Yesterday was one of those days that becomes a chuckle in response to someone saying how awesome my life is. The Starfish Enterprise 2 is not going to Appalachiacola in April, after all. That’s the third state park rug to be pulled out from under me in eight months. Three and a half if you count me almost getting kicked out of this park because of a snafu. It’s enough to make you seriously question your life choices. Almost.

“It’s like schedule Jenga,” I comment to another volunteer at our campfire happy hour.

“I think you mean Tetris.”

“No . . . I mean Jenga.”

I know it’ll work out. It always does, I’ve surely learned that. And usually better than the thing that fell apart. It’s only a matter of time–which I have very little of because I’m meant to be leaving in ten days. Time I need to sort out my acceptance letter for publication, try to get into Chicken Soup for the Soul (times two), meet a freelance deadline, and write my memoir while taking a class about writing my memoir. I so did not need another ball to juggle.

At the end of my shift today, my numbers weren’t on as I added and compared what the computer said. I’m usually right on so I tend to get upset on the odd occasion that I’m not. But this little voice/feeling very calmly told me not to worry. Just put your credit card slips down and count your cash. So I did. It was off, too. That same voice/feeling directed me to refresh the website, and then they were all on. The answer is always in the peace. The calm is in the eye of the storm.

So I applied the same practice to the up-in-the-air status of my next destination. I turned it over to that calm little voice/feeling. I felt even calmer. No sense in fussin’–even though I’m so darn good at it. The answer will come in the peace. And that peace gets refreshed just like a browser window, by synchronicities . . .

My neighbor’s daughter was over yesterday, telling me she is trying to catch a stray cat. She’s named him Finnegan. As I came out of my chiropractor/magician’s office, feeling reborn and on a whole other plane after our fast-paced and passionate discussions, I look across the street and there’s a church building with ‘Finnegan’ written across it. This was my fifth appointment. I’d never seen it before.

At work I had a park manager need to find me but he’d forgotten his radio. We ran into each other. He’s not someone you easily run into, but he thought about needing to reach me and there I was.

As I walked up to the farmer’s market the musician du jour was playing his own version of “Refugee” by Tom Petty. Tonight at corn hole, that same song comes up on someone’s playlist. Checkpoints.

And then there’s that happy, easygoing feeling I have that seems completely out of place given my circumstances–yet here it is. I sit front and center to some pretty miraculous and magical stuff. I’m out here on my own counting on it, and I wouldn’t be if it hadn’t showed me over and over again that it’s got me. Every time something in the physical realm fails, I rise. I take my rightful place above it all. And every time it falls apart, it frees me up.

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You’re really living the life. You’re doing what most people want to do, but can’t.” He pauses, turning away to look out the window of the lobby. “Or won’t.”

My mind flicks back to the most recent memory of living life on the road in an RV. I’m not sure dumping the black tank and watching as poo, pee, and t.p. swirl like a septic symphony into the magical place deep underground is most people’s dream, but we are discussing this in a hotel lobby, resting upon a crushed blue velvet sofa with a crystal chandelier sparkling overhead. Dude has a point.

“I guess I don’t really think of it that way. People tell me I’m courageous, but to me it’s kind of ….. normal.” I wave my hand in dismissal of the thought.

His nose releases a soft snort, “There’s nothing normal about it!”

I laugh. I zoom out my perspective using a telescope, grab a quick pano–a little game I like to play– and I know he’s right.

A group of us workampers got together the other night at the Campground Host’s site and there was a couple there that I’d not really met yet; there’s like twenty-six volunteer sites. After a few rounds, (quarters?)–I’m new to the game– the guy approaches me.

“I don’t mean to pry, but… can I ask you a question?”

“Please!” I love questions. I’d seen him watching me and was delightfully curious.

“Do you do this alone?”

Ah, that one. Always tough to answer. I rarely feel alone even though, I suppose, it does look that way. “I’m a solo chick traveler, yes.” Short answers are sometimes best.

He’s shaking his head before I even finish. “I don’t think I could do it.” And he walks on by. Maybe I’ve made him too uncomfortable with the thought of it, even. I stand there, looking across at the bean bags, the board I can’t seem to hit, and everyone around. All couples.

But I don’t feel alone. I wish I could explain it. But it’s hard to put into words. You have to believe it to see it. Most people want to see it, then believe it. You miss a lot that way. Like, a lot a lot.

And it’s good stuff. It’s jump and the net will appear stuff. I’m not saying I know how it works, I just know that it does. I had a guru once, luckily, that said: “Don’t believe anything I say. Try it. Test it. See for yourself.”

I thought I needed a church. Turns out, I needed a laboratory. And that–changed everything.

I’d been agnostic for awhile. I tried being atheist, but my logical mind would not let me deny the evidence I had of a Supreme Being. Something in charge. Something. . . bigger. Making happen what I seemed powerless to make happen myself. I had been carried. Protected. Guided. Gifted. And I knew what the Divine felt like. Because of what it didn’t feel like: human, worldly, limited, finite. I’d seen win-win situations happen time after time. That’s a tough trick for us competitive egos. ‘Self-preservation is what’s really going on today’ **

I could look to ‘God’ like a Petri dish. Or a beaker. Let me mix all these elements of my self, my life, my feelings, wants and frustrations and see what grows. Or explodes. Let me put all these complicated and befuddling equations of circumstances and outcomes onto the chalkboard and see if there’s maybe some kind of a formula. A method to the madness.

Well. Careful what you wish for. I’ll tell you this. If you ask, and you really want to know the answer, you will get the quantum entanglement ride of your life. I guarantee it. And in a world void of any guarantees whatsoever, I think that’s quite the promise.

Don’t believe anything I write. May the way I live my life be an invitation. Permission, if you feel permission is needed. To build your own lab. I promise you, amazing experiments await.

**Young Hearts Run Free -Kym Mazelle

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