one crazy psychedelic blur

I just got off the phone with a man. Not so unusual except that this man has been in my life more on the phone than in person. Interesting way to keep a relationship going. I've never done this before, but I must say it's tantalizing and very fulfilling in the strangest ways. It's made me use my energy to tap into him so that I can feel him without his physical presence. I can feel him without sometimes even thinking about him. I may be working on a new design in my studio when suddenly a rush comes over me from feet to head. I can be walking down the hall when passing through a pocket of him. He washes over me.

I am content living here without him. I've never felt that way about a man before. Always it was a must-have, a must-see-him overwhelming feeling. How I feel about him energizes me, revs me up to do more here, to create more, to envision more, to expand more. Would I love to have him come through my studio door? You bet I would, and I'm okay without that happening also.

My missing him comes at unexpected moments like last night at Cadillac Pizza Pub listening to live blues and sipping wine with a dear friend. I missed him most last night. I knew if he had been there the music would have been that much more sweeter. I miss touching him, my shoulder against his. Something that small, that minute is something I miss more than I thought possible.

Another thing I miss is kissing him. You know, those quick pecks on the lips when we'd be standing outside in downtown Steamboat, making plans for later in the evenings. Outside Boathouse Pub before driving to my apartment after drinks or on the sidewalk on Lincoln Avenue after coffee at The Steamin' Bean.

It was fun getting out of the shower with a towel on my head and in he'd walk through my front door, stripping off his clothes, and scooping me up.

Or, sitting at Mambo's bar with Jamie after work on a Friday drinking a Cabernet and hearing about her day when suddenly in the stool beside me would be this delicious man. He would just know where I was and show up. Uncanny. It never ceased to surprise me.

And now there's another New Year's Eve without him here, or is he? Or, was he here last year? Sometimes my world gets so jumbled that nothing seems clear anymore. There are no blacks and whites. There's this great big beautiful fuzziness of electric colors, the colors of rainbows swirling around me creating realities that are so fleeting and magical. One blurs into another and into another until I know for sure one thing -- I know nothing.

On West Wing yesterday morning, Leo, chief of staff to the president, tells his deputy: "I no longer know what winning looks like."

It's all just one crazy psychedelic blur. It's an acid trip that doesn't go away.

Sorrow as Celebration

Sorrow as celebration. I read that in a magazine this morning. The author recommended, or really insisted, that our ability to relish in polar opposite emotions was essential to well-being. Why not? There are moments of deep sorrow that I feel the most alive, that the right word or phrase alters my life. In sorrow I can see through illusions that I would not have otherwise seen. In sorrow, I remember the depths of my love for another, the expansive and overwhelming knowingness of emotional pull for someone I love so deeply that words spill out in ways that wouldn't have otherwise.

It takes sorrow for me to open the floodgates of emotion, as does the feeling of joy. So, what's the difference between the two? After massive digs into the caverns of my sorrow, I feel blessed, whole, and new, as happens with excessive overflowing of joy. The deepest sadness allows extraordinary avalanches of bliss. And the highs of my ecstasy brings forth the ability to sink into the underbelly of great sadness and excavate anew. Ah...it becomes refreshing dynamite that breaks apart the unnecessary to make room for the magnificent.

So, I say celebrate sorrow. Thank you, Tammy Fischer, for bringing that to my attention this morning. I feel new again.

magic in music

Last night was one of the most magical and beautiful nights of my life upstairs in my new studio I share with Karen Klassen, owner of Spoons and Spoons Garage.

Lights shining on my fabrics and beads.
My friend Sonja sitting in the orange wicker chair eating Rick's cheeseburger.
Piles of threads on the table.
Fabric scraps scattered along the floor like bread crumbs.
And Buzz Andrews singing in the background. With the window opened it was like having Buzz in the studio with me. My feet tapped on the hardwood while layering textures of fabric.

It was a Buzz Andrews night. Again.

And then tonight I got to hear him again, but this time I saw him. I talked with him. I hugged him. I laughed with him. Not only is he a great singer and musician, but he's an even more devoted husband. There's nothing sexier than a man talking so wonderfully about his wife. Thank you, Buzz, for being my driftwood. You make me believe there is a continent full of amazing men.

room for scootching

It's a cloudy day here on the square. I'm alone in the spa as all the practitioners are elsewhere on this Friday afternoon. I volunteered to stay behind and woman the fort. Curled leaves blow past the French doors, and I watch a pink-shirted woman eating lunch across the street at Cafe Malaga.

This is my life. I sip on chai tea from Coffee 'n Cream and receive texts on my new Sprint phone from my McKinney friends. With one, we're sending pictures back and forth on the latest tea mug designs and with another, we're expressing our mutual admiration.

A woman wearing sunglasses and long bleached hair hops into a monster SUV while cars scootch over in the other lane to allow her room for scootching. Room for scootching. We all need it. Last night I needed it. There was a full house here with cackling women, and I had to scootch to the back room away from loud. Loud was not my friend last night. Quiet and calm were twins that wanted to bunk down with me instead, and I was more than willing to make room for them. However, they didn't show up here last night, so I took a walk with the twins around the square instead.

It was lovely.

I didn't hear any loud music coming from Cadillac's last night. The only sounds I heard were those coming from Malaga's where a guitar was being strummed and a heavenly voice singing with it. I couldn't keep myself from joining friends inside and drinking a bottle of Roda red wine. There were dates wrapped in bacon on toothpicks, a mound of spinach in the middle of glazed shrimp, Pelligrino bottles, and a square plate of olives dressed in every shade of green. Gold painted walls with photos of the beautiful owner and her daughters. Tony at the ready with more plates topped with tapas. Annie with hugs and excitement about her new move around the corner -- Malaga's is going bigger. And the red wine enjoyed with two of the most amazing people on earth. I am so blessed.

It's a beautiful life. It's full. It's inspiring. It pushes me. It thrills me, and sometimes exhausts me, but I love it. I just love it, and thoroughly love all those involved.

So, right now all is quiet and peaceful as the police officer rides past the French doors on his bike. A grandpa holds his grandson while walking down the sidewalk, a mom pushes a stroller, and a shop owner sweeps the sidewalk in front of her door. A Jaguar in mint condition drives by, followed by a Ram truck covered in mud.

I'm able to write all this after leaving a Chamber meeting that RejuveNation LifeSpa sponsored at 7:30 this morning and before the spa fills back up with women at another nightly event tonight.

Right now I sit before my computer and breathe calmly. I know the quiet is short lived, and I am so grateful.

For Amelia....

"You did not come forth to face reality. You came forth to spring off of reality. You came forth to let the reality be the basis from which you take flight.

And that is really what we want you to hear. We want you to be in love with the contrast that produces the desire. And we want you to milk those new desires for everything they are worth.

When you get a new desire, if it is big or if it is small, we want you to fantasize around it and give your attention to it, and take every bit of pleasure you can from the power of your mind knowing that manifestation will follow.

But it is not your manifestation that we are here rooting for. It is your moment-to-moment thrill with the power of your flight."

The above quote is from Abraham-Hicks.

I have been obsessed with flight since September 2004 when I took my virgin flight over the mountains from Aspen to Gunnison, a place where I had held huge dreams for myself. That flight to the dream world of two 18 year olds was a huge awakening for me. My pilot was a former college friend who I hadn't seen in almost twenty years and to be able to fly back to a place where we thought we could do anything and be anyone was intoxicating. We sat in the W Cafe where we had back in 1975 and talked about what had happened between then and 2004. How did we end up being the people we were? How could that have happened?

We plotted and forged and reminisced, and it all felt so naughty and enticing. Could we possibly take a leap? Could we possibly make twists and turns in our present lives to become who we thought we were going to be?

He didn't. I did. He's still in Aspen with the same life. I'm nowhere near Aspen figuratively or literally. I leaped. I went home and set the wheels in motion for a single life far away from where I had buried myself in marriage.

And here it is 2009 and just a few days since I saw the movie about Amelia Earhart. I've ravaged every book I can find about her disappearance, and amazingly enough I find many missing puzzle pieces to my own life that have just created more questions and less answers.

It's flight that is foremost on my mind. I cannot listen to an engine overhead without looking up to check whether it's fixed landing gear, high wing or low wing, twin engine or single. I dream about my hand on the yoke, full throttle, and feel the thrill of the nose wheel lifting from the runway.

I don't know who Amelia was. I don't know myself half the time either, but I do know this: It's the moment of liftoff that is the most exhilarating. The possibilities are limitless. The insignificance of what's on the ground becomes minuscule until it all evaporates in the clouds. I bet Amelia felt it too.

death

It's taking on a new meaning for me lately. Death. Is it really what we think it is?

I had some past life regression sessions with my shaman, Rob Wergin, awhile back, and discovered two major things: watching myself "die" was funny and feeling myself come into this world was the most painful experience I have ever encountered.

I wasn't planning on these concepts being true or even imaginable, but now, right now, I'm seeing how true they really are for me.

I belong to a tribe, a family of amazing beings on this planet. Some of them were in a spiritual cleansing process this week that helped them transition in the most profound way.

