loyal and honest as I am, though I know from years of experience that's rarely true.  I take the giving of my energy in relationship very seriously, and I'm often hurt by folks who enjoy more casual interactions, as I tend to connect pretty deeply, rather quickly.  and I'm finding that as I attempt to reconnect with folks I thought of as 'friends' here in Vermont, that I guess to them I'm more of an acquaintance, and there's been a 'no-show' of those I thought were 'my people' (some real help has come from unexpected places, too, I must confess).  so what does that tell me about moving forward here?

 

oh, these spiral paths we weave!

 

nothing I didn't already know, I guess - we're all just hurtling through space on this rock alone.  ever.  always.  and that's fine.  I'd just like to plant a flower garden, watch it grow and die, and come back again.  I want to write poems and prose, and create images.  I want to knit and sew and crochet - craft art with my hands again and be alone with the silence of late night/early morning hours.  I want to walk in nature, and be soothed.  I want to share my creations with others who create.  I want to hear from my son that he's doing well in school - that he's learning how to earn and manage money in a way that will bring him and his hoped-for future family more ease than his upbringing brought him.  "may he do better"...every parents' prayer.

 

from Isabella Rotman's This Might Hurt Studios

 

I used to travel when I was younger - just pack up my few belongings and my cat, and live on the road in my car.  it was a lovely lifestyle when planned for.  falling houseless because of broken systems built to keep women like me down is less fun, but again - can be navigated smoothly by people like myself who are wise in the ways of travel.  when I have to drag an unwilling and angry teenager and his fancy cat along?  it can get really tough, but I'm using All the tools in my kit to keep us buoyant in proactive ways, while doing my best to organize these experiences with my overtaxed mind to share with people in a way that encourages them towards helping me out financially.  I need help paying for gas, insurance, storage, cat supplies, and whatever my son may need for college that we didn't already think of, and for pet-friendly hotels/motels/b&b's/accommodations until I can find housing.  I'm really good at writing, editing, proofreading, and reading tarot cards.  please feel free to ask me to perform any of those tasks for you in exchange for any monetary donations.  we can work out a value together.  let me know how I can help you help me.

thanks ~

my paypal:  https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/mysteriamb

my gofundme, organized by some friends:  https://www.gofundme.com/f/miriam-mysteriam-and-teen-need-a-homehttps://gofund.me/835d9ce3https://gofund.me/835d9ce3https://www.gofundme.com/f/miriam-mysteriam-and-teen-need-a-home?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheethttps://www.gofundme.com/f/miriam-mysteriam-and-teen-need-a-home?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-shee

Shabbat Community Tarot Reading #4

wow, what a crazy week it's been for me - how about you?  so much upheaval and emotional drama!  even though we're 'through' the eclipse, we're still feeling its energy, and will be for a few days (weeks, months), and as we all know, the cosmic reverberations just keep circling out forever...  

I'm not sure where to start this week, as the reading I did was very personal, and specific to my circumstances.  I feel like if I'm going to read for the community, I can't pretend to be 'love and light' all the time, and like nothing ever goes wrong in my life because I'm claiming to offer to help people focus on doing their own deep work, so I have to show how I do mine.  

 

so - let's just say my child needs their community now in the form of a strong support network to help them navigate away from their current situation into something healthier for them in the long run.  the evil rage monster that lives in me has decided it's time for them to be free, rip off the band-aid, they're ready, I've done my job of preparing for this day well.  why postpone the inevitable?  they've embarked on their own underworld journey now, plumbing their own depths...the astrology would blow them away if they cared to look.  it's not my job to tell anymore, it's my job to love and let go, now.  but they don't want to leave, is the thing.  they wants to make demands of me, threaten and lash out.  they want all the benefits I've always provided - few though they may be - and to act indignantly while taking advantage and bringing so much conflict into our daily lives, I've been triggered back to my father throwing the kitchen table at me when I told him I was moving out (with a great deal more resources than my child has at the moment, though his daddy certainly had a lot less).  

