the wind

I am 54 years old. No spring chicken. Been around the block a time or two. So, how is it that I feel brand new?

It seems as if every single thing in my life has occurred to bring me to the moment I'm in now. I am here in NY with this man for a very great reason. I'm learning every single minute how easily love grows. It's astounding to me to feel the way I do about him. I think about him when he's not with me, and when he is, I can hardly keep my eyes (and hands) off him.

Where did this come from? I thought I'd been in love before. I thought I knew what it was like to share my life with someone. I'm finding that those beliefs are false. I'm discovering now what it means to love someone so deeply, so unconditionally that there's not a thing he can say or do that will lessen the love I feel. By opening to him, I've opened myself to the world, the most beautiful, contagiously gorgeous parts of the universe. It's a world I couldn't have wished for because I didn't know it existed.

I look back on my life as a single woman -- my real life, I call it -- and categorize my "episodes" like this: Steamboat Springs was my time for extraordinary spiritual growth and discovering who I could possibly be. The next phase, McKinney, TX, was my I-never-got-to-be-a-wild-teenager-before time, so I took the opportunity to let loose and cultivate wonderful friendships in a magical small community.

And then New Mexico hit me, and I mean that literally. My three months in NM was what I call my "hosing off" time. Apparently, the wild teenager in me needed a major hosing to integrate all the phases I had experienced so that I could be prepared for my NY experiences.

I came here to NY with three suitcases and a box. Absolutely no record of a past to speak of. Pretty amazing considering I used to live in the midst of great quantities of things. Things, things, and more things. I arrived with clothes, a few books, and essential papers. That's it. Nothing more.

However, in the 125 days I've been here, I've accumulated the greatest of all wealth. I am deeply loved by the most amazing man in the galaxy. I am rich beyond words.

I wake in the morning and look at his face. My heart fills to overflowing. I get to wake up next to him. I've never experienced such amazing wealth before moving here.

I recall my childhood with three brothers, a Catholic upbringing in the 50s, 60s, and 70s (And did I mention that it all occurred in the south of all places??), and I see myself now living in the north, non church-going without those said brothers, and I realize the transformation that has transpired. Every single experience, every moment, every breath has led to right now, right here with this man, with our art, with our love, our passion for each other and what we do. It's an extraordinary time, an amazing chance to create the perfect life with this very, very perfect man for me.

I was told by two people in Texas that I would have a relationship beyond my wildest dreams, that I would be loved like this, be given gifts regularly, and not once could I believe them. I scoffed at them actually. I had never had a man treat me with such respect or gratitude. I had no reference for that. I couldn't fathom working with a man I was in a relationship with and loving every minute of it. How could that be after working with a husband for 26 years and knowing that with each passing day, more and more of me was dying?

I was reading some messages that Dan and I had been sending to one another on FB last year before either one of us was ready to admit that there could possibly be more between us than we were letting on, and I marvelled at the genuine concern, beautiful sentiments, and glowing raves we shared with each other. We have respected each other from the very first word. We have believed in each other from the moment we saw each other's work. And now, what we have done together... I am humbled to call him my partner in business, in love, and in life. He is truly so much more than I could have ever imagined. He's allowed my freak flag to fly. He's actually encouraged it, and he truly is the wind beneath it.

things that make me go hm...

I used to ask for signs. Lately I've had so many coming at me that it's been difficult to remember them all. However, for many, many years now the signs have still been pointing in the same directions, even though they're on two separate sides of the map -- Windstar in Old Snowmass, Colorado and New York. WTF???

First, I have one thing to say before I get into any of that. I LOVE TAOS!!! I love being here with Tammy. I love the house I live in. I love the places I work. I love the people here. I love the energy. I love it all. I'm going to repeat myself here -- wtf???

So, here's a few things that have happened this morning. While drying off after my shower, a thought hit me (as they often do...) that since singledom I've apparently made it a habit to move every two years. Now, let me just say that all morning I was thinking about how much I love Taos and how much I truly enjoy serving the people here. I am so excited about being able to provide meals and coffee and desserts for them next week. I was even thinking about how much fun it would be to run a restaurant with Tammy here with her magnificent recipes. And then I get out of the shower and am knocked upside the head with the idea that I've moved every two years since being single. Two years ago today I arrived in McKinney, Texas with my U-Haul. Hm...

While living in McKinney last July a friend of mine who lives in New York came to visit me and see my studio. While looking at all my stuff, he was quite taken with a little piece I made with dragonflies on it. I gave it to him, and he has since asked me to make him some dragonflies to put on his own art. That's what I've been doing lately instead of doing it last August when he asked for them. Oh well...

Now I'm obsessed with them. I've been making them like crazy, and this morning I decided to look them up in Ted Andrews' Animal Speak. Here's what jumped out at me immediately:

Dragonflies are very territorial. They will lay their eggs within their territory near the water. The egg eventually develops into the nymph stage of metamorphosis in this insect, and remains as a nymph for almost two years before it transforms into an adult dragonfly or damselfly. This can reflect a number of possibilities for those with this totem. It can indicate that an approximate two-year period of change is about to reach its culmination. It may reflect that you are coming into a two-year period of transformation. It may even reflect a need to institute changes that may culminate in the colorful transformations you desire within a two-year period.

