Morning with My Friend Leslie and her Dog Boomer

Leslie and her dog Boomer came by to visit with me this morning. I am back in my casita and this is my yard. Chico and Boomer loved playing with each other and of course I always like seeing Leslie.  Everyone's e mails also cheered me up this morning. Thank you for caring.

Dealing with Pain

I haven't been writing much. I have been so discouraged about the slow process of healing and all the pain involved that I didn't write. No reason to share this hard process with others. It is a private, continuing struggle that sometimes never seems to end or make any progress. It has been seven weeks now since the surgery and I still can't walk. Discouraging. So I am not writing on the blog until I feel happier. We all suffer and no reason to add my suffering into the mix. I hope to one day be walking around again.

Thanksgiving with My Friend Don

My friend Don came up to get me in a taxi and took me out for a Thanksgiving lunch at Bubba's Restaurant. We had smoked turkey and many other great dishes. Mostly, I enjoyed the company. I have been spending too much time alone in my chair. I go back to my casita on Monday. I am looking forward to seeing Chico again.

Out To Lunch

Panino's special Spaghetti. Delicious!

Me with Mario

This is my first time out of the house in almost three weeks. My friend Mario took me to Panino's Restaurant. I felt like I had just taken a hit of acid. Not that I do foolish stuff like that. But I did acid a couple of times when I was in my early twenties and as far as I can remember, it was very much like my outing. Maybe because all of my senses were opened up from no outside stimulation for so long. I felt aware of everything around me, and even expressions of people's faces half a block from me. It was overwhelming. I am going to have to take this returning to the world a little at a time......right now I am out to lunch in more ways than one.

Winter is Here

I am getting e mails from people north of the border telling me about the winters that are starting. My family is in Portland, Oregon. They are expecting snow.  I just read that a huge storm has hit Seattle. I feel so lucky to be living here where the sun is still hot in the afternoons. I am still not walking but I am standing a few minutes every hour or so. That is a start. I am going back to my casita on Monday. It is always nice to go back home. I will get to see Chico again. I miss him when I am not there. Animals, they are such comforts to us humans. Think of how hard life would be if animals didn't love us.

The cat here finally trusts me and whenever I am sitting down reading she jumps onto my lap. She makes her needs known to me. If she doesn't want me to pet her, she makes sharp jerks of her tail. If she wants to be petted she turns over on her back and exposes her stomach to me. Cats are interesting. They are so different from dogs. I love them both.

Interesting Visitors

Yesterday a new friend, Joan came to visit. My friend Lamar also came and he brought hot dogs, cheese and buns for lunch. Joan lives in Salem, Oregon and before she came down she asked if I needed anything. I told her I needed my computer power cable from my son's house. She was going to Portland to shop and she stopped by his house twice to get it for me. Then when she brought it here, I was sure it was the wrong cord because of no plug. It had traveled a long ways with her. But later on in the day, I saw that the plug comes out of the old cord that I squashed and it fits right into the new one. What a relief. It was an interesting day. She lived in India for a year and Thailand for two years and she is thinking of retiring here. Also Sara, the cat, caught a lizard which we had to rescue twice from her. I hope she doesn't find him again. That is not a very smart lizard to continue hanging around the same area after being captured twice.

Pat at Sunset

Ray at Sunset

The above photos were taken by my friends Pat and Ray Hudson last night on the Malecon in Ajijic. The full moon drumming party. It looks like they had fun. Wish I could have joined them. 

Today Pat came by and brought a delicious cheese cake for me. We had coffee and we talked. She went to a full moon party last night, a drumming circle. She sent me photos which she said I could use on my blog today. I could hear them from my house in El Parque, or maybe it was another drumming circle. Lots of parties are going on this time of the year. Parades, parties, etc.....But I am still stuck in my chair. Thank you Pat for letting me use your lovely photos.  And for visiting with me.

Feeling Better, Life Comes to Me

Stacey's salad

Stacey is on the left. Judi is on the right.

Last night's sunset.  My friends Stacey and Judi showed up at my door with food. Judi brought chicken and potato salad. Stacey brought a green salad. It is such a pleasure for me to have friends visiting. I get awfully lonely here.

