November 21, 2018

It rained today, which is odd that I even have to state that, given that I live in a bioregion that ordinarily would be rained upon for days and days before now. This year is different. The sun bloomed daily for months with brief pockets of rain, instead of the reverse. Sunlight is normally so rare that there’s a name for the moments that it appears: sunbreaks. As I write this, the sun is even now pushing aside the clouds like a bully shoving the more peaceful clouds out of the way. I think this will end badly as is the case with all bullies. Clouds only appear momentarily peaceful and fluffy, building up gargantuan towers of chemical reactions that eventually come down on our heads, blocking the now thin and watery sun for months. At least, that’s their reputation.

I am one month and a few days into retirement. The experience is primarily of detoxification including house cleaning and anxiety dreams, such as the one I had last night. I was at the University of Oregon at some futuristic date. A young student was escorting me to the student union in her car and we drove through a very sunny campus that bore no resemblance to what I remembered. I kept asking, is this still the university, as she drove through block after block of ultra modern buildings rising on all sides. She was driving very fast in a smart car that seemed to run on rails and then it didn’t. She walked up to a group of other young students and I was on my own, outside a monumental windowed building, standing by a bus stop. I realized that I had a qigong class I was supposed to teach at 4pm and now it was 6 – I was horrified. I ran to catch the bus but it left without me. Now the building was dark, the sun had set – apparently the campus had closed down for the night and I had no way to get back home, other than waking up.

I am roasting an 11 lb. turkey and making some sort of cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.  I couldn’t find the listed ingredients for the sauce so I’m improvising: whole cranberries, pomegranate seeds, candied pineapple, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, ginger, lemon juice.  It’s supposed to have pistachio nuts but I couldn’t find the shelled ones.