Unexpected Trip Back to Myself

Posted on January 7, 2019 by Heloise Jones

The calendar has turned another year. I’ve had no hesitation writing 2019. It’s been a roller-coaster of highlights & lows the past 7 years. Looking ahead feels good. In no small measure because I took a journey to Kenya in December. A return to travel after nearly 5 yrs. and no ordinary trip. A mix of awe, wonder, beautiful connections, and unexpected challenges, I came back changed.

After a few days adjustment, I slept 9 hrs. a day for days in a row when I returned. No ordinary sleep, tho. I was deep in the ethers and nether realms, with dreams I couldn’t remember. Like I was catching up on years of no sleep. I didn’t return to FB right away, either. Even after a 3 week absence, first time since I started ages ago, I’m still not back full-time. I’m finding new space.

Truth, the entire trip was the final leg of a journey back to myself, only to be seen in hindsight.

I’d been saying all year I was going to Africa, albeit with no answer how or when. Then, an email arrived from a writer friend about a writing contest, 48 hrs. to deadline. I won a partial fellowship to a writing residency.

I was thrilled. I’m intensely interested in culture and how it shows up in both works and a writer’s voice, so the chance to meet Kenyan writers excited me. Plus, we’d reside in the lower rift valley for part of the journey. I was enthralled with the idea I’d be in the place that inspired Karen Blixen to write “Out of Africa.” As time got closer, there was evidence and strong intuition all my surprises may not be pleasant ones. I was too far in, too invested with desire and money to back out, tho. I needed this trip. I needed to unplug, step away from work. To write my own work, again, and talk with other writers about writing. To be inspired by the shifts a new-to-me place brings. I’d been feeling anxious about life for too long. I left ready for something good.

Oh, my. I was not prepared for how deeply I’d feel a connection to the land and people I encountered in the silences. Africa became a part of me as if my DNA changed. Several people have told me since that this is what happens. It’s deep, or not at all. No middle ground.

In a weird kind of way, one of my discomforts turned into a blessing. Most who meet me think I’m an extrovert (or weird) because I’m authentically curious, interested, and expressive. The truth is I spend most of my time in solitude, and typically travel alone. Long periods with people talking in groups feel overwhelming for me. One way I dealt with this was to sit up front in the seat next to the driver on our group drives. I didn’t run, scream ‘shotgun,’ it seemed to evolve. Like the angels watched my back, even in a lucky invitation by the guide when we went on safari! I was happy sitting there quietly where I could see, have questions about what I observed answered. Things like history of the land & people, rhythms of African life & traffic/travel, the city, the country, animals. All the things I was interested in.

My experience on The Maasai-Mara National Reserve was perhaps my biggest surprise. I saw bones gleaming white on the savannah and they captured me. Strings of them behind black-horned skulls, everywhere. Sitting beside our Maasai guide who was educated as an animal and land conservationist, I learned the close cropped, tawny colored grass covering the ground would rise tall and green with the rains in the fall, and the animals would safari (to travel, from the Arabic safara; to journey in Swahili) across the hills from the Serengeti. That the plains would blacken with thousands of animal bodies, and one could see a wildebeest brought down by lions once every hour. And how when the lions were done, the wildebeest fed waves of hyenas and jackals. In the end, beautiful vultures unlike any I’ve ever seen, white-backed and gray-backed, picked the bones clean. What struck me was every skull rested chin forward. I thought an animal in death would lie on its side. Who knows, perhaps the weight of the horns righted the skull after the flesh was gone. I didn’t invite a logical explanation. It was a spiritual experience. The bones talked to me of sacred offerings and the cycles of life.

When we returned to the rural rustic accommodations on the Maasai preserve where we stayed, a poem flowed thru me. The only fresh thing I wrote on the entire residency. When I got home, I edited it, added a dedication to my Maasai ‘teachers,’ community leader Simon Metekai Masago and safari guide Jackson Kayionni Letiol, shared it with them. It’s been accepted for publication this spring in The Wayfarer, a beautiful professional journal with the tagline “Reimagining the Possible – Charting the Way to Change.” Could this be any closer to what happened for me?!

