Virgen 10K

Good Morning -

So, it's not quite as long as the last posting, which is why we only have a Virgen 10K (rather than a full marathon).

Have I really only posted once so far this month? Wow - sorry to anyone who hoped to use the reading of these posts as some sort of daily work distraction or such. Certainly this is not the link to mark if you're looking for something you can click on daily when looking for some sort of Internet time suck or external motivator between boring work tasks.

I'd feel bad, except I've maintained in making the daily Virgen, which is really the point of this whole exercise. The blogging is secondary and just creates a means for me to keep my writing muscles from atrophying too much and pushes my introvert self out into the world a little more.

Let's get to that point, shall we?, and talk Virgens (that makes me wonder if I'm still getting the porn seekers on this site. I'd like to think that they are a contained population and that, by now, all of them have clicked once on A Virgen a Day, thinking they hit the online porn jackpot, realized it's not what they thought, and gone on to find virginal tits and ass elsewhere (adding "t and a", unfortunately, probably just brought in a new round of misguided searches...).

So - the Virgen above is from Tuesday, Feb. 10th, and represents the dinner we had with friends. Both my partner and I have been engaging much discernment in the Friends Dept since we moved. Besides that we continue to lease sections of our hearts to friends left in Tucson and elsewhere, we both wanted to use the move as a fresh start.

Rather than just collecting people as friends because we had none here and one is supposed to have friends, we've both taken the time to really get to know people and be aware of not inviting in people who are more toxic than not. The couple we had over for dinner this night are far from toxic and we both agree that a lasting friendship could occur - even though they are most likely preparing to leave Denver by the summer. And so it goes.


Wednesday, Feb. 11th. I trust I took a bath this night and I trust that it was the standard magical experience that soaking in hot water is for me.

Thursday, Feb. 12th. I think this was in reference to opening doors and believe it happened on a night when a section of my family with whom I really struggle was particularly shitty to me - so the opening doors would be me trying to be optimistic and come from a place of "our relationship can heal. I just know it can."

I think (this is when I wish I was more regular with the blogging - this is like trying to retro-journal - time has already started her healing, which means the edges of this one are a bit fuzzy...) this was the night I encountered this section of family for the first time in a long time and received their version of "You're dead to me" behavior.

I was still hurting when I made this Virgen later that night, and sometimes I use the eternally springing hope to distract me from the pain, a la "I know you were super shitty to me tonight, but I still think that if I just keep an open door, someday you'll walk through it and we can have a heart conversation and heal our relationship."

Since that night, I've spent some more time with Reality and have adjusted my position some. While I would never return their behavior with similar hate, I am about done with this lot. We have some more shared space to have yet as we both navigate through a hard passage, but once that is done, I can't imagine any reason to continue attempted engagement with a group that clearly has no love for me. No-one needs that.

Friday, Feb. 13th. Here is where the love is. Here is where the heart is.

For Valentine's, I participated in CHAC's heart auction by decorating two of their wooden hearts, one with images of my partner, and one with images of all of my chosen family. She didn't know about this until we were walking around the exhibit that night and she saw her face hanging on a heart on the wall. I never want to speak for another, but feel comfortable saying that she was touched and full of love by the gift.

The one catch with this was that I could have potentially lost the hearts to a high bid, meaning that we would only have the story of this night and not the hearts to go with them. Hoping for the best, I bid on the hearts and am happy to report that no-one outbid me so I'm going this afternoon to trade cash for art. Really, even if I had been outbid, the money goes to a great organization, so it would have been okay (albeit a little creepy since the hearts were so personal and particular to us and I don't know why anyone else would have wanted them...).

So, we move next weekend, which means that Saturday, Feb. 14th was all about packing, as is today, as is any other free moment between now and the 28th when we park a big truck in the alley.

Sunday, Feb. 15th. Hmmm....I think perhaps we watched some sort of show of farming, because this image is yet another "Hold on, I'm coming!" shout-out to the Universe around this farm life dream of mine.