Even as I write this I feel the humans around me appalled that I would write what happened in any other way than tragic deaths. The more I feel into the situation, the more I know that the transitions were magnificent and it's our short-sightedness that sees it as anything less. It's our disconnect from who we really are that feels it as anguish instead of the ultimate beauty we all live for. These magnificent beings chose to transition out of their physicality after deep breakthroughs facilitated by a man whose heart is open to his purpose, his vision, and his source.

I do not know all the circumstances, nor do I pretend to, but what I do know is that all happens perfectly no matter what it is. Our struggles deepen when we try to fix things, make sense of things, figure things out. When we just be, when we just show up and live in pure joy, we change the world. We affect the world with our laughter. We brighten the world with our smiles. When we open our hearts to pure love, we have no room for judgments and blame. We open our hearts and we become who we really are. We are the god we're seeking. We are the light we want to be in. We are the changes we want to see. We are it.

The true death is the letting go of self, of outcomes, of results. The true death is knowing that all is perfect, all is whole, and all is now and only. There is no other. We are here right now together. What we see in another is ourselves. What we see in the world around us is what's in our hearts.

So, what I see is love. What I feel is love. What I know is love. That is all. That is everything, and there is nothing else to ponder.

my birthday

Today is my birthday -- again. Thank you to all who celebrated with me. I am so grateful. I've had the time of my life here in McKinney. I mean that with great sincerity. It's partying, networking, moving and shaking like I've never seen before in my life. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've worked my ass off with still so many other things left to do. I've accomplished so much and feel there's still so many more things to fulfill. I've danced and sang, and I still feel there's so much more to sing and dance about. The more I do, the more I want to do. The more I experience, the more experiences I want.

I've awakened after a very deep sleep in my marriage, and then my two short years of cocooning in Steamboat. It was truly an amazing healing process with the shamans I worked with and the family of friends I played with. I am so very, very grateful because when I moved to this town little did I know what the pace would be like on a regular basis. Fast speed has been the predominant speed. Steamboat for me didn't even know that pace existed.

It was slow, especially on the snowy mornings when I would scrape my windshield and brush the feet of snow off my car. (Okay, sometimes inches, but still...)

I am fifty-three this weekend. I turned the new number last night in a bar dancing with friends. Tonight I did the same thing with more friends and more fun. At one place there were disco lights flashing and every single person dancing on the dance floor was dressed to the nines in black. There were many pairs of boobs that didn't move. With my jeans and t-shirt on, I went through that tight circle of black high-end fashion plates and danced with abandon. I laughed and hugged and threw my arms wide open. I flung my head back and laughed. I shook my hair and moved my feet wildly. Those black suits/dresses just looked at me. I didn't have a care in the world. I danced with a man who mirrored my actions. We went crazy. And it was the best fun I've had. I let go and danced. I danced as if no one was watching, but I saw many pairs of eyes on me. I danced anyway. I had a hole in one knee while surrounded by designer black wear. I danced anyway. I was sober, coherent, and alive. I especially danced anyway.

I then went to where I knew I was with my people, a place where there were no designer wear, especially in black. There were jeans and t-shirts and I was grabbed and squeezed, kissed and hugged.

I work hard. I usually work seven days a week even, so to play this wildly for two days in a row, is just downright decadent.

But today is my birthday, and I deserve it. I also deserve to go to bed with my love's arms around me. I deserve to have him nearby so when the hour approaches meal time, he can walk through the spa door and pick me up in his arms and plant kisses on my mouth like he used to. I deserve to have him here with me, to sleep all night with him, to wake up with him, to eat regular meals with him. He used to tell me what a great cook he is. I left the state before he could prove it to me. He also told me he'd give me a massage. We never got to that either. Me being naked always led to something else.

Today is my birthday, and I deserve to wake up in the morning with him lying next to me and kissing me awake. I deserve to be able to look into his eyes more than once a year. I deserve to have him near me, to work with him nearby, and to dance with total abandonment in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by Armani suits and Vera Wang dresses. I deserve to be in his arms and melt into him because that's what I came here for. The trip I'm on now includes him, and I intend him near me because I can, because that's what I desire, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am awesome without him here, and to have him near would make it all that much more full and magical and amazing.

And I deserve it.

one ladybug, one movie, One

I've been having adventures with ladybugs lately. Well, one in particular.

It started one night when a friend stopped by the Gratitude Cafe/RejuveNation LifeSpa to see about going to Cadillac Pizza Pub. She needed to change clothes and drop off her dog. So, off we go to her house where she hands me a book that her landlord had written. I open the book and the first character's name I see is the last name of my guy in Steamboat. My friend sits next to me and I show her the name. I said wouldn't it be cool if I found out while flipping through the pages that his first name is the same as my guy's. As soon as I got that out of my mouth, I turned to a page and right above my thumb is "And his name will be ---------." And yes, it was the same as Bo's real name. Not that the character in the book has the same first and last name as Bo, but there are two characters closely connected throughout the book with both of Bo's names.

Now, I know there are many skeptics in the world who don't see their lives as orchestrated by some masterful maestro, but I don't happen to be one of those. I see my life as an amazing fabric intertwined with everything and everyone I encounter. As a matter of fact, I journaled about this fantastic experience I had had with Bo. As he was talking with me one night I could feel him. From the bottom of my feet to the top of my head, I could feel his energy wrapped up in mine. The best way I can describe it is quiet euphoria. It was tranquil and all encompassing. And it was the feeling of being home, my true home, a home I didn't know existed. I called it oneness in my journal entry. I wrote about how we were not separated by miles because we were one. I could feel him. I could smell him. He and I had merged and there was no separation. We were one. Period.

Now, back to my story. So my friend and I head to Cadillac's where the bartender brings me my Cabernet. As I sit there talking with friends, I look over at the glass and see something crawling along the outside of the glass. It was a ladybug. It flew from the glass to me. It crawled up my arm. Now what's really amazing about that is that we were in the back of the bar and it was packed with people. However, the ladybug got inside the bar, made its way through the mob and landed on my glass out of all the millions of places it could've landed.

I remembered that there was some kind of message about ladybugs in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, so this morning I slid in the DVD and watched.

The main character played by Diane Lane, a writer and newly divorced, moved to Tuscany to begin again. She buys a villa and sets about spiffing it up. She longs for people to fill it, but most importantly she desires an amazing love in her life. Her friend, Katherine, tells her that when she was young she searched and searched for ladybugs until she grew tired and laid down in the field of flowers. When she awoke she found ladybugs all over her. Katherine tells Diane that she needs to let go of the search, be happy right now, and what she desires will appear.

Throughout the movie her wishes do come true, unlike what she thinks, but still... In the last scene she walks around the wedding reception in her yard and is filled up with the love she has for all those present. She realizes her dreams did come true. She does have a family, and she did host a wedding at her house. She lays down on a chaise outside and closes her eyes when a man comes up to her speaking in broken Italian.

She tells him that yes, he found the American writer who lives in Tuscany, and it is she. He bends down and picks up something off her arm. "A ladybug," he tells her, and then says that she reviewed his first book that eventually led to his next book that he redid because of her criticism.

Now, I'm watching this scene. I see the ladybug being picked off her arm. I'm hearing that he's a writer, and I already know that she's a writer, and I'm seeing a lot of similarities between her life and mine (minus the Tuscan villa, but still Bo and I are writers). She asks him his name, and I immediately think oh my god, it can't be the same as Bo's. He says it's Ed. Whew! His name's Ed. Not even close.

This is what I'm thinking as the credits roll and the picture of Ed shows up with the actor's real name. You guessed it -- the same name as my Bo's real name.

I have no idea what any of this means, nor would I even attempt to figure it out. It all is whatever it is. I'm enjoying the stories as they play out, and thrilled to be a part of it all.

And one more thing, the novel that my friend's landlord wrote is published by the same company that's publishing mine.

Okay, and another one more thing -- the title of the book my friend's landlord wrote is One.

Nothing like it.

A lot of people hate rain. I happen to love it. Love, love, love cloudy drizzly days. For some reason sun doesn't appeal to me so much, and lately there has been a lot of rain here in McKinney. I've been in heaven over it. Lovely times on the square with cool breezes and wet awnings. Okay, so we can't sit outside so much, but how much did I sit outside anyway? At night plenty. I love sitting outside after patients and clients have gone and it's just us girls sitting on the gliders outside the French doors talking or just sitting, watching people walk by, having some stop and talk before going on their way.

It's my front porch fetish. Many years ago I built a home with a wrap-around porch. I loved sitting out there almost more than anything else. I took the phone outside and talked with friends. I had my Coronas and lime while watching the sun go down in the back or watching my neighbors come home while sitting in the front. I tended to my roses and then came back to the porch to prop my feet up on the rail and watch the mountains past the field. Hawks would fly overhead. Roosters would noise up across the street, no matter what time of day it was.

And through it all, I planned my escape.

On September 11, 2006 I drove down my driveway in a packed car and a moving van following me. I haven't had a covered porch since.

