Safe Places

I did get out of the house today, not very far, about a 5 minute drive. The roads are not bad but the wind is blowing the snow across them and making visibility not great.  It was good to get out however.  We have a neighbor who does my hair.  She and I work on the barter system; I watch her pets when she is away and she does my hair almost every week,  She and her husband live in a beautiful, old converted school house.  It is an open plan, like the original one room school house that it used to be, with a loft that includes a bedroom and a half bath upstairs.  They have 2 dogs and 4 cats.  These are good people and friends of mine.  You can tell they are good people when you meet their pets, only good people could have animals that loving and trusting.
There have been very few "safe places" in my life.  The home I live in with my daughter and her family is definately one of them.  And the schoolhouse home is another. 
The houses I lived in as a child were not safe places.  As a child when I went home I tried to gauge the mood of my Mother as I neared the door.  That pattern was so established at such an young age and I got so good at it that it is scary when I think of how good I was at it.  Much later in a relationship with a man I was engaged to marry, I used to listen when his car pulled in the driveway and I could tell by the way he closed the car door and how he walked up the stairs, I mean the sound, not even looking at him, just the sound of him walking up the stairs, I could tell how much he had to drink and what his mood would be.  I believe that is called hypervigilance.  I guess I am a hypervigilant person, and perhaps that has served me well.  It has kept me alive, it has kept me safe.
There were a few places where I felt safe in my life.  One was a cottage in Haliburton.  I walked into a cottage one evening, a cottage I didn't know, in a town I had never been to be before and felt safe.  That is a long story; perhaps I will write it one day.  Tonight I am grateful for "safe places' and the people who provide them.

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011...............11:32p.m.