Landing in Neverland

My last post ended with my heading toward the highway, finally gaining my bearings and a smidge of my senses back. I had made the next right decision to turn left after having lost my GPS signal and nearly my mind, on an unexpected 'not so scenic route' between Texas and New Mexico.

To recap the mishaps, after packing up 54 years, getting out of Dodge (Illinois), running away from the Ghosts of Tulsa, I had an accident that I had been envisioning all day. My vision was much worse, of that I was grateful. But I lost two days and a ton of courage only to then find myself completely lost in the desert...

All this in the first days moving towards my new life. It could only get better.

Right?

The rest of the trip between New Mexico and California were thankfully uneventful except for the acrobatics needed to finagle a camera to capture SOMETHING of the all new everything in this great big beautiful world into which I had just leapt.

I made it to the Newport Beach Holiday Inn, on August 28th, the day before the birthday of one of four reasons I came to California.

This was the view from my room at the Inn. I watched while talking to my sister on the phone as this woman made her way up this flight of stairs.

She rested a long time on the landing before she continued her journey. I saw clearly my need to rest, but this hotel was not the place. I knew however that this idea of resting on a landing after a strenuous climb, was essential.

It's been complicated to get to the end of the telling of this beginning to my new life. Each of the situations that brought me to California requires a lot of back story and makes it all murky, the big picture lessons not as obvious.

So let's just get to the landing.

I unloaded the van for the 6th time in 10 days. Within 24 hours I had another red flag flub when I got a call from the front desk asking me for my credit card number for verification of something or other. I was flustered. I was frenzied as I looked for my card asking questions as I did. I could hear it was very busy on the other end, yet this clerk was professional, accommodating, offering me discounts and reasons to hurry and give him my card number. I said with new suspicion but mostly stupid sincerity, "Hey you sound so busy, I'll just come up to the front desk when I find it." His attempt to keep me on the line instead, made my stomach sink as I hung up the receiver and went to the front desk. There I found no loud bustling crowd. No fast talking guy with a southern accent

Nope, just a nice quiet lady who told me as she checked her computer - there were no calls made to my room and they had all the information they needed.

As you can imagine - after the home town test, the accident, the getting lost, and now this, I became even MORE hyper vigilant while simultaneously feeling powerless and small.

Instead of easing into my new life with confidence and grace, I arrived like an out of control ostrich being chased by cheetahs, tumbling down a hill, not having properly assessed the surroundings after lifting her head from the ground unable to find the spotting point, as a dancer or a gymnast does. It's not that I couldn't find the spotting point - I didn't have one. I had what I thought were general directions to look. But no spotting point to come out of a spin.

I loved gymnastics when I was a kid. I was spellbound with the rest of the world when 14 year old Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 during the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. Whether she was mounting the balance beam, launching to the high bar for an uneven routine, bouncing off the vault, or dancing during a floor sequence, Nadia made it look effortless.

Her mother said in an interview in 2011 that she put Nadia in gymnastics because as "a child she was so full of energy and active that she was difficult to manage." Hard to channel chaos if you will. How many kids with gifts have simply been labeled and dismissed as difficult or needy. Nadia's mom may have only been just hoping to get a break for a few hours a day from her high demand child, but she had positioned her daughter to channel her energy for greatness.

While that first step required no effort from Nadia, to enroll in gymnastics, it was all her effort in the rigorous training and repetition to perfect her performances. Years of work. Thousands of hours of practice. Her routines became flawless. Her landings, how secure and grounded she was after a stunt, that was what sealed her scores.

"Sticking the landing can change a judge’s opinion of the whole routine to something more positive. Judging is, by nature, subjective, and the last impressions matter as much as the first ones. Maybe even more. An unstuck landing can retroactively change how they see the routine for the worse." Rochelle Deans points out in her May 24th article.

So you see - my tumbling ostrich routine was not any way to present in my new life...

It's been some tough months facing the shadows and internal imps that sniveled in defeat before we ever began. Those little self sabotaging punks drove with me all the way from Chicago. From the Holiday Inn, Bugs and I moved in and out of nearly a dozen locations before we found a place to actually glide into for a time of rest on the landing so to speak.

It took what it took to bring the lies into the light.

This here below is my secure and safe landing / launching pad. My kids are present via their art. There is nothing in the space that I don't find beautiful or useful per William Morris' thought.

Bugs, being a fretful bunny as bunnies are - always on alert, never quite at ease with a gesture called flopping. Rabbits only assume this position when they are calm, comfortable and at ease. If you catch him at a good moment, Bugs will melt under your pet, leaning towards the touch desperate for the loving attention. But it you move suddenly or shift to pet him better, he's gone, out of there, as if something was said to upset him. Any interaction with Bugs begins with a side-eye of suspicion. While its true He always seems to be ignoring you while checking out out at the same time. (he literally can only see from the sides of his head bu shows we have stuck the landing

He has become the obvious living manifestation of my fear at times. I hear myself saying, "Really Bugs? I get THAT close to you and you run away?!" The words linger there as the Velveteen rabbit looks back at me as if he has complete awareness of the irony.

It's taken longer than expected to get it all laid out, secure, cleared and ready for another "stunt" if you will. I don't expect a perfect score. But at least I know what it's supposed to feel like when your feet are securely on the ground, not waiting for someone to pull the rug...

I never knew what that felt like before.

It feels solid and safe.

It sounds like the rustle of leaves on a summer day.

It smells like fresh air, looks like a sunset and tastes like milk and honey... Definitely worth the trip.