How’d that turn out?

Looking back on a turning point

Spring on Mt. Figueroa, Central Coast California, 2023

Sometimes change comes in demitasse cups … sometimes it floods your world with Big Gulps. The past several months have been of the Big Gulp variety as a new love entered my life, I sold my home in Central Coast California, and began to live on the edge of a breeze, drifting here and there like a milkweed seed.  In between the lovely, weightless moments have been surges of terror, insecurity and a mad grasping for something … anything … that would make me feel some sense of control.

I wrote that almost 9 years ago in my blog and now it comes back and asks for reflection. What went right? What went wrong? What am I grateful for? It definitely did not turn out as expected. Here’s a few more details from the post before revealing the radical upheaval and new philosophy that followed this writing:

Gradually, I'm settling down, releasing the need to know what's coming next, letting go of expectations and thoughts of what life *should* be like.  At my age, there's no longer time to worry about what the world thinks, what the world expects, what the world deems "right."  The new love in my life handed me a platter of possibilities and said pick what you want … what you really want.  It's frustrating to realize that I'm not sure I know.  Even now … here in my seventh decade ... I still have to stop and think: do I really want this (whatever it is) or am I just operating on past conditioning?

My life no longer looks "normal." I don't have a "home" in the standard sense. I'm not married, employed, working to make the world a better place or even baking cookies for my grandchildren. I have almost nothing to hang my ego and identity on. If someone should ask me what I do, I'd stammer helplessly for an answer.  For the first time in my life I may be more of a "being" and less of a "doing."

In two weeks I will head off to Mexico to fulfill a dream I've had for most of my adult life … to learn Spanish.  It's a dream I've launched in fits and starts, taking Spanish 1 probably a dozen times or more, always convincing myself that I would never be really good at a second language so it was pointless to try.  Now, I've decided I don't care where I wind up, I just want to revel in a new language.  So, for seven weeks, I'll be in an intensive language course … four weeks in San Miguel de Allende (an art community in central Mexico), then three weeks in Playa del Carmen (on the beach in the Yucatan). And, then, just for good measure a week in Merida, the capital of the Yucatan where wandering the streets will be my classroom.

First of all, I loved Mexico. San Miguel was delightful and I fell in love with the murals. Disliked Playa del Carmen instantly and immediately shifted gears for the highlands of Chiapas in San Cristóbal de las Casas where I stayed for four months. And still did not learn Spanish! During that time the fatal flaw in my new love rang clearly so I returned home alone, still homeless and incapable of carrying on the simplest of conversations in Spanish.

However, I kept the idea of Idylling About (see below) and over the next few years, I moved to Grass Valley, helped start a writer’s conference, wrote two bad novels (and published one fun fantasy novella), moved to central Mexico for two more years where I continued to fail at learning Spanish but had a great time exploring central Mexico, moved to Reno just in time for Covid and created an art book about that strange time, explored the idea of living in two RVs (one parked at a Northern California lake (just in time to experience Dixie, the largest wildfire in California’s history) and one in the mountains in Southern California, published four issues of The Granary Tree, a travel journal, helped a friend launch her peace magazine, co-created a gratitude journal which launched this newsletter, and then, finally, came home to the one place I’ve loved above all: Santa Barbara, where I now live on the edge of a great university, a few blocks from a peaceful ocean.

Idylling About … the last paragraph of the blog post from 9 years ago:

As I've been thinking about this trip, I knew I wanted to blog about this adventure … therefore, I started looking for a new blog title and came up with Idylling About... with the idea of wandering about with little direction in a peaceful, joyful manner. A merger of "idle" and "idyll" building on the dictionary definition of idyll as a noun meaning an extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque episode or scene.

Turning that noun into action yielded "idylling" -  joyfully living with little structure and forethought while wandering through art, love, imagination, spirit, peace, transformation, poetry, metaphor, connection and conversation. 

I still like the idea of idylling about, drifting this way and then that, following whatever curiosity catches my fancy, caring very little about how the world sees me (when, in all actuality, it doesn’t see me much at all … and that’s okay.) However, I now have a fixed nest, a place to sleep, a place to roam through beauty, a place to spend time with friends, a place to write and make art … that’s all I really need. At least for this particular moment.

For all of these years of idylling about, I am extremely grateful. If you are practicing the art of Idylling About, I’d love to hear how that looks for you in your life

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