Santosha

As the sun sets I hear little tiny paws running up and down my walls. Each night they come for warmth. Mice? The walls are thin and I expect one of them to poke its head through some crack and run across my floor over my feet, but they never do.

A year ago I came to New Zealand with two suitcases and a computer. I shipped a container of ‘stuff’, ten boxes, which arrived two months later. Everything I felt I could not do without, but did live without for two months: tax documents, books, yoga manuals, original artwork, drawings, tapes, photos, DVDs, CDs, vegan hiking boots, German knives, gifts and many portfolios documenting my work as an artist and performer. Now with only 21 days to go, I have the opportunity to once again donate, throw out, store or ship back the same stuff, as well some new things: quartz from the Sounds, black shirts from the Salvation Army, and twenty pieces of new art work made from stone, wood, glass and photos. If anyone needs free pots and pans that have never cooked meat, let me know.

I haven’t looked at my cartoon portfolio since I put it in a box headed for here. What do I do with this? Ship it again? I’m tempted to throw it out, since there are few that I still enjoy.

Santosha: Contentment: ability to be comfortable with what we do and do not have. Santosha is one of the Niyama’s from the eight limbs of yoga. A way for me to practice non-attachment. It’s all very simple, letting go and letting be. My printer and chair go to Helen the web queen; the only novel Tennessee Williams ever wrote to NF; my Chlamydia flowering plant to Rose, my oldest friend of eleven months; and the Possum Killer can take back the blender if he remembers he gave it to me.

I’m getting lighter making decisions on what to keep, leave, ship. Even my guitar can’t come with me unless I pay Air New Zealand $200 US dollars to take it on board. Kazz Funky Blue has offered to hold it for me when I return. She is certain I’ll be back. In the meantime she can become a blues woman.

Today the weather is nasty. It’s Autumn, soon to be Winter. (Thank the goddess I will not spend another winter in NZ.) I have never experienced this kind of cold. Without central heat, a space heater does some good. But typing with tip-less gloves? I wear an undershirt, shirt, vest, scarf, and jacket along with two heavy hot water bottles, one under my t-shirt, one in my lap. If you could see me walk to the kitchen or bathroom holding on to two water bottles you would have a laugh. There was hail this morning, and it could get down to minus 5 C so the telly weatherman says. Or is it the tellie? I still can’t convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, but it’s cold. Today is a holiday. The Queen’s birthday. I broke a tooth. There was a mild earthquake Saturday night. I felt the earth move.