With all the good stuff, I’d be remiss to not admit there were moments of deep challenge on the trip. Things that hurt and couldn’t be fixed. And in the end, I had a choice. I could let them take me back to what I know for sure: Sometimes we can’t fix things in the moment. We gotta own what’s ours, learn and move on, without putting up walls. We all look thru a lens created by our experience. And ultimately, the best we can do is find our way to who we are in our Heart, and BE that. My choice, fierce hearted.

Amazing lyricist (poet) and musician Bruce Cockburn says it best in his song, When You Give It Away. “I’ve got this thing in my heart, I must give you today. It only lives when you Give it away.”

This turning inside me feels like the animals must feel with the promise of fresh grass.

Wishing you All Things Good in 2019.

The photos are O’Hare Airport, Chicago, USA. This is what I saw when I entered the terminal. I swear, after 25 hrs. travel, I didn’t see the affirmation facing me on the globe ’til I got there & looked up.
Africa.

Getting to Wise. A Writer’s Life.

This blog is dedicated to my friend Johnson Mwangi Mathenge, who I sat beside for probably 22 hrs. as we drove thru Kenya. He shared so much about what I saw,
and brought me the best Kenyan tea.

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Making a Writer’s Life

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Heloise Jones

My morning walk these days is short. 15-17 minutes. The heart of it three long blocks uphill, and three blocks coming down looking out to the western sky and mountains. If I’m in the third block at the top of the hill early enough before sunlight breaks, my treat is one to six bunnies. All sitting perfectly still, face forward, front feet together, ears erect like those chocolate bunnies wrapped in colored cellophane we used to get at Easter. Their big round brown eyes don’t even blink when I tell them how beautiful they are.

Recently, just after our nights started hovering 32- 40°, I noticed the colors on the western horizon we only see at sunrise – a blue between robin’s egg & sky blue and the salmony peach known as Santa Fe colors – rose to nearly fill a third of the tall sky. I wondered perhaps the temperature’s sudden change. This is the first time I live where I fully see it each morning. I felt I was witnessing something special, this tall rise of western dawn color. I felt I was gliding downhill, as if flying right to it. And suddenly I was transported to sailing across country. Two of us, bringing me home to Santa Fe, my thought. And just at that thought, two ravens sailed silently side by side over my head from behind, straight into that horizon. Their wings outstretched, like gliders.

Booker Prize winning author George Saunders says, “Story is kind of a black box. And you’re going to put the reader in there. She’s going to spend some time with this thing you have made. And when she comes out, what’s gonna have happened to her in there is something astonishing. It feels like the curtain’s been pulled back and she’s gotten a glimpse into a deeper truth. As a story writer, that’s not as easy as it sounds.” I think that applies to life stories, too.

This story of me being here, and my life now, began almost exactly one year ago when I pulled out my pile of notes, sat down and wrote the first words of The Writer’s Block Myth while on my yearly fall visit to Santa Fe. I’d already decided to move back, so I searched for a home while I wrote the book. It wasn’t a typical visit. It was a writing retreat and the beginning of my new life.

Then, in the six weeks December 1 to mid-January, I rewrote the entire book, edited it twice, created a pre-launch, made my first 2-1/2 min. video (which took 12 hours to do), packed my entire household, contracted movers, and set out across country. Like those two ravens, my husband and I in the car sailed to this horizon thru diverse American landscapes. I could’ve told a different story each night from what I observed. But it was my story I was in the midst of. And it was full enough.

Nine months ago this past Sunday we pulled in. I remember ascending the hill from Clines Corners, the thrill I felt seeing the Sangre de Cristos. How the clouds were so dramaticly surreal. We stopped at one of my favorite places for a New Mexican Sunday brunch before we headed into town.

I can’t remember when I finally stopped telling people I’d moved back after 19 trips in 18 years, after leaving to go east for family and job. That the last 6 trips were for two months. . .when I shed that story of part-time local who wasn’t really a visitor.