Slow Healing Progress

I still can't get around. Stuck in a rolling chair but I can feel myself getting better. A friend came up yesterday and invited me out for Thanksgiving. I hadn't seen him for several months. That was a nice surprise. He will come up for me in a taxi. 

Things that once seemed important to me, now no longer matter very much. Friends are more important to me now. Maybe because I am spending so much time alone.  No photos lately. I haven't been anywhere except this porch. It has been five weeks now since my accident......Hopefully, before long I will be able to get on with my life but with a new perspective, at least for a little while. For as long as I remember all this isolation and discomfort. Life has a way of making those things disappear so quickly and then everything returns to what it was before the painful experience. Maybe, somewhere deep inside the feelings still hide out.

The cat here, after 11 days, has finally decided to trust me. I feel blessed. She comes to me now and sleeps on my lap and talks to me. I don't feel quite as lonely with her curled up next to me. So, this is my life at the moment.

MexicoGuru.com

I have mentioned the Mexico Guru site before on my posts but I am doing it again. It is a great site. It has information about towns all over Mexico. It belongs to my friends Pat and Jane. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in different aspects of Mexico, including the language, places to visit, places for rent, etc. It is on my side bar. You can reach it directly from there.

Is Today Tuesday?

Half the day I thought it was Sunday. A friend called me last night and asked me what time it was here. She was calling from the East Coast in the States. I told her by  my watch it was six in the evening. She said my watch was about two hours off. I have been going by this watch for a week now. It doesn't make any difference what day of the week it is or what time it is if everyday is the same. I am still housebound. But I can tell that my ankle is healing. Maybe one day soon I will be able to leave the house again. In the meantime I sit on the front porch in the sunshine. I know it is time to go to bed when it gets dark. I get up when the sun comes in my bedroom window.

I am reading a good book. I am doing some writing. Friends come by to visit. Not a bad life. It is going to be very strange for me to get back out into the world again.

The cat I am taking care of here finally has decided to trust me. She came and sat by me today and let me pet her for a few minutes. A few days ago she left me a dead lizard on the porch. Cats are so different from dogs. They take so much more patience. You cannot rush a cat. I feel blessed that she finally is trusting me enough to come near me.

I appreciate all of the little pleasures life brings to me while I am stuck in this chair. Maybe one day I will even look back on this time with longing. It is a time of much peace now that I can see that I am healing. I know now that one day I will be walking again. Maybe I will remember to take more time out of my days to just do nothing. The way my days are here now. Doing nothing can be a real treat.

El Parque and Getting Better

El Parque is an interesting area. It is a gated community with 114 homes. They are all beautiful and well made. But close together. I can hear parties all around me. I don't mind. I like to hear people having fun. I have been a shut in for so many weeks that I have lost my interest in joining in anything outside. I can now understand how that can happen to people. All my life I have been active and an outside person. Now I am experiencing the other side of the coin. I can understand why some people prefer not to go out into the world. You have no control out there.

My mother was always an inside person. I would go sit under the trees and read and then swim and she would watch television. She never understood that part of me and I never understood that part of her. Funny how opposite we were in so many ways. But now I do appreciate her desire to be in her own house where she felt safe.

She always asked me why I would want to be subjected to the elements, or the bugs outside. She wanted to be in control of her environment.  I know now why. Bad thinks can happen out there.   Once my ankle heals I know I will go back to my old lifestyle. I will want to get out and see the parades again. I heard there will be a parade here on Monday. Another holiday. There are so many of them here. It is fun.

 At least it WAS fun when I could walk.... I know I will be walking again soon. I no longer have to wear that huge half cast with gauze wrapped all around my leg. Now I have on a very small jell cast just around my ankle. When I fell into the lake, the man who came to my rescue gave it to me. He said he had broken his ankle six weeks earlier. And he was well enough to help me into my casita. I am looking forward to walking again and going to his house to thank him and his Mexican neighbors for saving me that day.  Pretty soon I will be out and taking photos again. Maybe I will be well enough to enjoy the holidays.   I think they have a big Thanksgiving dinner in the club house here in El Parque and they have one at the Lake Chapala Society.....I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. Thank you all again for going through this ordeal with me. I still can't put any pressure on my bad ankle for another week and a half but I don't have to take all those pain pills. It is great to start feeling Human again.