Until now. And it's so much more fun. I've dealt with insurance companies out there, planned events, and sipped wine with friends. I've listened to the live music inside with the French doors wide open and speakers blasting it down the street.

There's something to be said for front porches. My next home would be lovely with a front porch with a swing where I could sit next to my sweetie, drink wine, kiss, and touch in oh so many ways. Ah, my next venture whenever that comes into play. Right now though, I'm focused on doing what I need to do today. Just today. Finish sending paperwork to our insurance billing agency, rewrite the lyrics to our theme song, reschedule the "Abbey Road" album cover photo shoot, and then go to Cadillac tonight to listen to some great music and dance. There's nothing like it.

Home

Today I've been very sad. It doesn't happen to me very often. My daughter even asked me if I was mad at her. I'm not and never was. It's just so rare that I'm not bubbling with happiness and joy.

Today was different. Today was a culmination of many moments of sadness and all I wanted to do was cry a bit. There's nothing wrong with that. It's an honest and true emotion and I deserved it. I was sad for several reasons, and one I feel is a bit selfish because by my writing about it, I know it will be read by the person I most don't want to read it. I don't want him to be sidetracked by anything, especially me. He's on a roll. He's in the zone, and I want him to stay there. It's an amazing place to be. He's disciplined enough to put me in a compartment that he doesn't think about so he can focus on what he moved to Steamboat to do. I honor that. I so respect that, and still I put in writing something that might alter that just a little.

I'm sad because I'm not with him. I'm sad because I just want to crawl under the sheets and lay with him. There's no place like lying next to him, skin to skin and having his arms wrapped around me. He runs his fingers down my arm and kisses me. I slip a leg over his, and it's just the best feeling I can remember.

I write this knowing that he will probably read this. I also know that he is so disciplined that it won't sidetrack him. I am so happy for him I could just bust. He's doing what he loves. There's just nothing better. Well, maybe doing what he loves and making love with someone he loves would be a bit better.

I told him yesterday that if I had felt this way about him last October when I knew I was moving, I'm not sure a move would have occurred, and I know I am where I belong. So, it's a magnificent thing that I'm here and he's there, but it doesn't keep me from feeling sad sometimes.

If only I could look up from my desk and see him walking through the spa door. If I could walk around the square with him by my side. If we could sit on the couch in Rick's Chophouse bar and drink some wine while listening to Buzz sing. Oh, if only...

I can see him right now sitting in the library typing on his laptop sitting at the table where I first met him almost a year ago. Right now I'm wearing the shirt I had been wearing that day, October 7, 2008. I know what day it was because I opened up a journal of mine and it fell to the page where I was writing and then stopped the entry mid-sentence. Later I wrote that I stopped because a man sat at the table in front of me and we began a conversation. That wasn't all we began. He told me later that he knew when he first saw me that we would make love. Did I know that then? Hm, I know I had high hopes of that happening. I certainly thought about it during our first conversation.

I'm not sad anymore. I am so happy because I remembered that first day I laid eyes on him. I enjoy thinking about him. I relish the memories I have. He is an awesome lover. He told me the last night, actually the morning that I left for McKinney, that he wanted to give me a night I would never forget.

He did. But that's not all that's unforgettable. Neither is he. I even tried. I got involved with someone else, someone I just knew was "the one." Ha! He showed up in town one weekend from his home state and he showed me how disastrous he really was for me. He also showed me how little I really knew about what was good for me, because he truly was everything I thought I wanted. The moment I purged him from my life, I got a call from this kind, gentle, amazing man in Steamboat "out of the blue" and my heart longed for home. I just didn't ever see home as looking like him -- until that phone call.

From the bottom of my heart, I love you, Bo. I love you, I love you, I love you. And I want you to do everything that makes you happy, and if at any point that includes me, what an immense pleasure.

sleeping to dream

To my Bo, thank you for showing up in my life like you do over and over again at just the right moments. I will see you in my dreams.

more about "sleeping to dream", posted with vodpod

The true meaning of ease and grace

My life continues to amaze me. I met a man last fall right before moving to McKinney. I had been so focused on my new life in a new place that after a few weeks here, I hardly thought of him at all. Instead I chose to fill up my moments with new people and new adventures moment after moment after moment. I was not disappointed.

And lately, all that has shifted. His name shows up as a new friend's son's name, as a name being spoken on TV during my rare times of turning it on, and lastly on my Steamboat key ring that I had been given when first moving there three years ago. I looked at the ring and all the letters had been rubbed off but the two that spelled his name -- Bo.

And he reappeared last June right after an amazing purging of a relationship. Out of the blue, he called. We reconnected as if time had not elapsed since our last conversation six months earlier.

This relationship has been calm and nurturing, loving and so very, very kind. It's been peaceful and warm and oh so lovely. There's never been any drama or accusations or blame. God, it's just been so very, very wonderful. And because of that, because it's been so different from anything else I've ever had, I didn't put much stock in its lasting effect. It's been nearly a year since we first met, and it's still one of those amazing gifts that I enjoy opening over and over.

He recently presented me with one of those gifts during our phone conversations. In the midst of the conversation -- him being at the OldeTown Pub in Steamboat Springs, Colorado drinking and watching some game on the screen, he uttered these words so smoothly: I love you. I love you. I love you.

The words flowed to me like a sweet wisp of a cloud. From head to toe, I felt his energy, and it just felt good. The words were this continual stream of effortless energy that flowed back and forth between us. Ahhh...it was that easy for someone to love me and me love him back. It was just that easy. No explosive fireworks or clanging bells or oh my god he said those three words. It was just warm, sweet, wonderful, and very, very right. It felt like something that I had been waiting for all along that showed up even though I didn't know I was missing it.

When we told each other how we felt, how we missed each other, how we loved each other, it was as if the whole of me became even fuller, more saturated with ease and grace. I felt more capable of loving others. I felt freer to love all more openly.

This is what I've never felt before with another man, the ability to love larger, to love more about others, to freely express my feelings and emotions about anyone and not be hindered or scrutinized.

To love Bo is freeing, free-flying, floating free. It's limitless, airless, and oh so easy. Why did I not recognize this until now? Maybe I was never truly ready for ease until now. Now it's crazy if it's not easy, and I've discovered that real ease is between my ears no matter what's going on around me.

And the magic continues...

Another day in McKinney at The RejuveNation LifeSpa. Honestly, I don't know what to say. I don't know what words are capable of emitting the emotion that I feel at the moment. I am in awe. I am grateful. I am speechless.

Two of my most favorite people in the world showed up here tonight to do a night of trance dancing -- dancing to tribal drumming while blindfolded. Since I had already done it, I helped Silky spot those who were dancing without physical sight. You read that right -- Silky. I love that name. Silky Hart. It not only fits her perfectly but describes her so well too. I watched her dance tonight, and the movements were silky, flowing, effortless, and so graceful. She showed me how fluidity in her body exposed how open and natural she is, so allowing of others to be who they are in the moment, so open to the world of all possibilities and basking in the glow of immense abundance. She glowed with radiance as her hands flowed through the air as she swayed to the beat of the drumming. She was art at its best.

And my other favorite person is Silky's husband Tom. He set up his speakers and drums and soothed us into the beat of the music. Thank you, Tom and Silky, for being a part of my dreams coming true. I am so grateful to the two of you and to all who participated with us tonight. It was truly a night of magic at The RejuveNation LifeSpa.

I showed up here in McKinney last fall to spend my daughter's birthday with her and moved here just two weeks later. A beautiful, gracious, and loving man helped me move without once saying a derogatory word, not once did he utter a syllable of negativity. He packed me up. He moved my studio into the UHaul and then gave me the time of my life. He didn't want me to move, but he didn't say a word about it the whole time he carried boxes down the stairs to the truck. Instead, he helped me go down a path that unfolded my dreams.

And here I am in McKinney, Texas watching those dreams come to life every second I just show up. RejuveNation LifeSpa is magic. We all felt it tonight. People walk by tonight with the doors open and walk in. They tell me they feel it in here. They feel the magic. I do too. It's the magic of knowing I'm okay no matter what. I'm leaping and the net appears over and over and over. The right people and situations walk through the doors every day. I open the doors and dreams unfold. My dreams. The dreams I would've never dreamed before I knew how magical life really is.

So, thank you to all who helped make this happen for me. To my daughter, Dr. Alyssa Summey, you are my greatest gift, my wildest dream come true, and the most magnificent magic. You've taught me to believe in who I really am. Thank you.

Thank you to all who showed up tonight to play in my dream. It was so fun being with you and feeling the love in that room. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

To Tom and Silky. You are the light I choose to be.

And to Bo, thank you for trusting in me, knowing that I was embarking on a necessary journey and believing that our time apart would be temporary. In the meantime, thank you for everything. Absolutely everything. I breathe you in and it is delicious.

Sculpted Memories

I'm sitting here in The Gratitude Cafe where for once it's quiet, and I'm alone. This doesn't happen much because everybody stops in here. There are a lot of people walking around the square right now and pausing every time they pass the French doors.

