I explored around Santa Rosa today, using my usual Free Little Library method of checking out neighborhoods. I got to one area that had a lot of lovely new homes, though they didn’t look like they were all built by the same company which is unusual in new housing developments, and they all had quite beautiful front yards as well. When I stopped to admire one house that had a matching Free Little Library, I saw a ‘Coffey Strong’ sign and realized I was in the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa, an area that was decimated by the Tubbs Fire in 2017. All of the sudden it became much more than just a cute neighborhood, I thought about what these families have gone through losing everything and fleeing for their lives. I can’t imagine how devastating that must’ve been, I wonder how many of the original homeowners decided to rebuild and come back and how many moved on. It is a very colorful neighborhood, the houses all have their own personalities. There are a few empty lots, some with RVs on them so I’m assuming those residents are planning to rebuild. I sure hope they are not still dealing with insurance companies.
Later in the day I went to Paradise Ridge Winery to check out their sculpture gardens. This was another area affected by the Tubbs fire, it’s eerie thinking that only a year later the city of Paradise was devastated by an even bigger fire. The current exhibit in Marijke’s Grove is one where the sculptures interact with nature, many moving with the wind. I was fascinated especially with a wall of red squares that shimmered with the breeze, as well as metal branches and leaves that were attached to live trees.
Love Meadow has fantastic metal sculptures, many from Burning Man, I couldn’t get enough of the 30+ foot tall woman, she was so fierce!
I’ve been struggling during this time, this in between time when I’m not traveling and have been doing odd jobs here and there, mainly helping out family and friends by house and dog sitting. I feel like I “should“ be doing more in terms of career exploration and work but every time I think about even cracking a book, watching a video, looking at my résumé, anything related to career I just have a very negative reaction, like when I went on diets when I was younger. The rebellion, ‘I don’t want to do this’, ‘I don’t want these restrictions’. I feel like I’m being weighed down, no enthusiasm or excitement about it just feels like homework. So that’s part of the reason I’m wanting to put more time and effort into understanding and exploring my lesser used senses – smell, taste, sound, touch instead of just visual and being in my head. I struggle sometimes to figure out how I’m feeling about things, to get in touch with my feelings. I think I’ve spent so many years pushing them down so I could be seen as professional, not emotional, but that’s doing me a disservice now as I’m trying to find my way in this new stage and be comfortable with not knowing and being undecided. And as often seems to happen, a very relevant podcast popped up in my feed, women over the age of 50 who are looking at career change. One of the podcast guests said ‘You can only look at what you really want by letting go of what you think you know for sure’, and that really hit home for me. I want to let go of my preconceptions so that I can open myself up to other possibilities.
