New Year, new.. me?

I am finally back in Denver. I feel like I have been traveling for months, really. I am here, I am there. Sometimes I feel like I'm nowhere. Being all over the map has been by my design, perhaps. I guess I felt that as long as I was always moving, coming, going, away, busy, I would have less time inside my head.  LA was mostly a great escape for me. It usually is, but this time it felt a little less liberating than it has in the past. Maybe because no matter where we go, we can't silence the thoughts that don't want to be silenced. No matter what we do to distract, the natural human desire inside of us wants to heal.

I am in a weird place in my life.  Not entirely powerless, but not exactly empowered. I'm not even sure how to describe it.  I'm glad the year is over and a new year is here. I don't know what that means, really. Maybe I just like the symbolism that a new year means there's a fresh beginning.  Everyone gets a chance to reinvent themselves, make changes, discard.  New Year to me means a renewed sense of self and clarity for all of the things I want (or don't want).

I have had an incredible year. I don't want to say it was all negative because I believe there is so much power and growth in adversity.  So with that perspective, I am thankful. More than anything, I want to feel OK, trust myself a lot more than I ever have before and let go of everything I have been so attached to.

New Years Day was an adventure over icy roads with no detour and no shoulder to pull off on for about 100 miles or more.  I thought I had planned my route out and everything was safe, right? In the moments where we really don't know if we're going to make it out of a scary situation unscathed or not, we have to just let go and trust.  And we can't always plan ahead for the unexpected.  During the drive when I was sliding all over the roads and a clear blacktop wasn't in sight anywhere, I had to just keep moving forward, I had to surrender, trust myself, trust my abilities, trust the drivers of the 18-wheelers on the road, and trust that soon enough, that road was going to clear and everything would be fine. And it did. What an amazing metaphor for life and what an incredible lesson that was for me on my first day of the new year!

Thanksgiving

Tonight is the eve of Thanksgiving.  I am baking an apple pie at 9:30 at night and wondering what the rest of the world is doing.  Maybe some people are with family, maybe some are alone.  Maybe some are praying for the things I already have. I'm thankful for so many things in my life.  Even in the middle of what feels like a storm, there is silence and peace in the center of it.
I find myself there.

Grandpa

It has been a little while since I've written.  On one hand, there is so much to say. So much to be grateful for. So many wonderful irons in the fire, so much to look forward to.  But on the other, there is little I am able to say about the last two months. Perhaps all of it too painful and I'm doing my best to not sink into a place that takes me away from all of the good going on in my life. It is now November.  The entire month of October seemed to just fly by like it never happened.  

I spent almost a month in Texas, visiting with family and trying my best to relax. It was a long and tiresome adventure in a lot of ways.  Many emotions surfaced after laying dormant for a lot of years. I visited the house where I grew up. It was the first time since my Grandfather passed away in 2009 that I had been back. I looked around the place and it was familiar, yet so far in the distance that I was unable to relate to it anymore.  I imagined myself growing up there and in the conditions in which I did.  I was amazed at how much the house had stayed the same but had also deteriorated. I think a home, left unoccupied for a period of time, just shuts down. As if abandoned and cut off from the life forces that once loved and occupied it's walls, just causes it to lose its will to live.

After wandering around a bit, I stayed mostly in my Grandfathers room, sifting through his chest of drawers and hoping to find some old cards and drawings that I made for him when I was a child. When I reached the second drawer, I found all of his hankies.  For whatever reason, seeing these brought me to tears almost immediately. His bandanna handkerchiefs were always, always something he carried.  The only day in his life that I know of where he didn't have one, was on Sundays when he went to church. My Aunt found me, sobbing, crouched down next to his dresser.  She offered her bit of condolences but I realized at that moment, that while the rest of my family stayed there and grieved after the funeral, I left the next day and never went through all of the stages of grief that they did. My heart was in a place that they had already worked through, and I felt a little alone. I felt like 5-year-old me, sitting there in the same spot where he used to play his accordion. 

I never did find the old cards and drawings I made for him.  But I did find some old letters that he had written to his mother while he was in basic training for the Army. I took as many as I could find, all neatly wrapped in plastic bags, tied firmly with used bread ties. He owned an awful lot of junk, and collected a lot of things but somehow, he always managed to keep all of that chaos neatly organized, even if it was in his own special ways.  

I read a few of the letters when I went back home and I felt connected to his spirit again.  But this was another time and another place. Here he was, writing letters and sending money back home in 1948, long before he had met my Grandmother, had my Mother and then later found himself raising me until I was 9. And here I was, his Granddaughter all grown up, reading his thoughts in 2012.  I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that those letters hadn't be re-read by anyone else but him and my Great Grandma since 1948.

Now I'm back in Denver, and the dust from a place I used to be able to call home is settling back in Texas. 

Charles Chaplin in "The Great Dictator"

I’m sorry

But I don't want to be an Emperor

That's not my business

I don't want to rule or conquer anyone

I should like to help everyone if possible

Jew, Gentile

Black, White

We all want to help one another

Human beings are like that

We want to live by each other's happiness

Not by each other's misery

We don't want to hate and despise one another

In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich

And can provide for everyone

The way of life can be free and beautiful

But we have lost the way

Greed has poisoned men's souls

Has barricaded the world with hate

Has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in

Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want

Our knowledge has made us cynical

Our cleverness hard and unkind

We think too much, and feel too little

More than machinery, we need humanity

More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness

Without these qualities life will be violent

And all will be lost

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together

The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men

Cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all

Even now, my voice is reaching millions throughout the world

Millions of despairing men, women, and little children

Victims of a system that makes men torture

And imprison innocent people

To those who can hear me I say“Do not despair”