The months since I returned I’ve focused on the alchemy in the work I do with writers. I’ve put myself out into the world. I’ve spent hours at the computer, little of it writing stories. And I’ve been recovering from what it took to get here.

Winter passed into spring. Then spring passed. Summer passed. Fall has nearly passed. And two weeks ago I walked outside and realized I’d done little of living in this place.

I didn’t see the summer wildflowers on the mountain like I promised myself I’d do. Or walk amongst the aspens, hug one & put my ear to the trunk to hear that creaking like an old wooden ship. I’ve soaked at Ojo Caliente mineral springs only three times. And been to few festivals, galleries, poetry readings, or the many other things you only find here. I haven’t even visited the Georgia O’Keeffe museum.

The views of sky and cottonwoods out my windows I’ve lived on are no longer enough. I desire space inside and to write, as well as expand this work that I truly love doing with writers. As well as speaking before groups, and seeing people’s faces soften and smile as their eyes light up. I desire space i.n.s.i.d.e, and to write. Connection with myself and this place.

Thomas Wolfe said you can never go home, again. It’s true places change, people change, even cultures change. If we are alive, we change. And I believe what poet Derek Walcott says in his lovely poem, ‘Love after Love:’

The time will come
 when, with elation
 you will greet yourself arriving
 at your own door, in your own mirror
 and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
 You will love again the stranger who was your self.

I believe you can come home to yourself. I realize as I write this, that’s what I’m in the process of doing, even in the work I do with other writers. Because I am a writer.

That picture above is dawn from my kitchen window the first week I was in my little house. George Saunders is right. This story has not been as easy to write as it sounds. It’s been worth it, though.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Journey of a Million Miles

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Heloise Jones

Yesterday we laid plastic on the dirt floor in the garage of my little home in Santa Fe. Covered it with sheet linoleum & lined the wall with palettes in wait for the movers. The house is a huge step back from what I’ve had the past decades. I refuse to say ‘step down’ when I’m thrilled to have it, but it does feel humbling at times. At other times I think how lucky I am it’s been stripped & painted clean, has wood floors, new tile and sinks, baseboard radiators, a room where I can host writers, a garage, + views of the mountains. And it feels good. A Happy House, as my landlord’s mother used to call it.

A week ago I sat in the sun for 20 min. while the movers loaded the van. I did not plan, strategize, or try to figure a thing out. I didn’t like how they dismantled my very expensive sleep number bed and stuffed it in wardrobes, but it was done. I asked they seal the openings despite their assurance there was no dust in the van.

The day before that I’d had what can only be called a physical breakdown. With packing left to do, I couldn’t get up from the sofa. It was more than fatigue. My body simply couldn’t move. I thought about slaves in the fields, how they must’ve felt this exact way, but they got up, kept moving because their lives depended on it. And I thought about concentration camp inmates. About refugees traveling oceans & long roads across countries. All of them pushing ahead when their bodies say No. I thought of when I rose at 4am, returned home at 11pm while in school so to meet both my scholastic and social activist goals. All of us, lives depending on it. And I couldn’t move. 8pm I recovered, packed ‘til midnight.

We had a last meal in St. Pete at my favorite restaurant (La Vie, Vietnamese fusion.) Thuy, the gorgeous and brilliant owner came by, gave me a hug. “When you come back. . .’ she said. I shook my head No. I’d been a regular at the eatery. One of her first customers when she opened her day spa. She’s opening a third restaurant now. “I wish you were here to still give us love,” she said. I got love back is what I told her. Then I left Florida.

Florida seemed to cling tight as we drove out. We crept in congestion, a 30 min. drive taking 1.25 hr. Then again for miles on a crowded road accommodating a closed highway’s traffic. I thought about a gal’s exclamation how sad I was leaving. ‘Took us 20 yrs. to get here,’ she said, ‘We love it. We’re not leaving.’

