I’m sitting here on the eve of this big sailing trip and I feel in another world.  I love it here, in this on-my-way-but-not-quite-gone-place.  Is that selfish?  I don’t know.  I don’t know anyone who does what I do so it’s a little hard to know.  It feels like I’m floating, like I’m in no-man’s land.  Similar to when I’m flying and I truly feel suspended in air, above it all, jumping time and place.  And I feel how my movement will ripple and rearrange.  Being on the brink of that feels powerful and incredible.  I can’t wait to see what all shakes out of it; what will come aboard and what will fall overboard while I and the sail flap in the breeze.

It’s a much needed distraction right now as I consider my next move and how best to make it.  I had a little meltdown last week as my plan fell apart and I seriously questioned what the hell I was doing.  Maybe I should just go back to Wisconsin; maybe this whole thing was a mistake.  But on one hand I have been doing it, I’ve been here for two months and it’s been really great!  And on the other hand I haven’t even done anything yet, so I can’t quit now!  It’s too early to call.  And even when it does come time to call, it will have been grand.  I’m not exactly sure, but it always has been like that.  It’s so many past travel scenarios running through my head and I’ve always felt like I would be fine; and I always was.  I’ve been homeless both times I’ve gone to Australia.  Rome was entirely booked for a holiday weekend when I arrived there.  I found out on my layover in Atlanta that the arrangements I had in Colombia would not be available.  I’ve never really worried and I don’t know why I’m worrying now.  Maybe because those others were temporary, I had a home to come home to eventually; but this is it now, we are sans stability.  That’s what I love but that is also what gives me little bits of anxiety every now and then.  This is it.  This is my life.  I have bet it all on this.  “I give you credit,” Robert says.  He’s visiting and doing work on the ranch in exchange for staying in another trailer here.  “I’ll take it,” I reply as I’m floating in the pool.  This is a guy whose been in the military and been all over telling me that he doesn’t think he could do it without a partner.  Funny, I was not sure I could do it with one.  I’ve often found myself doing stuff like this alone.  I find new experiences invigorating and I always find great new people along the way.

I’m surprised at the ease with which I now pack.  It used to stress me out but now I just shrink down my already majorly shrunken down wardrobe without much thought.  I think I care less and less about how I look as I know more and more the greatness I really am.  It’s all so much less circumstantial these days.  There’s a genuine understanding and appreciation for what I am and where I came from and the God that I can depend on.  I’m just not trying so hard anymore.  Maybe I’m coming to know my awesomeness.  I hope so.

Things are changing and it’s time to leave the ranch.  I think back to 2 months ago when I drove here, to the middle of nowhere it seemed, passing all the Christmas lights and parking by a horse barn.  I had arrived.  Across a little wooden bridge and past a pool under bright starlight to a tiki bar and a wood stove.  It was Friday night, December 16, 2016 and over a few beers I began to piece together what it was I thought I wanted.

We talked the ins and outs of gypsy life and the pros and cons of camper styles.  We talked Florida geography and country wide climate.  I felt relaxed and ready and most of all warm -in December.  That alone felt like a big accomplishment.  And it was.  What I had done and what I was about to do was going to be my biggest trick yet.  A week ago I was at the title company, walking out with a nice check and into a car packed with what I hoped was all I would need on this fresh start.  I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.  And a few weeks into it I was still saying that.  “I’m not sure if I can do it,” to which Karen and Vic both replied, “you are doing it!”  From that Friday night of saying what I wanted, down to a bed that you could get in and out of on each side, “in case I have company,” I’m now sitting on the kind of bed (and I’ve had lovely company) and writing this as I feel the stirring of me getting ready to hitch it up to my truck and drive over that bridge one last time.

I believe this is coming because I haven’t been there much, I’ve been in Tampa staying at Vic’s and that has created a current in the flow of things.  I’m glad I got the glimmer the other day that the only things that could get in the way of my happiness were a lack of gratitude and resistance to whatever is.  I am not the greatest transitioner and yet, I cannot stand still.  It’s a curious paradox.  I’ll get restless and have thoughts that I’m sure set the ball in motion and yet when the change is presented, I resent it.  I want my life to move and grow, I just have a hard time letting go.

