It’s the New Year and I find myself in unexpected territory. I am curled up in my bed indulging in an extended Saturday morning. But there are no mountains outside my window. No cold North Carolina winter breeze barking through my door. I am, of all places, in Texas.
Why am I in Texas you may ask? Well, as things tend to go with my life I was, let’s just say… redirected. As you may know I was living in the Asheville, NC area, Hendersonville to be exact, in a simple ground floor apartment. One particularly rainy wet morning I got up to what I assumed would be an ordinary day and instead was greeted by a pool of water in my kitchen. A good size puddle. I soon discovered that this watery invasion was not just in the kitchen but throughout the apartment… in the living room, the bedroom, the bathroom. I called my landlord who lived upstairs in the home above me and she scurried down to clean up the water and I began to pack my things. As the rain continued to come down and we were more than saturated in recent years with rain, we weren’t sure what might unfold.
In the end, it wasn’t much. But it was enough… to wreck the apartment and require my landlord discern how and if she would move forward with repairs. As I could no longer live there, we parted amicably and I hit the road.
All my things fit in my SUV. Thankfully I was still sort of living my gypsy ways. Hesitant to buy things. Not liking to have “too much” or burden myself with belongings. The apartment came furnished, so with just a moderate amount of discomfort and unexpected effort on an early rainy morning, I was packed up and out the door.
I spent a few days at a friend’s home in Asheville then headed to the midwest to visit family and stayed with my mom for a few weeks. I returned to Asheville for a business meeting and then… I went to Texas. Texas wasn’t exactly part of the “plan.” But it was a generous offer from a friend in my Reiki community for an available and safe place to land. With a bit of exhaustion but fair degree of willingness, I made my way.
The backside of this story is the idea of change was in the air. I hadn’t traveled in the two years I had been in Asheville and was hungry for some new scenery. I had been feeling stuck and in a rut, yet wasn’t sure what to do about it. In comes a solution, as unexpected and inconvenient as it may be.
I’ve been here a few months now. This diversion has offered a taste of freshness and newness I was needing. But it has also been a big adjustment. Instead of hearing the sounds of nature, I hear the buzz of the busy road nearby. In my first week I managed to accidentally drive on two toll roads and run a red light that had a traffic camera on it. One day for reasons beyond my understanding, my GPS started speaking Spanish.
So here I am, tucked in my temporary Texas abode. There’s a fire in the fireplace and the roar of local traffic outside my window. As I awaken into 2019, I am on a detour of sorts and not quite sure where the road is going. With much gratitude and some anxiety along the way, I am doing my best to go with the flow in the New Year.
Gypsy Woman 