Well now... I know I'd be crazy for trying to figure out what any of this means. God knows my interpretations in the past have sent me up shit creek, so I'm not going in that direction now. I'm just noticing patterns and synchronicities -- 2 years, dragonflies, moving, New York...

I just read those words I typed and am surprised at the order I put them in... again, just noticing patterns (I'm telling myself this...)

When I opened Animal Speak to the page with the dragonfly description, I noticed a notation I had made. On June 24, 2005 I was at John Denver's Windstar Foundation in Old Snowmass, Colorado where a dragonfly landed on me. According to the book, in some Native American culture the dragonfly represents the soul of the dead. Really... Just read that.

So, 36 years have passed since I saw this guy I went to high school with (the NY guy). He comes to visit last July and loves my dragonflies. The day he came to town changed everything, and I didn't know it until he left. First of all, he met some of my friends in McKinney. We went to a friend's home where she was putting on a dinner party. My NY friend couldn't stay, but there was something that stuck with me after he was physically gone because that night I could no longer participate in my usual McKinney routine. Every person at that dinner was a very dear, wonderful  friend of mine, but I couldn't stay. I kept leaving the party, walking to the square to just be alone and think. Looking back on it now I realize that there was something between my NY friend and I that was exchanged on a soul level. I have not been the same since. It was that night that I was ready to leave McKinney even though it didn't happen for another two months.

In my life, energy plays a much bigger role than what my physical world looks like. As Ted Andrews says, "Dragonfly can help you to see through your illusions and thus allow your own light to shine forth. Dragonfly brings the brightness of transformation and the wonder of colorful new vision." I don't look at what's in front of me and believe that's all there is. I listen to the words spoken to me, and know that's only part of the story. I watch people's behaviors and know that there's so much more going on. I feel the fabric that ties us all together. I know there's a huge picture developing no matter what shows up. I don't pretend to know what is going on; I just know that if I let go of trying to figure it all out then "the wonder of colorful new vision" appears.

So, that being said, what I'm trying to get at, successfully or not, is that there is a magnificence unfolding in my life and it feels like this man who now lives in NY has had some part in it. Where does it go from here? Who knows? I know that information is showing up for me now, and it's opening me up to more possibilities.

And with that being said, I'm just going to work on dragonflies today. I'll probably go to the store and pick up some groceries. I may even walk to the Plaza to talk to some friends about my artwork. But I know one thing for sure, no matter what it is I do, magic will be involved.

Does place matter?

Years ago I was asked if place mattered, if a place could make you happy. Now, I don't believe anything outside myself is responsible for my happiness. I do know that certain people or situations can certainly broaden my smile, and other experiences can make a smile difficult to form. However, if I were not human ever, then I'd have to say place or anything else did not matter at all because I could be happy all the time no matter what.


I just happen to be human also. I have some very human moments, and just what a kick they happen to be.

What I've been discovering is just how unnecessary it is to get dramatic about how things look. For instance, Tammy and I no longer have phone service today. I smile anyway and want to see how clever the universe is in getting me the information I am to know today. God knows, the one thing the universe does not need to communicate with me is a phone. I'm waiting to hear from a future employer, but it won't be by phone now. I have some of my artwork at a new store, and the owner was going to call me today about selling them there. Well, it won't be by phone.

This has offered me another opportunity to be less available in the "normal" channels. I won't go into why the phone was disconnected because every human involved with the situation has a different story, and the stories don't matter. None of the stories matter. None.

So, back to a place making me happy... I moved to Taos only knowing Tammy. Why did I move here? Don't know that one completely, just know that it felt good. It still feels good. It feels right. I look back on who I was being in McKinney, Texas, and I not only don't recognize that person, but I truly don't like the memories I have of her.

I used to party a lot on the square. There was always drinking and eating going on there. That's what we did. At the end of the day it was always about where we were going to go that night and who we were going to drink with. That's how I remember it. I haven't had a sip of any alcohol whatsoever since my birthday party in late September. I didn't drink much in Steamboat Springs, Colorado where I lived before arriving in McKinney. As a matter of fact, I don't think I drank like that since I had been in college.

Steamboat and Taos have both been very spiritual places for me. Taos even more so. The level of art is escalated here. I feel that goes hand in hand, at least it does for me. My art is a form of spirituality for me. It takes me to a place I can't go to in any other way. What's interesting though is that I moved out here with no art/sewing supplies whatsoever. I keep stripping down my material life. It's fascinating because I'm learning how to live life totally differently. I thought I was going to come out here and do energy work and not be an artist when what I have done is use my energy in my latest art creations. My energy here is so profound that it knocks me off my feet sometimes. The energy in Taos is palpable. I feel the shift in my own energy since moving here. I'm discovering that this is the case with most people. What takes people years to transform in other places occurs here within days. That's how it's been for me.

Does Taos make me happy? I make me happy. Taos resonates with my energy though. Taos and I are one sometimes. I don't need to do energy work here. I am an energy billboard here. No matter what I do or say or have or be, I am all that's necessary right here, right now. I have it all within. I've never felt this way until moving here. It's a complete package of peace and tranquility wrapped up so nicely.

