FREED-up

It's a beautiful spring day in the woods, sunny with a breeze that sends the tower of hundred foot firs into a graceful movement of olapa (picture the most graceful of hula dancers).  Pete is in Seattle leaving truck and car in the gravel lot just around the corner from the vardo.  I have not left the woods in two days.  Something happened to me when I asked Pete the other day, "What did that cost to fill the Subaru?"  "$30" was his answer.  When he drives Bernadette the beast truck it costs a lot more, and the old girl needs a new carburator, so the emissions are no way near low-impact.

When we were living on the road, the option to leave Bernadette and Scout (the truck and the car) in place wasn't yet our see-it-do-it reality.  We needed both truck and car to move ourselves and chattel again and again.  But, in our dreams and in our imaginings there was a place to settling in; accessible to public transportation and services we needed.  The desire was amassing.  The years of driving both truck and car hither and yon was the crack in time between believing and allowing.  We were learning things, learning what we didn't want, and still the dream of what we did want and why we wanted it was alive and well. 

Our first winter honed down my resistence to believing this could be the place.  One week at a time, one experience at a time, I relaxed into now.  Now, I feel what it's like to be comfortable.  Now I know I can survive and then flourish even without a car to drive during the coldest, darkest times of winter.  With no resistence, my relexes and habit of struggling eased.  The habit eased some more.  Four months later, when I could be in the Subaru, I didn't want to be in it.  I'd become comfortable with the company of the woods, the quiet and with me.  The folks at STAR Store couldn't see the difference in me, though I was a daily shopper before the winter hiatus.  Pete felt the difference most because he took on the shopping tasks. 

It takes time and pacing to come into alignment with your dreams.  FREED-up from beliefs that no longer fit the version of our lives today, Pete's been on a bike, a ferry, on foot, on a bus, and on a train to get from South Whidbey to Beacon Hill in Seattle.  I've walked the trails with JOTS, watered the peas, and will make rhubard sauce and left-overs for supper.  I'm telling people, "We are thriving on the Island."  The change in my story surprises them.  Delighted for us, one of those friends asked, "How did it happen?  Was it emotional or physical?"  I told her "It was both."  "Which came first?"  I tell her about my winter with no car and the slowed down, freed-up release that has allowed me to believe differently, and to choose better-feeling thoughts. 

That's my hybid-trike!

I catch myself slipping on old habits and old thoughts.  But, here's the good news ... I catch myself sooner than later when it's easier to turn my attention down-stream where the good is.  What's down stream from here?  Well ... see that hy-brid trike?  It's down-stream with my name on it.

What's your good news?