I am Building a New Life

I am at home, on vacation, mostly unemployed and in the middle of a pandemic.

We came home in stages.

Paloma was first to leave school. Dylan and I followed. Javier is home this week.

In the beginning, I said to the family: this is not a vacation. Every day is a new day and we are shifting into a new way of living. In some way, we always are. This time, it’s mandatory and global.

This is holy week. Semana Santa. This week, we get a vacation. One of my favorite kinds. A staycation.

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful home, to be with each other, to have a full fridge and pantry. The yard is landscaped from years of planting and those plantings voluntarily multiplying. We have places to be when it is windy outside, like today. Legs extended in the window seat, a cup of coffee on the window sill, a cat licking his paw on the other end. Now, Dylan and Paloma are petting Hobbes. Ollie is looking out the window. Probably looking for iguanas. Suddenly, we have a window seat gathering. The conversation at the end has turned to wondering if Hobbes ever wanted to be a parent, how pets are as parents, how kittens need homes and me recording this conversation trying to remember the writing I was creating in my mind while walking up and down the hill this morning with Javier.

The first time I heard someone say, ‘I am building a new life’, I was around twelve. A friend of my mom’s had her first child and went to stay with her mother in law several hours away from our place in Eastern Oregon. One day, we spoke on the phone and I asked her when she was planning on coming home. She replied, I am building a new life here and this is becoming my home.

I am building a new life and feeling fortunate for the opportunity, ability and availability of walking and hiking daily with Javier. I have imagined a time in our lives when we could start our day, as we do, sharing coffee before and with sunrise, with the addition of a morning walk or hike together before tending to the rest of our day. Now, we have time.

Never before have I valued so deeply all our surroundings and each other.

Gratitude for this life has always been an inherent part of the day. Now, more than ever.

Everything is now. No time to lose, no time to waste.

Dreams and imaginings of another time are just that. And fuel for the soul.

This is a time of continued opening, exploring, feeling - and being taken aback privately by parts of it - integrating.

Grateful to be surrounded by all this beauty and family. Good food. Loving pets. The pleasure of reading a book and to be in no rush or feel rushed.

I am learning and relearning that simply being is enough.

This vacation in the middle of a pandemic while being mostly unemployed technically ends Monday. I have online work to do. Plus a patio design project I am excited to dig into. Pandemics have a tendency to change the course of our lives and reopen doors imagined closed. A surprising reopening infused with delight. Life is full of surprises and delights unimagined or not dared to imagine.

How much can we dream, imagine and plan when we are surrounded by the reality of the unknown?

And isn’t that the truth of our everyday lives, always?

I am building a new life in which walking with Javier five days a week is happening. This is a priority. Our work must wrap around our health and wellbeing.

Walking is a metaphor for life. We can only see so far ahead. We can feel our feet touch the ground, breathe, see and feel this moment. One step at a time.

When we travel, my priority is being able to walk and have places to enjoy walking. I especially love trails in the desert and forests. I love mountains. I also enjoy walking in wide open space.

In Ireland several years ago, while we were in Kinsale and out on a walk, on two occasions, dogs followed us. As if they were our own. Out for a walk with their owners. We had to turn around on both occasions and place them inside their gates. As if we were their owners.

During that same family trip, while on the island of Inishmore, while walking, a lady stopped and asked me for directions: Do you know the way? I loved how she worded her question. That was all she said. I think about it often as I take one step at a time and continue walking through this adventure called life.

The significance of that family adventure was to mark the milestone of Dylan’s high school graduation and move through that threshold as a family. Originally, I was going to make that trip alone as I was drawn to a Celtic Spirituality retreat with Sean Johnson, an artist and yoga teacher from New Orleans. Luckily, a better idea surfaced and we made lifetime memories for our family as we flew overseas and traveled together.

On the following year, Paloma and I returned to celebrate another threshold crossing, the end of her childhood years and beginning of adolescence. We went on a half day retreat with Mary Meighan in Kildare. The day was dedicated to Paloma and she was instructed to walk in front of me as I walked behind her and allowed her space to begin venturing forward into this new phase of her life that will increasingly move her further into a realm of independence.

We all fell in love with Ireland and have often talked about returning together. I have wondered since that time, how we can recreate the feeling we experienced there, right here.

I was drawn to Ireland for several reasons. I am sure one of them is hereditary and family history from my mom’s side of the family. However, I have never felt a pull to visit Lithuania or Poland or Russia from my dad’s side of the family. Or, at least not yet. And now, the thought of travel is the furthest thing from my mind or wish list. The main reason was a resonance through the readings of John O’Donohue. Celtic wisdom is infused with a reverence for life and the spirituality of living life minute to minute. There is no formula. Everything is sacred.

This time at home, just the four of us, reminds me of a feeling we shared in Ireland and I am as grateful for that time then as for this time together now.

I think of those who are far from loved ones, who are not riding out this time wrapped in safety and surrounded by beauty. My prayers for healing goes out to those are ill or have lost loved ones, concern for the overall economy, compassion for those who feel fear and empathy for those experience anxiety or depression.

While I am mostly unemployed, I do have a wide range of skills and creative opportunities to work. I appreciate this down time to assimilate what I have to offer online and in person. I am grateful for a pause to understand and feel my worth without a monetary value or connection. This is the most unemployed I have been in my entire adult life.

I am building a new life. I am not waiting for anything to end. There is no going back. Normal has a new definition, by the hour or by the day. Routines and self-care are my anchor. Recognizing the importance of mental health and its link to meditation, I enrolled and began taking a course on teaching meditation to delve deeper into the various styles of meditation and widen my range in teaching.

Yoga and meditation are – like they are for many – my anchor, medicine and link to working and connecting with my own mind, body and spirit.

I dream of going back to the studio, teaching yoga and meditation in person again. I imagine changes in offerings based on this time away from teaching. I am grateful to see the variety of online yoga and meditation classes available for those who wish and need to take classes with a teacher.

I imagine an opportunity at this time for practitioners to create or deepen a personal yoga and meditation practice on and off the mat. A time to discover the yoga within that is ready to be expressed in a unique way that is inherent to the individual practitioner. If you have been practicing for some time now, I offer you the same words offered to me by my trusted teacher when I started taking classes many years ago, five minutes. Show up on your mat for five minutes and see what happens. That is how I began building a personal practice over ten years ago.

Dreams of sharing the studio with other teachers and instructors is also front and center. Dreams of offerings at Healing Winds and how we may grow in person again someday with our participating community. Dreams of creating are like fuel for my soul. As is, what I can create today. I started a new painting. More of Baja on paper. More note cards to print later!

I appreciate an opportunity to participate now in supporting our community in the various ways that have come forward through emails or inspirations online. Each one of us plays a part in recognizing our connection on a daily basis. We guide and inspire one another by example, we support one another by showing up where we are needed, by staying home when we are asked to, through collective breathing and being and in that way, we create a new life, every day, together.

And every day, I see the opportunity and necessity to forgive and let go and to move forward with openness, optimism, vision, clarity and love. The only way forward is love.

I am building a new life. This is my life. Every day, this is my mantra.