Right now neon colored 30s are hanging all around the room because Maria Alvarez is throwing herself a birthday party tonight. All those making the preparations just took off to go to Sauce for dinner. This is a fascinating concept to me considering there's a dining room table here filled with food and coolers overflowing with alcohol. Really, I'd be scratching my head at the moment if my fingers weren't so busy typing.

Maria's iPod is playing Barry White right now. It zooms my thoughts right to my conversation with a lovely man this morning. We haven't known each other very long, but from the moment we met there was a real knowingness that something was different about our connection. From the very first time he turned to me and struck up a conversation there was a spark that ignited.

We sculpted beautiful memories together the month before I moved from Steamboat Springs, Colorado to McKinney, Texas, and then the phone calls fell away. My life took off with lightning speed with exciting new adventures. I started new careers, travelled, took amazing workshops with James Arthur Ray, got caught up in a rapturous 5-minute long distance consumption with a man, and the moment I knew it was over, this beautiful man from Steamboat called me after not hearing from him for 6 months.

There are many memories that make me catch my breath, but the main one is the view I had from underneath his firm body and watching the muscles in his arms as he came toward me. Every time that memory flashes in my mind, I forget to breathe.

In a very short time we packed a lot of opportunities to be together, new experiences, new ways of pleasure, and wonderful ways of just being with one another. The images are so vivid that it makes my arms ache to slide them around his back and bury my head against his chest. Ah, that chest, that wonderful, luscious chest. Sometimes the ache surfaces when I least expect it, like when I'm serving champagne to a wedding party or calling an insurance company for a patient's benefits. It feels like a knot twisted in my heart and tears spring into my eyes. I don't have to even be thinking about him. I don't need to be feeling anything but tremendous joy when all of a sudden it lights up in my heart, and I hurt. And just for a moment, or longer, it seems I'd give anything to lie in his arms once again.

Icing on the cake

When I wake up in the mornings, I never know what I'm going to experience throughout the day. I'm always so amazed as it unfolds. Here's my day so far:

I awoke to my daughter's phone, her dog licking my face, and when I looked at my daughter, I saw her lying on top of the covers fully clothed with boots still on. The clock read 8:39. Welcome to my world.

The dog pounced on me, grabbing an arm in his mouth. I struggled to get up, tripping over him as I made my way to the bathroom. Finally, we headed out the door with an empty jug to fill with happy water and leash in hand.

After he took care of his morning business, we headed over to another apartment where a dear friend lives. She supplies me with what we lovingly call our happy water made from a Kangen filter. She so graciously made us coffee while the dog sniffed around the apartment, and before we knew it, we were cackling like high school girls. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus for happy water! There's nothing like it in coffee. I tell you what, that combination makes you feel like you've never left the Garden of Eden! One sip of that tasty brew and there are just no cares in the world.

After my daughter and I got dressed and ready to go out the door, we headed to her spa in downtown McKinney on the square. She took care of a morning patient and then laid down on the couch in the Gratitude Cafe, complaining about not feeling so great after her late night out with the Dallas Defenders, Dallas area law enforcement and firefighters football team. She's the team doctor. I told her she needed a bloody Mary. We were on a mission -- finding a bloody Mary on the square at 11:00 on a Friday morning. Thank goodness for Sauce and bartender Jason because it was taken care of in minutes. I ran into friends who joined us. We ended up having lunch and drinking -- her bloody Mary and my coffee.

Now, she's at The Ritz getting her hair done, and I just got off the phone with Natalie, a friend of mine who works at the history museum down the block. I need information on the history of the building that houses my daughter's Rejuvenation LifeSpa. I'm spending the night in a haunted tea shop tomorrow night with ghost hunters and a Dallas Morning News reporter. The reporter wanted me to see if there's any history to my daughter's office building worth reporting about. You know the typical historical information like was anyone killed here, any ghost sightings, was this a saloon or brothel, or just any typical information that would be listed in historical documents. Yeah, right. And I thought working for a shaman before moving here was different. I see now that working in his office was the only way I would be prepared for living here. What a frickin' trip this life is!

I just received a phone call from another friend who I'm working with tomorrow morning catering a wedding for 50 at an historical building in town. So, after being here in the spa today, I'll be heading over to the haunted tea shop to prepare meals for tomorrow morning. And after that is a wild night at Cadillac Pizza Pub with a local band if I'm not too tired. Because another thing I've learned in this journey called life is that sometimes there's just nothing better than a wonderfully comfy bed with my daughter's dog curled up next to me. Really, everything else is icing on the cake.

Life is but a dream...

I can hardly believe it's been so long since I've blogged. I have a dear friend who even said he'd fix my virus-ridden computer so that I could get back to my blogs. How sweet is that? However, at the moment, my laptop is busy scanning for viruses, my daughter's with one of her last patients for the night, so I'm on her computer finally writing like I love to. I miss being a writer when I don't act like one, that's for sure. And it is a bit difficult to keep myself focused on my writing when there's commotion going on around me. I can do many things at once, but staying focused on my writing while also listening for a cue to get up and work is not really working so well for me right now.

So, what I want to really write about is this extraordinary experience I had Monday night with my warrior group, six of us united from a James Arthur Ray event last March. If you don't know what James can do for you, Google him. He's amazing, and my experiences with him continue to change my life, especially with my warrior family last Monday.

Our "assignment" was to speak and act as we wish we were. When I jumped in on the teleconference I was hearing about vacations, world traveling, book tours, working with the White House, etc. I got so caught up in it all that it became more real to me than what looked real before getting on the phone. All of a sudden I wasn't thinking about my bills or work left undone. I was in Switzerland enjoying a little down time after traveling the globe opening more RejuveNation LifeSpas and promoting my books. They were chiming in with questions and anecdotes that went along with what I was saying. The more we talked the more I believed. The more questions they asked, the more I believed. I knew I could do all that I was saying I was doing. It was an amazing little exercise that made me understand what James has been teaching all along. Focus on your vision and not what you see with your eyes. That's the real secret. Live from the outcome. Live your dreams to make them real. Give them form. Stay focused on that, not on what others think or say. What do you care? It's your life. These are your dreams. Live them. Be them. After all, life is but a dream.

God in The Gratitude Cafe

I met God in The Gratitude Cafe on July 16th. He came through the French doors wearing a white linen shirt, blue jeans, and black boots. He held his sunglasses in his hand, and he had the most beautiful head of gray hair I've ever seen on a man. He swooped through the door, across the room, and right up to the counter where my daughter and I were sitting. He leaned toward us and said, "Please tell me that the transformation of this place has just happened in the last week or so."

My heart has not beat the same since.

I knew immediately he was from my planet. We spoke the same language. He proved it over and over with every word he spoke. He even admitted being from my planet. I knew he was God. He told me that yes, indeed he was. I knew he had to be because I'd just seen Jesus in an ad on Facebook about finding my soulmate for those of us over fifty. Jesus looked really good, but God stole my heart. Ah...

He stayed long enough for me to find out his real name is Steve and he's very knowledgeable about computers and was too young to go to Woodstock. He also grew up in a drug store because that was where his father worked. He went to a local high school. I don't remember which one, but he bowed to me when I told him I was a Lynch grad. I knew then he must really be God.

Just as suddenly as he had swept into RejuveNation LifeSpa, he just as quickly sped away to see Bonnie at Orison's on the square. I gave him my daughter's card and told him about our next event this coming Friday. He loved what I'd done to scratch out her old address. I told him that if he looked at his name in the mirror it'd spell dog. He barked.

So, is God the most handsome male version of Cinderella? At the stroke of some time on the clock he fled to a shop on the square because he had to, and I haven't seen him since. Unfortunately, he didn't even leave one of his black boots behind. There is no sign of his existence. No one I've talked to even knows who he is except one person, the owner of Mama Emilia's, and he told me that God is married to Cindy and they walk their black lab around the square all the time. God did not have on a wedding ring, and I've never seen him walk the square. Ever. And I've seen plenty of couples walk a black lab around the square, but I don't know if their names are Steve and Cindy. And if there really is a God who's name is Steve and he's married to Cindy and they walk their black lab around the square, all I have to say is that Cindy is damn lucky.

A well-traveled road

As soon as it was time to go to college, I left the state I'd spent most of my life in -- Texas. I fled to Colorado. It was a place I had thought about and dreamed about for years. My every waking moment was spent fantasizing about living there. I imagined everything I'd do, how I'd live, and who I'd love. Ask anyone who knew me during high school. John Denver and Colorado were all I ever talked about.

Looking back on those 14-year-old's memories, I realize how few of those fantasies came true. So, what's up with all this hype about the law of attraction -- we attract to us that which we think and feel about? I thought it; I felt it; and I still didn't move to Aspen and become friends with John Denver. That was probably my biggest fantasy. I wanted to travel with him, to help run his show in some way. I didn't know what that would be. I didn't care. I just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could work and travel with this man.

After moving to Gunnison, Colorado for college, I took guitar lessons and learned how to play John Denver songs. I probably still have the music somewhere for "The Eagle and The Hawk." I was a music major playing the piano, and John Denver was not allowed in those classical music halls. Confined in my small room with a captive piano I would play for hours -- Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, but never John Denver.