When I explain to people here how I've been feeling, they nod their heads. They tell me welcome home. They embrace me. This is something I've not experienced before. I used to be very careful with what I said because I was tired of the strange looks or the constant questions. Here, I hardly even finish a statement when the person I'm speaking with agrees with me. Sometimes I can't finish a sentence because it's just not necessary. Words aren't always essential here. It's the unspoken understanding, the smile, a gentle hand on the shoulder, that makes me realize that this is the only place I can be right now for the growth that I've gone through, the relationships I've developed, and the peace I've embodied. With everything stripped away, I can only see the trust I have in the Universe. I am totally taken care of with or without a phone. Phoneless, I must put myself out there to talk to those I need to face to face. What a concept! I have to look in their eyes while giving and getting information. I make connections with them that I couldn't possibly do on a phone or through emails.

My life here has centered around human contact while totally sober. I've learned to adjust my body to the different energy here. I feel things so much stronger. I feel people who aren't even here physically. And in Taos, those feelings are normal. I don't have to explain myself here. I am where I belong right now. I have the prospect of having a future boss that is phenomenal in the loving people department. I have the ability to go to work and not have a single thing matter as much as radiating compassion and understanding to every single person I encounter. This is what I'm here for right now. This is all that matters at this moment. To love no matter what. It's really easy to love when I'm being loved, and now I'm doing it when the" being loved" is disguised as something else.

So today begins another new way of showing up in this fantasy called life. I've adapted to not having a car, and now I'll do it with a phone that acts as a timepiece. I am grateful. I am just so grateful to see how beautifully the magic will unfold today.

And, yes, place does matter.

fifth agreement...trust yourself

How difficult can it be to have faith in yourself, to believe in you instead of believing in symbols? You can put your faith in scientific theories, in so many religions, opinions, and points of view, but this is not real faith. Faith in yourself is the real faith. Real faith is to trust yourself unconditionally, because you know what you really are, and what you really are is the truth. -- Ruiz by way of Marilyn Brown on Facebook


I've been going back and forth in my head this morning, doubting every thought I could possibly come up with. One moment I'm believing in myself and the next I think I'm full of shit. This, my friends, is what happens when I play from my head and not my heart.

On Facebook this morning a new friend Marilyn Brown posted the above statements. Just the fuel I needed to remove my thoughts so I could come from my heart once again. It is first and foremost myself that I can trust, not anyone else. No opinions, no one else's concerns, words, or intentions matter as far as who I really am. It's me, not the world around me that holds the key to who I really am. To discover that, the only place I need go is within. Anywhere else I seek is crazy.

Right now more than ever, I find myself absorbing Native American anything -- books, wisdom, music, artifacts... I always have but now being in this area surrounded by their energy, I am finding myself more and more at home. If I were to truly trust myself, I'd have to say it's the energy of who I really am. The peace, the tranquility, the honesty, the beingness... that is me. No labels. No judgments. No amount of "doingness" can alter that. I am a being that lives and breathes, absorbs and feels, sits still and expands.

It's been difficult to live according to America's norms. I have rarely fit in. I certainly never felt like I fit in with my family. My parents were strict Catholics, and nothing about the church rang true for me. My schools and the students there were unapproachable to me. I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I was frightened of being seen or noticed. I wanted to pass through the halls unscathed and get out after doing my time.

It wasn't until I went to college in the mountains in Colorado that I found my place. It wasn't the school so much as it was getting away from all restrictions I had placed on me. I broke free and became this free-flying bird hitchhiking across the state, partying til morning, making friends everywhere I went, and enjoying my life immensely. Oh, and in there somewhere I did get a degree.

And then I took a hiatus from myself and got married in the Catholic church, became a dutiful chiropractor's wife, and raised my beautiful daughter who wanted to be raised Catholic. I fell into an abyss and remained there until deciding to leave the marriage.

On my own I immediately discovered the world of Native American traditions again. I fell in love with them as a very young teenager, but put them aside until showing up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and meeting a shaman who I ended up working for and taking all his classes, not to mention working with a female shaman doing breathwork with her and having vivid visions of a past life of being an Indian myself and falling in love with one.

And now, I'm in Native American territory, and it's as if I've wrapped myself up in my real skin. No wonder I've been a puzzlement, a distaste, and a disgrace to my family. I am not one of them. We don't speak the same language, and we sure don't live resonating lives. I've needed the experiences with them to see clearly who I am, and I'm grateful.

For once I'm allowing myself the freedom to be who I am -- a being that loves from her heart. When I'm in that place of who I really am, when I leave behind the crazy world of thoughts and labels and judgments, I am able to be the peace that I am. I can live anywhere, be in any body, and still be peace. I've discovered that when I'm in this natural state miracles abound. Possibilities show up in ways I could have never thought of if I'd tried. These experiences have proven to me over and over that the doing and the thinking is not how I'm to live my life. I'm here to be. To show up, and to allow it all to come to me easily and effortlessly.

There are times my heart is so full that I feel it's going to burst out of my chest. It's so full, that tears of bliss run down my face. I feel so much love that I can't possibly move without shattering into billions of pieces of absolute joy. It sounds trite to say that I'm following my heart and fulfilling my dreams, but it's true. What's so surprising to me is where my heart has led me and what dreams have come my way. Once I quieted my mind, I opened my heart to the highest possibility of me, and that has been peace and tranquility. It has nothing to do with where I live or what I do in this life. It has everything to do with who I am, pulling myself out of the dregs of discarded skin, old beliefs, wacky labels, and just allowing myself to feel love and to be loved.