All of us have a place (or places) that zing us, whether it’s the road or a spot on the map. I know when it’s time to leave a place because I don’t notice the beauty of it anymore. I felt an energetic pop when we crossed the border line.

Art drove me to Santa Fe. The few times I took the wheel, I didn’t last much more than 2 hrs. I’ve driven coast to coast alone, twice. Driven alone for days across the west and up the coast of California more than once. They were adventures. This wasn’t. This was a run for my life. And I couldn’t have done it alone as I’d planned. Art saved me is the way I see it. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I can drive.’

One of the most stunning features of a winter drive across country is the silhouettes of trees. They look like people – tribes, soldiers, women, men, all sorts. With personalities. Their branches thick, thin, twisted, gnarled, stretching, swooping. Sometimes so very graceful, sometimes angular like an abstract modern dancer, sometimes straight & purposeful. Several mornings we headed out in fog. The trees particularly gorgeous shrouded in milky soup, green grass or black fields at their feet. I thought if ever I was a photographer, I’d travel and take pictures of trees in winter. I never got a good picture.

I saw the most supernaturally bright green grass in Mississippi. Field upon field of it. Carpets that sometimes had cows. Fog and gray winter trees making it more starkly vibrant. Mississippi also has lots of big crosses.

Mobile, Alabama felt like a city from a Philip K. Dick novel. Especially in the tunnel that drops steeply down under the very wide Mobile River. Like being inside a giant worm in that tunnel. I’d like to go back.

The stretch Denton to Amarillo, Texas on hwy 287 is 300+ miles of peace. Flat, quiet, achingly beautiful. Small towns that seem to be going to ghost every once in a while. In Childress we stopped at a locally owned quick stop. The kind with paper boats of crusty fried chicken pieces, long fat greasy hotdogs on a stick, and fried Mexican snacks in a glass case. Muddy trucks in the parking lot and women with small kids in tow. The bathroom’s rough, Art said. I’ve been in bad ones, just let there be toilet paper, I thought.

But it was sparkly squeaky clean! So clean that a clean paper towel on the floor looked like a desecration. I grabbed another towel to lift it to the trash can. When I came out Art was contemplating what to get from the case. ‘That was the cleanest bathroom. I really appreciate that,’ I told the man at the counter. He beamed, pointed to a young gal behind him. ‘Thank You!’ she said. ‘I work on that every day.’ So much pride. I told her if we win the lottery, I’m coming back to share it with her. And I meant it. As we drove off, I kept thinking how my best friend in high school lived in Childress the last time I talked to her.

I learned there really was/is a falls on the Wichita River. Was, as in the natural falls washed out in a flood in the 1800s. Is, as in the falls were reconstructed further up the river, abeit with pristine landscaping unlike anything that would’ve been there before. I wanted to see those falls. A weak attempt to recover some adventure. But we drove on after circling the pot-holed road in the park where they are. We’d missed the tiny print on the phone that said we had to walk a mile in, and Santa Fe was one night away.

I’ll leave you with magic. I got an email from a writer I met in Canada last fall. He has lots of personal cache to market his historical novel beyond Cape Cod where he lives. He didn’t ask, but I spent time giving him tips & illuminating his options. I wanted him to succeed. He has a vision and a passion. His email blew me away:

I have been re-working my second novel, another work of historical fiction set on Cape Cod. I have been going back and forth on which point of view of use. . .Then last night I had a dream in which a guy who I have never seen before came up to me and told me, ‘Ask Heloise.’ That was it: just a guy walking up and giving me that advice, but I took it as a nudge to get in touch with you and get your advice on this point of view question!

A guy he didn’t know in his dream sent him to me. This is the work that I love. And someone in dreamtime help spread the message.

And this. . .

Second day of the drive, feeling really blue and wanted something to help me feel better, I immediately pulled up behind this van. I followed that happy face for miles, didn’t pass on purpose. You can’t see it well, but in the window there’s a little plush happy face with a cowboy hat cocked on its ‘head.’ It constantly rocked back & forth. I said Thank You when I finally passed, not feeling blue anymore.

