On this last day of the year 2020 I am smiling. I’m just so damned happy, for so many reasons. And as I begin my meandering preparations to return to my slightly disheveled home, a job I love and those pesky boys of mine, my mind boggles as it always does at the magic of travel. And I am left in wonderment once again at the fact that the Universe, even when we try our best to fuck things up, protects us.
I’ve always felt rather arrogantly that the Universe favors me, and today, on December 31st, 2020, I woke up convinced of it. Because this past week, while I haphazardly and deliberately stoked a strange and sketchy situation, the Universe sent me red flags. There were red flags to the left. Red flags to the right. Red flags in front, in back, on all sides of me.
My friends were worried about it, and tried to warn me.
“I don’t know, Mary,” my friend said to me at lunch yesterday, shaking her head. “I don’t like it. Something seems off.”
“Text me first thing in the morning,” another friend texted me, “so I know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“And you’re going through with this?” a third friend said, when I showed her the texts. “Are you crazy? Don’t do this.”
The Universe told me point blank I was fucking up. “Mary!!” it said, waving its damn red flags furiously, “that’s the wrong way! What the fuck are you doing, are you crazy? Have you forgotten who you are?”
Yes, I did. I did forget who I was, briefly. But all good writers take risks to acquire content, whether they be emotional or physical risks. And I am happy to report to my readers and my friends that I have emerged from the dark shadows unscathed and with a great freaking story. A story so good that once written, it will be stored in a special file in my computer, only to be unveiled when the time is right.
Life is simply perfect in its absurdity.
I will observe this for now, like a piece of fine art. It is still too fresh, and laugher is brimming too easily to the surface. Writing while laughing or crying is never a good idea- it means it is still too close to your heart. You must hold it away from you for a time, and simply consider it, the way Van Gogh considered his chair.
Ah, life. Its great and constant bounties never fail to delight.
And neither does travel. It has once again managed to do that thing it does for me. You know, the filling the empty throbbing place in my heart thing?
I’m going to miss it here. I’m going to miss this magical place where seventy years ago my mother the waitress and my father the bartender met, wooed and pledged their troths. I’ll miss the snow, the views, the stores and the wonderful people I have met. I never got my horse-drawn sleigh ride, but I took some great hikes in the snow, and today I’m sneaking in some ice-skating with a friend before I get on the road, and hopefully a couple of hours of skiing on the over-booked mountain. I promised a new friend that I will be returning soon, hopefully for a weekend in January, to do everything I wasn’t able to do during my short stay.
So I will return home not with New Year’s resolutions, but with New Years’ dissolutions. Stopping the squandering of money and energy and resources, and channeling my energy into my current lifeforce.
Just silly stuff, like not buying any more coffee mugs. Using all of my current makeup. Taking books out of the library instead of buying them. Relaxing more in the physical spaces in my house- I have all of these beautiful chairs, and I never sit in them. Getting better at my relationships, my job, and my golf game.
Never forgetting that while the world is filled with wonderful people, it also has its share of shady phantoms. Never forgetting, not for a second, that I am my father’s daughter. Never forgetting that I am a mother to sons. Never forgetting that those red flags are being waved in front of my face to keep me on course. Never forgetting that even when I wander off the trail, to remember that the path to enlightenment is a different path for everyone.