It's been a study in frustration, trying to make a solid travel plan, based on rapidly changing data coming out of the airline schedules. We are waiting for daughter number one to blaze through on a whirlwind visit, and this storm on the west coast is stealing precious minutes of our time with her at each update. So far the flight has been delayed three times, and at last check it was about 2 1/2 hours off. When our time together can easily be counted in hours, losing over 4% of it feels pretty significant. Now I'm stuck wondering whether to stay up late and go to the airport in the middle of the night, or nap first and hope I'm not groggy when I wake and go. These are not the issues I wanted to be worrying about at this point. I should be panic cleaning the kitchen and fixing the covers on my guest room bed. Instead I'm getting resentful about Los Angeles finally getting a solid rain. My priorities are messed up.
I'm starting to get nervous watching the real estate market heat up even earlier than last year, which was a rougher year than the one that preceded it. Sunday I sent a new list of properties to my client who fell out of contract last week. By the time he concluded his inescapable business and called me today, two thirds of the properties were under contract, and most of those were not even taking backup offers. There's one single new one that meets his criteria, just one that makes me think he'd want to see it. Last year was so rough, so cutthroat. I dread going through that level of competition again. So many people ask me when I think things will calm down and be like a "normal" year. I hate to say it, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. So many people are moving here, and the inventory of houses up for sale is so thin. The influx of new residents is not going to slow down in the near future. Construction starts are trying to keep up, but that takes time. My newest client says that she tried to speak with a couple of builders, just to tour a model home here and there, and they were absolutely rude and dismissive of her. They didn't need her, it seemed. She got the idea that their homes are sold before they break ground. It's going to be a crazy year, isn't it?
At least I can count on Slow Hand to work his magic on me. I was five minutes late to my only massage this month (thanks, train that was stopped on the tracks until 2:32, three blocks from where I had to be at 2:30), but I didn't think I had arrived particularly tense or anxious. Thirty seconds after he put his hands on my back, he said "Holy Moly, You. Are. A. Board." We spent half of my session just trying to work out the knots in my shoulder blades. Slow Hand made some comment about finding a big knot right on Ralphie's belly (on the newest tattoo, right shoulder), and he starting talking about how our reptilian brains compartmentalize some long-ago trauma in soft tissue in globs of tension like he found there. He was implying that it could have been emotional trauma, but in that moment, all I could think of was actual physical trauma that occurred in that exact spot. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I was locked out of our little house on Belmont Street. I stood at the top of the stairs at the kitchen door, knocking loudly, waiting for someone to acknowledge me. I leaned back while I waited, and put my hands behind me on the porch rail. The cross bar gave way, and I fell backwards, landing on my right shoulder where it met my neck. If my math is correct, my shoulder traveled about seven and a half feet before I slammed into the ground. I don't know that I lost consciousness, but I was stunned, and yeah there was a bit of emotional trauma as I lay on the ground, sure that this wouldn't have happened if my mother or grandmother (not sure which) hadn't locked the back door. I've had soreness, numbness, and electrical tingling in that shoulder for decades, and until Slow Hand called my attention to it, I never associated it with that fall. I wonder what other secrets are buried in my muscles.
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