I come from a long line of workaholics. I'm sure the ones still in physical bodies would be appalled by my writing. The ones no longer in physical bodies are applauding. "Yes! You got it without having to get rid of your body first!" they seem to say.

Yeah, I got it at this moment, and I know there will come more moments when I'll need to drop the paddles again and let my canoe float freely downstream. I know those crazy thoughts will creep up on me again, and I'll allow them to go and then settle in with my blanket of peace.

I think often of my male friend who I've been known to snuggle up with and bury myself in the most exquisite tranquility I've ever experienced. That's my physical representation of peace, and every time I think of him, peace pours over me like honey. I feel him now. It is my natural state. It is where I belong. It's the skin I was born to wear.

where I belong

I've made one of the most amazing discoveries of my life just now while talking things over with Tammy. I just love when that happens!


When living in Steamboat Springs, CO I did some breathwork where I had continuing visions of the same lifetime. They all centered around having a love affair with an Indian warrior who was eventually killed in battle, and I held him as he died. The experiences of each session were unbelievably real and the last where he died was excrutiatingly painful. The facilitator told me after that one, that it was okay for me to love. It was now safe to open my heart. Well, that was December of 2007, and yesterday, October 9, 2010, I finally let that happen. I finally opened my heart and felt love so encompassing, that it was not only for the man I was with but for all.

The most beautiful part of it was that the man looking down at me was Native American with long gray hair. It occurred to me today what that heart opening was really about. I was now making love with another native, and this time he was older with gray hair unlike the young lover I had lost. The man I was with yesterday had already grown past the age of the one who died. It closed the gap between the young love lost and the older man I opened my heart to.

I felt so safe to love him, to open my heart so easily that the waves of energy between the two of us was palpable. It encompassed the two of us, and took us to a place I'd never been before. It felt to me as if my soul had taken over, and shoved my thoughts and ego out of the way. It certainly felt like something so much bigger than me was in charge. I felt myself open up and all needless stuff that once rode along for the ride was sloughed off. The real me emerged, and for the first time in lifetimes it seemed, I was fully able to experience this pure love for all that is.

I'm not saying that this man did this for me. He couldn't have. It was within me, and I allowed the experience with this man to draw it out. I allowed myself to open so fully that the useless parts disintegrated, and only the love remained because that's all we are. That's all there really is. We are love, and we allow crazy to take over our thoughts. What was even more extraordinary was a peaceful feeling that came over me when we were done. I wish there was a word(s) that could really describe that feeling I'm talking about. It is a peace so profound that no matter what's going on in my world, I am calm. I feel love for all that's around me trying to create chaos, and it's as if I'm watching a movie. I have no emotion tied up in people's reactions. I watch them with total detachment knowing that what is real is the peace I am.

I truly wish I could describe this experience so well that you could feel what I've been feeling because I know it's our natural state. I know this is where I belong -- in the land of peace, and I know I don't need another person to get me in that state. I am all that. I am peace.

I don't know where we're going, this man and I. I don't even pretend to know that I'll even see him again. I just know that what we shared and how I felt is what I'm taking with me wherever it is I go. It's where I belong.

crazy...

Okay, I give up, totally surrender. Man, just got something headed my way that I wasn't even close to seeing coming.

So, for a little background information... Almost two years ago I walked into the library in Steamboat Springs, Colorado to relax before needing to be somewhere else in about an hour. I'm sitting there minding my own business at a table in an area where no one else is around. And wouldn't you just know it? A man comes over and sits at the table next to mine. Grumbling about how there were seven other tables he could've sat at, I start noticing the back of his head, nice hair cut, crisply pressed dress shirt... Damn! This was no Steamboater!

And then he turned to face me. Holy shit! He had me before even opening his mouth. He was my last guy in Colorado. I moved a few weeks later, but not before creating a nice bond between us.

The craziest thing is that I don't even think about him most of the time, so busy with work and play and new adventures and lots of... Well, just lots of. What has happened for almost two years now is that when I least expect it, his name comes up in the oddest ways. He doesn't have a common name, but it always, and I do mean always creeps up when I least expect it. And, it comes up in ways that knock me off my feet.

For instance, last night I was sending messages back and forth to a man who's coming out here next month, and we were discussing what we were planning on doing. Now, in his messages to me he would use a little symbol just for grins really. Well, in the middle of the night I kept seeing that symbol and was "told" it was an Indian symbol and I needed to look it up.

I just did. The Indian symbol's meaning in English is the very same word as the Colorado guy's name. WTF?

Knocked me off my feet -- again. Why does his name come up over and over in the strangest ways possible? Just when I think I'm moving on and getting involved with someone else, there goes his name -- again.

I give up. I surrender. And, I just go on about my life because it really is just another crazy day in a series of them...