I am Getting Better

The photos above are in El Parque, across the street from where I am house sitting. I had the half cast off part of the day and I sat in the sunshine. I can see that my ankle is much better and in two weeks I will be able to walk a little. I don't feel as depressed. It is hard to be depressed when there such beautiful sunsets and sunny days on the porch. Thank you all for your help through this hard time.

On Reaching Out

I have not written much lately. I have been too depressed to reach out. I know others don't like to hear about my problems. Everyone has a personal hell world to have to deal with and it is difficult to hear of the hell worlds of others. So I have not been writing. But people keep writing to me and being so kind. I want to thank you all. It means so much to me.  The holidays will be here soon. Maybe I will be well enough to do some of the fun things around here. But mostly I am going to try not to write until I am less depressed. Thanks so much for all the love that has been coming into my life from this blog. I am sorry I can't return it at the moment. I am too sad.......

Another Doctor Visit

I am still struggling with my depression so I won't write much now. But I saw the doctor yesterday and he took x rays. He said not to walk on it for two more weeks but to try to exercise it by flexing it a little everyday. It looks awful... But it has finally stopped hurting all the time now. Friends came by to visit and that makes a world of difference to me.....

Thinking about the Two Wolves Inside of Us

The first photo is what I see out my door everyday. The second one is Chico, my constant companion. I need to count my blessings more and not my losses.........

As you know, I have a lot of time on my hands. I think too much these days. I am alone most of the day. Sometimes a friend will stop by to visit and I treasure those visits. This isn't an original idea but it fits me today. It goes like this: Your  head is a dangerous place to visit. Don't go there alone.

But since I am alone, I have been spending too much time rummaging around inside my head and sometimes my negative, angry and fearful thoughts take over.  A nice man at the Lake Chapala Society named Ross passed around a flier a few months ago. I took one and put it on my refrigerator. It is an Indian story about an old man telling his grandson that there are two wolves living inside of him. He said they are in a war. One is Evil--anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

The other is the Spirit. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

The little boy asked his grandfather; Which one wins?

The grandfather answered, The one you feed!

Lately I have been feeding the wrong wolf.   Yesterday I wrote two angry e mails to two women here because I was so upset that they have ignored me since my accident a month ago.  I had considered them very close friends and neither has written or stopped by or e mailed me.

I was feeding the Evil wolf!  There was no reason to write those e mails. Those women owe me nothing. They have their own lives and just because they haven't communicated with me, there was no reason for me to write to them about my anger and disappointment in them.  It was the Evil wolf talking.

Angy words can never be taken back. Lost friendships are difficult and usually impossible to retrieve. But maybe I was wrong from the beginning to make assumptions about our relationships.  I made the mistake of assuming that they were good friends. It all comes down to a question of Trust. I trust too much at the beginning of a relationship. But trust has to be earned. It isn't something to give away freely. It is a give and take in relationships. You wait to see if the other person is going to be trustworthy. Then you don't go into the Evil Wolf Mentality as I did with these two women when they didn't come through for me.

I was wrong to have done that.  And today I feel terrible about getting so angry at them. It isn't right to have ANY expectations of people, no matter what you have done for them in the past.! When you do things for people, you can't have expectations of them for some future time.

Friendships aren't a bank account that you make deposits into and then expect to withdraw from in the future. You do things for friends out of your love for them. Period. No Future Expectations......That way you don't end up feeling hurt or angry.......   Maybe this experience has taught me to be more cautious with people. To make sure a person is really trustworthy before I offer my friendship and trust. I think that is only fair to others. It is unfair to expect things that aren't there in the first place........

In the end, I don't know much about life. I am always surprised at people. Several friends have come through for me and I hadn't spent that much time with them. I need to feed the Spirit Wolf and forget the Evil Wolf....That is my goal for today........

A Gratuitous Endeavor

When I was a young woman I was very involved in modern dance. I spent all my time at a dance studio in San Francisco. Jenny Hunter was my teacher. I will always remember what she repeated to me often. She would say, Art is a Gratuitous Endeavor.   No explanation of what that meant. I pretended that I understood her words. I was nineteen years old; what did I know?

