Saturday, May 31, 2008

Thoughts on a Peaceful Saturday

I'm trying to put myself in the mood of peace and calm, and I guess I hoped the title of this blog would set the tone. Not yet. Maybe by writing it out I'll get there, and I do want to get there.

I tried walking with the dogs. We stormed the trails until they headed for home with a "Forget you!" wag of tails. I mowed the lawn until the rain came - that didn't help but it got the lawn mowed at least. I tried to pay the bills, but that's hardly a calming gesture. So I'm blogging.

Writing has always been a solace to me. I've got a ton of journals hidden away in boxes somewhere. I've written short stories as inspiration attacks me, but they've begun to scare me a bit because years later they come true. That's another whole story.

The novels came out of loneliness and a need to create, to try to change my own life and live in a writer's life. They were intense. One was written for my own compulsion, the other formulaic for publication. Neither ever got close, except for a chapter/short story that everyone loved.

See how I'm avoiding talking about the Big Issue? And it's not my issue, I'm just the conduit, the person who as friend hears about these things.

I used to think that "doing" real estate was so much less important than teaching severely disturbed children. The sale of a home was not a life and death issue, was not as torturous as my kids' lives were every single day. The future of a sale was money; for the kids it was a question of mental hospitals or a decent job or family or prison.

I've begun to realize that shelter and how people relate to it is incredibly important psychically. Where we live determines how we live, what our lifestyles are, whether we are near friends and family or alone. It's not "just business." Selling a home means often the end of something - a life, a dream, a family, a chance for more memories. It's important.

I think I found that peace now. Not so much a comfortable, settling in peace, but the peace of acceptance. I've chosen to be part of this process, and by absorbing the emotion that swirls around a sale I am doing my job.