Dropping Foot Syndrome

It’s always something. Today it’s my email server. How do these things happen? I didn’t go in and change my settings but an account has disappeared. Solving the problem is probably going to fry my brain later today. At least I’ve found a way to get emails out and I receive them on a temporary basis.

Today I go into the village. I’ve not left home for four days! Most of the snow in my yard has melted. Things are getting back to normal — but without Darrell.

He’s been gone for a week and won’t be back for another, after the tiles arrive. Then the studio will be finished and my next big project will be moving into it.

I don’t miss Darrell and human contact one bit. I thought I might; perhaps the animals prevent me from feeling alone.

I keep thinking of the future, of how much fun my friendships with Fred, Ethel and Sheba will be in Spring and Summer, the two seasons we have coming that will be new for all of us — for me, in this location and with all my new amenities (garden, studio, sunroom and nearby trails).

The chosen metaphor for my experiences with my pets has been parenting. But children grow up and leave; pet’s don’t.  So now an arranged four-way marriage, an arranged hareem seems more apt and what I like about it is that I totally lucked out with all my partners.

Sheba is whimpering to go out whenever she needs to go to the bathroom. I’m terribly impressed and relieved. There may be more accidents in the future but I’m convinced the idea of the outdoors as the place to go is imprinted now.

Leslie, her Dad and her brother came for a short but really nice visit yesterday — three people and no seizure. The rest of the day I slacked off, but I got a little work done on Mertz manor. I added a tree (an Arbutus branch) and some plastic oversize leaves and did some work on the tunnel and did the entrance doors.

•

Every day feels like a new beginning. I wake with no expectations or responsibilities yet I have confidence that the day will comfortably and deliciously pass by. It’s great having a project but no deadline or client. I’m practically blue with anticipation about moving into the studio.

I want to have a studio warming party but I’m not going to. But when Sahara and Todd come in the Summer, we’ll take a moment in there together because I included the guest room part specifically for them. Sahara has special needs and the studio will serve her very well.

•

I used to have Dropping Foot Syndrome (DFS). I know others can identify because I’ve talked often about DFS at parties. It only happens when you’re really, really happy. It’s the name of that feeling that the shoe is going to drop — that something dreadful is going to happen. People with DFS believe happiness is temporary — that it can’t be sustained. The smart ones learn to enjoy it “while it lasts.”

But I don’t have it any more. I am wrong. Decay and Death — the double Ds — are my next big events. But I expect Gabriola euphoria to last until they come.

•

When Leslie, Robert and Don Payne arrived yesterday they drove in and parked in the driveway beside the house as guests should — the Humphreys parked on my front lawn — and when they came inside, right away Leslie mentioned the fence decoration and the life ring. I was thrilled.

•

I’m excited. It’s supposed to be cool but sunny on the weekend and that means walks, work on the fence and some hot tubbing. And pie.