Disclaimer: I’ve written once here each year for the last few, and this is my first attempt at any quantifiable personal writing in over a year, so you may encounter rogue sentence structure and punctuation. And ramblings.
I watch YouTube videos about things. Astrological and metaphysical things, mostly. I’m fascinated by it all, and I like the learning and the company of it. Thus far in 2020, I’ve noticed a recurring theme: This is a period of gathering information and having no idea what to do with it, of requesting clarity about it, of finding some footing. (It’s like a cruel joke. I mean 2020. Vision. Clear. Have we all been misled?)
On February 20th, I got a calendar notification on my phone reminding me that I drove to Tucson on February 20, 2017. I forget that time sometimes, and I shouldn’t. I took a risk – I can count on one hand the big risks I’ve taken in life, which will probably be a life’s regret on my death bed – and had nothing but hope and a knowing that got me in the car.
But three years later, I have neither. I’d take a risk again if I had one in mind, but I don’t. I typically chalk my chaotic thoughts and feelings up to being at a difficult age (edging out of the middle of the fifties, for the love of God), but this feels heavier, more important, like I’m in some critical place in life and have no idea what I’m supposed to do.
I’ve read some things that make me think I have company, so I think this might be a Universal energy issue. Fine, whatever, I’m glad for the company, but back to me. Am I just in-between? I’ve lately thought more about the new year being March 21st, spring solstice and the astrological new year, rather than January 1st, so perhaps this time is as it should be. Of course it is.
I think back to a year ago. February 2019. I was between projects, as I’ve liked to say when I was a full-time contract Tech Writer. Frankly, I was just unemployed. And I needed a break from the work I’d done in one way or another since 2002. I had no idea what I wanted to do during my days, but I knew that it had to be different. By June 2019, I got my wish. Different. I went in like barefoot girl I used to be on the first day of summer vacation. By January 2020, I had quit three jobs. One after two weeks, another after four months, and the last after two months.
I’ve never quit a job without another job in my pocket. Never. But I’d also never felt worse about myself, so I just couldn’t get out of the bed. I don’t yet know the lesson I am to learn from those experiences, but I imagine it’s what I’m supposed to be reflecting on now. I don’t entirely understand karma, but I think this has something to do with that. We shall see.
I want to work. In fact, I am working part-time at the Desert House, but I need a little more than that. I would feel more useful. I just need to know what I’m supposed to be used for. I apply to things and get no response. (Believe me when I say that no response sticks more than a no thank you.) I’m paying my bills for now. I officially know how little I can live on. I know now that I don’t have to earn the right to be on the planet. I don’t have to earn my keep every minute of every day. I’m worth more dead than alive anyway, and I’m not confident that will change in the twenty good years I might have left.
Anyway, a friend I met at a creativity workshop in Boulder in 2011 contacted me out of the blue (to some extent – it seems that when you’re connected on social media, nothing feels completely out of the blue anymore) to give me some bad news about a mutual friend a few weeks ago. We’ve talked every week since, as it seems we have similar concerns about life. Last week, I told her that I was planning to drive to Sells, Arizona, to the Tohono O’odham Cultural Center.
I told her that when I moved here, I was in the midst of a class in Federal Law and Indian Policy. I had become interested in Native American history in the years prior and I had hopes of doing something with that interest after settling in. I didn’t. Life. Work. Work. Work. Driving. Driving. Driving. (Tucson has a lot of great qualities, but there are just no options on the critically congested roads.) So three years later, I wanted to drive a native road to nowhere and everywhere for a possible change in perspective. She told me she sensed some…not jazz, we don’t use that word…twitches around the time of death.
Baboquivari Peak, where the Creator and Center of the TO Universe lives.
So, I took my journal, my charoite, my Nova essential oil, and my pink agate, I set the Corolla’s sail to Topawa, and four things happened:
I stopped at every station in the museum and made notes at the Man in the Maze (I’itoi Ki). I’ve had this symbol on my altar table for years, but it meant more this time. “The complicated and difficult way a person must walk to find happiness and peace at the center”. The center can mean one’s death, but it can also mean one’s soul.
I talked to two TO natives who couldn’t be happier people. I was the only car in the parking lot, save one van that had more than a few pieces held together with wire. They carpooled. He was in charge of grounds maintenance, and she was at the front desk, but sometimes, they giggled, “We switch”. They told stories and laughed the entire time I was there.
I turned both coming and going onto Indian 35, an empty reservation road with a perfect view of Kitts Peak Observatory (link). Horses and cattle roamed free. I had yet to see another car when I got to the six-mile marker, and I was in heaven. I turned off my car, got my little beach chair from the trunk, sat in the middle of that road, and made more notes, mostly about, “How the hell do I get this?” I’d still be out there if it weren’t for the torrid relationship between my skin and desert sun.
And the fourth thing? I came back home and after a day catching up on things at my part-time job, I updated my website’s mechanics, started a new short story collection (I have so many unfinished projects that aren’t novels, I mean really, me a novelist, there’s just no way), and wrote this post.
I have to deal with all my feelings being fleeting . *See chaotic talk above. And yet, I feel happier and more at peace today than I have since those first months in Tucson. I think I forgot the why. The how escapes me, but I don’t think we’re supposed to ask about that anyway. We’re just supposed to take steps, knowing they’re directed. This is hard. Steps with no direction? That’s nutty.
One You Tuber I particularly like thought a whole lot about February 20, 2020. It would be a significant day, he said, as a sign or message from the Spirit world would come through that day and would mean everything to us, that would set us free in some way. We just needed to listen. To be open, be quiet, be still. So what if my February 20, 2020 happened on the 19th (I’m ahead of my time?). I believe close counts in horseshoes and magic.
But remember…fleeting. Expectations are at an all time low. Plus I’m currently in the throes of an addiction to Homicide Hunter on the Hulu.