Creating New Beginnings and Preparing for flight

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On cleaning cocoons

We are now securely in the spring season and with warmer weather the thoughts of many turn to shedding the old and making way for the new. Spring cleaning has paved the way for an abundance of garage sales throughout the city and many a yard clearing company has made their rounds, reengaging old customers and finding new ones.

Spring cleaning, that perennial topic, and the subject of many a magazine article and blog, sharing the best way to sterilize a sink, clean out an oven or showcase the most up to date storage solutions.

Recently I had occasion to read a new solution to spring cleaning: never let it get messy in the first place.

Marie Kondo has written a rather fascinating little book called The Life-changing Magic of Tidying up : the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing that takes tidying up and organizing to a whole new level.  The bottom line that I took from this book is that it is important to only keep what you will love and cherish. That means, collecting all your belongings and getting rid of all those items that do not bring you joy any longer.

This should be done in a certain order, according to Ms. Kondo, by category rather than by room.  Collecting all the clothes and sorting through them first.  Then move to the other items in the home.

I think the idea of keeping only what you still enjoy has merit.  Now all one needs is the time to review and look at the belongings collected over months and years.

What is the saying?  We all have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyonce?

Here is to spring cleaning and hoping that it is done before summer arrives….

Winter clothing, extra weight, the cobwebs that have been collecting on the ceiling at the top of the stairs.

It is that time known as spring cleaning.  Taking all that stuff and getting rid of it.

Unfortunately some of the stuff is not our own stuff.  You can really only get rid of your own stuff unless you want an ongoing dialogue (battle) with the owner of said other stuff.

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Starting Over

‘Starting over’ is an odd term.

How can you start something over again when everything we do is a unique and different experience?

That being said,  moving to a new community feels like starting over.  Though I am still in the same province, still work for the same place, and have some consistent people in my life, it feels like everything is new and different: new doctors, dentists, grocery stores, new ways to get to work, and new neighbours.    It was difficult to imagine two years ago when I left my previous home that it would take this long to feel as though I was ‘home’ in my new city.  I still have a long way to go.

It is not as though I have never moved before or never knew what to expect when I did.  I have moved.  I have moved often and lived in three provinces and two countries.  The moves in the past were easier somehow.  Perhaps because I had children to help get settled.  Or perhaps because I was younger and more up to the task.  Or, and this is more likely, because I had never really put down deep roots before.

This time I had let my roots grow deep into the fabric of my community and when I pulled them up this time it was more painful than I realized and I don’t think all the roots came out intact.   I still feel the pull of these phantom roots sometimes;those roots still in the ground there, still waiting for me to return.

So even after two years of learning a new climate, a new job, a new rhythm and a new location, I do not feel at home.

What does this have to do with cocoons and wings?

Cocoons are where one retreats to in order to find themselves and really rejuvenate and plan a new life.  Cocoons are home, are a place where wings can grow in a protected environment until the butterfly is ready to emerge and test them out.   Taking too long in the cocoon is dangerous of course.   It may mean missing out on years of wonderful flights.

Emerging too early before wings are strong enough for the flight, or flying too long with no nourishment, and no time to rest, could mean fewer flights overall and that the quality of the flight, rather than being about adventure and growth, will be about survival.

One needs a place to land,  a place to call home, even if that is only within themselves.

So, this year I am indeed starting again to create a home where I can put down new roots.   And where I can learn to fly in new directions

Jeanine

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