Living life takes courage

As I sit at my computer with my feet encased in a rice-filled, microwaved (four minutes) sack of my own design, I peruse the temperature gadgets on my desktop and reflect for the umpteenth time that making my happiness contingent upon weather only leads to disappointment. The temperature in grayish PDX is a normal 42°. If I had stayed in Los Angeles, I would be basking in 80° heat. On the other hand, my friends in Minneapolis are stoically enduring 8°, which is better, I must say, than the minus temps they were experiencing a few days ago. News flash, Carol: Weather is relative and changeable. Duh. And there I go again, pinning my mental well-being on a flimsy hope of catching a glimpse of the sun.

The recycling truck is grinding along the street in front of the Love Shack. I know it's the recycling truck because I hear roaring sounds followed by clinking sounds. I'm distracted by everything, which means I am avoiding something. I keep looking out the window, but I don't know what I'm looking for. Right livelihood, I think. I'm looking for the Right Livelihood boutique, but all I see is the trash truck.

I'm blogging because I'm stymied. Each time I start running for the garden of right livelihood I'm sure is just around the next bend in the path, I find myself walking away from the garden, back to the weed patch. I'd say argh, but that doesn't really sum up my frustration at finding myself once again poking around this wretched weed patch. I was picturing something a little different, maybe something...I don't know...a bit more picturesque and a little less weedy.

If I could just be someone else for long enough, I'm sure I could figure this out. I blame my own brain for this disappointment, but perhaps that's not fair. It is doing the best it can. Unfortunately, my brain seems to be hard at work designing my demise in a perverted attempt to protect me from the ravages of living. Death by brain is slow and tedious, but less risky than death by living life. Living life takes courage.

I suspect the words I'm using to frame my complaint are part of my problem. Contrasting garden with weed patch, while visually satisfying, gives me only two choices, two ends of the spectrum of possibility. Desirable versus undesirable, good versus bad. Of course I want the garden, who wouldn't? But what if there were other places along the continuum, like treehouse, or life raft, or sunny beach? And what if among the weeds are herbs and flowers? I didn't really stop long enough to check. Good or bad, who knows anymore? Not me. Just two overused words that mean nothing.

Warm is good, cold is bad? I feel compelled to mention that yesterday the temperature in Portland was 57°, one degree short of a January record.