The Serenity of Meeting New People

During this summer of my serenity I have made it a goal to meet a lot of new people.  I hope that some of them will at least become friends and some will be acquaintances but I will say that this quest has been fun and will remain a quest throughout the rest of the summer.

On Saturday evening, my husband and I attended a performance at a local distillery.  It was a duo who performed mostly folksy type of music - relatively entertaining, but I was fascinated by the people I met while having a drink at the bar.  There was a couple who had bought a farm after spending a good deal of time leaving in the city-originally they had a smaller home in the area for weekends, but decided to ditch city living for the country and bought a farm.  They are not actually farmers just landowners and they are happy and seem to have located their key to serenity.

I also met a woman who promoted the concert.  She had been a very successful caterer well know to the area and admired for her culinary designs and creations.  She had a accident that crushed her leg and was laid up during that time she came up with a product creation and started marketing it locally.  I by chance had tasted the product at a in-store event at the grocery store near me, loved the product and bought a bottle at the concert she announced that a distributor had picked up her product and it would be marketed to specialty stores in the Long Island, NY area.  By the way, she has given up the catering business and now just does her sesame sauces.

The weekend also introduced me to 4 different people who have pilots licenses and fly their own small planes, as well as a young PhD candidate who wants to start her own nonprofit to help bring arts & music to students whose public schools no longer offer these programs.  I am going to help her come up with a plan of action and advise her on steps to format this endeavor.

This weekend was an eye opener for me.  I found out that in order to maintain and keep my serenity I must surround myself with people who have already located their serenity and their "passion" and remove from my circle the people who are consistently throwing off negativity.

Serenity apparently can not only be found in waterfalls and nature but also in the people that you meet.

While I search for Serenity - the world seems to be baking

I am sure that I don't need to state this but it's hot and it's only going to get hotter as this week progresses.  I thought that coming to the mountains and being close to water would lessen the heat of the summer but apparently this is not true.

The peacefully serene waterfall is now only a trickle and the only real relief is the pool.  I am finding it difficult to maintain serenity as I sweat.

I have decided that tomorrow I will give in to the need for some air conditioning and go to the mall and the movie theater and see the last Harry Potter movie.  While the mall's air conditioning will probably be very serene or at the most very comfortable, I am guessing that the movie will not be too serene since Voldemort has to die.  I did read all 7 books some more than once.

In the next few weeks my husband and I will be compelled to make some life altering decisions, most importantly will be where we will have to relocate to once September comes around and since we don't own a RV, I'm pretty sure it means an apartment in a city somewhere, only we don't know where as of today.

There is a part of me that has become very attached to this lifestyle and while I know in my brain that it cannot last forever, I am wondering how to maintain the serenity when I have to return to a city life.

Wow, it is pouring out and thundering, maybe this will revive the waterfall and lessen the heat a least for this evening.

I guess sometimes you can find serenity by wishing for nature to cooperate?

Can Heat be serene?

I have been wondering all day long whether really hot weather can be considered "serene"?  I am either sitting on the screened-in porch hoping for a cool breeze or laying on a float in the pool (which is supposed unheated but today was 82 degrees.  Normally these activities would be considered very serene, but I am finding it difficult to be at ease when it's in the 90s in a mountain retreat, even the waterfall seems to be unhappy.

On Sunday my brother, sister-in-law and my nephew stopped in for an overnight visit on their way to a performance my nephew was beat boxing in at a resort in the Catskills.  My sister-in-law immediately took to the surroundings, kicked back and found her serenity, but my brother, although he had an enjoyable visit seemed to have quite a difficult time locating his peacefulness.  I find myself concerned that in spite of what would be a "life changing" accident just under 2 years ago he still has not found his "serenity" at least as far as I can tell.  I cannot force him to find his inner peace, but I hope that some day in the very near future he will realize that life happens and you cannot always control situations, sometimes you just have to let "the chips fall as they may."

I know I have control issues as well (maybe it's genetic) but the past six months have really allowed me to take a hard look at my life, as I have send in earlier posts-when I began this journey of unemployment everyone told be to use the time to find my passion, but I have found it's not the passion I need to locate it's my serenity and the ability to learn that I cannot control everything, only a few things.  This realization has helped me locate my serenity.  Although, the waterfall and greenery have certainly had an impact.

Serenity and Freedom

This past weekend I went to visit Bethel Woods which houses a museum dedicated to Woodstock and the summer of love-1969-I was 12 and at camp for the summer, but I remember hearing about it from counselors who wanted to attend.  My husband who is 6 years older than I am actually wanted to get in his car and go up to Woodstock, but opted out when they showed the traffic on the roads near Yaskers Farm.
Having now driven on these roads I can understand the traffic issues, but that really has nothing to do with this blog.

As I wandered through the exhibits remembering the music and looking at the news footage of various events of the decade (60's)  I realized how important our current freedoms have become.  As "boomers" who at one time eschewed the corporate life that we now all lead I wonder if each of us needs to go back to Woodstock and take stock of our lives.

In the sixties and early seventies we wanted to be out of a war (okay no change there only now it's a different war), we wanted civil rights, we wanted women's rights, free speech and for our opinions to matter.  While many of these issues have reached a goal, especially women's rights and for the most part civil rights although I will say we still have along way to go.  We do not want to give up our big cars, our designer clothes or going to the favorite "in" spot to dine, but we are trending towards less processed foods and more organic, free-range and home grown products.  Yes let's hear it for the "Hog" Farm - Wavy Gravy's commune that helped feed the 500,000 hippies that showed up at Yasker's Farm for 3 days of Peace, Love, Rock and Roll rain, mud and fun.

My goal for the summer has been to find serenity in as many parts of my life as possible.  I am lucky - I have peace in my life and I am finding serenity as well.  Do I wish I had been old enough to attend Woodstock?  At the time I probably would have said absolutely, now I am happy with who I am, how old I am and where my life has taken me to this point.