The HSP-Highly Sensitive Person- and Me

"I am one of the searchers." I chose this phrase to be at the top of my Spice of Life Blog and it has stayed there during this two and a half almost three year new adventure in writing. It still defines me. It still leads me.

In setting up my original blog I explained that Spice of Life was an outgrowth of an idea I had a few years ago called MSG-Spice of Life . The MSG stood for Menopause Support Group. And it was for a short time.

At first I thought the blog would be for that purpose also. But my heart wasn’t in it and I had been there/done that. So then I invited people to talk about what spices up their lives, what gives their lives meaning. Not many takers. I wasn’t sure if it was the topic or it was because I was new at managing my blog. Then the word 'variety' slipped in front of Spice of Life and there it is. Variety is the Spice of Life. You can put variety in front if you want to. Or not.

So far I have been comfortable with the variety of things that have crossed my mind and I have written about. I hope they contain a kernel that might interest you to explore.But now, I would like to ponder some books I have read. I am not in a book club so my hope is that I can dialogue with others who have read a particular book or would like to.

I’m thinking in terms of books that have turned light-bulbs on in my head. How about yours? Ones that I have read over the years and that have made a difference are books like "I’m Ok, You’re Ok". I discovered I was O.K. "Delivered from Distraction". I discovered I had Adult Attention Deficit Disorder and what I could do about it. "The Introvert Advantage". I looked at that attribute in a totally different way. But the book I am reading now and the one I would like to talk about is "The Highly Sensitive Person" by Elaine Aron. I plan to share a lightbulb or two with you in future posts,

As you can see I am still on a search. You may ask why now. All I can say is I want to better understand who I am (which is what HSPs do) and what I need to do before I am no longer here. The stakes are higher. And maybe my search will help you in yours.

Monday Morning

There’s something to be said about Monday mornings—especially snowy gray ones. I can start out slowly, which suits me just fine any day of the week. But with those promises to keep, sitting there waiting to raise their hands to be called on, starting out slowly feels really good.

As you can tell, I don’t have to report to a job, one outside the home anyway. But I do have to keep my own integrity in mind and a quick way to move out of my husbands way when he wants to go do this or that, whatever is on his list. We are both retired but I have to say as busy as if not busier than we were when we both were working or even just when he was.

If you have read my posts in this blog you will find that I am often talking about having enough time to get this or that done before this or that happens. The this or that has to do with my family obligations, grandchildren, doing farm chores (taking care of horses), volunteering at the Fort Collins Cat Rescue, taking care of my four rescued cats and getting all of that done so I can write! Write…what?

Well, lots of things, too many things. I don’t allow myself too often to get lost reading e-mail, Google, or websites but when I do I love this one. Zen Habits.

Here is the advice I got from it this Monday. Choose one thing to do (get done) today that makes a difference. Simple, right? Wrong. My biggest problem is prioritizing. I have a terrible time with it because to me, everything is important. Everything has the same weight, which is not true of course. Do whatever makes a difference this day. WOW

Well, then I started a list. After 11 or so things that seemed equally important I realized we were looking at something bigger here. Not counting promises to keep, which is kind of a given, I needed to answer a fundamental question. What is important in life? I am working on this…making a list of things to consider…. Hmmmm lets see, health, relationships, faith, meaning, love, money? So my mind flashed back to a time when I was faced with a similar decision and I think that answer answers this. What is important is kindness and compassion.

Kindness and compassion will always make a difference.

R.F.D. North Dakota

I'm pleased to bring you another poem in my Ghost Prairie Poem Series

R.F.D.
North Dakota

deep ruts slow my car
bumps up dusty clouds
along a rolling ribbon of road
“out in the middle of nowhere.”

i stop turn down the window
air rushes out as if to cool
the hot July day

a battered mail box
perches precariously
on a splintered post
held in place by rusty
barbed wire …

waits in silence

Ghost Prairie Poem I

In 2002 after a trip to North Dakota I wrote a series of poems called Ghost Praire Poems. This is the title poem

GHOST PRAIRIE I

I speak plainly
poems your ears have forgotten to hear
words you don’t know
anymore, years like the static
roar of brown cicadas
drown them out

I felt your journeys
your heavy wagons rutting roads
ruddy faces looking up eyes bright
you sought my forever landscape
to save you, to bring life

I planted
and harvested your dreams
watched weariness and roaming
leaving
and coming home

I was generous
gave my glacier plains
and deep black soil
my opportunities
to you

I have seen my vastness shrink
horizons sink in the distance
fields pock marked by
towns prairie dogs built
and left to the crows

You must listen to me
before I am gone
my voice weakens
to soft whispers grown quiet
into the wheat that shifts in the wind

Bunny Tracks (No not ice cream!)

We moved to the farm in the fall of 2007. Our daughter’s home was built out in the pasture beyond the riding arena and they moved in the fall of 2009. Our house is about 100 yards away. Duties have been given and changed around several times but my responsibility is to feed the horses Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings between 6am and 7 am, rain or shine, 100 degrees or minus 10. Of course it is easier in the summer but the winter, with snow has its charm.

