Home Sweet Home

This is over my fireplace.

Siam, My 18 year old companion

My office

Chico

I am back to my two room casita, after living in beautiful mansions for the past few months. It is good for me to be home and to have Chico with me. He has been staying with a friend. I was very anxious this evening about leaving the last house. I always get anxious when I have to leave a place. I am a creature of habit and I like comfort.

I loved the eighteen year old cat, Siam, and her gentle nature.  She also became attached to me and she followed me around from room to room. I will miss her. I will miss the swimming pool. I swam twice a day there, slowly counting off the laps, sixty laps and later on in the day another forty laps. (It is a small pool.) Something about doing laps and concentrating on the numbers relaxes me. It becomes like a meditation. If I can swim at least once a day, I feel like I have a fulfilled my purpose and then I can enjoy the rest of the day.  I am not what you would call an ambitious person. Keep it simple, is my motto.   Get up, eat, swim, pet cat, eat, swim, pet cat, watch television while petting cat, eat, sleep........

A friend told me about a woman house sitter here who doesn't have a home of her own. She just goes from one house sit to another. I thought about it for half a day but decided that I need some place in this world that I can call my own. I am too anxious to live like a nomad, even though it is appealing on some levels. No rent would be nice. But I couldn't leave Chico. He belongs to my landlord. Chico thinks I belong to him. I guess we all belong to each other. It is nice to feel like I BELONG somewhere, even if it is just for a week or two out of several months of living the high life in other people's homes. 

I had gotten into the bad habit of watching television at these homes. I don't have one here and this evening I was going through withdrawals. It had been so easy to just turn on the television in the early evening and sit for two or three hours, flipping around the channels, every once in a while (Okay, rarely) finding something worthwhile to watch. But I think it is a false feeling of comfort to watch the same programs and same commercials over and over. It makes life seem secure and timeless. And there is no demand for participation from me.  Just a mindlessness, maybe similar to counting off those laps in the pool.

Now I have no escape from my own reality but that is okay with me. There is nothing I want to escape from in my personal world. As long as I have the comfort and love coming from Chico, I don't mind a little physical discomfort. It is HOME and that is all that matters. I will be here just long enough to get settled, one week, and then I go to Portland, Oregon for three weeks. Another anxiety making experience, the anticipation of hassles at the airport, etc. I have to focus on the end result, being reunited with my family and try not to think about everything in between.  That is a big order for me. I was nicknamed Worrywart by my father when I was growing up. I worry about that.