Dating Fate

You are a tease.

You tempt me with possibilities I can't ignore. My desire for change is so great, how could I not trust you blindly? It's always worked, and yet, this time I am less than calm about the outcome. What I might have seen as your hand pointing the way might just as easily be my own hand grasping at air. 

Fate or mistake. They even rhyme. How poetic.

So many choices in my life, all made with the belief that what will be will be. "If it's meant to be it will be" "That's just the way it is" "Trust your instincts" "Everything happens for a reason."

What if the reason this time is to point out how I cover what could be a mistake with a layer of fate?  Fate cake. Could be perfect chocolaty goodness or christmas fruit cake. Could be urinal cake. Can you really have your cake and eat it too? Eating crow. Crow cake. My mind refuses to be quiet and keeps filling the unknowing with crumbs to follow. Did I get here on my own? Can I follow the crumbs and find my way back? Straight as the crow flies. Piece of cake. 

This turn in my life's path is not just mine. I seem to be taking so much of my world along with me. Friends wonder if I'll ever come back. My children wonder if I'm on this path to leave them behind. 

So many questions to answer.  

But really - I have no answers. I just decided.  

I went on a date with you and got fate raped.

Or maybe I wanted it. 

We're going steady, you and I.

You know what's going to happen.

I don't. 

Welcome home

You, like me, are always thinking.

It's as if the wheels in your brain are always turning, thoughts churning. Calm is just the time when you can keep one thought in focus instead of juggling them all. It's not an easy thing to do when you are like us. Almost anything can bump our thoughts from one track to another and another.

To focus, we use tricks we developed early in our lives. I used to trace the pattern in fabrics with my finger, letting my mind follow the path as if I was a part of the threads. From there I learned to draw and would let the lines carry me from thought to thought. Following a path of movement worked too - walking, biking, swimming, climbing - anything that could channel the chaos. Becoming a graphic artist allowed me to make use of the multiple thoughts to solve complex design problems. I can see many options at once and evaluate them. Honestly, I can't help but do that.

There is a dark side too - where the thoughts begin to crash into each other - the pros and cons - and it becomes a web of sticky "what if's." Thrashing only binds me tighter into negative thinking and it is only by being calm and quieting the thoughts can I slip free.

I still sketch to relieve my stress, and one of the things built into my living space are drawers of pens, pencils, pads as well as plans for what I would do to this or that space. Though those sketches, I was able to see the patterns of how to create calm in my home that I could then use to bring calm into my mind.

I took a front yard full of weeds and put a courtyard in it's place. Trees I'd not really noticed before took center stage and I could imagine years into the future how the plants I would plant would grow and bloom. I put a fountain in the middle picked for it's sound as my son and I walked through the statuary lot in the rain - eyes closed - each taking turns leading the other. The height of each wall was planned for optimum privacy but low enough in the front to be welcoming. Gates from salvage completed the look and made the space seem as if it had always been there. And it had... in my mind.

Skylights brought light into the darkest of rooms - as well as fresh breezes and sounds of birds.

More fountains channeled sound into every part of my yard and home. More fountains brought more birds. Then chimes - tuned to work in harmony play their sweet notes as the breeze moves through the graceful oaks. A hot tub, in the garden, in a yard completely enclosed by beautiful redwood fencing encourages me just be calm and warm and watch the trees, birds and listen to water, breeze, chimes.

I made my entire home into a collection of calming spaces. I can go to any part of my home, inside or out to help focus my thoughts and allow me to get "unstuck" from negative thinking - a place of infinite calm and opportunities for singular focus.

My path is leading me East where I will take what I learned here and transform another house, into a calming home.

This home is waiting patiently for you to find it.
It was created for you. You'll recognize that the moment you walk through the gate and hear the trickling of the fountain. Close your eyes, take a deep breath.

Welcome home.

Agent of God

God, you said, brought us together.

But I remember differently. You encouraged me to meet you by implying a deal I could not pass up. I trusted you and flew 2400 miles to see a home that I was already in love with. And you knew that and you threw God in the mix to help seal the deal. Perhaps it was God who jumped in and upped the price you implied I could offer by $125K? No, I'm pretty sure that was you.

God, it seems brought you and the seller of the home together too. You both had brushes with cancer - his wife - your son. Your son recovered. His wife died. So much info to tell someone just there to look at a home. You made sure the seller heard how God brought you and I together too. Was it really ok to have me meet him? Was it really ok to insist you represent us both? God must have been talking to you because all I could hear was my loss = your gain. You even told me how you would spend your commission once I bought the home. With tears, you said, "I'll take my husband and son to visit my adopted daughter in Peru." You really took that sponsor a child thing seriously, huh? My son turned to you and said, "the tears are a nice touch."

You sang "my God is an awesome God" while we road across the lake in the seller's boat. This just after to offered to get him a scotch to drink and to sit on his lap. Once back at the house, you grabbed my hand, and my son's (openly agnostic) and the seller's and made us all pray with you. You thanked God and it was just after that you let me know that the seller would never accept the amount you'd first suggested and that I needed to offer $125K more. Once I made it clear that was not going to happen, you broke out your cigarettes and began to smoke in the car. Your car, your rules, but first thing that morning you'd asked us if it bothered us if you smoked. We said yes, it would bother us.

My son asked you a question about smoking and cancer, "How can you smoke when you almost lost a son to cancer? Don't you know the chances of you getting cancer from smoking is high?" Ok, he is full of advice and went on and on about the percentages and age related facts. Annoying, but he was correct.