So I freaked a little at first.  I got a little fight-or-flight.  I tried to blame.  And then I realized something; that this is what I wanted.  And that whether or not I knew what the next step was, Something did.  And that Something’s only goal is my highest good.  So I tried to trust and tried to sleep.  I woke in the morning worried and had had about enough of it so I prayed, “Jesus, a little help here.”  I fell back asleep and had the most gorgeous dream.  I was in a private plane.  It was sleek and smooth, like something from the future.  I was wowed but also at peace in the fact that I could never miss any of the flights.  I knew it wasn’t my plane, but I had the sense that I could have access to it whenever I wanted.  Next I was on a luxury cruise ship.  I had a huge gorgeous cabin with my own deck.  I woke up feeling so taken care of.  Like this is what it was like to be a child of God.  If my Father was my true father, what kind of life would I have as his child and that I wanted to start living even more in the unfolding of that Grace.  And that what was happening was exactly that.

I ended up in Clearwater that afternoon at Gemini’s and she has an idea for a place I can stay right near her.  I’m thrilled beyond the solution to physical logistics she offers, I’m thrilled because I saw her say it before she even said it.  I’m also thrilled because when I first came to see her a month ago I was talking about wanting to move out of Sarasota and I said that it thought it would come clear to me in the next week where to go next.  I left to go watch the Packer-Cowboys game and as I drove over the causeway with the low afternoon sun blinding me in its reflection off the water and Fitz and the Tantrums blasting “roll up, roll up, roll up, come on get your love”,  it hit me that I wanted to be staying here.  It was that fast.  It was that clear.  Now here we are.  Just where I wanted to be.  May the energy of that sustain me as I go to tow this 4,000 pound pod of mine there.

“I haven’t had anyone to spoil in awhile, I’m kind of looking forward to it.”  When he said that to me, looking back, I guess I first heard it in the monetary sense of the word; which he does.  He indulges my coffee desires, takes me out to dinner and when we get up to leave he dances me in the aisle and when I resist the dip he says, “I got you.”  And I think maybe he does.

But since then I’ve seen spoiling in the broadest sense of the word.

He’s also very giving of his attention – to my words, my feelings, my opinions and he embraces my every little quirk.  He holds me with the delicate balance of wanting to never let me go but also with the freedom to leave and just be me again for a little while.  He’s mushy and gooey and isn’t afraid to baby talk me on the phone in front of his friends but he can easily slip into this deep and low voice that I feel touch me in the center of myself… and lower.

He showers me with his rich characteristics – he’s attentive and affectionate, funny and safe, confident yet humble, soft and strong all at once; I just know he’d catch me, no matter from how high or after how long.   He’s smooth, but not too smooth.  He’s open and cool and warm; sexy smart sweetness.   Charmingly genuine and genuinely charming, I feel adored and entertained whenever I’m with him.  He’s easygoing with a face you trust immediately and a smile that tells you he’s one of those truly happy people; not because of arrangements or accolades but because at their core, they’re Light and they’re just letting it shine.

He supports me not just in what I do but in who I am: “Starfish in the Starbuck’s writing star books” and “It’s your whole aura I’m so jazzed by.”  I swear he looks different every time I see him, like he’s growing and changing into some new and improved version all the time; but then, so am I.  I’ve had a lot of depleting relationships that seem to empty me in the effort and this one nurtures and nourishes me on every level and puts a louder song in my soul.  I’m writing this in a sunbeam in a coffee shop that seems to be playing every cheesy love song ever made from Air Supply to Led Zeppelin and I’m wondering if maybe this is what it’s all led up to and if this is why nothing else worked out.  The culmination of everything I’ve enjoyed in the past and the absence of all I feel ready to do without.

