Creating the Life You Want

When I heard about this woman who dropped everything to live on the road--then traveled all over the world and wrote a book about it--two words came to mind:

Soul Sister!

Margaret "Meps" Schulte

I knew I had to talk to her. She has a fascinating life...and great advice for living the life of your dreams.

The title of your book is Strangers Have the Best Candy. Why do strangers have the best candy?

By "candy," I mean a positive encounter, which might range from a smile to a home-cooked meal to a conversation that starts a lifelong friendship. When we encounter a person we know, we have some idea what to expect from them. The good things we get from strangers are always a surprise, and they can have life-changing consequences.
 



You hit the road as a young woman. How long have you been living a traveling life? How do you balance the joys of the road and a yearning for "home"?

I've left the corporate world for an open-ended adventure twice. The first time was in my twenties, when my husband and I put our stuff in storage and traveled in a Honda Civic and on bicycles for a couple of years. When it stopped being fun, we settled in Seattle, got jobs, and started saving as much money as we could.

After eight years, in 2003, we took off a second time. We moved aboard a sailboat in New Orleans for five months, then sailed across the Gulf of Mexico and up the eastern seaboard. After we left the boat, we drove 6500 miles in our van, the Squid Wagon, from Florida to Newfoundland to Seattle with our cat. That was just the first year -- I haven't stopped traveling since!

I don't yearn for "home" in a traditional sense. I have friends all over the world, and I'm on a nonstop circuit of visiting them and making new friends out of strangers. Sometimes, I wish I could settle down long enough to take a class or unpack my Christmas ornaments, but when an opportunity for adventure comes up, I forget all about that.

The hardest thing about traveling is saying goodbye too often. I have to console myself with a reminder that there is always a hello on the other side.



What advice would you give to your younger self?

 

Live overseas. Forget Russian -- learn as many foreign languages as you can that use the Latin alphabet. Play the harmonica instead of the accordion; it's a lot easier to carry. Don't stop painting. Always wear comfortable shoes, so you can walk for miles.

 

What advice would you give to people about living the life you really want to live?

Examine your choices every single day. Don't take anything for granted! For example, I didn't like celery yesterday, but I might like it today. I had a friend who hated jewelry on men. He went out and bought a gold necklace and never took it off. It was a reminder to him of the power of changing his mind. Change one small thing, and see how it feels. Then change a bigger thing, and a bigger thing, until you have created the life you want.

 

Also, don't say no when adventure knocks on the door. Be flexible, prepared, and self-sufficient, and everything will be OK.

Quitting a well-paying job was so scary, I called it "jumping off the cliff." Today, I have absolutely no regrets about saying yes to adventure, because my parachute opened on the way down. Now my life is measured in friends and awe-inspiring moments, not dollars and possessions. My security comes from being flexible and accepting reality.


Meps' next book, The Joyful Bear, will be released this fall. Co-authored with Frank Lloyd Bear, a large white teddy bear who has been traveling with her since 1993, the book features Frankie's unique wisdom and philosophy. To follow her adventures, check out Meps' website.



Other Mother

I was a deer-in-the-headlights graduate student in my late twenties when I first met Gabriele Rico.  She walked into the classroom the epitome of grace.  And then, over the course of that semester and years to come, she became my mentor, my friend, and my other-mother.

Gabriele when I first met her--in her early 50s (about the age I am now)

Her work on creativity was intellectual and profoundly intuitive.  She seduced me!  Because of her, I fell in love with literature, language, writing, and teaching.  She prompted me to honor--and really see--the amazement of my own creative possibilities.

Gabriele developed "clustering."  This book changed lives.

Gabriele invited me into her home to work with her on writing projects.  I remember looking at her life and thinking, this is what I want.  A life filled with people who thrived on creativity.  A home inspired by art, and infused with books and plants and love.  And flexibility of time:  to teach, to mentor, to write, to travel, to exercise the body and mind. 

And truly:  this is who I've become.  Gabriele is woven into the fabric of my life.

Gabriele has always been open to change and growth.  In her 50s and 60s, she learned to wind surf, to rock climb, to snorkel--and she became a true yogini.  She stretched herself physically, mentally, emotionally.  She led creativity workshops all over the world.  She traveled to more and more exotic places.  And when she was diagnosed with life-threatening cancer eight months ago--at the age of 75--she dubbed the experience an adventure.

With Simone, Gabriele's youngest daughter; check out the bracelets!

When I visited with her today, in spite of the pain medications she's on, she was still her loving, funny, astute self.  Two of her three daughters were there.  In the midst of a hug, she called me her "sixth daughter."  I said, "Wait a minute, I thought I was the fourth!"  And she laughed.  Her daughter Suzanne (who has written a lot about about her family's journeys) said, "There are at least a hundred daughters."  Now there's a legacy. 

One thing I come to expect being around Gabriele is that nothing is a surprise.  There are always serendipities that arise--"coincidences" that are a given when Gabriele is around.  Today's was this:  I was wearing a bracelet my long-time friend gave me last year on my wedding day.  It has a bead on it that looks like a blue eye.  Simone was wearing a bracelet also given to her by an old friend; it incorporated the exact same bead.  Simone said the bead wards off the evil eye.

 

Today I realized that Gabriele is the one person in my life who has always seen most clearly the veil between this world and the next. In fact, it's not even a veil for her.  It's a continuum.  As she once wrote:

"When human beings grow creatively, they learn to  step out of categories such as 'either/or' and begin to see the world in terms of 'both/and.'"

Here's the both/and of the situation:  Gabriele is dying, and Gabriele is living. Gabriele will be gone but she'll always be here. I know I will continue to learn from her throughout the rest of my days.

Dolphin Poem

Dolphins we swam with on the Big Island (credit)

My friend Anne Jennings Paris has been challenging some of us to write the poems that she's been assigning to her students.  Recently, she asked us to write a poem in the style of Emily Dickinson.  This poem was inspired by meditations I've been doing lately that focus on my breath.  During a meditation, I envisioned a dolphin.  I felt like she was there as a kind of spirit guide.

I Felt a Dolphin Come to Me

I felt a dolphin come to me
before I saw her there.
She clicked and cawed beneath the sea
aglide with breath to spare.

She looked me sideways in the eye
her heft a soft gray stone—
she told me I can summon her
the times I feel alone.

The cobalt depths were limitless,
the water a yielding skin.
I felt my breath reach endlessness,
my spirit spread within.

She rose through blue to blue above,
crowning sky and sea—
her perfect breath invited love
to breathe inside of me.

Country By Country

My friend Candice has just started up a blog that will follow her European adventures.

I will be living vicariously through her as I visit the blog throughout the summer.

In her words, here's the motto for her trip:

"Be on the edge" That's where creativity is born, that's where you can breathe into the belly of the beast, that's where unexpected delights appear out of the blue. You never know what to expect, but you know deep down that living on the edge will be a hell of lot more interesting than watching the BBC in your hotel room or staying in a tour bus with all the other faux-travelers.