2018, I'm Coming for you...

On New Year's Eve, I sat down to reflect on the past year and set my intentions for the one spread eagle in front of me. All I could think was "Fuck." Thinking about this past year totally exhausts me. Trying to enter the next one with intention feels like a Herculean task that I wish someone else would lay out and tell me where to go, what to do and how to be. This was the moment that the thought entered my mind to not do any of this. None at all. Was that an option? Just the thought made me so giddy that I knew I was on to something. I sat with the idea for a bit...the days of 2018 ticking away without any intentions, resolutions or plans of any sort. There were breathtaking sunrises and heartbreaking sunsets, a full moon that made magic in the clouds and all of it made me want to dance...so I did. In between my living room karaoke to 90's female country and dancing to playlists made by my fellow Murderinos, I sat down and wrote one list.

Love.
Feel.
Go.

I made six SEVEN travel plans with loves over the next 11 months spanning 9 states and two countries. I sat with a lady who I didn't realize I loved and let down my social worker boundaries that have somehow spilled over into my personal life and cried for her physical pain, her worry over her dog and the change in her life at this moment in time. I made a serious 20 day commitment with a friend who I didn't know needed it until I took a chance and asked her if it was okay that I tag along. I stopped telling a love how to love. I spoke some love truths of my own.

I also cleaned up my physical and digital life. I ripped up and burned every pdf, workbook, worksheet and reminder that I had at home and at work that had anything to do with mindfulness, spiritual growth, motivation and self-help. I deleted every file on my phone and my computer. I unjoined, unfollowed and unsubscribed all the woo-woo in my email and every social media platform I am present on. I let these things go with gratitude for where they had taken me and knowledge that my path with each was complete.

I am complete.

I am entering 2018 with balls and grit and guts and a heart broken wide open from every moment that came before...raw and ready for the next ecstasy and agony.

I am ready to breathe you in.

Brace yourself.

xoxo.

Love letter to Ft. Bragg

Hi love. I get to see you today. I've been trying to stay busy, distracted...so that I wouldn't spend all of my time daydreaming about our upcoming time together. The anticipation has been taking me on quite the ride. Today I let the butterflies take flight in my belly and I'm piecing together things to bring with me...it's mostly whimsy. I bet you didn't know that a suitcase full of whimsy practically floats itself to the trunk of the car! On fairy feet. On gossamer wings.

You've been so much to me, evolving over the years from my first teenaged romantic getaway...when I thought gas station roses and dancing to Unchained Melody under your stars was the height of romance. (Wait, that still works for me. Let's have some of that this weekend, please). You were rowdy family reunions and days of watching my babies get to know your tastes and textures, your wildness and insulated safety. You were all magical forest camping and fires oceanside. You were glittering glass beaches full of dazzling wizardry and hikes where the towering ferns themselves made me feel my humanity. You were quenching and nourishing with your forests spilling over cliffs into an oftentimes stormy powerful sea...simultaneously grounding and lofty euphoria without a clear beginning or end. You were my honeymoon, my labor day, my birthday...you were disappointments and redemptions. You presented me with gifts from the depths of the sea, craft beers, whales and caves and even a coffin shaped like a big fish.

You mesmerized me...mesmerize me. You have embraced every love that I've brought with me, quenching and nourishing them just as diligently as you did me...young and old alike. I take you with me everywhere and each time we are together, I leave a piece of me behind.

I'm on my way...and we have magic to make.

Random Tuesday Thoughts...

I watched a movie last night, a funny movie that took me through joy into disgust and fear, tromping through envy and laughter and not just a little inspired to be more...more...well, more.

The main character was silly and fun but also steady in life. She feared that she was boring. I paused the movie there. I realized that I was holding my breath. On the exhale, I whispered "me too" and I got a little teary.

I'm sort of a homebody. I love this space that I've crafted to be my nest, cocoon, big hug at the end of the day away. I long for more time to cuddle my dogs, do yoga with my cat and domesticate my chicks more so that they might do some amazingly awesome things like my previous chickens did...like pecking on the sliding door to come in and lay their eggs quite noisily in abandoned Easter baskets just inside. I like to clean my house. I like to do my yard work. I like to talk to my trees that are still in their early years and vulnerable yet. My favorite place to read lately is curled up in my hanging basket chairs and I'm constantly on the hunt for a mosquito net to hang over my outdoor clawfoot tub. My bed is like a cloud and I really love cooking lately. I've discovered Salt n Pepa on Pandora and I get my groove on all over this little castle of mine. I've been listening to Jordan Petersen's Maps of Meaning lecture series and re-learning French. I'm fiercely attuned to rhythms these days...of mood, of season, of lunar phase, of thought. I'm deep in studying history as it pertains to my fascinating family tree, reading voraciously and taking classes on skywatching.

I have to laugh.

Boring?

Pfft.

2016, I own you...

So, I lit my incense, gathered my favorite pen and colored pencils and laid out a fuzzy blanket. Ginger beer in hand, I sat down and spread out my last few year's declarations...with this year's blank worksheet in front of me. Coming out of "inhabit unihibitedly" for 2015, it seemed obvious that this year would be something along the lines of DO, BE, YES!

