“You’re what?”
“I’m moving into a house I’ve never seen with a person I’ve never met.”
“How did that happen?”
Synchronicity. That’s the one-word answer. Synchronicity and faith – that’s the three-word answer. Or maybe they’re the same. Migrating from Santa Barbara to Albuquerque, I haven’t always known what would come next, where I would land, how I would get there. But, like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ “Wild Geese,” I knew when it was time to go.
How do geese know
when to fly to the sun?
Who tells them the seasons?
How do we humans know
when it is time
to move on?
“I’m moving into a house I’ve never seen with a person I’ve never met.”
“How did that happen?”
Synchronicity. That’s the one-word answer. Synchronicity and faith – that’s the three-word answer. Or maybe they’re the same. Migrating from Santa Barbara to Albuquerque, I haven’t always known what would come next, where I would land, how I would get there. But, like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ “Wild Geese,” I knew when it was time to go.
How do geese know
when to fly to the sun?
Who tells them the seasons?
How do we humans know
when it is time
to move on?
As with the migrant birds,
so surely with us,
there is a voice within,
if only we would listen to it,
that tells us certainly
when to go forth
into the unknown.
I began packing the last week of December 2010, and moved from Santa Barbara to Tustin February 1, 2011, to stay with a friend for an agreed-upon four months. There, I rested, recovered, studied for the New Mexico broker’s exam. At first, I wasn’t aware of how much I needed the rest and recovery. But I did. My son and I had just spent sixteen months traveling back and forth to the ICU at UCLA’s medical center for his melanoma treatment. He’s fine now – in the 15% of the population who respond to Interleukin2. Only near the end of my stay did I understand my deep need to read, sleep, nap, watch TV. I realized I was recovering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress. When I passed the New Mexico broker’s exam, and the four months were up, it was clearly time to move on. Where? East. That’s all I knew.
Why Albuquerque? I felt a “calling” or spiritual “pull” to go there. The original catalyst was a real estate client with plans to build there. He offered me the listings if I would relocate. I visited twice to look at property and attend a writer’s conference. Life’s complications have made his plans uncertain, but I left Santa Barbara knowing I was to go whether he did or not. Faith. Major faith. I have not lived outside California for 64 years and have never lived so far from my 36-year-old son.
East. Head east – toward the light. About two weeks before leaving Tustin, I learned where I was going. While talking with a friend in Arizona, she said, “Why don’t you stay here? I have an extra room, a freezer full of food, and we’re about 300 miles from Albuquerque. You can use this as a base to find a place to live.” It was such a comfort to have a place to land, a friendly welcome waiting. A Bible verse I learned as a child captures my experience: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.” The small, Aladdin-like oil lamps of history cast only enough light to reveal the next step on the path. But that’s all we need when we have faith. We take the step revealed. Then the light shows the next step.
The next step was a trip to Albuquerque to find a place to live. Since going there was a major investment, (a 600-mile round-trip, 10 hours of driving, a hotel stay), I prepared by researching online – everything from monthly motel rentals to apartments for lease and real estate for sale.
Real estate for sale. I met Donna with RE/MAX when I made an appointment to see three of her listings. I prescreened them by driving by the day before. I liked the style, but not the location, of one property which backed to a busy street. I drove around the small neighborhood and wrote down the address of another home in a better location. Donna also had keys to the home of a friend who wanted to rent it. After we looked at the house for sale, she drove directly to her friend’s rental. It was the same house whose address I’d written down the day before! This began a cascade of synchronicities. We sat down to talk at her Open House. We discovered shared metaphysical beliefs. We had both completed the same personal growth programs. We had similar goals. When she asked what brought me to New Mexico, I described the spiritual pull in greater detail, “Some kind of healing work, perhaps connected with Dying Consciously, possibly taking a course on the energy medicine of the shaman of the Americas with Alberto Villoldo - ‘Healing the Light Body.’ ” “I’ve done that,” Donna said.
A week later, Donna called to say she woke up that morning with an idea about where I could live. A friend who owned a single-storey, Pueblo-style, adobe home with a secret garden sometimes rented out a room. She described the home I want to own. Would I consider that? Yes. Then she would talk with her at dinner that night and let me know the next day. Donna thought it would be a good match since we were the same age, both “interesting,” both metaphysical thinkers. The owner was from England, where I had visited several times, an artist who made jewelry. The intention I set for my New Mexico life, while still in California, was that it would be filled with culture – art, music, theater, writing. The owner didn’t hesitate. Neither did I. We both trusted Donna’s intuition enough to move forward. “There’s one thing I didn’t tell you,” Donna said. “She bought the house with an inheritance from her aunt.” I will be buying a home with an inheritance from my aunt. I met Claire (“Light”) when I moved in and have now been here three months, eating breakfast on the garden patio beneath towering ash trees, watching hummingbirds and bees buzz the sunflowers, hollyhocks, and wisteria-draped gate next to the coyote fencing. When I lie in bed, I look up at open, wood-beam ceilings (vigas and latillas), imagining myself in my own pueblo-style New Mexico home. Head east. Toward the light.
so surely with us,
there is a voice within,
if only we would listen to it,
that tells us certainly
when to go forth
into the unknown.
