Alignment
This time of year is always a time of endings, the last month of the year, the last season of the cycle. As time flies, I often find myself surprised when I look at the date. Already December!
For most of my life, I scrambled frantically to the finish line.
This year is different. I have the luxury of time and opportunity to truly experience what happens as things shift.
It started with the house. I live in an old, slightly crooked house, solidly built but with a quirky design. Over the forty-plus years we have lived here, we have renovated it extensively while respecting its character as one of only three of its kind in our town. Despite this, the house has settled into its clay-based bed a little too well, and this has affected its features in ways I hadn’t expected. The door to the house no longer fit well into its frame, the windows didn’t close properly. We played with the hinges and moved the door handles, but this just didn’t quite work anymore.
This week, during the last part of the last month of the year, my house is being realigned from the inside out.
First, a lovely and knowledgeable specialist replaced the cranks on the windows that no longer closed, then removed sides of the glass panes to re-align the windows so they lined up with their frame. Within minutes, the window responded to the crank’s guidance and slid gracefully in place, keeping the warm air in the house, and the arctic air….in the arctic. No more pushing the window in from the snowy flower bed!
Next, the contractor arrived this morning to replace the front door. Originally installed in the 90’s, the door and its frame were threatening to part company. Instead of keeping the heat in, the angled space above the door let in cold air that could be felt on the floor above. By the end of today, the frame, the door, and the house, will have found their alignment.
One more alignment issue required addressing. We had refitted the ground floor powder room in the 90’s, removing an ancient sink supported on chrome legs with a pedestal sink. However, as everything else in our crooked little house, the pedestal sink and the light fixture box did not align. When I decided to install a mirror, I was faced with a strange unsatisfying decision: should I align the mirror with the sink, or the light fixture? Either choice looked off. So today, this situation will be resolved. The contractor installing the front door will also decide which feature is most easily moved to create….wait for it….alignment!
While things are being realigned in my house, I am experiencing my own shifts.
The reclaiming work I have undertaken in this latest edition of my creative life is shifting the tectonic plates within me. Powered by creativity, my spirit, my mind, my actions, are all aligning. Gone is the resistance that kept me lopsided inside, holding onto what I was told should matter while a tsunami of energy pulled me in another direction.
Alignment eliminates the need for resistance. Doors open and close as they should, windows fulfill their function with ease, and I will face the new year with ease, channeling my energy from my heart to my hands.
Happy New Year!