Beautiful piece. I will follow your adventure with interest. "I am porous by nature and breathe in the sadness of my friends alongside my own." I loved that sentence. I am sure you breathe in the joy too.
I hope that's true....the part about breathing in the joy. That's a real spiritual "skill," I think. Letting go of judgment so that you can just appreciate how other people's lives have flourished.
Lovely, smart and heartfelt. I didn’t respond to your last post because my big move to Great Barrington didn’t work. After 10 yrs there, and many wonderful moments, we returned to Oswego and my beloved Lake Ontario. However—and that is a big “however”—I wasn’t moving to be close to kids and grandkids as you are. Being around your young folks and watching them grow will be a grand adventure. May you be happy and healhy in the years to come. And I, like all your readers, hope you continue to share your adventures and insights. 🍀
I’m glad to hear. I like new perspectives and your take on things.
Reading a novel you might enjoy about logging community in N CA, redwood country: Damnation Spring, by Ash Davidson. It’s a first novel and she’s a fine young writer, speaking of listening to younger folks.
Loss came in on little cat feet . . . it' a poker game not a solitaire.
Your metaphors are so resonant for me Susie. The great thing is that you make loss into an opportunity for connection. In the way a poker game with friends is not a competition so much as a way to be together no matter the hand each is dealt. Creeks rise, fires get near, for each of us at different times. Everything old is new again. Perhaps everything new can be familiar too, if our minds and hearts are as open to connection as you've urged in other writings. I'm in.
Heart. Thank you for your loving post-card to Jane who has made a Great Move herself, with the added aspect of doing so solo. Do you know if she is a member? I will help her retrieve from spam if so/sign in, and if not, could you add her? She'd love this. She is a fine writer herself and it would be great for her to engage in your comment section IMHO.
I think it would work if you shared one of my posts or my Substack as a whole with Jane. Maybe you could do this when visiting her to assist in subscribing once she has the post in front of her. Thank you!
Thanks Susie: two words meaning afterlife and reincarnation? or suffering and ...no, I think you mean the afterlife.
If so (I'll take a gamble it is), yes I believe in both. Read some fascinating books by Michael Newton, Life Between Lives and others. He's a master hypnotist whose patients came to him for relief of this or that ailment or condition, but would occasionally slip into previous lives, unbidden by him, during sessions. He began to record sessions and found striking similarities in what patients reported having seen between lives, and how it related to the purpose, challenges and triumphs of human life. Really fascinating reading.
This was over a period of 30 years. He wrote more than one book. He was a deep skeptic about reincarnation in the beginning. His worldview (afterlife view?) changed over the years.
A whole cottage industry of past life hypnotists trained with him. Pretty fascinating. The anecdotes are compelling.
I was hoping the girl's aunt, my former sister-in-law, to at least give herself the option of considering life doesn't end with the end of our physical existence. Because she is suffering and cynical by nature. And it makes me sad when there could be some comfort gained thereby.
I belong to neither the "when you're dead, you're dead" school nor the reincarnation school. I lean into Thich Nhat Hanh's view that "a cloud never dies." Impermanence and transformation are my core orientaton. When a cloud has passed, it manifests as rain. We are always and ever changing from one condition to another in my view. I actually find that very comforting in relation to our end-of-life condition as physical bodies.
Susie - this piece rang with delightful truths and beautifully articulated awareness. I treasure you (and Frank) and have from the day we met. Your writing deepens my appreciation of who you are. I always feel you are speaking the language of my heart: true, observant, authentic, and also humorous. I’m missing you already!!!
It's gratifying to know that you are seeing into a deep place in me and that you know that place in yourself. I guess that's what I want from my writing, although I never actually say it out loud. Thank you for helping me articulate that direction.
Susie, I have made several major moves, as you know, and am always surprised at what and whom I miss and vice versa. People and places and idiosyncratic small businesses and bits of landscape which I thought had played small parts in my life have proven otherwise. I have stayed in touch with my closest friends so I don't miss them nearly as much as I would without doing that. But other aspects of life that seeped in around the edges of my awareness have kept a strong hold on my heart. And each day here still requires a deliberate openness after two years in this location, which is not to say that makes it a bad day. Many days are very good and bring new wonders.
I resonate with the bits and pieces, the edges of awareness. During the pandemic, I was very affected by the loss of everyday encounters....the shopkeepers and bank tellers. I still like to do a lot of my life in person rather than in the "convenient" electronic way so I really missed those faces even if I didn't know the names attached to them. What do you mean by "deliberate openness?"
