To be honest, today feels like an important day to me, and to Maria as well. And it is, a convergence of lives, a turning point, a challenge to be strong, be steady. We are buying the home of Florence Walrath, and today most of her precious things are being sold by the family estate at auction. I am going, Maria also. We want to be around our new home, which we already love, even though we don’t yet own it.

I hope to take photos and hopefully to buy one of two things to remind us of this independent and much loved woman, a lover of horses (Rocky being one of them), a proud spirit who refused to leave her house even at 103, even after a bad fall. For me, auctions are emotional, the pieces of someone’s life scattering to the wider world.

For me also, a testing time. We are buying the new home but we have not yet sold Bedlam Farm, a beautiful place but still, tied to the larger swirling economic forces that grip so many people while our leaders squabble and posture and collect their campaign dollars.  Not a stirring image, but still, I am not into blaming others for things. Up to me to figure out my live. Last week, we lowered the price of the house by $50,000. (We lowered it $25,000 earlier). In this market, people buy bargains and our home is now a bargain. I admit I did not imagine this, but I will also accept it. Lots of people have.   In the new real estate market, this is how houses are sold. You do what you have to do.

Maria is no stranger to economic struggle, but it is newer to me. I always worried about money, but I always had some. She never had much, so she says it is not that much of a change.  It was always easy to earn some more. Not so easy now. And I am one of the lucky ones, I have so  much good work to do, no matter what it pays. I know that very well.

This is healthy in a way, as I feel intensely connected to the world, a very good thing for a writer, or a photographer, too, for that matter. Arrogance is not especially creative. Humbling can be.  It opens me up to universal experience. When I write that everyone has a harder life than I do, this means for me that I understand that almost everyone is struggling in one way or another – people with money as well. This sense of struggle is closely tied to the love of animals – they nourish and comfort us. I have never believed that money brings happiness. I was never more miserable than when I had some money, and I know a lot of wealthy people more unhappy than I ever imagined.

So today, a turning point, a convergence of lives. Florence’s. Maria’s. Mine. Some animals, and a blind pony. An intersection of spirits, ceremony of change, a ritual of time and of life. They don’t hold auctions when people are born, so they are filled with meaning and feeling, at least to me. Everybody says that auctions are struggling, nobody’s buying old stuff, but I suspect that is not really true. We’ll see. The blog has always been a journal of my life, where I am, where I hope to go. Today also.

I expect that we will be priced out of Florence’s nicest pieces but I hope to get a couple of things that reflect her spirit and will help us keep her presence in our home. There is not much  money for bidding. We will need it for the new house.The day feels charged for me.  Florence and Rocky are symbols of our new life together and we will visit both of them today, and  also keep him company amidst all of the strangers carting off pieces of his life also. More to share. More to come.