Happy New Year : The Beginning of Our Ending

:: If you only do what you know you can do, you never do very much. :: 

- Tom Krause

Over the last two weeks I've crossed some significant bridges with family and friends.  A series of unfortunate events left me sitting in Merida on Christmas Eve.  When I landed in Austin on Christmas Day I was greeted by my best friend, Mary, who drove me directly to the La Quinta where my son and his wife were staying.  My daughter-in-law had set out festive cookies baked by her  mother.  My son had written personal greetings on well selected cards for each one of us.  My daughter took special care wrapping gifts, letting us know there was something absolutely sacred in her selection.  We hugged, cried, laughed, and loved.  Looking at the hotel furnishing, we vowed to find better accommodations next year, while simultaneously knowing that we had created magic beyond the fixtures of place.  We dreamed of our future lives together, and longed for that togetherness to be soon.  It is a marvel to witness home being held by the hands you love versus the boards you nailed.  Where we are together is where we find our home.

When I wasn't with the children, I was spending a comfortable quiet in my best friends home.  Twenty-eight years ago Mary and I moved through our little side-by-side rent houses in Austin as single mothers.  Our children caught fireflies in jars, swung cats by their tails and ran up the hallways professing their full intention to eventually grow up to  marry a pepperoni pizza.  Mary's daughter is married with a sweet little boy of her own.  Her long ago playmate, my son, is married as well.  Two grown children who believe themselves to be strangers, would be very impressed to discover that their spiritual, political and professional lives are virtually identical.  

The second leg of my state-side journey is spent with Sailor Girl Lola and Friends.  New Orleans and I are strangers with poor boundaries.  I push myself deep inside her belly button and find so much lent that I decide to leave it alone.  New Orleans et al delivers a value judgement - turn the freaking puzzle pieces over cause your story is boring!  I am a baton twirling dervish, transforming my history into something more than my childhood.  Lola is the perfect person to do this with because we actually have no shared history in the city.  Our time was shaped in Lafayette, Louisiana during our college days.  New Orleans waves her Saint's flag over Lola's home, not mine.


I return today to Merida.  For the first time since my arrival, my heart is genuinely content with my decision to vacate the premises.  If at some point during 2012 you hit a full year of living in the Yucatan, you and I are part of the Class of 2011.  I'm so awed by what we have accomplished in this first year of our encore lives abroad!  We have built or remodeled homes, furnished them from tippy top down, visited the immigration office countless times, bought cars or managed the legal status on the ones we drove down, created businesses from the ground up, and learned some Spanish.  We have collected shells, stray dogs and new people.  We freaking live here!  

Bienvenidos!

Create the life you want!
The Broad . 
   

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