Good question! What I mean is that when waking to a new home/city where absolutely everything is different, from immediate surroundings and neighbors, to the climate, to the foliage, to the entertainment and restaurant options, to the medical practitioners, the grocery stores, the potential new friends, the differences in how people tend to think from one local culture to another, it can be tempting to just stay in and read or watch an old movie. (I know you will have family nearby, as I do, and that definitely helps!) But I feel it's important to engage with some of the strangeness each day and incorporate it at a manageable pace.
This is so helpful. I find your approach very accessible and you have completely psyched me out as a "stay home and read a book" type. I will need to get out more.
Fascinating insights, many thanks for such heartfelt, honest writing. I often marvel at people's perceptions and expectations of the person they see me to be in the world.
I'm writing and thinking about transitions into the 3rd Quarter of life, around 60 at elderberries.substack.com . I think there isn't enough understanding and planning for Q3. Am thinking of moving to a new country next year, so place has also been occupying my thoughts.
And I think there is similarly a lack of much clear and honest discussion about preparing for the 4th Quarter. So I really appreciate your perspectives.
I'm starting a new section called Collaborations, where i'd like to co-author with people of different ages. Would you be interested?
Warmly, good luck with it all, look forward to hearing what you discover.
Thank you so much for reaching out, Avivah. I'd be very interested in collaborating once I'm resettled in Minnesota in October. Please stay in touch. Looking forward to reading your substack.
Though I mostly see you on special occasions, I so appreciate the work you do, and love the generosity of spirit your writing inspires. Best of luck on this new adventure!
That's a beautiful eulogy for a way of life Susie, thank you so much. Touching and heartfelt, sober and clear, focused with extreme prejudice (to borrow a tired spy flick phrase and don't ask me why) on that welcome future you've both chosen.
Add me to the list of people who will miss you both. We didn't have all that long a connection but a sincere, warm and appreciated one for me, fer shure. (You can take the boy out of California, but...)
So much beautiful, resonant imagery you've shared here. I'll miss your local voice but hoping (counting on) you continuing its resonance in this blog. They should call it superstack for the sheer quality of your contributions.
I'm walking a similar path myself: here in Hamburgian vacationland overseas, just back from a joyful but rather grueling five day bike excursion with Tomma, along a rugged coastal path into Denmark, sparkled by sun on shimmering water and day after days of swimming in a surprisingly pristine ocean (the Baltic).
Life can be so sweet in parallel with its realities. My daughters have been sitting vigil in LA for the last 10 weeks for their aunt, their mom's sister, who is near the end from pancreatic cancer, made the worse for them (and herself) because she doesn't believe in an afterlife or reincarnation and so cannot be comforted or inspired to let go and let God so to speak. In the broader Source context of that sobriquet I mean.
My grandson at 4 1/2, so dear to me, so missed, as yours are to you, is with them, learning how to slide on his grandma's wood floor like a Dodger player, wearing his LA baseball cap like I just wore mine throughout Denmark. So a baseball runs through it as it has in my family for 100 years
My other grandson, sitting up, scooting along the floor now at 5 months, laughing in triumph, cranky in frustration, blooms in our imagination of returning to GB in 2 weeks.
Grass grows. Wind blows. Birds sing here, there, everywhere. So much to love, and to yearn for when their healing presence fades from our hearts and gratitudes in those harder times .
Well. Grateful to have known you and Frank, looking forward to seeing you one more time before you move. And finding your voice continuing on here.
Superstack is very flattering, Jim. I will definitely continue this work in the upper midwest and on the left coast. I'm grateful to have this pre-existing means of connection and deeply appreciate your joining in the chorus of my long song about the passing of the generations. Sometimes I think I write the same piece every time. Curious about your comment about the suffering of your daughters' aunt in LA that arises from not believing in an afterlife or reincarnation. That's a whole deep dive right there. I wouldn't use either of those words, myself. And you?
Beautifully written, Susie. The complexity of leaving and starting again- not your home so much as your relationships. (As in, what this piece addresses) Everything comes full circle. Embracing youth. Even your failure to recognize the effect of your leaving on those you leave behind, that is very youthful, is it not? Singularly focused
I didn’t respond to your last post but I’m thinking about you quite a bit. This is such a huge transition. Much more is bound to get stirred up in your psyche.
I'm interested in your comment that not recognizing the effect of leaving on those left behind is a youthful way of being. I hadn't thought of that. It reinforces the idea of a growing capacity for and appreciation of connection.
Beautiful piece. I will follow your adventure with interest. "I am porous by nature and breathe in the sadness of my friends alongside my own." I loved that sentence. I am sure you breathe in the joy too.
I hope that's true....the part about breathing in the joy. That's a real spiritual "skill," I think. Letting go of judgment so that you can just appreciate how other people's lives have flourished.