I never understood those words until today. I consider doing this blog and writing on any other sites as works of my art. They are my ideas, feelings, photos, and my way of viewing the world. After receiving that nasty e mail this morning from someone, I was very upset. I was hurt. I was angry and I was going to just give up the blog and any other writing. At least that angry person might have had the decency to give a name to the comment. No, the nasty comments I receive are always sent anonymously.

 Jenny's words came into my mind today every time I thought of that comment. I looked up Gratuitous online. It means --given or received without cost, or given without return or recompense, granted without pay....

That is mostly what artists do. They give of themselves because they HAVE to do that. For the sake of self expression. Now, unless you consider the two cents a day that I am receiving, I am doing this online stuff gratuitously...I don't even think they have sent me the two cents a day. It takes a long time to get up to a hundred dollars and that is how long they wait until they cut a check.

If you don't like me or what I have to say, then why bother to read my blog? Why bother to write a nasty e mail to a person who is having a hard time at the moment? I am not going to let one nasty remark ruin my day or stop me from my self expression.

I feel sorry for people who have to do things like that. I promise myself that the next time it happens I will NOT publish nasty remarks, especially ones made by people who don't even give their names. Seems very cowardly and petty to me.

I love my readers........And I thank all of you for being so helpful to me during this hard time for me. Being a shut-in does not suit me at all! I am an active person. This is a difficult time for me.....Thanks again. Patricia

Still in Hiding from the World

I haven't been writing on my blog much because I don't want to depress you. I am finding it harder each day to just stay in my little casita area. In a way, it is a blessing that the days are shorter now. That makes a few less hours to feel badly about not being out in that beautiful sunshine.

I don't even have any new books to read here. I have watched all the movies my son downloaded on my computer. I tried to access some free web sites with movies with no luck. It was just a waste of time. Maybe I am don't know enough about computers to be able to do that. I get frustrated and quickly give it up.

On Thursday I see the doctor again and he will take x rays. Hopefully, it will be good news. Hopefully, I will be walking around within a month or so.

On the 8th I go up to El Parque to house sit. Maybe the change of scenery will lift my spirits.   The woman I am house sitting for knows that I can't get around. Fortunately, she has a cat and not a dog. I guess that cat and I will become good friends after three weeks of sitting around the house together.

I will miss Chico. He has been wonderful company for me.  But cats can be fun too. I can't think of any animal that I don't love. Well, maybe I would have a hard time with a pig in the house. I remember once watching a television program about a pig that was a house pet. His owner had a stroke and was on the floor and couldn't get up. The pig ran into the road and wouldn't get up until someone in a car stopped and then the pig ran into the house. The man followed him. The woman's life was saved. And don't tell me that animals don't have feelings........

Again I think all of you for writing and giving me encouragement. That helps. I really feel sad for people who are shut-ins. I don't know how they manage. 

The External vs. Internal Realities

I am still in my little casita. I know everything here by heart. The most exciting moment of the day was when I saw a scorpion in my other room. It was close enough for me to reach with the mop and I pounded on it until I was sure it was dead. I couldn't reach down to throw it away. I had to call my landlord here to do that for me.

Other than that, it has been an internal kind of day, sitting here for hours trying to figure things out on my computer. I like doing computer work  but I also like to exercise. I really miss my walks and I think Chico does too.  I don't know how people can sit in front of the computer all day long without going crazy.  I feel like I went crazy today with all those computer hours.

I have no insights. I have nothing but a huge headache. Some days are like that. The days are shorter now because the clocks were set back. The sun is already starting to go down and I don't think it is much after seven p.m. I have no idea of what time it is now. My watch is in the other part of my room and that takes some thought to get over in that direction. Everything takes time and thought. So, you can see the big excitement was the scorpion. That is the second one I have found here in the last week or so. My landlord says it is time to spray my casita. I will have to sit in the yard until it airs out. I will be forced to go out there even though I am afraid of falling and hurting myself again.

I am becoming a big baby here. It has been over three weeks since my surgery. The doctor said the first three weeks were the worst. Maybe it will get easier from now on. I sure hope so. Again I thank all of you for continuing to write to me.  The Day of the Dead holiday has already started. Lots of fireworks and right now I hear drums in the distance. It is very noisy around town these days. I am missing it all.....