I would quiet my thinking and open my eyes and ears and let my body feel the ground under my feet and the cool or heat of the air I would hold myself gently in my hand.

Last night the first  winter snow fell on the high mountains and in the valleys there was hail and thunder.

Most of the time there is no preferring.  I love doing things with friends and love equally doing those things alone where it does still seem as though there are others involved, even if they might be other parts of me who may not be as apparent when I am with someone else.
Yesterday was spent in part exploring an abandoned roof caved in ranch with a friend. It is a wonderful feeling to share the joys of such an exploration. A great horned owl watched from the hidden dappled shade of the tree by the back shed. If I had been alone the bird might have been stronger felt.  Paul was the one who noticed the owl. He had never seen one wild before. It was a great day.

Such a delicate looking thing thriving in a rocky high exposed place. That is how I feel too where-ever I am.

My eyes are greedy. Most of the time I am paying attention to the odd colored stone or pattern of rain streaks on the tree trunk. Sometimes my eyes let other parts of me take the lead. Yesterday on a long cloud heavy hike I began to think about inside things. I called my mother on the anniversary of my father's death. I got her answering machine and left a message. She had a house full of guests and was surrounded by family. She didn't call me back. That's the way she is and I didn't think anything about it. Then I did. It made me feel a bit mad at her a quick fleeting anger that swooshed as suddenly into realizing what a gift it has been for me that she left me un-tended as a child. I was un-tendable. I preferred consequences to compliance. I quietly let her cut my hair short like a boys when I refused to brush it wanting needing it to be unkempt. On cold days when my mother asked me to put on a sweater I'd wear it under my dress. I would give my birthday presents away to other children and cut up new clothes to make outfits for my dolls but hold on to certain tattered things and wear them years past their fitting. I only did my school work if  the teacher was kind. Some years I was no more than a mouse in the classroom and my mother let me be through it all.  The choices I made in the outside world mirrored the ones in my heart. There was nobody pulling my heart into a certain matched cultural beat. It got to figure itself out.

Because you pose them. Then there is curiosity.

I think it has to do with leaving empty spaces in all the aspects of being human as if breathing is something that is bigger than lung capacity.

It reminds me of the make believe playing with dollies or teddybears when a child is alone.

I like spending money when the giving and receiving goes beyond a simple exchange in a right there small economy way. The local thrift shop is an all vollunteer non profit that provides grant money and funding to local needs. They raise almost $300,000. a year. When the economy goes down more people go to the thrift shop and they can give out more grants and help more people. I love to buy pocket coin cheap pretty clothes and furnishings and know the money is spreading in a good way like planting seeds. The local book store is more expensive. I bought a new book there a few days ago "Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson. I am swirling around in my mouth each sentence he has written and getting lost and found in some shared story.  That same afternoon I sat in the back room of the bookstore and listened to Madeleine Albright speak and earlier in the Summer I heard E.O. Wilson speak there where we can ask them questions in a setting so intimate as a house gathering.  Then there is one more part to this, the giving away of the clothes and the passing on of the books. I enjoy spending money when it feels like planting a garden.

I am older than I ever could have imagined in people years so I feel like I am my future self and that self  I think loves to be the caretaker of all the earlier selves and the inspiring goes both ways from young to old and back.