NEW YEAR NEW LIFE

NEW YEAR   NEW LIFE

Image of a closing door or window upon the world, and a closing of a year, 2014.  Was reading a blog on thoughts.com, and over the last year or so, people have stopped using this service, for one reason or another.  Until now, I was one of those people, but now here I am.  On the last day of year 2014.  Tomorrow it will be 2015 and I will need to ask myself, “How will this affect me?”  New Year and does this mean I will begin a new life.  Just thinking, and could tell a story along those lines, how the subject came up in the first place.  Will keep this abbreviated and let the title carry my intention:  New Year   New Life.

And the underlying thought happens to be, will making New Year resolutions change anything?  Haven’t been one to make New Year Resolutions, although I have over the years wondered, “What’s New?”  And as each year passes, can add to my list, the achievements of mankind and others, as if I am part of it all, because I am here, part of the human collective.  But that’s another story for another time.  Will try to focus on the title and keep that context in mind.  New Year.  New Life.  What’s up with that?

End of the year 2014 and was having coffee with a 40-year long friend, who I had not seen for a few years.  Just happen to meet.  Talked.  He mentioned that his dad was 93 years old, and would turn 94 in 2015.  I smiled.  Liked his  Dad, and still do.  So it got me thinking, 20 years from this day and I would be 91 years old.  Unthinkable, but the subject came up.  “What have you been doing during the last 20 years.  Lost track of you when you turned 50?”   Being polite and I said, “ Had issues.  Lots of stress.  Dropped out.  Time passes fast, don’t you agree.”  

And he did.  Turns out my friend will be 65 this year.  His children are grown now, age 22 and 24, respectively.  Friend is still working, and so is his wife.  But they made changes that got my attention.  “Sold our house.  Downsized.  Living in a condo now?”  House was on the waterfront and with a nice beach and view.  Raised his family, and now it was time to do something more economically efficient.   Is what the baby boomers are doing now.  Nearing retirement age, and selling the big house.  Kids are on their own.  Time for a significant change.  And that’s what I was left with, after the coffee was gone and I was walking home.  Thinking about the conversation I just had with a long term friend.

New Year.  Does that mean I need to construct a new life and new existence and way of being, just because.  Because its 2015.  Because time doesn’t stand still.  Because what happens if I live another 20 years, and I have no plan and no clue, how life has come and gone.  So the last 20 years were spend in recovery.  Stressed out.  Turned 50 and there was no work, nor job.  Had time on my hands, well deserved.  And I did well.  20 years later and I am healthy, and moving around as if I were age 35.   But we all know, Stoney Blogger is an old dude.  Active, but we know.  Old Dude.  Some things never change, even as there years come and go.  2014 and tomorrow it will be 2015.

End of the year, and things have gone well for me.  Tried out the experiment of snow-birding, going south for the winter and into the sun.  6 months of testing the waters to see if this would work for me.  Turns out it would, but my travel companion is but 55 years old, and it is working out that work is still in the picture, and I should drive around until we meet up, near the Mason-Dixon Line.  So have done some alternative planning, will keep the RV warm and nearby, in case travel companion shows up. 

For now it looks like work and other things are still in play for TC, and that leaves me with the benefit of a place to park and go fishing and is pure luxury for one who has at his center, an urban existence.  So  now splitting time between the lake and the city.  Not cold, but neither is it warm.  But for now, will stay where I am and see how that works out.  The fish are biting and am enjoying the way it is. 

Not sure I can really wrap my head around the idea, New Year means I need to plan a new life.  But then again, what happens if you are blessed with another 20 years of life?  Do you really need a plan.  My last 20 year plan had to do with living and just being.  No work and a lot of play.  And all I know for sure, is that if you stay busy, live stress free and take care of yourself, well then.  New Year.  New Life. 

It is possible.  Apparently.  

SUBLIMINAL GRAY

SUBLIMINAL GRAY

I have less than an hour now to complete the assignment, that I have given myself.  Started a few days ago, when I got annoyed by a headline that was suppose-to-be news, but turned out to be one of those follow-up articles at the bottom of the digital page, that was nothing more than a clever way to get your attention, and have you click on the link, and find yourself being persuaded on some topics that you didn’t intend to read, if you realized in the first place, it was an advertiser’s way of getting to you.  Getting in your head, and when things like this happen to me, I become annoyed with myself, and try to steer away from misplaced paranoia over advertising, be it subliminal or overt.

