From Lori on Her 44th Birthday

It's been over 8 months since I've written and I thought my birthday was a great day to start again.  Every birthday tends to be a time when I think about the changes I long to make.  This year especially so because some of these same wishes were here one year ago as well.  I had every intention to do this and that, but I didn't make them happen.  I let time slip through my fingers as if it was sand. 

One change I've had is that I now live at the beach in San Francisco.  When I was in desert, I really wanted to live at the beach.  I knew I wouldn't be able to have another studio any time soon, and I was yearning for peace.  I couldn't think of a more healing experience than living at the beach.  I have an ocean view.  I spend a lot of time at the beach taking pics of the gorgeous sunset and collecting seashells and sand dollars.  It's how I imagined it to be: healing and peaceful. 

Now, about those birthday wishes.  I've mentioned different wishes and dreams throughout these spinning teacups.  Some things change, some things stay the same.

Wishes come true...

I wished to be back in San Francisco and now I am.

I wished to live at the beach and now I do.

Unfulfilled dreams...

I wish for a Vespa.

I wish for a studio .

(when I feel it's time to leave the beach)  

I wish for a love to call my own (still).

Wish!

You Say Pistachio

I was at the beach the other day.  I was so tired, I was punchdrunk.  But it was great to be at the beach, very healing.  I got excited when I found some seashells.  I carried them for awhile, thrilled with my treasure.

Then I looked down at them in my hand and saw what they really were: pistachio shells.  I laughed hysterically at myself.  It was great fun.  It just proves that we see what we want to see.  We believe what we want to believe.  Would I have been equally happy to know I was picking up pistachio shells when I first found them?  No.  But I was happy in the moment, and now I sort of wish I had kept them, just to remind myself that we create our own happiness.  Life is just a bowl of pistachios.  ;)

Morning Zen

The other morning,  I felt an instant zen.  It may have been the clarinet player in the subway on the way to work.  It may have been the cheerful people who work at the little cafe where I go for coffee occasionally.  But I think it was the fact that the local news was playing on the TV in the cafe.   I don't even know if the story they were telling was good or bad, but it's the fact it was local, letting me know that I'm home in San Francisco.

That zen moment caught me by surprise.  I've been so stressed while looking for a place.  I've been stressed for quite some time.  First, while trying to keep my old apartment, then losing it because I didn't have work.  Leaving San Francisco for Las Vegas and then coming back after finding work, only to try to find a new apartment.  Finally, I have both at the same time.    

I started thinking about how good it'll feel once I'm in my own home within a couple of weeks.  Not "staying with" anyone anymore.  No.  I'm on the lease.  It's mine.  That feels soooo good.  I have a feeling a lot of zen mornings are ahead for me.  I'm so grateful for the chance to be back in my City and the opportunity to rebuild my life.

Love In The Light

 

I'm afraid of the dark.  I'm afraid of the unknown, of what I cannot see.  I'm also realizing that I'm afraid of love for the same reason, afraid of the unknown, afraid of the future I cannot yet see.   Do you think when you love more and more, it's normal for more and more fear to come into it as well?

I always say fear is just praying for what you don't want.  But for me personally, the deeper I love, the more fear I feel because that only tells me the hurt will be greater if things fall through.  Maybe I'm always assuming things will fall through because they always have in my world.  But maybe they fall through because I have that fear and since fear is praying for what I don't want, I'm getting just that.  

 

You know, I always get pissy when someone tries to reason with me using circular logic, yet here I am, reasoning with myself using circular logic.  LOL  Oh jeez.  How ironic.  Maybe that has always been my problem and I've only just now figured it out.  Good thing for my rambling thoughts.

 

Genie

 

My former apartment building may be sold soon and I was thinking about trying to move back into it eventually.  Last night, I was sketching out the floorplan of apartment #21, the one I wanted for so long, the one with a view of the Bay and Golden Gate Bridge.  The one where I can see the fireworks on the 4th of July.

I had this odd sense of going back in time, like I was falling into an old pattern, or more of a bad habit.  It felt so very wrong.  I didn't finish sketching the placement of furniture.  Once I had the floorplan in front of me, I stopped and looked at it.  A sense of dread came over me and I put a big X through it.  If I moved back into that building, it would be the equivalent to exhuming a body, revisiting something that is best left buried in the past.  I cannot tell you how wrong it felt to see it again.  If I ever go to visit my friend who lives there, I wonder how that will feel.  She lives across the hall from that apartment and she has the same view.  Her space is decorated in beautiful French style.  Will I fall in love with the building all over again? 

 

I've felt there had to be a reason that I needed to leave San Francisco.  At first I thought it was love.  Then I thought it could be a great job.  But now I see it was to get a clean slate.   I remembered  this morning how I focused on those words less than two years before my forced move.  I even had one of my hypnotherapy sessions built around that phrase because that's how much I wanted a clean slate.

Now I realize that Law of Attraction can be like a genie granting a wish.  You have to be extremely careful and specific in your wording.  By "clean slate", I meant I wanted to be rid of my issues, start fresh, start anew.  But I meant with a new job, being smart about finances, getting my life in order, being healthy in every aspect.  And... that's exactly what I got, but I didn't want to have to move to get it!  I didn't want to have to get rid of 90% of my possessions to get it.  I didn't want to have to go to a deeper level of struggling and hardship to get it.  Damn.  Do you know how I got those words in my head?  The January 2009 issue of House Beautiful with the words "A Clean Slate" on the cover.  It was an issue about freshening up the home, like January white sales and spring cleaning make us think of.  All I could think about was spring cleaning my life.  And that's precisely what I got.  That is truly amazing.