Lovely, smart and heartfelt. I didn’t respond to your last post because my big move to Great Barrington didn’t work. After 10 yrs there, and many wonderful moments, we returned to Oswego and my beloved Lake Ontario. However—and that is a big “however”—I wasn’t moving to be close to kids and grandkids as you are. Being around your young folks and watching them grow will be a grand adventure. May you be happy and healhy in the years to come. And I, like all your readers, hope you continue to share your adventures and insights. 🍀
I'll be writing from Minnesota and California. So...various new perspectives, new backdrops, new restaurants! Thank you for sticking with me.
I’m glad to hear. I like new perspectives and your take on things.
Reading a novel you might enjoy about logging community in N CA, redwood country: Damnation Spring, by Ash Davidson. It’s a first novel and she’s a fine young writer, speaking of listening to younger folks.
Thank you! I have so much to learn.
Very beautifully expressed, as always. Best wishes in all your new adventures.
Thank you, Don. Good to have your voice in my head as I travel. Love the podcast music. It's soothing.
Loss came in on little cat feet . . . it' a poker game not a solitaire.
Your metaphors are so resonant for me Susie. The great thing is that you make loss into an opportunity for connection. In the way a poker game with friends is not a competition so much as a way to be together no matter the hand each is dealt. Creeks rise, fires get near, for each of us at different times. Everything old is new again. Perhaps everything new can be familiar too, if our minds and hearts are as open to connection as you've urged in other writings. I'm in.
Welcome! So glad to have you with me, reading my writing, responding. It's a great blessing.
Heart. Thank you for your loving post-card to Jane who has made a Great Move herself, with the added aspect of doing so solo. Do you know if she is a member? I will help her retrieve from spam if so/sign in, and if not, could you add her? She'd love this. She is a fine writer herself and it would be great for her to engage in your comment section IMHO.
I think it would work if you shared one of my posts or my Substack as a whole with Jane. Maybe you could do this when visiting her to assist in subscribing once she has the post in front of her. Thank you!
Thanks Susie: two words meaning afterlife and reincarnation? or suffering and ...no, I think you mean the afterlife.
If so (I'll take a gamble it is), yes I believe in both. Read some fascinating books by Michael Newton, Life Between Lives and others. He's a master hypnotist whose patients came to him for relief of this or that ailment or condition, but would occasionally slip into previous lives, unbidden by him, during sessions. He began to record sessions and found striking similarities in what patients reported having seen between lives, and how it related to the purpose, challenges and triumphs of human life. Really fascinating reading.
This was over a period of 30 years. He wrote more than one book. He was a deep skeptic about reincarnation in the beginning. His worldview (afterlife view?) changed over the years.
A whole cottage industry of past life hypnotists trained with him. Pretty fascinating. The anecdotes are compelling.
I was hoping the girl's aunt, my former sister-in-law, to at least give herself the option of considering life doesn't end with the end of our physical existence. Because she is suffering and cynical by nature. And it makes me sad when there could be some comfort gained thereby.
hugs
JIm
I belong to neither the "when you're dead, you're dead" school nor the reincarnation school. I lean into Thich Nhat Hanh's view that "a cloud never dies." Impermanence and transformation are my core orientaton. When a cloud has passed, it manifests as rain. We are always and ever changing from one condition to another in my view. I actually find that very comforting in relation to our end-of-life condition as physical bodies.
Susie - this piece rang with delightful truths and beautifully articulated awareness. I treasure you (and Frank) and have from the day we met. Your writing deepens my appreciation of who you are. I always feel you are speaking the language of my heart: true, observant, authentic, and also humorous. I’m missing you already!!!
It's gratifying to know that you are seeing into a deep place in me and that you know that place in yourself. I guess that's what I want from my writing, although I never actually say it out loud. Thank you for helping me articulate that direction.
Susie, I have made several major moves, as you know, and am always surprised at what and whom I miss and vice versa. People and places and idiosyncratic small businesses and bits of landscape which I thought had played small parts in my life have proven otherwise. I have stayed in touch with my closest friends so I don't miss them nearly as much as I would without doing that. But other aspects of life that seeped in around the edges of my awareness have kept a strong hold on my heart. And each day here still requires a deliberate openness after two years in this location, which is not to say that makes it a bad day. Many days are very good and bring new wonders.
I resonate with the bits and pieces, the edges of awareness. During the pandemic, I was very affected by the loss of everyday encounters....the shopkeepers and bank tellers. I still like to do a lot of my life in person rather than in the "convenient" electronic way so I really missed those faces even if I didn't know the names attached to them. What do you mean by "deliberate openness?"