A week ago was a million years of a journey to here. I’m starting a new & different life. My husband will go to NC for work. It’s good, but sad. My book’s out March 14, day before the Ides of March. I made video about it. My first one. I’m told there will be more. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, I’m told. Same with life, isn’t it?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what journeys have you taken lately?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .a million miles may start with the first step, but we never make it alone.

Thanks, Art.

Saying the Word Lucky

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Heloise Jones

“…we don’t know what day we’re on. We just don’t.
So we’ve gotta do all we can to make every one be the kind of day
that helps us become who we are. . .I keep learning how powerful it is to say “yes”
to new experiences, to be brave, to ask for help when you need it,
and to just sing your own song in your own voice,
in whatever way that means something to you.”
~ Tamara Mangum Bailie, songwriter
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One of the things about spending so much time with the screen is missing fall in New Mexico. I get doses. Like the luminescent golden-yellow leaves of a cottonwood still in full coat outside my window. But the shadows have turned edgy, the light moved to that quality you know it’s past fall. Now, dark at 5:47, I feel something’s slipped by. And I’m looking for life past the screen.

I drove to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs a day after wonky sleep last week. Most of the trees through the valley with the best display were bare. A quiet tangle where I usually see light. I have three fav places for that dose of color and light. This valley after the bend, crossing toward Ojo one of them. It dawns on me this is the first time in 23 yrs. I haven’t seen it. But there were still breathtaking gems scattered here and there. As I drove out of Ojo, big trees in fields either side of me lit gorgeously bright in the late afternoon sun. I didn’t want to leave. Like seriously didn’t want to leave. I spun off the narrow rough-paved road, made a U-turn just to see them once more. Pebbles and miscellany from that turn rattled in my wheel wells for a dozen or more miles.

I went to the Dixon Studio Tour with Ken. I met him 23 yrs. ago when he drove out to the middle of open, undeveloped land where we lived for moving boxes. There’s things about that first home in Santa Fe I still viscerally remember – bluebirds and hawks on the large disk birdbaths, snow, how I stood many nights, my head rocked back, my chest filled with awe as I gazed upon the Milky Way coursing across a field of a kerjillion stars. I haven’t seen that kind of sky since. Ken always has his camera, never minds waiting while I chat with folks. Perfect, because Dixon’s not so much about the art, anymore, for me. It’s the community.

Dixon. . .apple country 45 min. north of Santa Fe. The Rio Embudo running beside it. No place flat. The little village so compressed, no need to drive all of it like on the other studio tours. People walk, mill along the road. I love the New Mexican food at the little eatery where you’re sure to wait 20 min. in line. Daughter takes orders at the register, mama dishes ice cream, pours drinks. Even with the bustle, the gal offered a taste of the chipolte pork, with a smile, when I asked how hot it was.

I love the music in the backroom of the Mission hall, too. Tho we don’t hang around long. A trio – violin, guitar, and this year, a drum. Celtic folk in flavor. Wonderful voices. I meant to write their name down.

We lucked out because there was rain in the desert all day and night before. The thick promise of the sky and desert-humidity delivered. And I heard it was rain-rain and mud Sunday. But lucky us. Saturday, just a few sprinkles like blessings.

Driving home, narrow, curvy 2 lanes, double yellow lines, we come to a complete stop. Mountain on one side. Guard rail at a steep drop the other. Six cars up, a big vehicle overturned on its side, it’s bottom facing us. We hear the sirens coming, on their way. First thought’s someone did something crazy, because that’s what I saw driving up. Crazy. But not so. Tire blew, like exploded, front driver side. Threw the car into the guard rail, and flipped a 16-yr-old girl down against the road.