the running away started with the tenuous stirrings of what might become first love.  now that there's 'someone else', I've become obsolete overnight, and have been shut out, and shut down.  so the arguments have escalated to where we're both teetering on the edge of violence, neither of us wanting to cross that line, and for years now, I've been sending them outside to deal with those feelings to get them away from me - it's my house, I won't be disrespected - and get them moving to physically help cycle that energy through.  so we argued, I told them to get out, and they demanded a therapist, so I called in mental health.  they called in CPS.  so now I'm under investigation for abuse, exacerbating an already intense housing crisis (impending homelessness), and did I mention my mom died two months ago?  it's fine...I'm sure I deserve all that and more, don't I?  but the bottom line in my opinion is that they've hit their wall - as have I - and it's time to figure out how to get them what they need from the support network they will build with the help of the authorities they've called in.  we can't live like this anymore.  it would have been nice to have the clarity to handle it on our own, but...oh well.

yeah, it's time to get out of their way, and leave them to it.  I caught a bit of a reading a day or two ago (I wish I could remember where!) that spoke to a wisdom coming in from the side, somehow...that it was important to pay attention to snippets that may come from random sources, and that was the kid yesterday - three times in the midst of the chaos they spoke honest truth, though I doubt they recognized the importance of what they said.  and between my own shadow work, Lorelai Kude's talk of overwhelm, and protecting what you've mothered, and Sasha's speaking of needing to let go of something anything, and 'where do we go from here' energy aligning with true direction and drastic change that has been a long time coming...I'm hearing this message loud and clear.  as hard as it is to focus through all the emotional turmoil, miscommunication, power struggles/control issues, change/liberation/chaos cycles, I'm doing my best to simply survive each day, which in the moment mostly looks like me trying to drink enough water, and failing, repeatedly.

so some cards for me.  some wisdom on how to step out of this dance.  help the kid get what they need to move forward and move along.  there's no coming back...things are irrevocably different and damaged now, so it's time to change course, and let life flow on by without me.  for this reading I used my oldest deck,  and this spread Meg @3am.tarot posted for the New Moon & Solar Eclipse in Gemini (June 10).  here's what we got:

 

image shows an antler, a crystal ball, a small metal goddess figurine, three cards from The Tarot of the Witches tarot deck (The Lovers/The Magician/The Chariot), a quartz crystal, and a garnet on a pastel colored cloth with silver stripes.

 

reflect on:  The Lovers - one rose reaching towards the sun, while a briar entangles the moon.  such a strange card...look at the two of them, dispassionate mannequins entangled in her weird hair, that half dead-or-alive hill they're standing on.  a meaningful relationship...aside from all the love, beauty, harmony, deep feeling, trust, honor, physical attraction, there's the dynamic of sacred vs. profane, and a testing of theories.  an expansion - taking what we've learned, and re-centering from a new vantage point in a spiral progression.  widening the heart.  coming out of isolation into exchange - an act of radical vulnerability; a moment of truth.

revisit & explore:  The Magician - creative Source.  imagination, self-reliance, skill, willpower, curiosity, cleverness, unity in thought and feeling.  deeply connected to, and aware of, the resources surrounding us as well as the magic within them.  an expanding sense of possibility, the first step in a journey - packing The Fool's satchel.  confidence, awake to possibility, throwing open the doors.  expansion, opportunity, courage, tapping into potential.  knowing we are the magic.

seek truth within:  The Chariot - as soon as that expansion happened in the The Lovers card, the fool on their journey recognized their power, and met adversity with resolve and determination.  alert and ready for battle - horses charging forward, his foot on the yoke, he's prepared to balance his mental and physical strength in working towards greatness, as soon as he can get his emotions under control.

there is great significance to me in these cards, considering where my teen is currently holed up, and with cards 6 & 7 - The Lovers and The Chariot - showing up together like that, with only the Magician's spark between them.  there's that pattern of being pushed into things too early, before they're ready, because I'm already holding more than I can safely handle, and something's got to give.  this is my child, born three weeks early.  this is my child sliding down my leg because they won't hold on, they simply trust that 'I've got them'.  this is my child selling off their trains to pay the car insurance that one time.  this is my child's path to freedom - their first steps out on their own.  I'm not going to read their birth chart, or check their horoscope or anything because they didn't ask me to, and I respect people's privacy...but I can see what I see, you know?  all that trauma I tried so hard to avoid passing on, that I made sure to pass on.  our ancestors' hard-won aspirations now crushed beneath my personal failures, and it hurts to live here.

 

thank you for coming along, commenting, and sharing - this reading is for anyone who wants/needs it!  as always, I hope there's something in here for you, personally, and feel free to contact me for a private reading.  

