Not an Every Day Journey

 

 

I woke up early to watch the sky change colors as the sun climbed up into the sky.  The display is one I never ever tire of.  Its magical how the sky goes from inky black with millions of pin point stars, to dark blue, faded blue, to smoky pink, peach and then golden.  Every new day always strikes me as a rebirth.  It isn’t actually that but the world turning on its axis as it orbits the sun. But I like my magical thoughts more than my scientific ones this morning. 

 

I made some coffee, fed the cat and retrieved and then filled the bird feeders.  I sipped coffee watching my little winged friends flitting about excited for an easy meal.  The brightly colored Finches and Sparrows are a favorite.  After they finish a nibble, the bigger birds swoop in to pick up off the ground what the little birds pushed out of the feeders.  The Grackles and Doves get a bite too.  I just love to see them for some reason.  I have small windchimes around the posts that hold the feeders so I can hear when the birds fly in for breakfast.  Well that and I love the little windchimes.

 

It's cool out now so I threw the front and back doors open.  I can hear the birds singing happily along with the occasional whir of air conditioning units kicking on.  Out here in the desert, we are heavily dependent on the air conditioning to keep us not only comfortable but safe from the extreme heat of the late Spring and Summer days.  Sometimes I long for greener scenery but there is something about this place that called to me so long ago.  It came to me one afternoon nearly 20 years ago.  I lived in Southern California and was paying ridiculous amounts of rent, daycare on three kids on one income.  The idea of moving to Arizona came to me.  I could at least solve the exorbitant housing expense.  I just wasn’t quite ready to leave.  But then, over the years the call changed.  Added to it was a desire to not just move to a new place but to be a home owner.  As a single parent of 3, there was just no way I could come up with a down payment.  There was also no way my boss at that time was going to let me telecommute.  A few years later, I had 4 children and no idea how to manifest the dream.  But it came back due to circumstances reinforcing the original thought – giving me pause to remember and consider. I wondered, why couldn’t I just manifest the resources?  That changed to – why don’t I just manifest the resources. And that is exactly what I did.

 

I found my desired location (the city felt like home as soon as I accidentally found it) and started looking for houses in my price range.  I figured out what I needed for a down payment.  I definitely didn’t have that but I didn’t let that discourage me.  I imagined what it would feel like to sit in my back yard sipping coffee.   I imagined my bank account growing so that I would have enough.  I stayed open, positive, and every day looked at homes and started getting really excited about the idea.  I found myself a mortgage broker and an agent.  I found a way to manage a down payment, pulled together the funds for a mover and before I knew it an offer had been made and accepted on a home that really sparked my inner being.  We went to Arizona to see the house and fell in love.  45 days later, we were moving in.

 

I was paying twice my now mortgage plus just for rent in California.  But, my new boss allowed me to telecommute and I was able to bring my California salary with me to Arizona.  My dreaming, positive thinking, staying open to ideas that would better align me to my goal paid off.  Here I sit 4 years later on my back patio sipping coffee watching the birds munching happily the bird seed I just filled the bird feeders with.  I did it on my own.  I did what I once thought impossible.  I manifested a dream I scarcely let out into the light of day.  I’m still amazed today at how everything came together.

 

The trick was giving voice to the dream, as specific as I could while staying completely open to the how and trusting the how would come together.  I did my part.  I researched, I gave good positive thoughts to it daily, I worked to do my part and not one hitch was encountered.  It could have been a disaster, but it wasn’t.  Uprooting your life from being born and raised in one state to another is no easy thing.  But it was the perfect thing for us.  I always knew that Arizona held magic for me. Yeah, there’s that word again.  Let me have my magic!  My first grandchild was born a year ago and as I ease myself into that next part of life I have managed with the Universe’s help, to create for myself a fabulous framework for that next stage whatever it will hold for me.  I couldn’t be happier.

 

More than thirty years ago while driving through the desert, a thought came to me – “Lost and Found in the Desert.”  I didn’t think much of it at the time but as I sit here now, I know exactly what that means for me.  I was lost in so many ways before but when I came here, to the desert in the land of the sun, I found myself.  I found what I didn’t even know had been missing.  The journey of the last 30 years, every step, every misstep, all the good times, all the hard times – they all led up to this moment.   In this moment I feel tried and tested.  I feel strong and so happy.  Times won’t always feel happy because there have been some hard, hard things to face on this journey.  While I know now that dreams can come true, the every day journey is going with the flow, knowing that emotions and circumstance are fleeting, and that every life journey is extraordinary.  It’s no everyday ordinary journey that brought me here.  It was a dream that I gave voice too, concentrated on and helped manifest into reality.  I’m grateful for every part of my journey up until now. The good times – the bad times – the happy times and dire sad times…all of those times instilled in me the character I needed to build, let shine, let grow and to keep on dreaming.  Yeah, this had not been your every day journey.  It has been a magical one.

 

© 2023 J.L. Harter (photos and words)