Finding your flock, plus everything looks good covered with a trench coat!

Tuesday!

I am just now catching my breath over Sunday Night's Episode of Game of Thrones.  For those of you who watch it, I got two words: Girl Power.  Oh and: I gotta get me a dragon.

Yesterday, I started a discussion on my Spring clean-up, which involves as much introspection as it does serious scrubbing, pruning, sorting and tossing.  I tend to be quite light-hearted, so this kind of introspection can be a little close to the bone for me, but taking stock and seeing what does and doesn't work is a good thing to do at major transition points.

Change is exciting, but it can also be daunting.  Just as I am nervous sometimes that when I prune a tree or shrub I will somehow end up killing the patient rather than making it stronger, the same is true about making a major transition.  You cut off a limb in the hope that the whole will be stronger and healthier because of it.  (hmm - this is starting to seem like a career book using gardening as a metaphor!).  My father was a forester and used to say that a good forest fire was a good thing for a forest now and then.  I am unsure if that is old forester lore or the truth, but I kind of like the metaphor!

While making a cut can be helpful, in the long term, what really makes a tree or shrub strong is healthy soil.    For me, the health of my soil is determined by my relationships with friends and family.

In the last couple of weeks, a whole flock of Juncos has returned to our yard.  We must have 6 or 7 of these fat little birds and they are not shy of us at all.  All day long, they peck, peck, peck all over my yard and under my bird feeder and on the deck.  Sometimes, if the deck is seed-free because Barry has cleaned it off, the flock will send one junco up to the feeder to knock seeds down for the rest of them.  Unlike the other birds that visit me, the juncos hate the feeder; they are ground feeders and they do not really know how to hang on and eat at the feeder, unlike the chickadees and the nuthatches.  Despite their obvious discomfort, one of them does it for the rest and they all benefit.



One of my juncos, hanging out underneath the Adirondack chair

These juncos work as a team and as I get older, I am more and more convinced that it is important to find your own flock.  You need people that go to the feeder for you and that you will go to the feeder for.  People that you feel, well, sympatico with. 

I am lucky that I have a core group of really good friends that have been with me through thick and thin and dressing up (and you have seen them in their costumes!).  I have other friends who live far away, but when we get in a room, it is like we just finished our last conversation 10 minutes ago, not 10 months or 10 years ago.

But I will say that I have also made some equally close friends via this blog community.  In some ways, I think my blog friends know me more intimately than my friends who live in the same city.  Oddly enough, I tend to be most truthful when I write.  Not that I lie in real life or anything, but I am more likely to pretend things are okay when they really aren't.  How many of us have kept up pretenses of a happy marriage, a happy job, a happy family, a happy whatever, when we really weren't happy? Sometimes you are embarassed to admit that you don't want or like something anymore: what will everyone think?  In fact, I only told my best friend in advance that I was thinking of taking a break from my job to decide what to do next.  You all knew here well in advance of most of the people in my so-called "real life".  Not because you were "safe", but because I thought you would all understand, and you did. 

The universe is a place of happy accidents, on the whole (notwithstanding the obvious tragedies and sadness we are all forced to go through in our lives).  You stumble upon the thing you need just when you need it most.  We are all making our own epic journeys through this life, but I have always felt fortunate that usually in my darkest hours, like Frodo in the cave, some lovely soul has come and lit a lamp to help me take the next few steps.  The dehumanizing aspect of the technological age is balanced or perhaps compensated by the fact that disparate souls are able to reach out to one another to just, well, chat.  I suspect that the more flocks we find where we are birds of a feather, the happier and healthier we are.

So thanks for making my soil a little healthier and I hope i make yours healthier too!

On a distinctly lighter note, I did an Ines outfit yesterday and took some pictures to show you.  I was suprised to learn that even if the outfit is chic, I am still only 5'2"!  I could use longer legs.  I think that would also help with my tendency to gain weight around the middle!

Black cashmere t, black merino cardigan, white jeans and black short boots.  I never see Ines taking pictures in the bathroom.  But of course, she always has a photographer following her!

I then amped it up:

Ah, the icon trench and long black scarf.  Are these not the things that somehow make an okay outfit seem suddenly chic, suddenly "My name is WMM and yes, I am fabulous!"  Left open, the belt tied behind, I am suddenly thinner and chicer.  I just need the River Seine and a french lover and I am set to go!  After seeing this outfit, I have decided to never take this off, I will even sleep in it.  It may be 30 celcius or -30 celcius, and still, I will wear this coat.  And smile while doing it!

So how are your days?  Anything special going on or anything special you are wearing these days that make you feel "all that"? 

Have a wonderful Tuesday and stay safe out there!