I was sitting in a room alone with a piano instead of outside in the Rocky Mountains that John would sing about. I was running my hands up and down a keyboard playing a long-dead musician's piece instead of picking "Rocky Mountain High" beside a river. I would spend hours and hours in a confined room playing the same arpeggios instead of traveling with a band that introduced John Denver to an audience so many nights on the road.

It didn't matter. I knew so strongly that this would come true that I didn't waiver. I kept playing until I was asked to leave the program for lack of a tolerable singing voice and for being tone deaf. I picked up my pen instead and became a writer. I ended up with a degree in English. I use it every day.

One of the first guys I met in Gunnison was from the Aspen area. I even hitchhiked to his mother's house my freshman year and spent the weekend with him there. He was a friend that I never forgot over the years. When I ran away from home with a six-year old daughter, I ran to him, and then again 18 years later when I struggled with a failing marriage and a buried identity.

Just a few short years ago in 2004, I left Boulder county where I was living to go to a symposium in Snowmass near Aspen. The symposium was put on by a John Denver foundation called Windstar. I never made it to the symposium, but I got reacquainted with my college friend. He flew me back to Gunnison where we'd met. We walked the main street where we'd been all those years ago. We talked about all the places we'd gone to there, the people we'd befriended, and what happened in those buildings. But most importantly, while walking down the street we remembered who we once were and who we thought we'd be. It was painful to see the incongruency in it all. It was a turning point, a defining moment for me like none other. It was my 48th birthday, and I was so disappointed with who I'd become.

The dichotomy of who I dreamed I could be and who I had become was such a chasm, I couldn't fathom a way to make it to the side I wanted to be on. The distinction between the two were so evident, so in my face, that it was too painful to not do something about it.

The drive back to Boulder county that day took me two extra hours and I don't remember it at all. I never stopped thinking about how I had to make changes. I didn't know how; I just knew I had to, and one of the first things I wanted to do was learn to fly. My Aspen friend flew me over the Maroon Bells and Pyramid Peak to Gunnison, and it seemed the world opened up to me. There was something inside that blossomed and turned me into someone who could no longer be that simple wife that did what it took to keep peace (in an angry sort of way).

Taking flying lessons was out of the question, according to my then husband. To me the only thing out of the question was to continue being his wife. So, after 27 1/2 years I became single again. After living near Denver and Boulder for all those years, I went back to the mountains in search of me. I went back to the mountains to hibernate for a couple of years and grow into someone I could be proud of.

One of the first people I met was a shaman that I worked with for months before finding out that he and John Denver had been good friends. We worked together in Aspen for a while, driving from Steamboat every week. I met many John Denver friends that way. I still get calls from them. And then last September I took a 5-day workshop with one of John's dearest friends, Tom Crum, on the Journey to Center. It was a John Denver lovefest. There were many participants that had been good friends of John's. I heard so many stories about him. We listened to his music, and his energy was so prevalent that it was palpable.

Within weeks of that workshop, I had moved back to Texas.

So, did all that visualizing/fantasizing mean nothing? Did I really not have my dreams come true? Did I not travel with John?

In the past when I've declared something as mine -- visualizing it and claiming it with affirmations, vision boards, etc. -- it has always shown up, but just not how I think. I've traveled all my adulthood with John Denver. I moved to Colorado in 1974 because of him. I spent many nights in the Aspen area because of him, and I moved back to Texas because of him. Every major event in my life has had a John Denver connection. Every trip back to Aspen has been a defining moment for me. Every experience there and every experience with his friends have helped shape my life into what it is today.

I thought I'd be lugging around guitars with a backstage pass around my neck. I thought I'd be hearing his music live from behind the stage. Instead, I heard him within. I followed the tiny nudges that kept leading me to the next step, and those steps led me to McKinney, Texas in 2008, 34 years after leaving Texas the first time.

I've learned to make my wishes known to the universe. To voice them in the ways I know how and then allow the events to unfold as beautifully and perfectly as they always have. I've learned to wake up to the possibilities in every moment and see the finer connection to all that there is. It's a lovely way to live. I am so grateful. Thank you, John. It's been a well-traveled road back.

What's time got to do with it?

Seriously, today's July 9th. Honest to God, how did that happen? Not to mention that it's 2009. I'm tired of this time thing. Can't we just do away with it once and for all? Can't we go to work whenever we feel like it? Same thing with eating and sleeping? What if we ran our lives by internal clocks instead? Actually, what if we ran everything in our lives from an internal barometer instead of any external ones?

For instance, I awoke this morning to water dripping from the bathroom ceiling. That's after planning a day filled with "have-to" things because of the direction my life has been going. Alyssa has her first open mic night at the new digs so there's a lot to go into preparing for it. Cyndy and I just got two parties to cater to today and in between prep time and serving time, we were going to go over a plan on how we could make a catering business work between us.

But then I awoke to water dripping from the ceiling.

Did I mention that the shelf in the closet fell and clothes are stacked on the couch, boxes filled with shoes, hats, and belts stashed in every extra space? My art supplies are in every corner possible. And surely I've mentioned that I'm working on an art project for Working Mother Media that needs to be sent to NYC as soon as possible, so my sewing machine, cutting materials, ironing board, and boxes of fabric are filling the kitchen and living room. Right now I'm propped on the end of the couch with my laptop on my knees typing in the dark, because Alyssa's fallen asleep on the couch sitting up. She stayed up last night working on things for her office space. She was there late with the electrician, a dear friend so generous to do the work, and then came home preparing for today.

I don't think I lasted being vertical much past midnight even with a couple of cups of coffee. I was working on my art, but when it comes to using the sewing machine I really need to be fully functioning. I can screw things up when I'm overly tired. And my machine's been with me longer than most relationships, and it knows when I've had enough. It will just stop working, and it did very early this morning. It kept breaking threads, and I just called it a night.

When I finally got ready for bed, it seemed to me that the bathroom ceiling was still in one piece. It was between then and when I was awakened by dripping water, that the ceiling became less dense. It's got a nice line running through it with three holes that drip water. Alyssa called maintenance right away -- a 1-866 number -- and talked with someone from India. She told them that it was an emergency. They asked where she was. Not what apartment number but what apartment complex in what state and in what town. They said they'd get right over.

From India? From what state and from what town?

Just a few weeks ago, we would've been able to go to a very wonderful man in the main building and tell him what the problem is. He would've taken care of it, but now everything goes through corporate and apparently corporate operates out of India as does every other U.S. corporation that's still intact. No, I know they don't "operate" out of India, but it's their contract labor in India that we as consumers have to deal with.

So, how long do you suppose it's going to take to get maintenance here to fix a dripping ceiling and reinstall a shelf in the closet? Well, we'll see. Let's just hope that when they arrive, I'm here to take the dog out with me, because there's no one coming in here as long as he's here alone.

But didn't this posting start out talking about time and internal barometers instead of external ones controlling how our days are being spent? And just where was I going with that concept? Oh, who knows...my external surroundings are playing way too big a role in my consciousness right now to go any deeper. The internal workings are just going to have to work without me for a while. Right now I will just master going with the flow of wherever this river takes me. (Thanks, Silky, for that metaphor this morning!)

The best fourth of July ever...

Before I get into what I want to write about I have to say that I am sooo grateful for the rain and the 82 degrees. When was the last day that it didn't get up to 100? I hear people say that this hot weather is so unusual for this area, and all I want to say is: "THAT'S WHY I LEFT HERE IN '74! IT'S FRICKIN' HOT!" Okay, now that I've said that, I feel so much better and ready to blog about my night last night.

What a very happy fourth and fifth of July it was/is. First of all, my hat's off to Broken Code. You guys, rock. Seriously, do you not get how great you are??? I've heard each of the band members at Cadillac's, but I don't recall hearing all of them play together until last night. Where have you guys been hiding? If I'd had my camera I'd be posting pictures of the great time we had.

They were gracious enough to ask Alyssa and me to get on stage with them and sing, dance, and bang on things (like a tambourine). Hopefully, the music drowned out our voices. There are many things I'd have to say that my daughter and I are great at, but I know for a fact, that our singing abilities really suck. However, once I have a couple of glasses of red wine in me, I can do just about anything and not care. So, all you at Dodie's last night in Allen, I apologize if my voice really did come out on the mic. That was not my intention. I didn't know the mic was on. (yeah right)

I loved dancing and singing to Mustang Sally and Sweet Home Alabama, and I had no idea anyone could play Santana like they did last night except for Santana. I was mesmerized by the guitars and foot pedals that went with them. I majored in music back in the middle ages and I had no idea that there were foot pedals with guitars. Rod and Bob had millions of them. So, there they were picking and strumming with their hands, and their feet were tapping on these pedals. What? When did guitars come with pedals? I had no idea. It opened up a whole new world for me. With my big ol' piano a few hundred years ago, I only had three pedals and they had no lights flashing at me to let me know if my chords were in tune. Rod's and Bob's pedals had red and green lights to let them know if the chords they were playing were in tune, and digital numbers even came up to let them know which chords they were playing. C'mon, how cool is that? Gotta love technology...