💙💜💙

 

resources:

3am.tarot

good vibes binaural beats

Mysteriam Ink

The Unused Portion has been neglected, lately, and for that I apologize.  work for money generally takes precedent these days, so in order to get my hustle on the past few weeks, one activity (or two) had to take the fall for me to get back on track a bit with some pressing issues.  I've gotta start these posts earlier in the week so I'm not banging the whole thing out of a Monday, trying to get it all in, failing with the rushed effort.  give myself time to look at it, reflect, let it breathe - it's supposed to be my day-off Monday Meditation!  which is even harder when heading into the season of the year where time seems to roll so swiftly towards some bitter end, bringing melancholy and "that old familiar feeling of impending doom", as a friend lost to time and circumstance once said.  while I tend not to feel the doom and gloom, I do feel an incredible need to rush and get things done "before the snow flies".  15 years living in Vermont taught me to Be Ready For The Winter, which was more important there, than here in NY, where I live now - where the plow truck drivers are out salting the roads as soon as the first flake hits the ground.

it's time to trade salad greens and fruits for root veggies and squash.  I already made soup, a pot of chili, and lit the woodstove.  I brought all my house-plants back in from the porch over a week ago, because I could Smell the snow coming, and even though we still had a few warm days after that, I'm glad I did.  over the course of the summer, I may well have propagated almost double the amount of plants I had before the weather warmed up, so now I have to find room for them all in my small, poorly-lit cottage!  they're currently being 'staged' in the kitchen, and my Teen Wolf has had about enough of the jungle on the table and counters.  they'll find their places for the winter soon enough...I think I may have solved that dilemma in thinking about how the market season is almost over for the year.

I finally made it back to the Market this year!  I haven't had a booth at a flea market in...23 years or so!  (wait - I'm lying.  the kid and I had a booth at a homeschool market or two within the past 5 years).  it took me a lot to get there, but I made it, and it was a lot of fun.  Teen Wolf came with me and we made a day of it.  he even went and got us lunch at the deli across the street - not the sort of thing he tends to take on individually, but I sent him, so he went, and didn't even say anything about how nervous it probably made him.  but we chatted a bit about how I was scared to walk up to the flea market guy and ask him where I should set up, but I did it anyway, because I'm the kind of person who can talk to anyone, and...I needed to know where to set up, or I wasn't going to get very far with my plans.  the teen said he would have stood in that field all day because he wouldn't have had the courage to approach the guy.  interesting, right?  well, he'd been to the deli across the street before, and I wasn't about to leave our booth when we got hungry, so...he had to screw up enough courage to go get us some lunch, and he did.  I mean, he's 14...he's perfectly capable off crossing the street in the town he grew up in and around to get a couple of sandwiches at the deli, all teenage awkwardness aside, and I like for him to go walk around town, and feel comfortable in the local shops because it's a big world out there, beyond the bounds of our small town, and he's gonna have to navigate it!

we talked about confidence, sales and marketing, money management, customer service, fashion and style, aesthetics, profit and overhead; we got to be outside all day in glorious weather; we got to chat with some nice people, and make some sales that not only put money in our pockets, they felt good.  there was that guy who bought 15 vinyl albums of Israeli folk music and army songs for a birthday present for his dad, who is a retired Israeli soldier.  the couple who bought the glass music note for their musician daughter; the butterfly lady who adored the butterfly paperweight, and the lady who loved the Murano one.  there were some beautiful scarves that went to new homes, and stylish purses; a pair of shoes, some earrings, and a couple of pots and pans.  Teen Wolf sold some 'older' toys...only from the past decade, though some of them are apparently rather collectable.  we didn't even bring everything we had to sell - there wasn't enough room in the car!

more than anything, being at the market reminded me of my traveling days, when I lived on the road, in my car, with my cat.  I made jewelry, and other various forms of art which I sold at flea markets, enabling me to move from town to town, pitching my tent in campsites and national parks, visiting with other traveling friends who were taking a minute off the road in one town or another (as well as those who preferred more permanent dwellings), crashing in dorm rooms and motels, sleeping in the car.  god, I was so free...  just a few short years before the teen is legally allowed to step away from government-sanctioned education, and then who knows where I'll be?  will he need me to stay here?  will he be going somewhere else?  somewhere he'll need to come 'home' from?  can he stay here on his own if he wants?  can I leave?  there are a lot of questions about to come up in my life, and given the way I've been feeling since we got back from Israel, I'm sensing some major changes in the wind, and on the horizon.