But...but. It wasn't working. I played with accept and allow and flow and ease. I fel in love with enthusiasm...but it didn't click in my soul. I meditated. I free wrote. I journaled all the prompts AGAIN. I made up words. I had a fire and burned the previous years' declarations, releasing the past so the future had room. I waved a feather through the incense and breathed deeply.

Nothing.

In frustration, I threw my hands up and declared FUCK IT!

...and I knew. In that moment, I knew.

2016 is the year of fuck it.

I feel free.

(I've had to explain that, in my world, it's a deeply positive declaration that rolls up do, be, accept, allow, flow, ease and all the words that remove all the obstacles. It's a defiant yes when all the odds are stacked to the contrary. It's an embrace and a kiss on the lips when previously there would have been a decorous or polite distance. It's the biggest YES when before there would have been reasons, excuses or noncommittal maybes. It's frosted eye shadow after 40 and white shoes after Labor Day...high hemlines, cowboy boots and whiskey. It's making everything the big deal that it truly is...EVERYTHING! It's not acting one's age but acting one's heart and making memories with those who stick around after the embrace and the kiss on the lips. It's freedom of spirit. Fuck it! Enthusiastically!!) See the Pinterest board here.

As this year is in it's 10th day...I've been opening my heart in the most profoundly "fuck it" manner that feels like I have sprouted wings. So I'm making some. ;) What an adventure. See this developing Pinterest board here.

Inhabit Unihibitedly

This past year was all it was meant to be. It felt earned. The way things flowed from foot stomping grabbing the bull by the horns through all the phases until this past year when I sat still in peace.

2010 was Carpe Diem and Moxie

2011 was Possibility and Brilliance

2012 was Trust

2013 was Imagine and Allow

2014 brought Quiescent and Sanguine, Quiescent and Crepuscular

2014 was the biggest self hug in the history of EVER. It was everything I dreamed it to be. It was a return home. Crossfit changed me one burpee at a time. Running away to remember where home is...an island whose energy heals the spirit, a circle of women who speak love as a language my heart could instantly translate, backroads of rural Montana where I was thrilled to get to know the man my son has become...is becoming, falling into a sibling puzzle like we each were missing a piece until then. Then there was the training...a return to the sensual in a group of fucking badass women who are changing the world, finding my place in a queendom, goddess training with my tribe, journey work with mountain lion...a queen in her own right. The beginning of Life Alchemy. I moved into my own space in so many ways...where I live, this body of mine, my spirit, a business of my own, my tribe. A universe that I will inhabit uninhibitedly.

Wanting...

I want more twirling, glee filled enthusiastic bursts of carefree abandonment and complete presence in the bubbly~ness of the moment.

I want to balance that with an overarching ability to be more grounded and calm, to be more deeply connected to those around me. Roots, intertwined and making us stronger.

I want to make sure I am taking time to be awed and to be magical.

I want a broad shouldered sexy man with a lopsided grin who knows himself backward and forward and is not afraid to give of himself.

I want breath on the back of my neck in the wee hours of the morning that wakes me in a state of honor, bliss and anticipation.

I want my home to be more self sufficient both in care and cost so that I might be freer to roam.

I want to walk...walk...and walk some more...The Camino, Turkey, Scotland...and dancing at every destination my feet carry me to.

I want remembering...the deep kind that channels through me and gives my loves wings upon which to leave me and return at will. The remembering that allows us to be settled and confident in each journey.

I want the abundant self love that allows me to take the time and money to only nourish this body with what it truly needs from the inside out.

I want to respond to my four legged family's hopeful eyes with more leash time that earns me this inspirational love and loyalty they freely give so that I might be more like them.

I want a career detour that includes gathering and teaching and the patience for those details to work themselves out because right at this moment, the only knowing I have is that I have things to share that are worth sharing and a heart that is wide open ready for it.

I want restful nights, journal time, star gazing, giggles and circling with sister souls and joyful moments that stretch into days and months.

I want insular foggy mornings, salt water baths, cucumber mint water in mason jars, puddles and Wellies, rain that washes me clean and steamy mirrors to quench and blur the lines between my body of water and all others.

For My Dad this Veteran's Day

If I could be with you today, it would be on a bench in a space specifically set aside, tended to and nurtured as a memorial. There would be a flag. There would be enough wind so that as we sat silently, we could hear its fabric song flapping softly.

I would hold your hand in both of mine, cradled in my lap. I would wonder where your thoughts were but wouldn’t burden you with my need to know. I would sit with you silently wondering how difficult your time serving our country was and how you managed to survive. I would be glad to hold you in that moment and be satisfied with the possibility of even a split second of peace in your soul that might come from that connection.

I wouldn’t be sure if my words should be that of thanks or apology so I would sit silently. I would wait for a cue or a sign or a sigh that might tell me which direction to go. I would hope to be a reprieve. To be a safe place. To be a confidante. To be brave enough to hear what you would finally share, knowing that I would gladly assume some of your burden if there was any possible way. I would hope that there was some sense to be made of your sacrifices.

I would send all of that to you through such a simple touch…and in that moment, everything would be okay.

It wouldn’t be a celebration, but it would be a beginning. I most mourn the loss of those beginnings.