I haven't shaken any tambourines in years and to be able to get myself up on stage last night at the age of 52 and shake my money maker was just plain fun. I want to thank Dr. Jim Johnston for a lovely night of food and drink, my daughter, Dr. Alyssa Summey, for playing with me, and to Broken Code -- Alan, Bob, Rod, and Phil, for just letting me play with them. It was a wannabe rock star's dream come true. I certainly hope you guys will let me do it again. I promise not to stick my mouth so close to the mic.

Roots

Today was by far one of the most amazing times of my life. I found myself saying yes to staying here, at least for now.

Since my divorce, I've realized how little I feel the need to commit -- to anything. I love being free and loose with no mortgage and no rent. Until today. Today I sat in Lavender House with seven other women brainstorming about how we can work together and how we can add more value to each other's passions. It was a beautiful way to spend my day. It was lovely. It was like none other, and isn't it amazing that I have had so many of those amazing days since being single, especially since moving to McKinney, Texas?

I intend to be happy and joyful with whatever shows up and know that it's all so perfect no matter what it looks like. This is my one remaining intention. All other goals and intentions have slipped away. Since living my life like this, the most beautiful experiences and people have flowed into my life. Every day is this glorious new adventure that just astounds me with its magical unfolding.

It started when I chose to follow my intuition even though it seemed stupid. A few years ago I had built my dream home with my husband of 25 years at that time. I had a 1200 square foot studio to create in all day and night. I had a balcony built outside the glass sliding doors so I could take my afternoon coffee breaks overlooking the Colorado mountains. There were 40 acres of open space behind me, and in Boulder County that was sacred. Never would a fence be put up alongside it much less any developments. It was pristine and wonderful, and I felt incredibly lonely and in the wrong place with the wrong man, and I was miserable.

Within 2 years I moved to Steamboat Springs because I walked through an open door. I never intended to be in Steamboat. Only knew two people who lived there. What few memories I had of Steamboat were not good ones at all, but I showed up anyway. There seemed to be no logic to this move, but somehow it felt right and it flowed, so I did it.

Two years later I knew why. I made incredible friends and family there, and my growth was exponential. I never put down roots there. I never even made a utilities payment there. I had nothing but a checkbook with my post office box there. I did rent studio space, but I signed on for only a year. I didn't even last that long. I knew it was a short visit, but it was long enough to fall in love with several people and carry them now in my heart.

Last September for my birthday I was given a massage and intuitive reading from a couple of women in Steamboat. I got my session with them somewhere around the first of October. The intuitive told me that I had a man in my energy field. He was so close, and all I had to do was allow him in. She told me that I needed to be more fully me, to feel good in my own skin, and to live who I was. That would bring him forth. She told me I was to wear bright colors because it made me feel good instead of always throwing on the nearest pair of jeans and sweatshirt. She also told me that I needed to leave Steamboat. That one I already knew, but she told me that going where my daughter was would be the ideal spot. I just about came off the massage table on that one, because I had no intention of going back to Dallas. Ever.

The next day I wore a brightly colored shirt and beads and met a man in the library. A little over a month later I moved to Dallas area to be with my daughter. I'm still in touch with the man, and my daughter, Dr. Alyssa Summey, and I are in the midst of an amazing business venture. What's the most miraculous thing though is that I want to put down roots here.

Alyssa left her previous office space to move into one in the square in downtown McKinney. Within 2 weeks what she had been promised fell through and the men involved said they were moving out. That left her with a huge space and a large rent.

But then the real players showed up.

It's still unfolding, but there are many wonderful women coming into our lives wanting to play with us in the most remarkable ways. The miracles that follow are too numerous to count. Every moment is one of awe. It feels as if every breath I ever took has led to this one. That this is what I've been waiting for, and what this is is still an untold story. Right now it looks like everything I ever dreamed of.

And it's a lot of work. It's just the beginning and I foresee many sleepless nights. Already my car's filled with stuff to move in the new space. And it's just the beginning. Did I already mention that?

I'm not afraid of hard labor. I welcome it because it means the beginning of a dream come true.

I'm finally willing to commit to something. I'm finally willing to put down roots. And I'm willing to do it all knowing that the need to move on may show up again.

For all who don't know, we are in the midst of a cold front here in McKinney, Texas. It's 9:37 in the morning and only 82 degrees. I'm looking for my jacket. Wherever did I put my jeans?

The reason I'm looking for clothes at all (and not that it's necessary to wear jeans and jacket right now) is that a shelf in the closet came crashing down and everything needs to be taken out of it to make room for the necessary repairs. The first thing I told my daughter, Alyssa, was that we'd need to patch it. She looks at me like I'm speaking a different language. "Mom," she said, "that's what maintenance is for."

Now, this really hit me. I've been a homeowner most of my life. I'm used to taking care of all the repairs. I either did it myself or had the numbers at the ready of those who could do it for me. What a concept to just call maintenance and they come and fix it and you don't pay for it. This renting thing is nice. Why hadn't I thought of it before?

Do you know how long it's been since I've pulled a weed or watered flower beds? How many years ago was it that I painted my porch railing summer after summer? With a wraparound porch, it took most of the summer too.

Renting, it's a lovely concept. If I want to move, I don't have to put anything on the market and pray for a quick sale.

Really, this is fascinating. I have so much more time because it's not my responsibility to take care of a house and yard anymore. I'm not in charge of those chores anymore. I can put my energy into things that matter to me. This is such a wild concept to me that I'm just reveling in it right now. Even though I haven't been a homeowner in a couple of years, this is the first time something has occurred that needed repairs, and I didn't have to make them. Sweet mother of god, why didn't someone tell me sooner that I didn't have to be responsible???

I feel years younger, more vibrant, and ready to take on the world because I'm not responsible.

I've been responsible since I can remember. Responsibility has weighed heavily on me, and because of it I took life seriously. I took myself seriously. I felt it necessary to figure everything out, how we were going to pay bills, how we were going to take time off for seminars, where our daughter was going to school, how she was going to get there...

Ahhhh, now I breathe. Now I just sit here on this monstrous couch knowing that maintenance is called and all I need do is breathe. Life is not serious. I'm not serious. It's all a game. It's all just fun. Okay, so the flea thing wasn't fun, but it has been my intention to clear things out of my life, and guess what? I got the opportunity to do just that when fleas showed up on the cutest puppy in the world that just happens to be living with me. Actually, I live with him. He and my daughter were here first and I showed up .

Now back to the "cold front."

My computer is still set at Steamboat Springs, Colorado time and weather, so when I open my yahoo account, I get to see 45 degrees as the current weather. I can even almost believe it until I open the front door to the apartment and am hit by the oven-like atmosphere. I'll be talking with a friend from Steamboat who tells me how hot it is there, and I glance at my computer to see the 72 degrees listed. I'm telling you, though, that temperature can feel really hot. I know. What Colorado doesn't have is the humidity. I knew how fortunate I was to live without it for 34 years, but chose instead to jump back into it last November. Back then Texas felt really good when Steamboat was getting hit with snow again, but now? I don't think I can say anything more than how great it feels to be able to call maintenance when something in the apartment needs to be fixed.

No way to begin a day

My daughter gets out of bed this morning telling me that she felt fleas on her. This, my friends, is no way to begin your day. It meant hauling everything into the kitchen, vacuuming, and then spraying the carpet and furniture after going out in 100 degree weather to get spray for the carpet and flea drops for the dog. Before spraying the carpet though, I had to first scrub the dog down and leave the flea shampoo on for five minutes. He was a happy, happy boy about that, let me tell you.

After moving everything into the kitchen and vacuuming the carpet, I sprayed it, leaving myself a trail to get out of Dodge. I had to be gone for two hours. We were gone for three.

My daughter's a chiropractor, Dr. Alyssa Summey, and she was at her office talking to new practitioners who want to rent space from her. She's developing a wellness clinic on the square in McKinney and getting it operational as soon as possible. The front of the clinic will house a cafe for healthy snacks and beverages, lending library, games, internet, classes and lectures at night with maybe some poetry slams and writing and art classes thrown in too. We're putting together something that is like nothing we've seen before. Can't wait to get started on it this week. It's going to be rockin' the square. Woo hoo!

Before July is out, it should be up and running smoothly. We'll have tables and chairs inside and out. It will be the happening place on the square. Can't wait! I'll be a barista extraordinaire, at least that's what I'm saying today.

So, back to the flea party at the homestead...

I scooted out of Dodge in the still 100 degree weather and headed to Alyssa's office where she was finishing up with Cindy Goldman, a sound healer and yoga instructor. The dog was flying through the big office space chasing a fly. Hey, he was clean and cute doing it.

I was just happy to get off my feet.

