feeling fragile, feeling strong

These days, I feel like I am slipping in and out of a dreamscape.

As the snow slides away and the evenings lengthen, I see before me a giant hour glass with sand rushing to the bottom. Time is just so weird. In one way, my days are so full, so long– they feel eternal; from another view, my stay in paradise is about to end.

This past year is taking on a whole different look to me now.
I never set out to spend a year on a farm.

When people asked me last spring what I was going to do, where I was going to live– my consistent answer was, “I don’t know.”

I didn’t know. I had no plan. I had no vision. (Which was pretty upsetting to me at the time– wandering in fog is not my preferred mode of travel). All I knew was that it had to feel good and the only GPS I was going to follow was the signal I could tune into deep in my gut.

I don’t know if I told you guys this story from last May or not, but what happened was just as Dave and I ended our marriage and I was looking for a place to live, a woman walked up to me at the end of a yoga class and handed me a card with a bit of writing on it and a phone number. The writing said, “2/3 bedroom, farm, need to be on site Sundays.” As she handed it to me she said, “I know you are looking for a place to live– this place is beautiful.” The word beautiful was said with a big exhale of breathy sigh, but all that went across my mind was “flipping small towns! everybody knows what’s in your mailbox before you do.”

But I thanked her and took the card– threw it on the dashboard of my car with the full knowledge that I may not know where I am going but I sure as HELL was not moving one town over to some flipping FARM! I was headed to the CITY–to the garden of URBAN delights– lights, sidewalks, cafes, museums. This much I knew.

As it turned out, that wasn’t the signal I was getting from my inner GPS. Each time I located a place to live more city-like, the red alert went off and the bleeping was no no no.

Deeply frustrating and upsetting to me. Where were my angels laying out a clear path? Where were my guides giving me a clear vision of all that lay ahead? Those weeks were a long walk through Stumbletown with a bad feeling in my gut to the point where on a Monday morning last May I just sat with my meditation journal and wrote “I give up– I am so lost– please help me.”

And the prompting I got was to go out to my car and get the card off my dashboard (where it had sat lo, those long three weeks) and call about that apartment.

NO.

I refused. I sat on the couch and refused the prompt– which only made it stronger.

FINE, I said, finally– just to shut it up– I will make the call– if it is so damn beautiful– it will already be gone and that will put this to rest once and for all.

So I run out to the car– cursing the whole time, punch the numbers into the phone and let it ring. A man picks up the phone and he has great, warm, kind of that “reggae,” everything’s great energy. I ask if the apartment is still available. It is. I tell him I have two dogs (thinking that will eliminate me)– he says, “no problem.” He suggests I come over right now to look at it– I waver– it is right before June SAW and I have SO much work to do– the idea of losing two hours in the middle of the day for an apartment I am never going to live in makes my skin crawl– but I say, okay, but I’ll come just me, no dogs– to check it out first.

Bring the dogs, he insists. They have two and it will be important to see if they all get along. Fine.

Fine.

I throw the dogs in the car and people? I am cursing. Seriously– as I drive I am cursing my stupid self that KNOWS the LAST PLACE ON EARTH I will ever move to is a crummy, toothless, crappy, depressing farm so I am wasting precious time here that I do not have to waste.

It was a really fun drive.

But then, as we roll up the road that leads to this 700-acre farm, odd phrases appeared in my mind– oh, that’s kind of pretty. Oh, nice field. Hmm, not so ugly.

I pulled up to the bridge and let the dogs out who got on famously with the two farm dogs from the get go. The kids were playing in the creek and the manager and his wife could not have been more lovely. Then, the strangest thing happened as I walked around, up into the apartment, up and over to the pond and back again– a sensation of pure peace settled around me, a feeling of absolute ease, wellness and calm. It just. felt. so. good.

And oh hell– this will have to get finished another day– gotta deal with some stuff in this moment. Consider this part one . . hold tight.

More soon.

Bisous, E