Magical Mystery Tour

So I've stolen this from Tammy... This trip that we're on together is definitely the magical mystery tour. Tammy and I are in Santa Fe right now. We showed up because we felt like it. When she told me she was going to Santa Fe I immediately jumped in on her plans. I rearranged my own schedule and created a way for me to be able to go on such short notice. Everything we've needed has shown up just when we needed it. Everything.

Tammy was asked to come here to take a look at a healing facility in town. I jumped in on the opportunity. Yay me! Tammy showed me around the plaza. We ate lunch outside in the sunshine staring at some very lovely men. It was our first time to be outside in months and not sweat or swelter or have our heartbeats go faint due to the heat. We stepped outside to cool air and were able to breathe deeply. That alone was well worth my taking the trip. Getting out of 106 degree temperatures and ungodly humidity was such a gift. I've never smiled so much and danced so openly in the sunshine.

Years ago I took a Tom Crum workshop in the CO mountains, and while having a late night discussion with his daughter, Ali, she asked me if place mattered. Would I need to be in a certain place to be happy? I wasn't really sure how to answer her then. Was it the location I was in that made me unhappy in my marriage? No. Do I want to live in that town where I had lived with that husband again? Nope. Not at all. It wasn't ever my town. Did it detract from my happiness? Hm, don't think so. I don't think I knew to even consider my happiness back then.

The next stop was Steamboat Springs. Did that place matter? Did it add or detract from my happiness? You know, I would love to be able to say that I am so frickin' enlightened that my true happiness lies only within, and not only believe that statement, but also know that it's true for me all the time. Well, it's not. I still allow outside circumstances to color my demeanor. Every now and then my humanity sneaks in. So, there came a time while in Steamboat that I had to go, even though I was with an amazing man who truly loved me deeply. I knew for me the best thing I could do was to move on, and so I did.

Next stop, McKinney, TX. Wow, I went from a playground to a place filled with work horses. I've never seen so many people so willing to help network and move and shake. The downtown square became my home like none other, until now...

After a summer in hell, the energy has shifted for me again. Is it the place or is it simply correction of course like I did while flying? A tap on the rudder pedal, a slight tug on the yoke and back on course I'd be. What if it's not so much place as where I need to be to meet the right people and enjoy certain circumstances that lead me to the next correction and the next and the next?

When looking back on my life post marriage I see how important it was for me to be in Steamboat, to meet the people I met, and to have the experiences I had. The same for McKinney. Each stop has fine-tuned my skills, my gifts, my energy, and definitely my inner sanctity. Each person who has played a part in this has done their job exceptionally well, because I feel I'm showing up to the next adventure so prepared, I could even be classified as overqualified. Ha! We'll see...

So, opportunities have opened for us here in Santa Fe. Beautiful, monumental opportunities and people. However, there is something about Santa Fe that feels like a place for me to visit, not necessarily a place to put down roots. When we were coming into town, Tammy teared up with so much joy for being home again. I told her, "just wait til you see me back in the Colorado mountains..." I know there will be much blubbering going on when that occurs. So, next month Evergreen, Colorado...

So, does place matter? What I know for sure is that the journey matters, the enjoying the moments during it, no matter what the place. So, rock on Magical Mystery Tour, because I am being taken away...

feels like home

I just finished doing an energy session, and the most prominent feeling I got throughout the whole session was for me to surrender, to just let go of everything. I feel like I've got that mastered until something else comes along in my life, and wham! I learn how badly I suck at surrendering.

I want to be this enlightened master, this totally detached observer of life. And I can do it for a while and then the human Jill kicks in and wants something. Right now I want to be with someone in Colorado. Last night I told him what I really wanted in a relationship. My first time ever to stand up to a man and say exactly what I wanted. It was huge for me. I had always settled before, but with him it feels like it's too important, too substantial to want anything less than the absolute best it can be between us. Yay, Jill! I stood up for myself, and he honored that. He listened. He told me how he felt. He told me everything he could. And again, it was the first time I had that experience from a man. He didn't run, and neither did I.

Then this morning I let him know how I was feeling him energetically, how I could feel this deep connection between our souls, our truest essences. I could feel it so intensely that I couldn't tell where he began and I ended. It was a swirling of the truest sense of oneness. It was so beautiful and calming and home. I knew that however our relationship turned out, I would be better because of it, and so would he. I felt warm and fuzzy and cozy and just so good all over.

And then the day wore on, and so did I. I haven't heard from him since 12:30 my time, and it's now almost 6:30. I think this is the longest stretch of time we've gone without communicating, and I'm not enjoying this so much. I am missing him terribly, and I hate that. Because you see, I do energy work. I've worked with shamans since 2006. I've done a lot of work on myself through workshops, books, seminars,etc. I know better, and it really just pisses me off sometimes when I just can't stay in that enlightened and lovely state. Well, fuck it! I'm human too. I have this human body that longs for being held by this man. I ache to hear from him. I imagine him in his home working on his computer, fixing his dinner, getting ready to go work out, sitting on his deck, and I long to join him.

So there, I've said it. I am enlightened. I am awake, and I've given up drinking the Kool-Aid, but every now and then I just want to be held and touched and loved on. Every now and then I miss hearing from him. And really does any of these desires make me any less enlightened? Or are they times that my human body just wants some attention? When I was in communication with him on a much more regular basis, it was fun. I smiled more, definitely laughed a lot, and so looked forward to flipping my phone open and seeing what he sent to me. It made my days and nights lighter and happier. I miss his texts, his sense of humor, and the smiles all of it brought to my face.

