Written on August 9, 2015, from my new home in Riverside, which is also the new home of Women Writing for (a) Change, Jacksonville.
When a robin came to visit me last January, warning me that change was coming, I could not have imagined how much, indeed, was coming my way.
Six months later, I’ve moved to a new house in Riverside, my last child has left for college out of state, and the garden I tended for 12 years has been turned over to someone else’s care.
I’ve also acquired a new life metaphor: The river. My new house is just steps from the riverbank, so every day Buster (my Yorkie) and I walk to the river, where I am reminded to flow WITH the river, not push against it. Getting to this place, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, has been quite a journey. I’ve chosen to work with the Universe, reading the signs, and taking right action from there.
So far, it’s been pure pleasure, but yesterday I woke up for the first time alone, with both my son and daughter gone to college, and I felt a deep ache inside me. Yes, the hardest job of a mother is to rear her children so they can one day go away from her.
It has been my privilege to do that.
But now, we’ve all transitioned to a new life stage, and we’ve got to do the next right thing. Fortunately, I’m reading Transitions, by William Bridges, and it’s helped a lot.
Meanwhile, I’m enjoying my new neighborhood, running often along the river, walking to the Riverside Arts Market and Grassroots for my groceries, and dropping in to Five Points’ Sun Ray Cinema for their latest film. It feels good to leave behind my life on the road in the ‘burbs, where it seems I was accessible to everything and close to nothing.
With Fall coming, it’s time to call a new circle of women for the latest fall writing classes. We’ll be using Julia Cameron’s famous book, The Artist’s Way, to guide our writing, as I’d like to explore our artistic process as writers and “cultural creatives” here in Jacksonville (as Alex Coley of Unity Plaza would say).
At Women Writing for (a) Change, Jacksonville, I hope to provide a warm hearth, comfortable chairs, and a safe circle for women to explore their own creative flow, their own life transitions, and their own unique stories of growth, personal transformation, and right living.
I hope you’ll join me, so we can find The Way together.
Here.
In the Riverside Garden.
inthegardenofthedivine 