Alyssa treated me to Cafe Malaga's tapas and iced tea. I had no idea how hungry I was. I had the Sampler Platter with pita and three different kinds of dips. Yum. Alyssa dove into salmon and spinach. Everything tasted great, and the place was packed. When we were done we took a walk with the dog around the older neighborhood near the square. I'll have to go back there and take some pictures of some of those houses because I've never seen anything like them. It was so wonderful looking at homes that were so lovingly cared for. It just felt good to be in the neighborhood.

So now, the carpet got vacuumed again before the dog was allowed back in, the quilt and sheets are in the laundry, and everything is moved out of the kitchen. However, it's 10:37 at night and I can't go to bed. There are no clean sheets yet. I can hardly keep my eyes open, and for the life of me I have no idea what it is I've just typed.

I am so grateful

I awoke this morning to a phone call from a dear, sweet friend telling me about her nephew's accident. She asked if my chiropractor daughter, Dr. Alyssa Summey, could phone her sister, the mother, and give her information about what her son's doctors were suggesting.

After telling my daughter about this request, she told me about her friend/patient that was broadsided by an SUV while driving his motorcycle after leaving her office on Monday. He was airlifted to a hospital in Dallas where he still is.

These two events helped me remember how grateful I am for every single person in my life, how very precious they are to me, and for all the greatness that is showered on me every moment.

I am so grateful.

I got a beautiful email from a man who has altered my life significantly. When I opened up yahoo and saw his name there, tears came to my eyes. He's Tom Crum, an amazing being who taught me so much last September at his Journey to Center workshop. I feel the effects of his teachings daily. Thank you, Tom, from the bottom of my heart for blessing my life with your gracious teachings.

I am so grateful.

And then I met a friend, Michelle Barr, I'd lost touch with for coffee this morning. We poured our hearts out over coffee and tea, and suddenly the day was brighter and lighter. We took a tour back to my daughter's office on the square so she could look at the potential use of the office space for herself. We ran into another piece of the puzzle, Molly Jones of Molly J & Co. and ended up having lunch together and discussing the vibrant connection and possible joint ventures of business on the square.

I am so grateful.

I received a phone call from an Aspen friend who was a close friend of John Denver's, as was Tom Crum. After that conversation, I turned on my computer to see John Denver on my FB page. I am blessed with serendipity and miracles. John Denver always has shown up in my life during a major change. I look forward to seeing what's next.

I am so grateful.

I opened my email and read a long one from a beau, and it hurt to read his pain, but also felt good knowing that what he's suffering through cleanses him in the end. It'll bring him into such beautiful light. One day.

I am so grateful.

Tonight I fixed a delicious chicken dinner for my wonderful daughter before we leave to check out another office space. We're planning on going to Lone Star Winery for glasses of red wine, before heading over to Cadillac's to hear our favorite local musicians.

I am so grateful.

A whole new world

Sipping my second cup of coffee before heading to cater a wedding today. A wedding on father's day, on summer solstice, on Sunday. It's going to be in an historic building where I helped cater a fashion show. McKinney has a section of town that has only historical buildings that have been renovated. It's called Chestnut Square. On Saturday mornings in the summer Farmer's Market is located over there. And this afternoon there's a wedding reception. Woo hoo!


I'm headed over to the kitchen where I'll help prepare food before hauling it over Chestnut Square with some friends. For someone who never made a kitchen her room of choice, it's rather humorous that I'm spending so much time in one lately. And loving it, I might add.


My life here in McKinney, Texas seems like a long play date. I've spent a life of working and working some more, but not always enjoying what I'm doing. For some reason, and I wish I could clarify it better, McKinney seems to be where people go to enjoy what they do. There's always a reason to party. There's always time to celebrate, and there's always, always, always reasons to hug. Oh my gosh, this is one hugging town. And kissing. These practices need to be added to the constitution, but I suppose making them law takes away the spontaneity.


My friend, Cyndy Long, is the one that introduced me to the kitchen concept. I am 52 years old and am now spending time in the kitchen. At least on some days. Not very often. I don't want to give the impression that this is a regular gig because it's not. I just happen to be doing a bit more of it lately. There's a Red Hat's Society gig on Tuesday and on July 3rd, there's a very small party that I'm doing by myself.


And, by the way, for all those who have known me forever, I haven't burned a single thing. I have dropped a tray of scones, but burned nothing. I haven't even set off smoke alarms. This, my friends, is a record. I've been told that the world is shifting, that everything is different now. Well, what I've done in the kitchen lately is proof of that. It's a whole new world. I'm telling you.

Could it be magic?

I just took a look at my blog and saw something really interesting. I was going to post something totally different until I viewed the blog and saw what I saw. To the right of the post is a list of the other blogs I follow. The top one is Care to Kid? and her post title is: "Unless the Dreamer is the Real You." Right below that is Freshness Factor Five Thousand with the post title: "How can you sleep at a time like this?"


For those of you who are not Jason Mraz fans like I am, you won't get the significance of those two titles and one of the posts' author. Jason has a song out called "Make it Mine." He starts out singing: "Wake up everyone. How can you sleep at a time like this unless the dreamer is the real you?"


Here's another interesting factoid about those two aforementioned posts, Freshness Factor Five Thousand is written by Jason Mraz. Hm...


Just felt the need to write this because it was so apparent when I opened my blog. It was something so profound to me, but may mean nothing at all to you. However, I guess it shows how much I live by signs in my life. I notice a lot. Synchronicities are so evident to me, and this happened to be one of them that hit me upside the head today. What does it mean? Who knows? I've also learned not to even attempt to interpret signs because 9 times out of 10 I'm off the mark. I think signs show up in my life to offer the temptation to try to figure things out when all I'm really meant to do is show up and be present for whatever's in front of me.


So, what's in front of me today? Well here's a thought. I might be going back to Steamboat for a little trip soon. I spent the morning talking with people from there. Travel sites keep showing up on my email with trips to Colorado highlighted, and a friend just offered me a vehicle of hers when I come out. Hm...low airfares, free vehicle, free place to stay (I didn't mention that one too?) What's not to love about this? Oh, and a sweet man willing to enjoy me while I'm there too. How did I forget to put that in the number one reason for going back to Steamboat for a visit? What was I thinking? I sure have been thinking a lot about him lately, so I'm puzzled as to why that didn't get written about immediately.


Since the trip isn't right in front of me at the moment, I'm not going to write anymore about it. What's right in front of me at the moment is my continual desire to write. I think I wrote about that yesterday. When I'm not just writing, I'm writing about writing. This is like the days when I was a writer. Could it be that now that I don't have a husband to do everything for that I really am being a writer again? Woo hoo! What a lovely concept.


I used to have filing cabinets filled with what I wrote. I purged most of them before leaving the house I had built back when I was married. Back then I would fill up my time with the wonderful nonessentials of paying bills, balancing checkbooks, doing payroll, filling out tax forms, filing insurance claims, answering phones, scheduling patients, doing therapies, taking patient histories, filing patient files...God knows there was so much more, but for the life of me I don't remember and I certainly don't want to take up any more of my time trying to. I've been free since September 11, 2006. That was the day I moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. If I'd known then what I know now...I don't know what I'd do differently really. I'm very happy with where I am right now and who I've become, so it would be difficult to say that I'd change anything.


But, what's in front of me right now? An evening alone with my daughter's dog, my laptop, and my constant stream of thoughts of this sweet man in Steamboat and what we've done together and what we hope to do again.


I just popped a pizza in the oven and poured myself another glass of iced tea before settling back down with my laptop. Listening to the fast click of the keys on the keyboard is music to my ears. I love watching the words form on the screen, knowing that I'm the one putting them there. It's magic really, pure magic.

Harvard days

I love to write, but haven't done so in so many years until lately. Now, it seems I spend all my time writing or conjuring up what I'm going to write next. It's so much fun and who knew that I'd come back to Texas to do it.

You see, I started my writing career in Texas back in fourth grade at Good Shepherd School in Garland. I even got my bachelor's in English at University of Texas at Dallas after a three-year stint at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado. I did post-graduate work in creative writing at University of Colorado in Boulder and of all the craziest places Harvard in 1987 while I was married with a six-year old.

I had taken my daughter to the dentist to get her teeth cleaned and while waiting in the reception area I was looking through some of my trade journals when I saw an ad/blurb about Harvard's program on creative writing. I was 30 years old and itching for new experiences, so I thought that just sending off for the application would be just the experience I was looking for. Then when it arrived, I decided to fill it out and mail it in because that would just add to the excitement in my rather mundane life, but I kept telling myself that there was no way they'd let me in. And surely, there was no way I'd go. Just no way. I ran my husband's practice and I had a young daughter at home. No way would I ever be able to get away. Never.

And then the acceptance letter arrived.

And then I couldn't stop imagining what it would be like to spend an entire semester on the east coast writing without having to do anything else. It was so decadent. What was once an impossibility became something so tantalizing that I had to make it happen. I called my mother. I knew there was no way she'd turn down the opportunity to have bragging rights about her daughter being a Harvard student, so she jumped at the chance to take care of my daughter and husband while I was away. The only other person to tell was the husband. I arranged with our employees the work schedule that would cover my hours and showed them how to keep up with the paperwork that I had been doing. With everything in place, I went in for the kill. I approached him with all the details of how every single one of his needs would be met while I was gone, except for the most important one for him. Oh well. He'd have to do something else for a semester because my ass was on the plane to Boston. Woo hoo!