Monday, Feb. 16th. I spent a portion of Sunday transferring all of our bulk food from their plastic bulk bin bags to glass mason jars. I have yet to be able to adequately describe how much joy this brings me. I love how the food looks in the clean glass jars. I can't wait till we move and I can line the jars up on the shelf of our real pantry (something our current home desperately lacks).

I love the nonconsumerness of having label-less, brandless food lining our pantry shelves. I love that the jars let us see exactly what we have, thus preventing the purchasing of more and more black beans or oatmeal or rice because we (foolishly) think we are out or low when in reality we have enough to feed a small developing nation for at least a month (definitely our bulk popcorn falls into this category, although it's not a sufficient food source for a developing anyone).

Tuesday, Feb. 17th. This is a winter image from a beautiful coffee table book on the Pacific Northwest that my partner kept trying to throw out.

I found it in the trash when we were packing in Tucson, so pulled it out and put it in a book box. She came across it during this packing episode and rather than just throwing it away where she knew I would reclaim it, she told me that I could either take it as mine or she was going to pitch it (so, the book was originally hers, which technically means that she had the right to pitch it in Tucson like she tried, except that it's such a beautiful book that to pitch it is such a disgrace.).

Now the book is mine and I am using it for Virgens.

Wednesday, Feb. 18th. I love Canada Geese and had forgotten how much I hold them dear until we moved back to Colorado and I was reacquainted with them. This tile is not just generally for them, but it honors the geese that got sucked into the engine of the plane that landed on the Hudson.

I read a NY Times article that morning about how the "unknown birds" were identified as geese through lab testing of DNA found on engine parts. The article handled the birds in a wholly crass and disrespectful way (imagine that death - imagine going from the freedom and community of group, synchronized flight to being "ingested" by the engine of a commercial jet), so this is an offering of dignity for these birds.

Also, I love the Mary Oliver poem "Wild Geese" and it is particularly relevant to my Now.

Also, if you follow animal totems, geese definitely carry some wisdom for my Now.

Thursday, Feb. 19th. We went to the Denver Botanic Gardens to see a short documentary on bee keepers in Boulder. The film, Sister Bee, had some wonderful people in it and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing their perspectives and learning a little more about these lovely winged pollinators (although the music in the film nearly put me over the edge - a fan of choral I am not).

I know that I want to support a hive or two and I know that our Louisville rental is not the place to start this relationship. In the realm of steps towards, I will plant bee-friendly flowers as a means of creating space for us to get to know each other a little better.

Friday, Feb. 20th. More bees. It was a particularly long, wretched, and soul sucking week at work, so I was delighted that we ended it with a pre-scheduled beverage gathering at Dazzle with a new good friend (best happy hour in Denver). The conversation, laughter, Shiraz, and cheap but delicious snacks were just what I needed. Unfortunately, the impact of just that much wine meant that I was mostly done by the time we got home.

We both had enough energy and concentration left to eat our take-out subs from Pasquini's (I fell in love with this place when my sister worked at their Broadway location years ago. I was delighted to find that while I was away, they opened a location in our current neighborhood) while watching a netflix dvd of The Office, but that was it.

Not having enough coherent brain power to really do an in-depth Virgen, I went with the first image I landed on when I opened my magazine, which happened to be the bee imagery I was looking for but never found when I was intentionally making a bee Virgen the night before.

So - bees. Clearly they had something to say to me, which a la animal totems, also makes some sense right now.

(Side note on that particular animal totem site - I love the "listen to such-and-such animal speak" links under most of the pictures. My favorite game is to click on the link when one of the cats is in the computer room and watch their reaction to suddenly hearing a lion roar or a bird sing. These are the things that entertain me.)

Here's to that. Here's to paying attention to what the animals have to say. Here's to finding what entertains you and here's to good times with friends - new, old, or otherwise.