And mmmmm, he’s a generous lover.  Touching and kissing me with such reverence, like someone who understands the intimacy of the invitation; who knows not how long he’ll be able to be here so he savors and makes savory each and every moment.  No touch seems less than planned for optimal pleasure, his movements synchronized to my unspoken desires.  I honestly don’t know how he does it.  Could it be he knows my body better than I do?  He’s exploring places I haven’t been in awhile and others I didn’t even know existed.

I was beginning to wonder if anyone was ever going to be with me the way I really wanted to be with.  I’ve been carrying around this blueprint based on an idea for  something truly amazing and divinely driven and it feels like it’s finally being built.

I thought a life on wheels where I take my home everywhere would, in some way, settle me but I fear it has only stirred me more. I feel an almost constant state of restlessness. Funny the contrast of it all; my life. I had come to answer the question of what I’d do when the house sold with, “I’ll probably just move in with Frosting.” His invitation came one night at the house as he scooped me up under the curve of my back and moved me into the center of the bed. He liked to do that and I liked to feel the strength of him doing it. It felt good to be with someone strong. “You should just move in with me- all your flip flops are there.” I made no external reply but internally, an answer and an acceptance began to form. On the day of lunch with Ulli on the deck of The Barn I say it out loud for the first time. She turns her head slightly away from me and looks far off into the distance, saying nothing. Just an hour later, Frosting replaces her in that seat and he’s letting me go. We are officially untethered. What was a moment ago my landing has now launched me.

I’m on the steps of the Dali museum in St. Petersburg after seeing the Frida Kahlo exhibit and having this writing inspired by her. The exhibit talks about there being two: the suffering, pain-wracked Frida and the one alive to the joy of the universe. And she gives us two truths, the truth of her body and its challenges, and the redemptive vision of beauty that rises from the haunted reality. I feel her contrast of human physical suffering and struggle as well as the spiritual rising over it all that leads to understanding and strength. When she faced her foot being amputated she said, “What need have I for feet, when I can fly?” I see myself and my style in this as well. I so struggle, in many the same ways she struggled – in body and in love – right down to her depiction of and demons within a conflictual and painful relationship to a much older man that is somehow necessary while being understood by no one, not even ourselves. My life and my muse is this grit and Grace.

“The only thing I can say with certainty about my work is that I paint because I have to, and that I always paint whatever comes to mind, without any other considerations.” I feel the same about my writing. I write for myself and from whatever is going on for me, that’s all the method I have. No more and certainly no less.

I’ve declared a gypsy year. Out loud to my friend Luke and as a commitment to myself and so nothing distracts me. Let my unsettled self be unsettled for awhile. Let her flag fly. Let the restlessness keep rustling. I will follow wherever it all leads me….

Every time we go out it’s amazing.  I can tell you why, and I will, but the greatest testament I think is the fact that Frosting tried calling me 3 nights in a row and on each of those nights I was on too great a date to want to pick up.  I’m texting him though, without someone jealously peering over my shoulder.  We’re on the same side of the booth, he slid in right next to me.  The only one I’ve ever had do that on a date was me.  It also might be because he’s doing a funny stint with the waitress a la The Rock.  I get out after we eat and we end up dancing in the aisle.

Another night we’re in Starbuck’s ordering our latest drug – chocolate hazelnut croissants and smoked butterscotch lattes and we start having this really great thing with everyone on the other side of the counter.  I can’t even remember exactly what was said, just this funny and light connection.  The one taking our order says she can’t charge us for everything because we ‘made her chuckle’ and she starts subtracting things from our total.

We’re out to dinner.  Not at the place we had the amazing time at last Wednesday that we swore we’d return to, but the place next door.  We stood literally at a crossroads; the past pulling at us and yet the allure of adventure feeling so tempting.  We decided not to try recreate an amazing time but instead shake the dice and try something new.  A few songs after we’re seated, Jenny Jenny 867-5309.  That seems like a pretty good affirmation of the choice.  Then we’re talking as we’re waiting for our food and I’m explaining that most, if not all, the great artistic minds are in fact a little mad; and I feel that I may be going this way as well.  That the more I write, the more differently I see the world and the less organized my mind is.  He doesn’t seem concerned; of course, it’s not his mind.