So, how did I do standing up for what I wanted? I'm glad I did. I altered the playing field quite a bit. I deserve to get what I want, but what I discovered today was that if I was going to ask him to do what I desired in a relationship, then I had to do the same. Not that he asked me to, but because when I change me, I change everything. I want the best in my life. I want the best for me, and what I've experienced with him so far has been the best I've ever had. I don't want it to end. I want it to be even better for both of us. Being in a relationship with him has upped my game. I want to be a better person because he's in my life. And what it means for me to have it all is to be able to love him completely without losing myself and to allow both of us the latitude to be who we truly are without judgments or attachment to outcomes.

I recognize in him a place that feels like home, a place that's comfortable and safe, and as I found out, a place where I can pee freely. I just think going 6 hours without any texts from him is just too long. Just sayin'...

At last...

Settling in on a friend's couch with book in hand, I felt this shift within me as if there was this whole other Jill residing on the surface who moved just a little differently than the Jill I was accustomed to being with. Just a twinge of separation and then there it was, a complete and utter knowledge that I had cut ties with Texas.

 Again.

I am ready to move back to Colorado.

Back in '74 when I was moving there the first time, I had consciously planned the event well in advance. This time all I was doing was settling in for a night of reading, and then I felt it. I looked at my cell phone to see what time it was. 7:17 was on the face.

The rest of the story is up for grabs. I just know that I know it's time to move on. When it occurs, how it occurs, and where I move to is certainly not in my realm of knowledge at the moment.

I was raised to believe that you go to school, get a degree, get a good job, and then retire. I thought I'd marry one time, stay married til I died (or he did) and remain in Boulder County forever. Not once in all those scenarios was happiness a factor. Not once did I ask myself what I really wanted. Not once did I contemplate what my role in life was going to be. I just did what I was told with a very heavy and sad heart and repeated it day after day after day. So, I wasn't used to switching places to live or careers or friends or lovers until I became single again.

Now, uncertainty has become one of my closest companions. I feel the energy and go with it, and I'm not saying it's that easy for me either. I've felt some very strange energy within me for awhile now, and at 7:17 tonight it felt that it moved dramatically. I'm calm right now. It's been a few days since I've felt that way. I should've known something big was up for me because I went ballistic while texting a friend today. He had texted that he wasn't that special, and I lost it. Let's just say I learned something more about me at that moment. It wasn't until I let go of another old, old, frickin' old belief about myself that I realized how crazy my text back to him was.

He's either a very kind man or just great at bullshitting because he let me know that it was all good, and I hadn't scared him off yet. Well, he's also 900 miles away so I'm sure he's feeling very safe from my craziness. Believe me there are many times I wish I could be 900 miles away from me too.

"As you begin to release the constraints that bind you to circumstances you have outgrown, you will discover that the direction of choice is found on a road you must travel alone. As you gather the fragments of the structure that crumbles around you, and as you cease trying to 'make sense of it,' you will come to embrace the peace of knowing that the struggle is, at last, coming to an end. And you will experience a sense of sweet detachment from what was and an openness to what is yet to be."
-- Oneness by Rasha

I'm curious as to what is yet to be. I'm curious, fascinated, and totally intrigued. Sometimes I lose my head and try to figure things out, and by doing so I get caught up in drama and lose sight of the magic. And that's what I did today.

"It is crucial that you attain a state of detachment from the energy charges that have magnetized you, habitually, throughout this lifetime. It is crucial that you recognize the common thread in the web of dramas that you have woven -- that continue to ensnare you. And it is crucial that you allow yourself the grace of your own humanness in responding to these recurring situations -- and love yourself for it."
-- Oneness by Rasha

That's what I learned about myself today: I didn't think I was that special. My friend was a mirror to me. I didn't want to wring his neck; I wanted to wring mine. I am that special. I am that wonderful. I am. Another human experience that I get to love myself for. Just another opportunity to grow, another chance to expand. Oh, yay for me...

Now, I'm going to take myself on a walk. It's finally cool outside, and as I walk through familiar blocks of beautiful historic homes I'm going to get the chance to experience another level of detachment because as I stroll through these neighborhoods, I know that one day soon it will be my last.

About last night...

A guy I went to high school with had a birthday yesterday. After 21 comments back and forth to each other on Facebook, we continued with texting on and off throughout the day and night, and into early morning for me. We texted a lot about metaphysics, which led to past lives and Indians. Anyone who knows me well, knows how strongly I relate to those subjects. Indians became a constant topic of conversation and transformation for me while I lived in Steamboat, and apparently it didn't end there.

To make a really long story as short as I can, this friend yesterday brought up specific things that related to what I had seen during my shamanic journeys. It has since put me in another place mentally and emotionally. I haven't stopped thinking about it. When I least expected it, when I was so focused on possibly beginning a new relationship with someone local, this man in Colorado plugs into visions I had not even thought about in a long time. The energy that rose while texting each other is still ramping up. I pace the floor like a caged animal because it is so powerful. There was a connection made last night through the help of technology that has shifted everything.

