Day 5 List
-find Wendy’s computer charger
-find Ares’ house router
-organize Ares’ keys
-contact Elena, dad, and Russel
-send pics to insurance
-find rope to tie-up dogs.
Day 5 top three struggles
Gmail is requesting a code from my lost phone. Now I can’t access my email account, and all my passwords are stored in the Google Chrome browser, since I am not signed-in, I can’t access these websites.
Molly dog decided to run off, and find the stinkiest place to go for a swim. Not only do we have to wash her with precious water, but her ear tips are bleeding. Molly has leishmania which causes skin ulcers. The blood goes everywhere so I am frantically trying to keep our host’s floors/walls clean.
Finding Jan’s gorgeous wool wall hanging caked in mud. Since I first met Jonathan this artwork has been a part of our lives. We hung it over the bathroom window in our first Silverton house because the bathroom window was covered with ice on the inside. No matter where we are in the world, this tapestry has hung on the wall reminding us of home, family, and the desert hues that we cherish.
Day 5 top three celebrations
Inside the mud-soaked canvas tent, Jonathan found a vacuum bag with our winter comforter and linen duvet dry and clean. Also Lydia’s clothes that she brought to Greece dry and clean which including a few pairs of underwear! Yeah, I know longer have to wear one of Jonathan’s three. And he found a wool Guatemalan blanket that Lydia brought back with her from a school volunteer trip.
Under the mud, I found our nine small precious stone faces placed on a tic-tac-toe board that came from Jonathan’s dad. This small piece of art work has kept the girls busy for years moving the faces around in different ways. Plus, it has been a source of artistic inspiration for Lydia.
Under the mud I found Lydia’s unbroken clay sculpture made in high school that was inspired by the tic-tac-toe stone heads.
Bonus! I randomly met a German couple a few days before who gave me a ride into Milina after crawling through the crevice in the road. They called me today and insisted on bringing me supplies from Argalasti. They brought a bag of dog food, and a huge basket of winter squash for the entire village of Koukouleika. Morning Reflections
Day 5 Morning Reflection
A friend told me that reading my Auslander posts is either like coming along with me on a journey that usually has a happy ending or listening to me process an experience that I am trying to grasp, make meaning out of, and eventually coming up with a way to think about the experience.
Lately there haven’t been too many Auslander posts, not because there haven’t been any happy journeys, but mostly because I am having a hard time grappling with my experiences recently.
Take the big one over the past year, moving to Paris for a job that I had been working towards for a decade, and the dream of living in Paris that started in my 20s. It might sound like a bit of a cliche, but this small town California girl craved the urban sophistication of that glamorous city. When living there didn’t work out, I had to leave behind a bit of the wide-eyed Wendy of her 20s and the career-driven Wendy of her 40s. I had to let it all go.
Letting it all go was made easier because there was a sweet little house on the Pagasetic Gulf waiting for our arrival. Circe, the 500 year-old olive tree standing proudly in the front yard, the fig and pomegranate trees, cozy wool rugs collected over the years, family artwork on the walls, and homemade ceramics mingled around the house. It was easier because we were going home—the endless walks weaving among the olive trees, watching the dogs drunk with joy chasing every scent that passed their ways, expansive views to the sparkly sea. It was on these walks that I had the gentle realization that the wide-eyed Wendy of her 20s had grown older and become aware that underneath the urban sophistication she once craved was built on a foundation awash with rampant consumerism. And the career driven Wendy of her 40s, who was now going through peri-menopause and struggling with hormonal migraines and brain fog, had found it more and more difficult to meet the demands of being an IB Economics teacher.
Every morning on my walk, I slowly let it go, but I never did come-up with a neatly designed way to think about it all, a way that brought me harmony. So I have been a bit unsettled about the experience. Today I woke-up, thinking that this experience is always going to be a bit messy, that I needed to embrace the messiness, surrender to the fact that not all difficult experiences can be somehow packaged up in a harmonious way.
I imagine that my internal world is shaped like a house. Inside the house is a fire-place mantle, bookshelves, a window sill. All places that I set things, ponder their particular placement, reflect on their shadows, notice how the sun’s cast changes throughout the day. My life’s experiences are vases in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Sometimes I don’t notice a particular vase for years, then I see it, I feel the experience all over again, so I make a bit of an adjustment, rotate it a bit, see how the shadow changes. Sometimes I take the vase and move it somewhere else—see how it feels on a different ledge in a different room. As life continues there are more vases, more joy, more grief, moving vases around, reflecting on their shadows, and the light.
It’s the little things that will help! I can’t help but think if anyone can remake your home into a beautiful place again it’s you Wendy! I wish I was there to help! We could muck out every day. I was laying in bed this morning thinking you could rebuild your house on stilts, would they let you? Then you could stay on your little piece of land. I hope they let you rebuild in some way! ❤️