first I've gotta sell off the rest of the flea market stuff I already have - which will probably have to happen next season, at this point - and whatever else I manage to whip up between now and spring.  maybe by then I will have figured out how to get my computer fixed so I can add photos and other cool things again.  it's such a pain in the ass to not be able to access technology, it's like the cornerstone of the online cottage industry, and I'm just starting to figure out how to use it!  do you know The Unused Portion is going to be 10 years old this spring?  that's crazy!  and I just 'built' a new page - a business page.  there's a page on this blog called 'Mysteriam Ink', and you should go check it out, if you haven't all ready, but a friend recently advised me that my business page shouldn't be an after-thought on my blog, so I felt inspired to create one that stands alone.  you can find it (still under construction) here:

Mysteriam Ink

How It Began

how did I get to go to Israel for a two week vacation?  well, my father was Israeli, and when he died, we buried him over there, on the kibbutz he grew up on.  also when that happened, my mom sort of let it be known that she would eventually want to be buried in the spot next to him.  having had some health issues of late, she decided it was time to make those plans legal and official, and as a cousin of ours invited us to her wedding this summer, it seemed the perfect time to make the trip, and get that done - before she might not be able to make the trip again.  as it was, she couldn't go alone - she'd need help.  could I go, she asked?  as long as I could bring my teen, I was ready, willing, and able, so - bon voyage!

here's an excerpt from my travel journal, that I started on the airplane:

8/18 - What a trip so far, and we haven't even left the ground!  Everything was good on my end, my insane planning and scheduling having paid off in a well-planned exit, getting us to Grandma's around 10:30pm, exhausted, where we went straight to bed.  Up early, I started a load of laundry around 5:30 or 6am, and no one else got up until around 8.  We puttered, and helped Grandma get ready, exiting to a Pouring rain-storm at noon-thirty.  After a few stops, it was "our last American burgers" at the diner for lunch, then on our way!  Still pouring, it was 40mph through flooded roadways all the way until we hit sunny skies in Jersey.  Finally arriving at Terminal C at Newark, the party split up (against my better judgement) with Grandma heading to the bathroom, my teen standing on the curb outside with our bags, and me heading to find the 'long-term parking'.  It worked out ok, though, and we managed to regroup without incident.  Then the wheelchair didn't happen.  Then tempers got short.  Then we actually strolled casually towards the gate.  I found a wheelchair, which was a godsend, because...our flight, scheduled to take off at 10:50pm was delayed - until 1:45am!  That is where we are, now...sitting in our seats on the plane, watching the boarding circus parade by.  So.  Much.  Fun.  I think my teen is totally Not digging his first air travel experience, but I think he'll fall asleep once we take off, and it'll all be good.

8/19 - Aaaand, we're back in the airport.  Have been.  For hours.  After sitting in the plane for...ever, we finally deplaned, and have been sitting in the terminal forever.  It's 6:15am.  On Sunday.  We're SUPPOSED to be boarding at 7:15am...7:45am...some time before 8am.  This is the worst bullshitty bullshit I've ever dealt with in an airport, or with a flight.  Like, Seriously.  I waited in line for an hour to get food vouchers for all three of us, and no one was hungry which was fortunate, because I couldn't manage to get any food with them.  More Big Fun.  I'm exhausted.  I've been up too long, and done all the heavy lifting, so...yay.  angry face.  REALLY Fucking Angry face.  *censored*