Not sure what gets to me most, my own ignorance about what is really going on, when google decides for me what is news.  It happened just the other day, I clicked on news, and this was the headline that was demanding my attention.  Headline:   “Can Your Dog Understand What You Are Saying?”  My initial reaction was annoyance and a slight hint of anger that this was happening to me, once again.  Tricked into something I had no intention of giving energy and time to, it made a mark on me.  Not the question or the inquiry, posing as news, that dogs could possibly understand human speech, but rather, that out of nowhere, my mind became manipulated and I was cast in a mindset, I now refer to as ‘ Subliminal Gray’.

Not sure what I know about dogs and human speech.  Not sure when I talk to my wife or significant other or daily companion, how much they understand when I go on and on, talking about something.  Communication and am not sure what it takes to be understood, but it comes to me from the outer banks of some recognition pattern, that life goes on.  To be understood is not the most important thing, or so I tell myself.  Peace and harmony and living side by side with others is important to me, but of course how would I know if it is important to you?  I suppose I could ask, and listen closely to your answer and the things you say, in the moment when I bring the subject up.

But here again, I take no refuge in the one to one correspondence, be it with man or woman, dog or horse, and am often left with the notion that I live in the subliminal gray zone, where shapes and tone and colorful speech take on a meaning all their own, independent of me and the intentions I had when I brought this subject up, started a dialog or conversation, and had some faith in the process of one to one correspondence.  Not thinking this is a personality thing, but when asked recently what a person would do, or where they would go, if determined they are to go Snow Birding.

Snow Bird.  West Coast or East Coast.  What’s it like to be with you?  And this is when I realized I had an intention to write a blog about subliminal messaging and combine that with the shapes and messages that come from nature’s own coding of natural states embedded in things found along the coast in winter, regardless if it was East or West, and how that might change the message received, when inquiring what things might be like, and what it is like to be with you?

Just when I plant the idea within that I can make sense of my own existence, due to inclement weather things change, subliminal gray directs my thoughts and feelings into a depression zone and the effects of living in isolation have a profound effect on me.  Suddenly I realize that with the constant rain and gray landscape of being on the west coast in winter, comes a form of nature and natural existence that is suffused with codes, clues and hidden messages from the other side.  News headlines and Weather Reports.  Climate talks and the storm centers on me, and I struggle to stay upbeat and positive about the choices I have made, when it rains every day, and my computer asks, “Can your dog understand when you talk to them?”

It makes me nervous that I can make sense of this.  Puzzles me when I dial up an answer that is suitable to all your blog readers, and then it comes to me.  Can this be done?  Can one run away from winter and its effects on the human being?  That one can jump in a RV, one’s mobile home and come up with a rotating coast of characters

That can be immediate companions and friends, until Spring arrives, does this make sense at all.  Or is fantasy mixed with hope, that there is an escape plan from the life I once had, that does not end up as a repeat performance.

The mind goes through the subliminal gray passage, rearranges itself, and things are different than you thought they would be, when it rains and it is cold and totally miserable, day after day, and you are depressed and lethargic, as you receive the subliminal messages of isolation and natures deprivation from culture and the ways of city life.   Not saying this is what is happening, as the first month of the coast in winter, brings forth new sensations and states of mind.  It is all new, and therefore one is in a constant state of adjustment.  Then as if it happens overnight, one gets acclimated and adjusted to the stare you are in, and there is an urge to flee.  Move on.  Replace the cold and rain and dismal gray with something more rewarding, something better.

Where are you and where are your going next?  Add to this the idea that distances between interesting places can be huge.  Why not stay where you are?  Beach in
Winter.  West Coast and at the edge of water and land, subliminal message coded in shades of gray exist.

Where you are is a must-see-place on a sunny day.  The coast is beautiful.  Timing is everything.  Cold and rainy in winter.  December is the wettest month of the year.  Chilly in the morning.  Limited sunbreaks throughout the day.  Don’t let bad weather get you down.  Each day is different, if you will it so.  Something for everybody, and it is up to you to decode the subliminal messages you receive, and make the best of it.  Even when its subliminal gray and nature calls out to you, “Go walk the dog.”