I’m in more of a letting go than a going toward.  I just know that I’m sounding the same way about leaving as I did about coming here and that’s interesting for me to hear.  I’ve been leaving for awhile now, on the inside.  No boxes were packed, no addresses were changed, but on the inside there’s been a lot of sorting out.

I remember listening to my friend Crystal last Fall.  She was saying how she loves it getting colder.  She loves turning on her heat and cuddling up in fuzzy pajamas and sipping hot cocoa.  She loves the hibernation that winter allows with shorter days and longer nights.  And as I’m listening to her I’m thinking, “I used to say these things, I used to feel this way….but I don’t anymore.”

And that’s where it all began to crumble.  And to other people who are now this Fall starting to say, “I like turning on the heater, it feels so warm and cozy” I say, “So does the sun!”

And now here I am, at a bonfire, turning myself to the flames like a rotisserie chicken, trying to warm myself evenly so I can be in my favorite place in the world:  OUTSIDE.  In nature.  Under the protective arms of the trees and the sparkling light of the sky, with the wind caressing my face and playing stylist with my hair.  As soon as I have to close my windows, I can’t breathe as well.  And, like Louis CK says, “putting on socks is the worst part of my day.”  Just because I was born here doesn’t mean I have to stay; and I haven’t….I’ve taken lots of breaks.  Over lunch I told a  friend a few years ago that my 4 seasons were going to be “Spring, summer, fall, and travel someplace warm.”  And it has happened.  Warm has been and currently is my main material request, and it has served me well.  Only now it has taken on a permanent relocation slant – that maybe, for the first time in my life, Wisconsin wouldn’t be home base – and that’s what Toad and I are talking about around the fire tonight.

“In Hawaii the rain is so light and warm and brief that no one really even thinks to shield themselves from it.  And after it’s done, the sun just warms and dries everything again.”  Ahhhh, sounds pretty good to me.  He’s not the first person to tell me that Hawaii is probably my perfect place.  The combination of island, climate and spirituality all speaks to who I am.  Not that your shit doesn’t come up anywhere, I just prefer mine to come up on surf and sand.  Let the water wash it away and let the sun burn it off.

This starts me talking about the rain when I was in the Amazon Rainforest staying with shamans.  The second day I was out on a carved out, one piece canoe and having a bit of a culture shock meltdown.  I felt alone.  I wondered if I’d made a mistake.  I began to pray.  It begins to rain. And I start to have this incredible experience of being spirit; no longer contained in this body and bigger than the situation I was in.  I was looking at my friend Milo (an Italian turned Colombian shaman – now that’s a story that needs telling!) and I am now in love with the situation that I was just miserable in a minute ago.  And I’m loving this soft, warm rain.  I let it caress and cleanse me.   I feel beautiful.  I feel pure.  Perfect even.  Milo sees it too, and his wide smile from the other end of the canoe says he’s having an experience of it.  He says softly (Milo says everything softly) “Wow, Jenny, you look…..amazing.”  I feel our minds explode into light.