8/21 - Oy...so what happened?  They finally let us back into the gate area (after rechecking us and our carry-ons), and we waited in line quite some time to reboard the plane.  Then we sat on the plane some more, waiting for one crew member or pilot or whatever, before finally FINALLY taking off around 9am or so.  The flight wasn't awful, with a screamy kid behind me and an obnoxious teen next to me, and I even managed to catch a few winks here and there.  It was...maybe 2am or so when we landed and deplaned, then had some more bullshit with some more lack-of-wheelchair nonsense, and THEN, there was the asshole cart driver who took my mom and my kid off to somewhere while I trudged along alone through the airport with too many bags, a walker, and a cane.  I caught up with Grandma eventually, but she had sent my unseasoned traveller son off alone into the wilds of Ben Gurion airport to find me, which made me FURIOUS, and when he got back to us (just as I was storming off to find him) I angrily demanded of them both to NOT separate the party again under any circumstances with out my say-so.  And so, we trudged angrily through the passport check, which I failed, and had to explain how my updated Israeli passport hadn't been mailed to me in time for this trip, and was probably sitting in my mailbox back home in America, in order to be granted a two-week stay, and told to go check in with immigration so that I'd be allowed to leave at the end of our trip (and I did have to promise to leave at the end of our trip).  Now comes me at the baggage claim, with all three checked bags, and me dragging Grandma and Teen Wolf around with our 4 personal bags looking for immigration (she was nice, and was maybe the easiest person to deal with thus far), and now we're up & down & around trying to find the car rental place...further nightmare.  Too long a wait, I complain, she sends me 'downstairs' to the other kiosk to 'save me some time', I FUCKING LOSE IT with not finding the place, someone at the info booth FINALLY manages to tell me where it is, and we head outside...glory!  a whiff of Israeli air!  we hike quite another ways to the booth (I had to leave poor struggling Grandma & the teen behind on a bench, promising to return with a car) where I am denied our pre-paid, reserved vehicle through some confusion about payment methods, drivers, language barriers, and exhaustion.  After giving up and power-walking back to my small party, I yell at them to get up and get moving, as I plow on ahead, in full rage-monster mode, and get us a taxi into Tel Aviv, to the hotel we were SUPPOSED to check into about 12 hrs. before.

They let us in - extend our stay, even - and just as soon as we hit the room, I shower and put on clean clothes, Grandma does the same, and we head back down (with dirty, unchanged teen) for Israeli buffet breakfast.  ...Deep...Sigh...then we (Grandma & I) leave the young man to nap (he's done in) while we stroll the few blocks towards the sea, and the car rental place, then drive back to the hotel where she toddles up to pack, grab the teen, check out (against my better judgement, but I had to sit idling in the double-parked car for a half an hour or more while she accomplished those tasks), and beat it out of the City with much stress & screaming (things were left behind)...

Down South, and Back to Center

my son and I are cat-people, and some of my stories of overseas travel involve cats.  Israel was no exception, and he quickly learned the Hebrew word for cat (chatool) and would call them out when he saw them.  at Masada, I let him and his grandmother off at the entrance while I went to park the car, and in the parking lot, I ran across these cute kitties, and snapped off a shot to show my son when I got up to where he was.

now my darlings - I have been up Masada a few times.  the first when I was 8, hale and hearty to climb a desert mountain in the pre-dawn.  and again when I was fifteen, the day before my foot got messed up in an evening brawl with a hotel window.  then in the days after my brother's wedding, of which I wrote about several years back, and reposted recently (but here it is again:  Remembrance).  this time, with my mom on a cane, and me not in the best shape of my life, I shamefacedly took the...*gasp* cable car...to the top of Masada.  it's not the experience I wanted for my son, but without my dad there to lead the early morning expedition, I felt ill-prepared as a substitute.  turns out the Snake Path was closed due to high winds, so I can use that as my excuse...

too bad this terrace was locked - it would have been cool to have a pic of my boy where I have a pic of my parents.

nice tub

Herod and his bathing obsession

where they found the 'lots'

and the cable car:

my dad was in my head the whole time we were up there.

we spent that night (and the next morning) at, and in, the Dead Sea:

at the gas station shop

across from the station

my pixelated kid floating halfway to Jordan

innovative design water fountain

on our way back North, we stopped for a quick lunch at the Elvis American Diner, just outside of Jerusalem:

before arriving in Tel Aviv.

there was some fun graffiti in the parking garage:

some random shots from around the city:

gorgeous flowers everywhere

nice find

funny, to those of us, who...well, if you get it, there it is  😊

someone discovered schwarma is more than the punchline to a joke in an Avengers movie...

...and they have this cool electric hand tool to cut it, now!

day city

city beach

night city

some random shots I felt like sharing:

roadside foliage, bursting with color

does the one on the right look suspicious to you?

the rare and elusive teen 'What Bird'

I hope you enjoyed sharing our vacation, we enjoyed taking it!