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed

The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress

The hate of men will pass

And dictators die

And the power they took from the people

Will return to the people

And so long as men die

Liberty will never perish

Soldiers, don't give yourselves to brutes

Men who despise you, enslave you

Who regiment your lives

Tell you what to do, what to think, and what to feel

Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men

Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts

You are not machines

You are not cattle

You are men

You have the love of humanity in your hearts

You don't hate

Only the unloved hate

The unloved and the unnatural

Soldiers, don't fight for slavery

Fight for liberty

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written“The kingdom of God is within man”

Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men

In you, you the people

You the people have the power

The power to create machines

The power to create happiness

You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful

To make this life a wonderful adventure

Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power

Let us all unite

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world

That will give men a chance to work

That will give youth a future

And old age a security

By the promise of these things brutes have risen to power

But they lie, they do not fulfill their promise

They never will

Dictators free themselves

But they enslave the people

Now let us fight to fulfill that promise

Let us fight to free the world

To do away with national barriers

Do away with greedWith hate and intolerance

Let us fight for a world of reason

A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness

Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up!

The clouds are lifting, the sun is breaking through

We are coming out of the darkness into the light

We are coming into a new world

A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality

The soul of man has been given wings, and at last, he is beginning to fly

He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future

That glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us

Look up. Look up

-Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin ("The Great Dictator, 1940")

A Year and a Half in Denver!

It’s been a crazy year and a half. I came to Denver with absolute reluctance, with only what could fit into my car and not a single clue as to what would happen next. I had to leave Dallas because everything felt as though it was in shambles. I needed to simplify and stabilize. So when the job called in Denver, I answered. I knew I had to make some kind of move. Standing there stagnant wasn’t an option.


I had never been to Denver until I arrived two days before I was to start on Monday. I was hired as a denim designer for a western wear company and that’s all I lived, breathed and knew for the first six months. The first month and a half, I lived mostly like a squatter in a nice but tiny, overpriced apartment with no furniture and only an air mattress. I think it was a sign that I wanted to have one foot in and one foot out. I was never completely OK with being in Denver. It never fit me the way it does a lot of people who move here and instantly fall in love. The mountains and nature are beautiful, but cities each have a personality and they speak to you. Much in the way friendships are born, cities can be the same way.

I never really knew how long I’d stay here or what would become of my life in Denver. My job felt rocky (no pun really intended) from the very beginning. People were coming and going, mysteriously disappearing, walking out, getting fired, etc. So, I sensed the instability early in the game and knew that whatever I did, or for however long I was here, I had to make the best of my situation. I absolutely love what I do. I love to create, to make a difference and to contribute. I really feel as though my heart and soul were poured into the lines I was responsible for. There wasn’t a moment I didn’t give 100%, nor did I think of throwing in the towel before I had a chance to see it all through. I had a responsibility to my lines, and to myself. I wanted nothing more than to see them all succeed. I soldiered on, despite the volatility at work. Early on, I even had two possible job offers and one in LA for sure but I knew I needed to stick this one out. Something told me there was a reward for hanging in there.

So I did what I felt was right.

More months went by, I never took vacation time, I missed out on a lot of family holidays and events. Mostly because I took on an additional (huge) line at work when they failed to hire a tops designer to replace the old one who left. Of course, I was doing more work but not getting paid any more for it. Eventually, I found myself in the doctor’s office having myself checked out to make sure I was alright. I was having terrible neck, back, and nerve issues. I was going to the massage therapist twice a month just to feel OK. I made jokes about self-medicating with wine after work but honestly, it wasn’t a joke. I wasn’t drinking heavily, but the simple fact that I thought of that as a way out should have told me things were not OK. I was miserable inside and just dying to do something, anything else. I started doing more yoga, meditation and bought myself a bike that I had been wanting for so long. I loved riding my bike as much as I could. I found that doing things that were completely unrelated to work in my downtime was essential for my well being. Interestingly enough, the love of bike riding led to another weekend project of a bike bag and I began pursuing that as a possible business venture. I submitted my design specs to a factory and within weeks, my first prototypes arrived.

A few more months went by and as providence would have it, my job let me go. That was 2 weeks ago but it already feels like an eternity. I am now so far removed from that place and state of mind that I can barely relate to any of it anymore. At the time, it didn’t feel too good at all. I was scared and had a sore ego. But as I see it now, they really did me a huge favor. I was dragging my feet and afraid to take a chance, afraid to leave the comfort of a nest. None of us ever want to lose that steady paycheck but I have to tell you, your happiness is priceless. No matter how much they are paying, what you feel at the end of the day is really all that matters. I am happier now than I have been all year. I can’t tell you how great it feels to work on something I truly love and believe in. And even if I have to go and work some plain ol' job for a while, I am totally fine with it!

The good news is, I am no longer having any neck pains or back trouble; I can’t help but think it was all stress related due to my job.

Oh, and of course I met a wonderful man, too. :) He has been such a support and my rock through all of this. Oddly enough, I think I was just two weeks away from packing up my car and heading to LA when I met him. If I would have just quit everything and given up, I wouldn't have met him, nor would I have probably pursued my own line of bike bags the way I have now. After all, it was all the bike rides with him that made me realize what it was I needed to pursue. My life is better now, today, than it was April 17th 2011 when I arrived in Denver for “a job”. Maybe the job brought me here, but maybe it wasn't the whole reason I ended up here at all. At first glance, what we see in front of us, what appears as an obvious journey is just a stepping stone to something even bigger and greater than what we could ever plan.

And I guess my point in all of this is, if you’re unhappy where you are, start moving into the direction you want to go. And if you don’t know where you want to go exactly, just start moving and life will take it from there.