To our delight we have rubbed elbows with a beautiful red fox who I have not forgiven for taking one (or two) of my cats and lots of coyotes that ‘sing’ and yip almost every night. My daughter has seen them but I haven’t yet. There are hawks that circle over the fields from time to time and once I saw a great horned owl when it landed on the roof of my daughter’s house. It was huge! I hear the owl often in the trees outside my window. I am very glad I can keep all my cats in now.

Of course there are mice. And that is why we experimented with keeping some barn cats. We actually have had 5 in the barn (not all at once). I have discovered that life on the farm is real stuff, not a dream you read about in Country Magazine. Even at an urban farm it includes joy and sorrow, life and death. It has been a hard lesson for me to learn.
This spring our neighbors mare foaled and we were there to see it when it was only a few hours old. We have seen her grow up to be a beautiful young horse with a springy step. She looks like she is tip toeing around the pasture. It is a joy to behold.

But my favorite time is in the winter just after a snowfall. When I get up in the morning I layer several shirts and some coveralls over my p.j.s I am ready to go out and greet the horses and bring them their feed. As I walk out there I’m trying to figure who has visited. I see dog tracks and cat tracks and I am most curious to see if I recognize coyote or fox tracks.

More than anything else I see bunny tracks. I can tell because they are distinctive, two prints close together and just above them are two prints a bit apart, and they are pretty small. I could just see them hopping around in the snow, foraging for food. We have lots of bunnies around. It’s probably why we see the foxes and hear the coyotes. It doesn’t seem like they have made a big dent in the rabbit population, though. I see places where small paws have brushed the snow aside to get at some grass or leaves. I have seen where it looks like one has been chased by a dog or coyote, and I see places where they seem to have been playing.

It is a wonderful way to begin a day. Even the days when it is hard to think about going outside in the cold or snow it is a chore I love. And I add my tracks to the bunny tracks as I listen to the horses nickering for their breakfast

Looking Back: A Christmas Memory

I remember well the first Christmas after I got married. My husband and I had moved from Iowa to Lancaster, PA at the end of November. It was just before the holiday season. Everything was feeling very strange. We had rented a house-trailer, a nice one at that, but it was the only thing that was available in that rural Amish community.

The night we went searching for a Christmas tree it was clear and cold, with many stars in the dark sky, similar, I suppose to the way it was on that night near Bethlehem when the shepherds saw a bright star in the heavens. I can remember the place we stopped. It was around a bend on one of the curvy roads that fanned out from Lancaster. We didn’t spend much time at it because it was so cold and we didn’t have much money. But it was a beautiful tree that fit well in the back seat and out the windows of our red and white 1956 Oldsmobile convertible. We had driven it all the way from Iowa only a few weeks earlier.

When we got to our trailer we found we were going to need to cut the bottom of the trunk off so it would fit in the tree stand. When we separated the branches we discovered that our tree already had a gift in it. We found a nest, hidden down in the thick branches at the bottom of the tree. All of a sudden that nest made us feel like this really was our new home.


It turned something that was so new and strange and different into an experience that welcomed us home to our new life. We would build a new nest, have children and learn to be the best we could possibly be together. And we still have that nest. It is a little bit worse for the years, like all of us, but every year for the last 30 it has perched in its own special place in each tree, reminding us of that first Christmas
Written Christmas 1994

In Memorium

Polka Dot

rescued August 31, 2009 - disappeared November 13, 2010

It was inevitable. At least I say that now. When I agreed to keep three rescued feral cats in my barn as barn cats I didn't think enough about how vulnerable they would be to the coyotes, fox, hawks and Owl we see around our urban farm almost daily. No, I wanted to help the Northern Colorado Friends of Ferals with placing some of the cats that had been rescued from a hoarder. Once feral cats have been spayed or neutered they can go back to their homes, called colonies, familiar areas and other cats where they are comfortable. But these cats had no other home to go to.

I have had them for a year now. They must have been 4 or 5 months old when I got them, so they matured while they were in my care. I thought I did everything I could to keep them safe and warm.

I set up a warming house in a stall in the barn with a pet heating blanket that kept them warm during the coldest nights. I was given a large enclosure that another cat rescue group didn't need anymore. Once I got that set up I kept them in it at night. They soon learned who their caregiver was and even if they kept their distance from other family members by the time I had them 6 months or so they were letting me touch them and even pick them up. It is not surprising when you consider that I was feeding them canned food at night and they knew it. I fed them insidethe enclosure so it was easy(for me) to close them in. As time went by they became friendlier and friendlier. Soon they were sitting outside the kitchen door meowing for me to go to the barn for their feeding.

The neighbors gave me glowing reports about what good mousers they were in their barn. They kept our barn rodent free as well. On our daily walks to the barn they would stop, roll over and beg to be petted. They would follow me whenever I was out working around the barn.

Off and on they had spent a night or two outside, but they always showed up the next day. That's why I was not too worried when I went out to feed the horses a few weeks ago and I found the door to the enclosure standing open. Polka Dot was gone. Moonbeam was still inside. (The third cat, Lollipop, disappeared several months ago)

It has now been over two weeks. I am still looking for her. I have convinced myself that she has found a warm place and some cat companions to hang out with. The reality is that she probably has not. I know this but I can't accept it. I think she could still come home. The bad news is that we have seen a coyote hanging around the fields nearby. However, there are lots of rabbits and mice around.

The neighbors did not see her. In fact they have two cats that they have had for several years. So that keeps me looking. I miss her terribly.