In Search of Balance

And everything else I own and can't find

On the wall above my dining table are paintings of my horses. Ty, the black gelding, and Trudy, the almost white mare. Like yin and yang. My bestie and I hung them there last week. It’s the first time they’ve been up on a wall since they were painted, even though I’ve had them for nearly two years. But it’s the perfect place for them. They are home.

They’re not the only ones.

This month marks a year since I moved into my house. My first house. Well, the first house I’ve ever purchased. I’ve lived in plenty of places in plenty of houses, they were just never mine, strictly speaking. So, this is my first home.

You’d think after all the moves I’ve made that I’d be good at it and surely after a year I’d have this one done and dusted. But you’d be wrong. Of all the moves, this one has been the hardest to get through. Some of the difficulties are just physical and practical: I was still recovering from injury while the move was happening. With a fractured back, broken ribs, and a mangled arm, the move prep was limited. As an accumulator, I always have more purging that I need to do. For this move, I just hired packers who boxed everything that wasn’t nailed down and got on with it.

Thankfully I have a best friend who has been determined to help me through my moving malaise and get me tucked in. It doesn’t help that on the first day we had a marathon unpacking session going, I had to break for a video call with my office where I received the news that my entire department had been laid off.

That can put a bit of a damper on your enthusiasm for the day, you know? But still we muscled through most of the boxes.

It makes sense I suppose that some of my difficulty with settling is emotional. I am in a season of my life where I am going through real change. And let’s face it, the world has changed a lot too.

It’s been a weird old year. Lots of stuff happening. Things both good and bad. Like I love being in my own house, even if I feel challenged getting it sorted and settled. And while it’s scary to be without a paycheck, I’m relieved to be out of an environment that was feeling more and more toxic.

It’s all part of the process. Just as we do when we’re going through moving boxes, I’m looking inside myself and deciding what to keep, what to purge, and what to acquire.

There are some belongings that I’ve had trouble finding, like my air fryer (my favorite appliance), my gray ratty sweater with the hole in the sleeve, and my brother’s ashes. I could buy a new air fryer and should probably throw out that sweater, but my brother’s ashes I need to find. With his memorial coming up, it’s problematic. But while searching for them, I found some photos of him I thought I’d lost and that was truly a blessing.

And I am learning new things all the time. Like this tree I discovered in my garden. It’s grown quite a bit since I’ve been here and suddenly popped out tons of fruit I didn’t recognize. It’s not a very big tree and all the fruit was weighing down the branches. All and all it seemed a little chaotic, and I could identify with that. I did some research and discovered it is a loquat tree and actually has a lot of beneficial things going for it and lots you can do with the fruit. I ended up making a batch of my very first, never done before (drumroll please), jam! Like spread on your toast and butter ooey gooey sweetness jam! And you know I was pretty dang proud of myself, being like a farmer, living off the land and everything.

Next year when this tree goes wild again I’ll know what to do. Jam! And maybe a salsa. What about a pie? Just wait till next year, you’ll see. Also, by then I’ll have found everything I need. Probably. And allowed myself to be even more settled.

Working with my bestie on projects is always educational. She’s so much more methodical than I am. I mean she actually measures things before hanging them on walls! It’s amazing. Like last week’s organizing session when we’d agreed we had to get the Ty and Trudy paintings up before we finished for the day. The portraits, fully framed, are large and heavy. They were painted by my trainer, who loves them both, and that makes them extra special to me.

My friend measured the distance from the floor to the ceiling, wall to wall, and then the hanging wire depth before marking a point for the hanger on the wall. So much better than my ol’ eye the wall, squint at my thumb, spitball the location, and hammer away method.

“Is that strong enough, you think?” I asked her, after drilling a hole and placing a small anchor and screw.

She tested it and pulled. It moved.

“Nope,” she declared, “if one of these come down, it’s not going to be good.”

We debated about finding studs, what kind of anchor to use, and what size hole to drill. After the first two attempts, both rejected, together we sifted through all the hanging hardware I had collected over the years until we found the one that Goldilocks deemed “just right”.

And there they were, finally hung side by side and level on the first try. On the wall in my very first home. We celebrated the win. Because…measuring! Amazing, right?

Every time I look up and see them there, side by side, I am reminded of nature’s beauty, of those that I love, of dreams that come true, of fun with friends. They are a reminder of so many things I am grateful for in my life.

On the wall above my dining table are two perfectly level portraits of my horses, Ty and Trudy. Dark and light. Yin and yang. Everything in balance.

Paintings by Pamela Wangenheim Hawkins www.spiritguidedcreations.com