It was months of a dream come true. A dream that I didn't even know I could dream. I lived in Eliot House on the third floor. Each room had a fireplace and its own bath with tiny white and black tiles on the floor. There were only two rooms per floor, and I was all by myself on the top floor. A European maid showed up to clean on a regular basis. I had three meals a day in a dining hall the size of a football field, it seemed. There was always a salad bar laden with fresh greens, and above us were crystal chandeliers fit for a palace. The room was dripping with opulence and history. The character of each building was phenomenal. I was from a relatively new state, Colorado, barely over 100 years old by that time, and to be in the midst of where our country fought for its freedom was astounding.

The first public school was founded by Ben Franklin in Boston. There were mock horse hoof prints along Mass Ave. where Charles Dawes took over from Paul Revere on that fateful night after watching for the lights in the Old North Church steeple. MIT was just down the street on Mass Ave., and Radcliffe also not far away. Washington's headquarters during the Revolutionary War was across the street from Harvard Square, so I could grab a croissant at Au Bon Pain and look at the building where Washington planned his strategies. How awesome was that?

I would type on my typewriter that my father had bought me years ago. I would type all night long because I could. I would write while walking on cobblestone streets. I wrote while waiting for my drink at Cheers. I wrote on the T while traveling to Boston across the Charles. I watched the archaeological digs in Harvard Yard and wrote what I saw in my mind.

There was never a time that I didn't write or at least think about my characters and what they would do next. It was the most magical time for me up to that point in my life to really immerse myself in all that I loved -- seafood, history, New England, and writing.

It would have all been so perfect if I didn't miss my little girl so much. There were nights I cried myself to sleep because I missed holding her. The craziest thing was that she didn't miss me at all. She was having a great time with her grandmother and uncles. To this day she still remembers those months as some of her fondest memories. (I'm writing this whether it's true or not.)

Years later when my marriage was falling apart again, the husband asked me what my happiest time was and I told him it was my time at Harvard because it was something I did for myself. It was something that made my soul blossom. I did what I loved every moment of every day and night. It was a dream come true for me. Besides having my daughter, there was nothing else in my 27-year marriage that even came close to how I felt being at Harvard. Everything else paled so much in comparison that it didn't even register on my radar screen.

To this day, I still think back to my Harvard days with great fondness. I miss New England sometimes and think about what it was like living there. And the writing madness. What a dream! I really felt like a writer there. I wrote where Thoreau and Hawthorne and Longfellow and Alcott and (the list could go on forever) wrote. I wrote where words changed the climate of colonies into a united country. I wrote where some of the greatest minds still go today to voice their words. I wrote, and I became a writer. I was not an office manager. I was a writer. All the work I'd done instead of writing disintegrated, and I became what I always wanted to be.

At least for a few short months.

No matter what happened after leaving Harvard, I still had the memories of what my soul hungered for. I carried those memories with me throughout my life and am reliving them now while writing this post. I remember my Harvard days and know that I am a writer. I am a writer.

Thanks for the memories.

A day that will go down in infamy

The one thing I've always known about myself is that I'm a lousy cook. Even my builder told the kitchen planner when we were building a house that the only reason there was to be a kitchen in my house was because it was city code.

My daughter tells stories of burnt dinners, and I even have a picture of the sorry looking apple pie I made her for her birthday one year. There was a saying in our house: Dinner's ready when the smoke alarm goes off.

My mother tried when I was a kid to introduce me to kitchen experiences, but it just didn't take. When she would call my brothers and dad to the table, invariably one of my brothers would ask who cooked the meal. When mom said it was me, there was a mass of grumblings to the effect of: Then I'm not eating.

So, just how did I end up working in a tea shop kitchen this year after moving to McKinney, Texas? God only knows. I did ask for new experiences. Well, this one is so far-fetched that it's unfathomable. However, I did an amazing thing on Saturday. Amazing's not even the right word for it. I'm not sure the correct word has been invented yet.

I did all the prep work, cooking, baking, and cleaning for 15 people by myself. The owner's out of town and all her usual help was unavailable. I did it all. I took a picture of the salads I made when we thought the count was 22 (only 15 showed up). That's why I made the extra homemade blueberry scones and the massive amount of homemade clotted cream. I could live off clotted cream. If you haven't had any, I will personally fix a fresh batch and have you over because any excuse to eat clotted cream is a great one. I also can hardly eat it without thinking what exceptional ways it could be used on a man -- something we'd both enjoy immensely.

Okay, back to food. My mind travels so easily to sex. It takes no coersion on anyone's part. I just love to think about it, and lately there have been daily emails to a certain someone in Steamboat that have most certainly exploded in cyberspace.

Okay, now really back to food. So, I made 22 salads, 13 chicken salad sandwiches, 2 tuna salad sandwiches, scones, and clotted cream. I put garnishes on the sandwich plates with red peppers, cucumber slices, and grapes. I don't garnish anything that has to do with food, so for me to even think about doing that was nothing short of miraculous.

I kept up with every single course very easily, kept the kitchen clean, all the dishes washed as soon as they came in, and after the party left, all that I had to do was mop the floor and put food in containers. Oh my god, I was a kitchen goddess like none other. I could leap tall buildings in a single bound if only I had wanted to.

I wear this white apron that I dearly love. I love wearing it so much that I wore it to my friend's house afterwards where I served her clotted cream, lemon curd, blueberry scones, and iced tea. It was decadent. And I did it all by myself. I did it. I did it. I did it. It flowed so smoothly and everything got done perfectly. I felt like a Nobel Peace Prize winner, like I'd won an Oscar. I was that good in the kitchen on Saturday. It was a stunning day to remember, a great one to record in infamy. This will go down in history books, right up there with FDR's New Deal, JFK's inauguration, and Seinfeld's show about nothing.

Peace for now

I was reading over some of my old posts in here and was amazed about all the writing I did on recent transformations. I was surprised by how much I've gone through in the last few months. It's been a whirlwind of a ride. It's actually been quite astounding since I've been on my own, but for some reason it seems as if the growth that's taken place this past spring has been exponential, especially since my week in CA with James Arthur Ray. Since coming back home April 11th life has been a friggin' roller coaster ride. Now that it's mellowed out quite a bit, I'm feeling very, very grateful for it all. I'm not sure I'd have said that while in the midst of it all.

I've learned that what I thought I wanted is not it at all. I got everything I asked for and learned very quickly that I am done with that experience. Done. Done. Done. No more crazy relationships. No more analyzing anything to death. No more over-the-top nutso outlandish phone calls. No more. My new mantra is peace. And the very first email I got from someone I dated late last year had the word peace in it. He wished me peace. He showed up at the end of crazy and wished me peace. I find that fascinating.

After crazy exited, peace entered. After declaring to the universe what I really wanted in a man, someone I recently dated showed up again. I see how reluctant I am to talk about my feelings about him. After opening my heart so wide to someone who danced crazy with me, I'm more interested in just seeing what shows up. No analyzing. No expounding on what comes from books, CDs, lectures or workshops. Just showing up and seeing what appears.

It's been one week of lovely after months of crazy. I'm taking it slow because I need a breather. I want to relax and enjoy beginning again with him. I had forgotten how lovely he really is. So honest, up-front, and easy. I remember the times we'd sit naked on my couch watching some team play some sport. God only knows what because I wasn't really watching, and then eventually neither was he.

I remember going to bed with him and feeling good about it. There was nothing to hide. There were no rules, no games, just ease and elegance. He showed up in my life last October and told me exactly how he felt about me, told me what his priorities are, and what his intentions were. Simple, easy, functional. No surprises. He'd call in the middle of his days just to let me know what he was doing, that he was thinking about me, and that he'd call me later. Which he did. He wanted to know what I had been doing and what I would like to do that evening if he hadn't already planned to work.

We played when we were together. We loved graciously and openly. We kissed and hugged everywhere we went. He met most of my friends and told them how he felt about me. It was such a simple life together. But there was this nagging in me that wanted more, more excitement, more energy, more connection, more spiritual conversations, more growth, more expansion, more, more, more.

And I got it.

Almost immediately.

Within weeks I was gone. I moved to Texas, made a million new friends, joined zillions of meet-up groups, attended more meetings than I can remember, danced at bars, drank with many, many people.

I got everything I wanted. A hundred million times over. Everything I slightly wished for showed up magnified.

I am thrilled with every single experience I encountered. I am grateful for every single person who came into my life and mirrored back to me what in me needed to be altered.

And now I'm done with those experiences. Now I want peace. Now I want more play, less seriousness. More fiction, less self-help. More joy, less strife.

Now, I want space to breathe deeply and enjoy the woman I've become since moving here. And now that I've chosen calm, Steamboat Springs has shown up daily. I'm now working with people in Steamboat on the internet, and now my beau, my Bo showed back up. What an absolutely delightful treat.