The wait seemed out of time. Eerily peaceful. Some cars pulled out, went the other way. A few people stood in the road. But there was no running up and down or around. No drama or zing of impatience. I commented once about the barky barks down the valley that didn’t shut up. He commented how the cops & rescue workers weren’t very efficient, and expressed gratitude we were on a portion of the road with fencing against falling rocks. We simply chilled. I watched the light change on the valley, and the blinking red lights on the five rescue/cop vehicles. I could only think what terror that girl must’ve experienced. That she’ll have PTSD for a long time. I suddenly felt very tired, and closed my eyes. 1 hr-20 min. later, everything and everyone cleared, including the glass, we crept by.

The railing was badly mangled. Good thing it held, we said. I thought of my husband walking on a gorgeous fall day, struck down by a car, the guardrail he was rolled along. How grateful we were it didn’t give. As we drove past seven miles of stopped cars, I said we were lucky to be so close to the front. To know what was happening. To get moving so fast. Grateful. We heard the girl’s OK.

And then there were Rainbows. A really fat one, rich in color, rising halfway to the sky behind us as we hit the straight-away. We passed a guy beside his car, taking a pic. It was that good. I kinda wanted to turn around, see if I could stand in the colored light that touched the ground. (can we ever?) Then after I dropped Ken, another really wide rainbow halfway to the sky as I swung toward Santa Fe. Newly snow-capped mountains in the background. And then just as I felt the most tired, still two stops to go before home, a tall, spectacular arch. Nothing like a New Mexico rainbow. They’re not like Hawaii rainbows, or Appalachian, or Florida rainbows. Something about the color on that crisp sky, I guess.

How is it that we find our Soul Homes. I don’t reminisce as a habit, but I feel and see my life here like one long continuum, despite the 18 year residence in other places. I remember so clearly those 4 years in the 90s I picked up my friend Jacqueline every other week at 2pm when she got off work. Our drive north and thru the pueblo to Ojo where we soaked & had trout dinners in the little dining room that looks the same now but has gone upscale for dinner. And how the sky looked that night driving back when we saw an UFO. No one believed us, but we know what we saw. Jacqueline is a first friend here, too. I met her on my first Dixon tour 23 yrs. ago.

The Appalachians pull a sense of Home from me when I fly over. I feel a peace and belonging in Hawaii where I glide immediately into the vibe, am calmed. Experience a deep knowing inside when I hear the chants, see Kahiko Hula. But it’s here, this desert. These mountains. This light. This expansive feeling inside me as big as the Universe. The moments I’m so happy just Being. How many times I used the word ‘lucky’ writing this. As if time is on my side tho it flows like a too-swiftly moving river. I think maybe I can find center, again, here.

Another Small Journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .what’s time feel like for you right now?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .it 4:11am. The second week I’ve written you in the small hours.

Photo: Apodaca by Lou Malchie, Dixon

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I’m writing a book for people living in the real world.
The Writer’s Block Myth
A Guide to Get Past Stuck & Experience Lasting Creative Freedom

Dropping the Stop Sign

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Heloise Jones

My best friend neighbor Lindy delivered a green drink to me one morning. See it there,
next to the computer. With matching green straw covered in pink polka dots.
In front of the card with a painting by my fav Abiquiu artist.
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“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”
~ Martha Graham

Sitting here, the fragrance of fresh sage. I often buy a decorative sage bundle, leave it with a friend when I head home. Today I couldn’t resist. The bundle so fresh its scent lingered on my fingers. The top festooned with a small bouquet of lavender sprigs. It’s heart a puff of ‘straw’ flowers in two shades of purple + a small, deep rose colored dried chrysanthemum. At the bottom, tiny leaves of eucalyptus wrapped in the string. I remember when a friend and I went out to acres of sage, and picked our own, and I learned to wrap. There’s a trick to doing it right. So long ago.

It’s been a different sort of first week in Santa Fe than I’ve ever had. I’m in the country, so not out and about much. I left as the breath of hurricane Matthew hit Florida. Arrived to a text from my sister in Houston – my brother & sister-in-law in the direct path, need a place. They’re on the way to your house, she said. But Art hadn’t been notified. I hooked him up, left cleaning instructions for things I knew he’d miss, and wondered at them traveling three hours thru torrential rains. My brother seriously ill. You haven’t left Florida, a friend said. It wasn’t that. I’ve been thru tropical storms, and floods. And our home is small, and my brother. . .well, not a typical leave-taking for me.