Good question! What I mean is that when waking to a new home/city where absolutely everything is different, from immediate surroundings and neighbors, to the climate, to the foliage, to the entertainment and restaurant options, to the medical practitioners, the grocery stores, the potential new friends, the differences in how people tend to think from one local culture to another, it can be tempting to just stay in and read or watch an old movie. (I know you will have family nearby, as I do, and that definitely helps!) But I feel it's important to engage with some of the strangeness each day and incorporate it at a manageable pace.
This is so helpful. I find your approach very accessible and you have completely psyched me out as a "stay home and read a book" type. I will need to get out more.
Fascinating insights, many thanks for such heartfelt, honest writing. I often marvel at people's perceptions and expectations of the person they see me to be in the world.
I'm writing and thinking about transitions into the 3rd Quarter of life, around 60 at elderberries.substack.com . I think there isn't enough understanding and planning for Q3. Am thinking of moving to a new country next year, so place has also been occupying my thoughts.
And I think there is similarly a lack of much clear and honest discussion about preparing for the 4th Quarter. So I really appreciate your perspectives.
I'm starting a new section called Collaborations, where i'd like to co-author with people of different ages. Would you be interested?
Warmly, good luck with it all, look forward to hearing what you discover.
Thank you so much for reaching out, Avivah. I'd be very interested in collaborating once I'm resettled in Minnesota in October. Please stay in touch. Looking forward to reading your substack.
great, you're on.
thoughts bringing wind to your back...
Though I mostly see you on special occasions, I so appreciate the work you do, and love the generosity of spirit your writing inspires. Best of luck on this new adventure!
Thank you, Marti. It's a great blessing to find an avenue for that expression.
I love the depth and evocative richness’s of this piece.
I look forward to seeing you soon!🤗
It will be great to connect in sacred space/time.
That's a beautiful eulogy for a way of life Susie, thank you so much. Touching and heartfelt, sober and clear, focused with extreme prejudice (to borrow a tired spy flick phrase and don't ask me why) on that welcome future you've both chosen.
Add me to the list of people who will miss you both. We didn't have all that long a connection but a sincere, warm and appreciated one for me, fer shure. (You can take the boy out of California, but...)
So much beautiful, resonant imagery you've shared here. I'll miss your local voice but hoping (counting on) you continuing its resonance in this blog. They should call it superstack for the sheer quality of your contributions.
I'm walking a similar path myself: here in Hamburgian vacationland overseas, just back from a joyful but rather grueling five day bike excursion with Tomma, along a rugged coastal path into Denmark, sparkled by sun on shimmering water and day after days of swimming in a surprisingly pristine ocean (the Baltic).
Life can be so sweet in parallel with its realities. My daughters have been sitting vigil in LA for the last 10 weeks for their aunt, their mom's sister, who is near the end from pancreatic cancer, made the worse for them (and herself) because she doesn't believe in an afterlife or reincarnation and so cannot be comforted or inspired to let go and let God so to speak. In the broader Source context of that sobriquet I mean.
My grandson at 4 1/2, so dear to me, so missed, as yours are to you, is with them, learning how to slide on his grandma's wood floor like a Dodger player, wearing his LA baseball cap like I just wore mine throughout Denmark. So a baseball runs through it as it has in my family for 100 years
My other grandson, sitting up, scooting along the floor now at 5 months, laughing in triumph, cranky in frustration, blooms in our imagination of returning to GB in 2 weeks.
Grass grows. Wind blows. Birds sing here, there, everywhere. So much to love, and to yearn for when their healing presence fades from our hearts and gratitudes in those harder times .
Well. Grateful to have known you and Frank, looking forward to seeing you one more time before you move. And finding your voice continuing on here.
LOL, and I don't mean Laughs.
Superstack is very flattering, Jim. I will definitely continue this work in the upper midwest and on the left coast. I'm grateful to have this pre-existing means of connection and deeply appreciate your joining in the chorus of my long song about the passing of the generations. Sometimes I think I write the same piece every time. Curious about your comment about the suffering of your daughters' aunt in LA that arises from not believing in an afterlife or reincarnation. That's a whole deep dive right there. I wouldn't use either of those words, myself. And you?
Beautifully written, Susie. The complexity of leaving and starting again- not your home so much as your relationships. (As in, what this piece addresses) Everything comes full circle. Embracing youth. Even your failure to recognize the effect of your leaving on those you leave behind, that is very youthful, is it not? Singularly focused
I didn’t respond to your last post but I’m thinking about you quite a bit. This is such a huge transition. Much more is bound to get stirred up in your psyche.
I'm interested in your comment that not recognizing the effect of leaving on those left behind is a youthful way of being. I hadn't thought of that. It reinforces the idea of a growing capacity for and appreciation of connection.