"When you least expect it, from the most unlikely place, he will show up." This is what a psychic told me May of '08. Well, let me say that it is the most unlikely person and the most unlikely place. I thought I'd never leave Colorado, and here I am back in Texas after a 34-year absence. Reading his texts last night about how he sleeps with the windows open year round flashed me back to wonderful nights snuggled under covers with a breeze wafting through the room. I can't do that here. It's too hot, too humid, and way too many bugs. As he was texting me about his first trip to Gunnison, his desire to be in the wilderness, and a place with a creek running through it, my heart remembered why I moved there in '74.

I've been very happy here in McKinney. I've met the best people in the world, creating relationships beyond compare, and lately I've been feeling open to moving again. Listening to my friend talk about why he had to move there last year tugged at my heart. I remembered sitting by the Roaring Fork in Basalt listening to the water rush past me; the night I spent at Woody Creek Tavern with two very good friends of John Denver's; the many times I've taken off from the Aspen airport in a friend's Bonanza; the daily walks I took along the Yampa in Steamboat; the hikes up Emerald Mountain; climbing W Mountain in Gunnison; feeding horses naked during a snowfall...

Even though I had lived in Colorado for 34 years, I'm remembering only those times when I was single there. Those were my most amazing times, because it was in being single that gave me the latitude to awaken to what really jazzed me.

And now, this man reawakened in me the deepest, most profound part of who I really am using his own desires for the land where he now lives to help me remember what drove me there 36 years ago. I can live anywhere and still be a Colorado girl. People tell me all the time that I dress Colorado. No matter how hard I've tried, I'm not a Texas-girl dresser. I am not bling, big hair, or high heels. I am a t-shirt and blue jeans girl. Give me my Keene sandals, and I can stay on my feet walking or hiking for hours.

I love McKinney. I love the people here. It's magical, and yet, there's this other part of me that remembers the colors of the aspen leaves in September and the sound they make with the wind blowing through them, or the mountain to the left of us when taking off from the Aspen airport, Starwood to our right, and all the Gulf Streams under us. It's funny that I've never felt the desire to fly here, but thinking about take-offs from the Aspen airport makes me want to jump in that Bonanza right now.

I feel my life in waves, one wave of this great desire to be in Colorado, and another wave of loving life here in McKinney. Back and forth these waves undulate, tide rolling out and then coming back in. One foot in Texas, the other in Colorado.

And then I did an energy session with an intuitive who gave me a reading afterwards. What she told me was what I had been feeling: my heart, my home is in Colorado. She said I would be going back there this fall. She said this man is a stepping stone to my being open to doing just that. She said a lot of other things about him too, but I'm not sharing that information.

The guides that showed up were Indian grandmothers. They asked me how far will I take myself? They told me that all I needed to do was put one moccasin in front of another. I make my path wherever I go. They also said I was still connected to my shaman, Rob Wergin, that my work picks up where his leaves off. Not sure what that means, but they said that I'm not done working with him. Well, thank god for that!

So, Monday morning when I woke up I had no inclination to move back to Colorado. Within hours my mind was a tad bit open to the concept, and now... Hm, let's just say that I make my path wherever I go.

Flying Lessons

Several years ago I took up flying. I flew a Cessna 152. I'm taking flying lessons again, but this time it's an ecourse for creative business soaring. Hm, does that make sense? Well, it does to me. It's by an artist for artists. She's made a very nice income from her art and now she's teaching those who want to learn from her. I'm one of them. I've been following Kelly Rae Roberts for years and now I'm a sponge soaking up her business techniques. First thing, I am to write a letter to my future self, throwing out into the universe what I intend in my life. Here goes...

Dear Jill,

I love what you're doing with your life. I remember a time when you spoke out loud at a sustainable living conference in Snowmass, Colorado that you wanted your life to matter. You thought it meant that you had to do something to make it come true. Even though you know that it matters just because it is, you have turned that into a lifetime of legacies that will last forever.

Everything you touch, you touch with the energy of that unconditional love that you truly are. You feel it deeply. You exude it. People around you experience it easily. This is who you are and you're able to incorporate it into everything you make in your studio and every word you write on your computer. This is who you are. You are love. People feel it when they wear one of your garments or view a piece of your artwork. They are changed by your words, altered for the better. You, my love, matter. You need nothing because you already have it all. You have the love you seek because you are it. Everyone you meet mirrors back to you your own magnificence. You are whole and complete just as you are. All is absolutely perfect.

My greatest love and gratitude to you,
Jill

I'm sure that's not what Kelly Rae was thinking of when asking us to write this. She was specifically talking about the things we want in our lives, how we want to live and how we desire to do our business. However, the more I thought about my future life, my future me, this is all I could say. It doesn't matter what I do because who I am right now is enough. Is perfect. Is everything. I need nothing. I have it all right here, right now. I couldn't possibly ask for more because I already have it. It's time now for me to open my eyes to my greatness so that I may see the greatness in everyone else. It's time now for me to feel the magnificent love for myself so that I may feel it for others.

This, my friends, is flying high.

to my pilot

Thank you is not enough to express how grateful I am for my life, for my friends, my magnificent, glorious family of friends, and the most beautiful town in which I live. Thank you, Universe! I've always been a huge fan of wisteria but living in Colorado most of my life did not lend itself to my growing it. And now, ah, now I get to enjoy it profusely.