I began packing the last week of December 2010, and moved from Santa Barbara to Tustin February 1, 2011, to stay with a friend for an agreed-upon four months. There, I rested, recovered, studied for the New Mexico broker’s exam. At first, I wasn’t aware of how much I needed the rest and recovery. But I did. My son and I had just spent sixteen months traveling back and forth to the ICU at UCLA’s medical center for his melanoma treatment. He’s fine now – in the 15% of the population who respond to Interleukin2. Only near the end of my stay did I understand my deep need to read, sleep, nap, watch TV. I realized I was recovering from PTSD, post-traumatic stress. When I passed the New Mexico broker’s exam, and the four months were up, it was clearly time to move on. Where? East. That’s all I knew.
Why Albuquerque? I felt a “calling” or spiritual “pull” to go there. The original catalyst was a real estate client with plans to build there. He offered me the listings if I would relocate. I visited twice to look at property and attend a writer’s conference. Life’s complications have made his plans uncertain, but I left Santa Barbara knowing I was to go whether he did or not. Faith. Major faith. I have not lived outside California for 64 years and have never lived so far from my 36-year-old son.
East. Head east – toward the light. About two weeks before leaving Tustin, I learned where I was going. While talking with a friend in Arizona, she said, “Why don’t you stay here? I have an extra room, a freezer full of food, and we’re about 300 miles from Albuquerque. You can use this as a base to find a place to live.” It was such a comfort to have a place to land, a friendly welcome waiting. A Bible verse I learned as a child captures my experience: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path.” The small, Aladdin-like oil lamps of history cast only enough light to reveal the next step on the path. But that’s all we need when we have faith. We take the step revealed. Then the light shows the next step.
The next step was a trip to Albuquerque to find a place to live. Since going there was a major investment, (a 600-mile round-trip, 10 hours of driving, a hotel stay), I prepared by researching online – everything from monthly motel rentals to apartments for lease and real estate for sale.
Real estate for sale. I met Donna with RE/MAX when I made an appointment to see three of her listings. I prescreened them by driving by the day before. I liked the style, but not the location, of one property which backed to a busy street. I drove around the small neighborhood and wrote down the address of another home in a better location. Donna also had keys to the home of a friend who wanted to rent it. After we looked at the house for sale, she drove directly to her friend’s rental. It was the same house whose address I’d written down the day before! This began a cascade of synchronicities. We sat down to talk at her Open House. We discovered shared metaphysical beliefs. We had both completed the same personal growth programs. We had similar goals. When she asked what brought me to New Mexico, I described the spiritual pull in greater detail, “Some kind of healing work, perhaps connected with Dying Consciously, possibly taking a course on the energy medicine of the shaman of the Americas with Alberto Villoldo - ‘Healing the Light Body.’ ” “I’ve done that,” Donna said.
A week later, Donna called to say she woke up that morning with an idea about where I could live. A friend who owned a single-storey, Pueblo-style, adobe home with a secret garden sometimes rented out a room. She described the home I want to own. Would I consider that? Yes. Then she would talk with her at dinner that night and let me know the next day. Donna thought it would be a good match since we were the same age, both “interesting,” both metaphysical thinkers. The owner was from England, where I had visited several times, an artist who made jewelry. The intention I set for my New Mexico life, while still in California, was that it would be filled with culture – art, music, theater, writing. The owner didn’t hesitate. Neither did I. We both trusted Donna’s intuition enough to move forward. “There’s one thing I didn’t tell you,” Donna said. “She bought the house with an inheritance from her aunt.” I will be buying a home with an inheritance from my aunt. I met Claire (“Light”) when I moved in and have now been here three months, eating breakfast on the garden patio beneath towering ash trees, watching hummingbirds and bees buzz the sunflowers, hollyhocks, and wisteria-draped gate next to the coyote fencing. When I lie in bed, I look up at open, wood-beam ceilings (vigas and latillas), imagining myself in my own pueblo-style New Mexico home. Head east. Toward the light.
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