I then get into  what I lately see as my writing style formulating.  I like to jump around my timeline as opposed to telling the story sequentially.  Instead of it being chronological, it’s more emotional memory triggered in the present that then takes me back to a moment in the past and fills in the story.  I don’t know if there’s a name for it but I’ve seen other authors do it and I’m asking/explaining how I feel it’s my style too and wondering out loud if it would work.  Before he can even answer me, the guy on stage breaks into Purple Rain.  It’s the purple checkpoint.  My favorite!

One night we go to Motorworks Brewery.  My massage therapist recommended it and the Yelp reviews are good.  There’s a gorgeous patio out back with bocce ball, except neither of us knows how to play bocce ball so he makes up a game, explains the rules, and let’s me go first.  And, according to his made up rules – I win with my first move!  I walk around the tops of the 2-by-4’s lining the “field” like a balance beam and he walks backwards keeping a face to face pace with me.  We go in to get a beer and end up staying well after closing.  We do after work shots at their invitation and inclusion and watch them mop and count the till.  We hit it off like friends.   And when we finally start to leave and settle up, they, like friends, refuse to charge us for anything.   I even got a shirt!  It was the last one.  They had to take it off the display for me and then they just hung the naked mannequin back up.   Crazy fun times.  Blessed times. Then as we’re driving, I’m giving them a good review and posting pics on their Facebook page and I look up and we’re crossing a bridge.  Why are we crossing a bridge?  I don’t know much yet about the exact geography of where I am but I know we didn’t cross one on our way there.  It’s a full moon and it looks like there’s a spotlight on the water.  He suggests we sleep on the beach some night, not tonight, but one night when we’re prepared with covers.

I think I may have found a fellow crazy romantic.

 

 

 

 

I never write about my guys in the beginning.  I never think any of them are going to end up being anything, ever.  I don’t even know I like them right away.  Maybe I don’t really.  I’m usually feeling pretty good with myself and not really thinking about meeting someone – but that’s when I always do.  And then it starts kind of creeping in; these thoughts of affection and these things I notice myself noticing. Like I’m wondering if he’ll make it, if we’ll make it and that’s when I realize that I want us to.  And then I realize that I should’ve been writing about it all along.  And now I’m deep in the unfolding of it and I don’t want to write about it.  I’m floating in it and on it all while chill music plays and we’re lying on my bed and he’s stroking me.  I’m falling and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.  Like I finally understand every step that led up to this.  And it all makes sense why nothing else worked out.  I close the camper door on this beautiful night and turn to this beautiful boy in my bed.

He’s like a chocolate tide.  He’s dark and delicious and rocks me in waves.  I give all my boys nicknames – to protect the innocent.  Except they rarely are, innocent.  I like them wild and passionate so they can ravage me and leave me breathless.  Thoughtless.  Defenseless.

On this particular night when this pic was taken, he was telling me how he thought we’d be involved with each other always, in some way, “maybe not romantically, I don’t know, but somehow.”  Bold words from someone who’s only known me for eight days.  But then we go on to have this amazing night and I wonder if he’s right.

We feel pulled to stop at the Freckled Fin – and that he lives by that pull too is a great thing.  There’s a musician on the patio and shortly after we sit down he does “Give Me One Reason” which is kind of my jam.  It shows up often in my life and covered by seemingly every musician I heard the last few months before I left Wisconsin.  Outside the co-op that I wondered as I walked in if I’d run into Frosting and what I’d say if I did.  But I never did.

