Hello fellow Earth traveler friends on this ship called Life!
We’ve reached the next chapter in Jessica’s Adventure Story, and this train is headed north again come late May. I’d thought my stint here would be a year, yet surprise! Seven and a half months it will be.
Why? There are two main reasons for the move. The first is easy to understand and convey; it’s straightforward. I had a contract end in late January. The project went well and I expected to have another client by now. I don’t. Rent here at my cottage is high – fair, but high – and signals say it’s time to let the place go and step into what’s next. The other reason is the “what’s next” part. The best I can say here with words, is that there’s an artful voice inside that keeps gently sending messages, an artful way of living that is calling me to lift my roots again. And I don’t need to know what it’s gonna look like; I trust the voice and feel so grateful for the choice and freedom to listen.
Ego will say there’s a right and a wrong here. The voice has so many different ways of showing up: “I should be learning something else here,” ... “If I leave so soon, it is a failure,” ... “ As with every Life richly lived, there are layers upon layers of ideas and possibilities at play.
Love knows no right and wrong, and the “voice for Love” gives us gentle affirmations that our inner voice is worth listening to, it is wise, it guides us well.
The moment is bittersweet.
Living in Cardiff, in this architecturally exquisite Dream Come True of a home I found here, has been storybook sweet. Too many ways to share what a high value I have for architecture and living space, so I'll stick with a brief version of one... My cottage is two blocks from Swami’s Beach and the Self Realization Fellowship, former home of Paramahansa Yogananda, a beautiful teacher who had a significant influence on my now-passed Uncle Cheo, who stood when he lived as a vibrant supporter of my poetry and free spirit. As Cheo died, he gave me some of his living plants. One plant still lives, having made its way south with me from Chico’s hot summers and cold, gray winters, to a space-by-the-sea... it has found a living Heaven in my living room, so close to Yogananda’s home, reaching tall into the welcoming skylight, and is healthier than ever.
Dogs are more welcome here than any community I know. Water bowls on the sidewalk at every other shop downtown Encinitas. Lusa came into the salon with me for my haircut yesterday; it's just an automatic here. Dogs are part of the community.
Lots of outdoor dining, year-round, all day and night... who wouldn't love that?
Weather that pretty much EVERY day, has me saying, “Really? It’s this pleasant here?” Ocean air with just the right amount of mist in it, that pours down from the high window above my bed all night long, filling my lungs and heart with grateful breaths.
More yoga courses than a person could ever need, though, I’ve probably only attended three!
And the greatest gift that will ever grace my Life – this is the toughest part to leave – are the people I’ve found here. A perfect handful of remarkably solid individuals who have permanently impressioned my heart with their sheer AWESOMENESS, who will always be friends and of course, there is a difference between living two blocks from someone and living 600 miles away.
Even – get this – a new friend who is ready to co-create in business with me, someone who, had I tried to actually design a person to be the most gut-positive match for a business partner for me –surpasses that vision. Not to say that I can’t lean into this from a distance, but still... And hey I might come back. No one knows. What a glorious mystery!
“Home” in a specific geography is not what calls most now; it is how I live, and that I live committed to my art and way of moving through this world – be it writing, photos, films, piano, more writing... whatever forms of expression want to emerge from me in my lifelong quest to put a spotlight on the mind-rocketing beauty of the human spirit. My own, and that of others. It is all from the same Source.
At the end of May, Lusa and I will climb into a UHaul and head north to Chico again. I’ll be based in the cottage and open to adventures in travel – mostly by bike! And I will still be doing whatever I can to bring on new clients for my business, since I’ve put lots of time and thought into creating it, and it is currently my most promising and joyful form of generating income.
Being based in Chico could last for the summer, or not that long, or longer. What I do wholeheartedly embrace about being back there is the extraordinary tribe of community -- including the children. Creative endeavors find fertile soil in Chico, and the mere thought of some of the antics, wildness, delight and creative adventure that Chico is so good at living... makes me smile big. As does the reality of being a lot closer to my nieces and nephews.
Grief and joy! At last, I think I accept and rejoice in the fact that we cannot know great joy unless we know great grief, and we cannot know great grief if we do not know great joy. (Thanks, Kahlil Gibran.)
My main desire is to live my version of that fully – and in doing to, to live one big glorious lifetime of living, in co-creative and playful companionship the beautiful souls who surround me.
With immense thanks for your love and friendship!
Jessica
