Going With the Flow

Though it is a lousy picture of our living room window and stained glass lamp emporium, this is my view from a yoga mat every morning as I dutifully try my best to fix my sore back.  Stretching is very good for what ails me, but it also very boring.  

I was trying to view a video on stretches, but kept having to crane my neck at awkward angles to see the TV which I realized if I kept it up, would then necessitate a bunch of sore neck stretches.  I'm heartily sick of lying on the floor any longer than I have to, so I gave up on the video.

While I do my half hour of stretches, trying to get my toes pointed straight up to the ceiling instead of at the wall, fighting my tight hamstrings for every smidgen of an inch and other various impossible angles for this old carcass, my mind wanders.  Or I should say, races. 

 I think of all of the things I should be doing instead; getting the taxes done for us and Carl's folks, making appointments, and most of all, packing up this house for the upcoming remodel, continuing to go through the stuff we have here that I haven't looked at for decades. And, oh dear, I still have to finish cleaning out my late mother's house, garage, outbuildings and sheds as well, and our garage, and make room somewhere for the things we'll need to keep........ugh.

I don't know if many people have heard of the KonMari method of cleaning and decluttering your house or not, but this is just what I need to do, pick up every item in our house and ask myself if it 'sparks joy'.  Well, there are a whole lot of items in this house and I can heartily attest that the vast majority of them do not spark anything other than my anxiety, because Carl and I don't see eye to eye on what is joyous. 

My mind goes round and round, racing like a car on a track.  How am I going to get all of the junk sorted through and still remain friends with my husband?  

About the time my mind is making the ninety-ninth lap of the 'Anxiety 100', I can't stand lying on my back stretching one more minute.  I need some physical exercise to burn off the stress of the windmills in my mind.   Where are my ski boots?  I'm outta here.  Fresh air is what I need.   

 Ok, I know what I really need to do is stop procrastinating and just Kon Mari the crap out of the junk around here, but then one of my favorite movie heroines came to mind, the epic (and ridiculously silly at times) Scarlett O'Hara in 'Gone With the Wind'. 

Scarlett knew how to deal with overwhelming feelings:

Well, ok, I'll go skiing and THEN I'll think about it all.  Ok?

I'd hoped the fluffy snow had settled some, but I was wrong.  I rounded the corner off of the hosta bed and started out to the north in the Back Eight.

The temperature was in the low 20's and there was no wind to speak of, just a gentle breeze now and then making it a really a nice day to ski.   

However, I soon found out the snow was a lot deeper than I realized and I was up to my knees most of the time, slogging on slowly and puffing like a steam locomotive.

 Breaking trail is the hardest part of cross-country skiing, and along the west side of the Back Eight, the drifts were really high.  At times, I could ski along on top of the hardened banks, but then about every other stride, down I'd go, over my knees again.  Amazing how much effort it takes to get six feet of ski out of the middle of a drift.  I had to stop for a bit.

While I was catching my breath, I got to thinking (again) how much this situation was just like the overwhelming whole house cleanout and temporary move we're facing.  Seems like all I do is make a little progress and then come to a standstill.  Darn it, everything takes so blasted much effort and there's a lot of gray area and uncertainties.  Heck, we don't even have a floor plan nailed down yet, not entirely, anyway.  

A few friends of mine said I should just take the reins of this project, get a dumpster, pitch all of the junk and get on with life.  You know, get off the pity pot, or is it, either pee or get off the pot, anyway, you get the point.  Ah yes, tempting thought, but the junk in question is not mine, it's Carl's.    

See, I really, really want to avoid THIS scene in GWTW:

 Scarlett, foolish woman, came to her senses far too late.  Ok, a dumpster is out.  (Unless Carl wants one!)

 Well, this won't do, c'mon, you have to keep going.  

I finally made it all the way to our north fenceline, but my progress was exceptionally slow.  Halfway to the windmill, I turned around to see how far I'd come and let my hammering heart have a rest.  Now that I had the trail established, the subsequent trips would be much easier, but I still had a long way to go to get back to our yard. Well, I had my breath back, time to move forward once again...

  Above: Where I'd come from.  Below: Where I've got to go.

 The pristine snow is beautiful, isn't it?  But to me, a trail would be even prettier.  Well, in for a penny, in for a pound; I'm not going to get home standing around waiting for the snow to melt, now am I?
Off I went at a snail's pace once again.

I finally made it to the end of the lane leading into our back garden and was startled to see a huge drift just north of the windmill.  It was too high for me to ski off of and I knew I'd end up falling if I tried.  My back is too sore to try any nonsensical moves, so fine, I'll go around. 

What caused the drift to form?

Remember our old, rusted out driveway culvert? 

 Carl had gotten rid of two of the three sections at my insistence, but the last one didn't fit on the load.  After hauling the first two to recycling, I helped him load the last section on the trailer, but before we could take it in, Joel needed to use the trailer, so the culvert was rolled off on the lawn one more time.   

And there it still sits. Although it is nearly rusted through on top, the culvert is still doing the job it was created for, directing water (now snow) through and away.

 There was very little snow on the downside of the 36" culvert.  Carl had walked over to see where the big snowbank was coming from on Sunday.

I was impressed by how the drift had formed, looking as if the snow was flowing out of the end of the pipe, true 'whitewater'.

 The drift looks as turbulent as whitewater in a river.

 Looking at the height of the frozen wave of snow, I wonder if this is what surfing feels like?  (I'm guessing it is not quite so cold.)

I had to marvel that the old culvert was still doing what it was meant to do, directing the flow even if it was displaced.  

And that's when I remembered something else Carl said quite often when we've tackled ridiculous projects around here and I'd gotten discouraged, "There's no point fighting it, we'll just try something else, you'll see, it will work out, don't worry."

"Just go with the flow."