noun /ˈfēniks/
phoenixes, plural
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They have been yammering about rain, rain, rain for a while now and, of course, it has poured during the week. Which I think is rather unfair of the weather angels, because I never get to be home when it is pouring. Yesterday, Saturday, it was overcast but not a drop fell during the day. Then last night, just about bedtime, a flash of light and boom! A thunderous (you will pardon the quasi-pun) thunderclap which sent Bella Bella Smokey Noella to her new "safe spot" ... my bathtub. These days when leaving for the office, I routinely make sure her pillows and "blankey" are in there. Nothing says "I love you" like drying off the tub after your morning shower so that Her Highness has her safe place ready to scurry to when thunder booms. But last night, blessed be, I was home and thoroughly enjoyed a marvelous thunderstorm. Sigh, true bliss. Being home in bed, pot of hot chocolate on my night-table, stack of decorating magazines next to me, cat snoring happily on my pillow (after being coaxed out of the tub and into bed with a handful of Seafood Medley Temptations snackies), not having to worry about work the next morning (it's the weekend, yay!), thunderbooming outside. That is a recipe for true bliss, at least for me.
This morning I woke up and it's still pouring! Got out of bed, made my morning cafe con leche, said morning prayers and have been writing ever since. Turned the tv on for like a nanosecond and turned it off. The continual coverage of the Colorado shooting is horrifying. They latch on to every new tragedy like a predator latches on to its prey. Pushing their microphones into the victims' and their families' faces. "How do you feel?" and "What does it feel like to get shot?" Really? You became a journalist to ask this type of question? I smell a Pulitzer in your future ... not! It's like the news media has turned into piranhas. That's not journalism. That's sensationalism. Playing the same sound bite over and over again from different angles, and maybe with different people, but still, essentially the same sound bite, just desensitizes people to the tragedy of it all. Sort of like people going to see those movies about dead people, "Faces of Death" or something like that. It desensitizes you. Like when that hideous woman was found not guilty of her little girl's death last year and one of the people I work with remarked "Damn! I want her lawyer if I'm ever in jail for murder!" What the heck kind of remark is that? So, I turned off the tv and continued with my writing. All I can do is pray for the victims, their families, pray for their healing, overcoming this horrible thing.
I have been on an odd journey this past year. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it is time for a change. I do not want to live like this the rest of my days. Our time is limited, we just don't know how limited it is. But I don't want to one day wake up and realize my time here is done and all I've done is work Monday through Friday. I want to follow my bliss and my bliss is writing, painting, working from home. Success is preparation meeting opportunity. I heard that on an Oprah interview, I think she was interviewing David Copperfield. Absolutely loved it. So, I am preparing. This week they let go several employees at my firm. People that had been there for years and years. Deja vu. That is how it started at my former firm and this firm is way smaller. It's scary, knowing someone holds your livelihood in the palm of their hand and they may be smiling at you, but behind that smile lurks the knowledge that you are going to be let go the next day.
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I often think about my formerly secure life. When I knew someone had my back. I wrote once that it felt like someone took my world, shook it to its very core, smashed it to bits and I have been trying to put the pieces back ever since. Friendships you once thought would be with you forever, people you would once have called when needing to have someone there, just to listen, fade away. Nothing says I love you like repeatedly getting a friend's voice mail. It takes forever, but eventually you finally get the message and realize friendship mutates, changes and sometimes you just have to let it go. In putting together a new life, incorporating just a few pieces from my old one, I found support and love from those not even remotely related to me, people that were not in my life until a relatively few years ago. Friendships are born and Fairy GodMothers make their entrance. I have been blessed with three.
I fought building a new life for a very long time. The other day, after a particularly bumpy week, I called a friend and got their voice mail, yet again, left a message. (A few days later I got a text from her saying "Have I told you that I love you?" and I texted back "Yes, you have. Hearing the computer voice on your voice mail message gives me the warm fuzzies." Life is short, people, a sense of humor is imperative. We all have busy lives and give people different priorities.) Then I called another friend (and Most Magical Faboo Fleaing Fairy GodMother, Estefania of the Macedonian Fairy GodMother Tribe) who was at a restaurant having dinner with her daughter and actually picked up the phone and told her daughter "I'm going outside for a few minutes to talk with my friend," something that touched my heart. I was important enough to her that she took time from hanging out with her daughter to talk to me. The next day I had a wonderful, creatively stimulating, conversation with my Most Magical Wondrous Fabulous FairyGodmother, She of the Whimbles, someone who has a very busy, creative life. We've never actually met, but she and her husband have become dear and trusted friends. This weekend emails have flown back and forth between my cocoon and my Talley peeps. Today I spoke with another Fairy GodMother, She of the Beautiful Sleigh Bed and Delish Jamaican Patties. And it hit me, I have already let go, I have built a new world, a new life and it is sweet. You can rise from the ashes after all.
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