I am grateful for the air I breathe. I am grateful for the men who have showered me with love and amazing sensations. I am grateful for the women who have inspired me, pushed me, and loved me through it all. But this post is aimed at one person in particular.

My pilot.

All these years later I am still so very grateful for him believing in me when I had no idea what that felt like. I still love seeing me through his eyes. He opened my heart. He showed me my wings, and he taught me to fly in every sense of the word. He saved me just before I buried myself in a lousy relationship. He swooped in and held a mirror showing me who I really am. He showed me all the possibilities of what I could do and be and have.

And so, this is to the man in my life who still lightens my load, who still makes me laugh, who still creates amazing memories with me. I stand now holding a Corona in his honor.

To you, my love, to our teenage selves in Gunnison, to the dreams we had then, and the ones we're achieving now. To you, my pilot, I thank you because without your coming back into my life all those years ago, I would not be where I am today. I would not be who I am today, and I've never loved myself or my life as much as I do right now. I hope I've given back to you even an inkling of the joy you've brought to me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Joy and peace are not just words spread at Christmastime

So what do I know? The one thing I'm discovering about life is that just when I think I know what I'm to do, where I'm to live, and who I'm to be with, oops, there goes the rug out from under my feet again. My friend Tom Crum from Aiki Works calls this learning to dance on shifting carpet. I think the best thing I can do for myself is to stop trying to figure it out. Just when I think I've grown tired of the maze I put myself through, there I go again.

Case in point. Speaking of Tom, I went to his Journey to Center workshop in Peaceful Valley, CO last September. Tom is a magnificent teacher, and I highly recommend him for anything he teaches even if you don't play golf or ski, it'd be well worth your while to take his workshops on those anyway!

One day during the workshop I was talking to Tom about having a man in my life. He told me to hold off for at least six months after taking his workshop because my heart was so wide open now. He said that this was now a time for me to absorb what I learned in the week with him and let it integrate without involving someone else.

A couple of weeks later dear, dear friends of mine gave me a gift certificate for a massage/intuitive reading by two wonderful women in Steamboat Springs, CO, so I jumped at it. Right away I was told that there was a man right here for me. He was right here and I just needed to be open to the experience. Hm...

The next day I went to the library in between appointments, sat at a table all by myself when a man sits at the table next to mine. And voila! we began dating and enjoying each other tremendously. I told him from the start that I was leaving Steamboat. At first he said, "No, you're not." Then he said he was going with me, and when it got down to the real possibility of me leaving, he told me to give him two years. Stay in Steamboat for two more years while he did what he wanted to get done and then we'd go wherever I wanted. I couldn't stay in Steamboat any longer. He helped me pack up, and we spent some wonderful time together the nights before I left, and then I was gone.

The last I heard from him was Christmas day until he called last Sunday.

Saturday night I had a too-long conversation with "Sam from Seattle" and all I could feel was that it was so over. In my world anymore, what doesn't fit for me gets chewed up and spit out, and sure enough that's what happened Sunday morning. I got sick immediately, purged my guts out, and went to bed again. When I awoke three hours later after a clear resolve to not have Sam from Seattle in my life at all anymore, feeling clean and fresh and renewed, I get a call from this guy in Steamboat.

Now, you may not believe in many things that I do, but you just can't deny the timing of that call. Right when I was cleared out and cleaned up, in comes a phone call from someone who lit up my life with pure joy and sweetness. There was never anything crazy about our short time together. We enjoyed each other's company tremendously, and then I moved.

Just before moving here, I had a reading from a psychic at a party last October. I asked whether or not I'd be meeting a man. He told me straight out that I already had a man. I looked at him puzzled. He told me that there was a really great man in my life already. My thoughts were so focused on moving to my next adventure that I didn't even see what was right there in front of me.

Looking back on all of it now and seeing how blind I was to what was going on, I realize how important it was for me to do all that I did in the way I did them. I needed the experiences I've had here, especially the craziness with Sam because it gave me a great view of what I don't want in my life. I had been on a search for the holy grail of the perfect mate. You know, the one who has all the right features. For me that was someone who was on the same spiritual path as me where we could speak the same language and understand each other so clearly. Oh dear god, what was I thinking? What showed up was a man who I met at a workshop I had attended. Even though we didn't meet until the workshop was over, I was so sure that it was meant to be. What I did was make him fit the mold I was looking for, come hell or high water. It was some of the most painful experiences of my life. Thank God it was only a few short weeks. Thank you, sweet Jesus! And thank you so much for the great lessons. He was a perfect mirror of what I was going through, and I was able to exponentially grow. I am so grateful.

I want peace. I want tranquility. I want to be able to move through my days calmly, enjoying my moments as I do the things I love. I've closed the door on crazy and opened another one to peace and joy and calm.

So, now this man from Steamboat has resurfaced and after experiencing crazy, I look at this man that I left behind in a whole different light. I appreciate him. I remember our times together and the memories fill me with such joy. I smile easier, more calmly. I'm just happy in a serene way.

Wow, what a concept. Oh, and it's been well over six months since my workshop with Tom.