211205 i live on a hill and my dog is dead

 it was the imposter syndrome - *

i felt unreal, unworthy, pretending 

but this is real - there is only me. 

I live on a hill and my dog is dead 

buried on the hill.

clothes that i have acquired blind

esoteric garments once bought for a minor persona

"rags and feathers from salvation army counters" **

find their purpose on this wintry hill

seems trite but the clothes make the man, as they say, or the old woman

and I put on make-up !

which I never did.

witch I never did.

 turquoise eyes and too much blush like old women 

who wear purple and rattle their stick along the fence ***

I am the crone all bent

I walk with a stick

(harbinger of the witch's broom)

I watch the valley and the clouds. 

I am at home.

*****

so I google harbinger and this happens:

I was talking to Elf about gingerbread; she thinks of doing a gingerbread carousel for Christmas, and hadn't I done one? On a different train, I went looking for a picture of Indre at a few weeks old and spun through my photo library to the year and stopped on - the carousel at the CNE (K and I liked to go, to the CNE, that is ). That is either the universe, (collective unconscious?) or speedy coordination between eye, brain and hand. Either way, I'm impressed!

*****

So, I am not a pretender.

I will not be evicted or taken down. 

How do we learn to distrust ourselves? Why, in the face of an accomplishment do we disbelieve, that we did it, and that we deserve the accolade? Deserving is part of it. As humans, we deserve everything and nothing. "Deserve" is a construct that we need to take apart, unravel. It is not relevant in the big picture, only perhaps in small things, in a context. Certainly it confuses us and erodes success and contentment.

I live on this hill. My dog died and is buried with the mint and the goldenrod.

 little fig watching the valley. well, no, he was blind.

 the hill.

 Missisquoi Valley, looking south from our hill.

I am laughing, because Rain brought me here, to this place.

*****

I have brought home a table from the charity shop, pre-loved but in good shape. I put it together once K and I had manoeuvred it into the back room/my bedroom. I have some small knowledge of Ikea technology, why does that surprise me? I am not the imposter, the pod person. I can do a lot of things. Why do I sometimes, then, feel newborn, naive, not worthy? We are taught to mistrust ourselves, somehow, to believe that we are not good enough, that we can't be that; is it because we still are not perfect? That is unreasonable. To be human is to be forever falling down, and getting up again.

The table is my new workspace; while K is working, or reading with Indre in the evening, I have somewhere to work and listen to music, or play and sing, where I won't be disturbing him. It is also a private space, although I don't know exactly why that is significant just now. Perhaps I feel I deserve it (there's that word again). My door has, as it were, been open to all comers, children and grandchildren, for over thirty years. And, like clothes that were not practical then, privacy, my own space, is practicable now. It is allowed. I am allowed, by my own permission.   

How exciting, how inviting is a bare naked table! Like a blank page, or canvas. 

*****

I am getting better day by day. I am grateful for that, and for everything.

The sunset, "because it was now and wouldn't ever be again." ****

Thank you for visiting. Please think sustainability and conservation when you are planning holiday things. Keep safe and well. 

Mumma Yaga

 valley and clouds

The sun gone behind the west ridge:

* https://www.verywellmind.com/imposter-syndrome-and-social-anxiety-disorder-4156469

** L. Cohen, Suzanne, 1967

*** https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/warning/ Jenny Joseph, Warning

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings..."

**** Mumma Yaga, Sunsets at Little Pike. see post 210509