“Jane Austen was the spinster daughter of a clergyman who led an uneventful life,” wrote Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Guardian. “She just happened to write half a dozen flawless masterpieces, which came perfectly formed, not from experience but from imagination.” Most of us don’t have anything close to the inconceivably potent imagination that Austen possessed. But I believe 2010 will be a year when you can access at least a portion of that wondrous capacity. You’ll be able to fantasize about vast possibilities in exquisite detail. You will have great skill at smashing your way free of limiting expectations through the power of your expansive vision. And the coming weeks will be a time when it should all kick into high gear.

I completely disagree with Geoffrey Wheatcroft.  Jane Austin most assuredly experienced life in the world.  She wasn’t worldly but she understood people and she very clearly understood how things worked in her time and place especially for women.  Not to say she wasn’t ALSO imaginative. But to dismiss her like that so one can deny her tales as fabrications, well…

That said, this being unemployed with pay is a new experience.  It might take awhile for it all to shake out but there is hope here that I didn’t have before.  Yesterday I did the spring cleaning of my room, packed up some things that I have acquired this past year that were taking up space, mostly decor and gifts that I received that will have to wait until I have a place of my own.  Created space.

I drew out the design on a round wood box for a coven mate who has a birthday in March.  It is a water / sword theme and will be woodburned and then stained.  Created art.

Spoke with my brother who I encouraged, and he accepted, to come here to see Dad while he’s still got most of his faculties. Created a gathering.

Dad doesn’t remember Monday or Tuesday or being in the hospital.  We had no idea the recorder wasn’t on.  Once he was out of what I think was a small stroke, he seemed quite lucid.  Until he called my mom and told her come bring him home because the doctor’s were going to shoot him full of nuclear energy.  Yesterday morning he told his good friend that he’d been downtown and the police were chasing him.  He went on in great detail about that.  Neither happened.

Yesterday at lunch my mom told him about the last two days with details about the hospital.  He was flabbergasted and then went and laid down for a few hours in the dark.

My brother wants to remember my Dad well but I told him that Dad would really like to see him again, that Mom needs to see him.  That we can go on a trip, all four of us together to see the mountains that Dad loves so much.   He’s going to help us make some decisions about the rental house we’re selling this spring and perhaps help me clean out the garage.  The stuff is mostly sorted but needs to be hauled off somewhere, either to a second hand store or the dump.

In the meantime, I’m puttering around and my tummy is back to normal.  Still taking morning antacids but it does appear that the bulk of my distress was, well, distress.

The weather is gorgeous here.  Cherry and plum trees in bloom, camellia’s, daffodils, and other pretty things.  Birds chirping. All way too early for bees, hopefully most of the blooming trees are ornamental.  The sky is blue and the sun is out.  As concerned as I am about the warmest winter on record, as much as the low snowpack has me thinking about drought in August, we really needed spring to come.  Beautiful spring.  New beginnings, fresh starts.  Life.