And I never did turn around.  And if this singer is asking me again, the answer is still a solid ‘probably not’.  I’d like to say a solid ‘no’ but as it shows itself a week or so  later, I’m not out of the woods yet.  And if the Kings of Leon’s, “Use Somebody” is another point he’s now raising, to that I say, ‘yes, yes, yes.’  I could very much use somebody like the body who’s taken me on this lovely dinner date after sunset and Sauvignon Blanc on the beach.  He’s someone I could get under to get over, if you know what I mean.  Ahhh, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that and for every time I found it to be true.

We start to have an experience, this singer is like soooo good!  Hands in the air like we don’t care.  And I have a revelation that pours out of my mouth:  it’s like you call God and after He answers He puts the phone down, because he’s not taking anyone’s call but yours.  I felt that taken care of and that happy.  Like this night has been laid out for me.  You know the ones; where your hair is great, your clothes are hot, you’ve got all the great lines -and parking spot- and everything is just falling into place.  And you’ve had nothing to do to really organize it, it just seemed to happen; to you and for you.  A gift, from the Universe: “thanks for playing.”

We have a great dinner from a great server.  He brings out our dish with a smiley face made from the garnish.  It’s almost too much.  We drive around after and talk and listen to music and smoke.  And then we’re back on the beach having sex in the front seat of his truck.  Maybe I should have outgrown this by now.  Maybe it’s not age related.  It’s me related – I love sex outside; doing it with the elements – the sound of the waves, watching the wind blow the palm trees.  My bikini on the floor and my thigh in the window.

I’m going to the chiropractor – my camper mattress is shit – and it’s near Siesta Key and it’s Vic’s day off so he’s coming with me and then we’ll watch the sunset on the beach.

We get to the café just as it’s getting ready to close.  We stand there quickly scanning the menu board as I lean my forearm on his shoulder in a cool pose like I’ve probably seen in the movie Grease or somewhere.  We want a pizza done half vegetarian and the manager says he’ll do it “because he’s so handsome,” looking at Vic.  I look too….he is handsome.  We go to eat it on the beach and after I take one bite and am moving my hand from my mouth to chew, I feel the talons of a seagull on my fingers and watch as it flies into the horizon with the remainder of my piece.  I call out freaked out as memories of The Birds play through my brain and my instincts tell me to throw the beach towel we just found on the sidewalk on the way in over the remaining pie and run for shelter.  Vic calls to me from the backside of the lifeguard stand, but that’s not far enough for me; I run all the way back to the shelter of the overhang by the café and collapse into the safety of the table.  I sigh like I’ve just returned to civilization.

After we eat I feel super tired so I lay my head on his thigh and stretch my legs out on the bench.  We talk various times about getting up and returning to the beach sans food/bird bait but never actually move.  Finally, the pressure of time and the promise of the sunset motivates us and we get up.  We stroll along the beach for quite awhile, lost in conversation and Mother Nature’s Majesty, stopping for shell picking and kissing, and we come up to an old retaining wall with a makeshift stage that has a guitar resting on the mic stand and a set of bongos abandoned towards the back.  As we watch people playing with their dogs, we assume that we’ve just missed a little concert or a party special for puppy people, as dogs aren’t normally allowed on the beach.  We talk for a while, musing over the motivations of the furry creatures and we decide to start walking back.  Just as we turn to take our first steps, the musicians begin their return to the stage.  We linger a moment and hear that iconic first chord, then watch it be interrupted by a woman talking to the lead singer.  We wait in anticipation to see if what we thought we heard was really what we heard.  After what seems like a long delay (it’s always long when you’re waiting) the guitarist starts again, and it is as we thought and we watch on in awe as they play an acoustic version of Purple Rain as the sun sets.

“Did you organize this?”  I ask.  I know it’s incredulous that he could but it’s just as incredulous that he didn’t.  He responds to me wide eyed, “how could I have possibly?  I’m good Starfish, but I’m not that good!”  This is the second time that my Purple Love, my first love, has showed up in the short time I’ve been hanging with this, my new love.  I take this as a very good sign.

As much as this happens in my life, I am constantly amazed every single time.