Do you recall what you said next? Oh, I'm sure God heard you as well as we did. You said to my 18 year old son, "Well, you are gay. You are going to fuck a guy and die of aids."

Leaping

Without a second thought I am changing everything with a leap of faith.

My CA home is up for sale, must run off soon before the open house. I found the home of my dreams in Ohio just minutes from both my family and my husband's. We will be moving our lives, business, dogs, cats and toys over 2400 miles away to a new timezone and climate.

I am so excited.

There is nothing like being in free fall, not knowing where or when you'll land, but trusting.

No place like home

I would sit cross legged on the floor transfixed by the small TV as Dorothy clicked her ruby slippers together and repeated the magic words "There's no place like home."

In a heartbeat she was returned to her family's farmhouse in Kansas where it appeared that all she had experienced was just a dream. "You were there, and you and you!" Each would laugh and stroke her head or shoulder, she'd been through a whirlwind and returned to her life forever changed.

No place like home.

I grew up in a small town the the middle of Kansas. I believed if I wished hard enough I would be picked up and taken to the magical world I must really be from. Kansas could not possibly be my home. Yes, I lived there with my parents and my sister and my dog Prissy. Yes, I had grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, but where was my destiny? I could sing like Dorothy and knew every song by heart. I could walk a block to the cornfields that surrounded our little town and when the tornados threatened, I dreamed of running out to be lifted up into the world of my dreams. Somewhere over the rainbow - where dreams come true.

I would climb trees and play structures and roofs to be as close as I could to the blue Kansas sky. I would lay in the cool grass and read the signs in the ever changing clouds. And I grew up.

We moved to Colorado where in some places the mountain tops seemed like stairs to Oz. I imagined if I just climbed high enough - through the clouds - the magic would explode around me. But we lived where it was flat. And when I finally got a trip in a friend's father's plane - I saw that the clouds above are only air.

I left home at 18 to go to college, came back briefly to get married, then off again and into my own life. It seemed to me that maybe it was the leaving home that would bring my Oz to me. But no. My life just changed and grew to fit me like a glove. And when I finally arrived in California, if felt a bit like Oz. San Francisco glittered like the Emerald City and there were wizards behind every innovation. It was so easy to believe I had found my place.

I built my business and my life there - I married, divorced - married again, divorced again and finally found my soulmate in an unlikely partner. A boy - just 19 to my 41 living his life in his mother's basement in Ohio. Like the scarecrow, he danced into my life to point the way to happiness. Like the Lion, he helped me find the courage to walk a different path. Like the tin man, I was the oil can that freed him to walk the path with me. Together we found we shared a heart and a dream  - to make our home together.

We've lived in our Oz for 14 years. As one child flew on, and then the other - homesickness  slipped over us like sleeping poppies. The dream of snow falling outside out bedroom window awaked us to realize there is nothing behind the curtain.

Hand and hand we are clicking our heals now.

It's time to go home.

And you'll be there. And you. And you. And all of you.

Anonymous

Words can say a lot about a person.  

you have been leaving coments on my msn page stay of it i dont no how you got into my site and i no i didnt add you so i.ll be reporting you to the computer company aswell as the intenational police for fraud.this is not a joke so dont fcken treat it like it is!

You are right. It is not funny. 

You are afraid. You are hurting.

If I had left comments for you, they would have been positive.

If I had left comments for you, they would not have been anonymous.

When you're smiling

My mother thought I should be just like you.

Or rather, she pointed out that my popularity "problem" could be easily remedied by putting a smile on my face. Debbie, you are so pretty when you smile! While I had my dark teenage moments, you seemed to be eternally upbeat. The only difference between you and her is that she smiles all the time! 

I did look up to you. You were a Senior when I was a Sophomore. You were active in my youth group at church. You were head cheerleader, home coming queen. You were pretty.  You got A's and where ever you were, there was always a crowd around you. I have a yearbook full of smiling  photos of you. You seemed to have it all. I understood why my mother wanted me to be like you. You were the daughter parents could put on a pedestal. The good girl with a great attitude and a solid future.

Our mothers were friends. When you invited me to come along with you to a bonfire, I knew my mother had asked your mother to ask you to ask me. Take Debbie. If only she can see more of how you make friends she can learn how to make friends too.

I was 15. I was nervous. I knew it was a set up but I really did want to see how the popular kids had fun. The entire football team would be there. I was terrified.  I would say or do something stupid. I was ugly and a smile was not going to change that. You were perfect. 

The bonfire illuminated the dirt and brush and at it's edges kids mingled in small groups drinking beer. At school I was ignored, so when you left me on my own it was expected. Watching you drink beer and make out with guys was not. Drinking beer in my mind was BREAKING THE LAW. Kissing someone who was not your boyfriend was nasty. You smiled and laughed. When it came time to take me home, you put me in the back seat with Mr. Football star.  It was classic - end of the party, end of the beer, even Debbie looks pretty good now. You were making out in the front seat while the most popular guy in school slipped his arm around me and pulled me in for a kiss. Popular or not. Handsome of not. It felt nasty. I felt nasty. All I wanted was to be taken home.

I'm sure my rebuff of him was the talk of the school. Who does she think she is?

I never looked at you the same way after that. Your smile hid more than it showed. My mother continued to encourage me to smile more and to ask you to go out again. Debbie, I'm sure she would love to take you along to more outings if you'd just ask her. Right. High School is easy like that.

It was years later that I found out you'd gone mad.

You stayed in our little town. One day you put you drew the curtains and refused to let your children leave your darkened home.  God had told you that the devil was in electricity. 

She just stopped smiling.