36 hrs. later I woke under the weather. The head-body thing where you feel tired and yukky, but you’re not completely down. So friggin’ rare for me, it was hard to accept. But I moved thru fast, with help from my friend who brought me my elixir – ProPak immune & electrolyte builder. Thought myself ready to do Santa Fe.

Of the half dozen studio tours each fall, there are two I never miss – Abiquiu and Dixon. It was past 11am on the last day of tour when I left for Abiquiu an hour away. I was detained another 20 min. when the tire pressure light lit. As I finally sailed without stops, I realized I didn’t really want to visit studios. I’m in the trees where I’m at. I wanted the New Mexico countryside. My fav Chama River valley with golden yellow cottonwoods blazing all across it. The mythical work of one artist only. So, I stopped at the lavender farm, enjoyed lavender infused ceylon tea and chocolate cake with lavender gelato on the little tea house portal. Moved on to the Abiquiu Inn to get cards by a fav artist. They had wonderful strawberry-lemon infused water. I could’ve drunk a gallon. Stopped at Bode’s old time mercantile to see my friend who owns it. Made plans for a day together in November. Moved on to the artist. And the vineyard, just because it’s so beautiful there and I could buy homemade biscochitos, the light melt-in-your-mouth anise laced butter cookies I love. I did it differently, and was back in Santa Fe by 4:45, feeling just right.

I’m working this trip. Have the luxury of a large table in front of a window where I can spread and stack files and pages. One afternoon, the little voice said, take your notebook outside. That thought was so far from my mind, I said aloud, really. But I obeyed, and discovered the huge heavy round table on the portal a fabulous place to work. And tho the pines obstruct the view and the portal shortens the sky, it was perfect.

I have a confession, tho. I’m distracted by no-thought, and seems my intentions are continually sidetracked. My book, most specifically, sidetracked again and again by the development of my new super-duper https dedicated better everything experience website. Something kinda exciting. But choosing a web designer is like choosing a dentist. So much is about feel. And tho I mentioned this angst before, now it’s around the new look. My face to the world changing. It takes such a HUGE amount of energy, I get confused what the right next thing to do is. Worry I won’t finish the book by the deadline. And that’s not okay.

But the Universe sent me a message for this, if I can just figure how it fits in my puzzle.

Part One arrived in an email from my husband, saying how courageous he sees me. He lists why, getting some of my history wrong. But I’m not a detailed reminiscer, and I don’t think it matters. It’s about my courage. That night, Part Two. I read this by Elizabeth Gilbert:

“Fear is boring. . . my fear had no variety to it, no depth, no substance, no texture. I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note — only one word, actually — and that word was “STOP!. . .”

If courage is moving forward despite fear, I have it in a ton of ways. Even so, I’ve held fear’s Stop sign up again and again to something bigger than myself. To this that I’m doing now. This Full Circle I wrote about last week. Moving back to my Soul Home. Writing a book that shares what I know with the world. Stepping forward in service lit in spotlights. The stuff I’ve received direct, in my face, messages about over the years and replied ‘No, I’ll stay small.’ I believe this love note from the Universe is about putting that Stop sign down. Now.

I met a fabulous, creative friend for lunch who I haven’t seen in years. The thing I love most about him is how often he says ‘I love my life.’ To say those words has been one of my highest aspirations. After he sped off to the airport, the air and breeze was so luscious, the sky so clear and blue, I felt it, close. I wonder if saying ‘I’m so happy’ counts. ‘Cause I’ve had that thought more than once this week.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

Tell me. . .how are you doing things differently these days?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .I still feel wiggly.

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I’m writing a book for people living in the real world.
The Writer’s Block Myth
Get Past Stuck. Live and Love Your Best Creative Life.