When life gives you lemons, make umbrella drinks. Obscure, but highly meaningful.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you think about something and then all these pieces sort of slide into place and everything you've been listening to for the past five years suddenly has significance? It always reminds of me of that big mechanical contraption in The Dark Crystal showing how everything is heading for this alignment.

So it has been for the past 48 hours with plans forming and ideas flashing in the air like fireflies. So much so that I've lost interest in Point B with his eyes that dart like eels in oil, never standing still long enough to make contact. His inane blogs are still auto forwarded to me and I can't even begin to wade through the inanity. There are just no hip waders tall enough for that trek.

So for the moment I will leave him to go about his daily adventures in humiliating wait staff and service people, sending back record numbers of meals to show he is powerful enough to do so and demanding the best of everyone while delivering nothing in return. I have bigger fish to fry at the moment and they don't include big-mouthed carp shoveling everything into their bellies that they find along the bottom. I'm just determined not to continue living in the muck and murk with the thought of being scooped up looming.

I mention that because it is a reoccurring image for me. The steak delivered by a friendly waiter only to be cut into and pronounced unsuitable. He explains this in tactless terms never looking up and as he speaks he cuts pieces and chews them so that by the time the waiter has agreed to return it to the kitchen it is half consumed and another portion is soon on its way. Its a scene so often repeated that as a spouse I was often stuck ingratiating myself to said wait staff and as an employee, I just pretended I wasn't there. At some point I should have had the cajones to exclaim..."Don't worry, he sends them all back, everywhere, its what he does." I never could see why someone would eat a damn cow anyway. I just thought in view of this blog being a catharsis...I could erase that image for good.

Personally, I am in a different zone and not thinking so much about my situation as a bad thing but rather as a catalyst towards something. They say sometimes that total chaos is required to make substantial changes and it takes a storm to blow away everything in order to start fresh. For in fact we are hard wired to hang onto things if we can and when they are gone, then sometimes that is what is needed for a new perspective.

Suffice to say that whatever I have been doing to clear the air has helped provide some clarity and rather than being stuck in the box of my present reality, I am beginning to see that life is a great adventure and no matter what, a lot of us end up in situations in which we are not brave enough to embark on it. Free spirits get bogged down with real estate and taxes and bills and pretty soon freedom is a concept and not a reality. We delegate freedom to the young and unencumbered.

Looking at my situation as a chance to be free once and for all of the encumbrances that  have kept me from embarking on new adventures has opened doors and created possibilities which have left me bemused and even a bit excited. For months I have been listening to the input of friends and family and feeling a bit defeated about how one goes about reconstructing their life after crisis. It takes a leap to realize that 1) you don't have to reconstruct it, 2) you don't even have to downsize it, and 3) you don't even need to change it...there are other options that are much more exciting. You have to take some words out of your vocabulary and add new ones in.

I won't get into details, but what I can say is those days walking in the forest, and everything that has occurred in the past several years has combined to create a great air of excitement around here. I may not be heading into the wild so to speak but I am headed into an adventure. Adventures can be good or bad, but its a good thing to have them. My mind may grind on in mysterious ways but eventually I crank out a jewel.