Time to Move On

For 19 years, I've written this blog.  

I started it after my father died. My early entries were about aging, mortality--and still feeling his presence. 

Sisters (I'm the middle child, the brunette) with Dad

My third entry was about giving my mother a bath because the month after Dad died, she fell and broke her shoulder. 

As she descended into dementia, I wrote about her life, about caregiving, about grief and love.

Scanning through my years of writing Living the Journey has made my life swim before my eyes. It's been bittersweet to see the evolution of what I wrote about. 

The first few years I focused on:

* Ailing parents (both mine and my partner's)

* Marriage equality and LGBTQ rights

In California, 2008, protesting Prop 8, which would ban same-sex marriage

* My work as a university writing professor (I hated grading papers, loved connecting to students, and appreciated the creativity and flexibility of my work)

* Meeting great visiting writers in my role as as co-director of the Center for Literary Arts

* Book reviews

* Interviews with writers and poets.

And then, one day I disappeared. My wife of 15 years had been having an affair and left me. My world was shattered.

When I returned, I wrote about heartbreak and figuring how who I was now. I wrote about being single in my 40s as a bisexual woman. I explored dating men again and, when the phoenix began rising, my renewed love for travel. 

During this time, my friends became everything. They propped me up, helped me move, became my cheerleaders. I vowed to never again take my friends for granted, and I hope I've lived up to that promise.

Then I met Dave. We both were working more than full time, but we were thrilled about creating a life together that included live music, the outdoors, friends, travel.

snowshoeing in 2010...we've now been together 16 years

We married in Hawaii, and the next year I retired from the university so I could write and work as a coach and book editor. His job ended. When the sweet house we were renting in our beloved seaside Santa Cruz went up for sale, we faced a dilemma: 

Should we reverse the retirement decision and put all of our resources into buying a house in one of the most expensive places in the world? 

We floated that idea and others--another rental, joining friends in a communal living endeavor, moving elsewhere--but it was when we hit on this that our energy surged:

How about living house-free?

This was 2012. We'd never heard of nomads--digital, retired, or otherwise. 

We'd already embraced a kind of minimalism, by living in small spaces, owning one car, and not collecting a lot of stuff. And now we decided to get rid of almost everything we owned and hit the road.

leopard encounter in Sri Lanka

We traveled in the States, Australia, India and Sri Lanka--and were sidelined for a few months when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor after having a seizure. It was a scary, soul-expanding time. (A friend said, "Honey, your life is like Knott's Landing these days!") 

staples out! (2013)

Once I was healed and we'd traveled for a year, two things happened:

* we bought a casita sight-unseen in Mexico and

* we discovered housesitting.

My sister had talked for years about how she loved Baja California Sur. She'd bought a little place and one was being built next to hers. The price was affordable for us--a fraction of what we'd have to pay to be near the beach in California--so we went for it. We liked the idea of having a home base while we continued to travel. And we figured if we didn't like it there, we could rent it or sell it. (Spoiler: 12 years later, Mexico has become home.)

Playa Los Cerritos 

Housesitting made our dream of continuing to travel sustainable. As I wrote about in this blog and in Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life, we have stayed in homes all over the world for free, taking care of people's pets. We also lived in China for a year (where I stepped out of retirement to teach university creative writing). 

The last portion of this blog, then, focused mostly on traveling as slow-mads and living in Mexico, with the heart of my quest being , "What is home?"

Now that I'm ending this blog, I'm moving my writing over to Maybe I'm Amazed, my  Substack. I'd love for you to join me there. It will always be free, and I'll be continuing to write about my obsessions:

* housesitting

* living in Mexico

* travel and staycations

* social justice

* being a woman in her 60s 

* books

* dogs 

Regarding that last topic, I haven't had my own dog since Dave and I left California 14 years ago. I've adored caring for so many pups while housesitting. Has the time come to get my own again? Stay tuned at Maybe I'm Amazed. 

It doesn't get better than dogs and books
(housesitting in coastal England, 2024)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Check out my new novel, Amazing!, which is getting great reviews.

From Trauma Came Giving

Beau (photo by Dave Rhine)

My 30-year-old nephew had a surfing accident in Mexico, breaking his back.* He is a phenomenal surfer, and I'd watching him on the waves since he was a little kid. An electrician by trade, his dream of going to Indonesia to work as a surfing guide was dashed by the pandemic. He then spent time budget traveling and surfing in Central America and refurbishing a surf shack in Baja Sur, about an hour north of Cabo San Lucas. As a fellow wanderer who lives part of the year in Mexico and spends the rest traveling, I feel a special affinity to him beyond the familial.

Even though I knew that an infusion of cash could help him out, I was hesitant to start a GoFundMe because of the snide things I’ve heard people say about “grifters” and the stridency of online comment feeds. Who knew what people might say about my nephew’s life? Would they blame him for engaging in a dangerous sport? Would they deride his need for cash given that he lived an alternative, modest lifestyle? But I’d seen GoFundMe’s work well for others, and I’d contributed in the past. Besides, this would be for a young man I loved who was in need, so I posted the request, steeling myself to delete comments that might not be supportive or might offer unwanted advice. Within 24 hours, a number of donations rolled in, as did only heartfelt comments of love and support.

But most striking was this: I realized that many of those who contributed had suffered their own traumas. One of the first donations came from a woman I’d never met. When I asked my husband if he knew her he said, “Yes, from high school. Her own son died by suicide.” My heart thumped in my throat.

nephew and auntie, 30 years ago

And then I realized another donor had also lost a son. I scoured the list: a friend whose parents had died tragically, another who was mourning her husband’s death, a cousin whose young husband suffered for years with kidney disease and finally received a transplant (and was boosted with online contributions), another cousin who was treated for breast cancer—and a woman I’d never met in person but who had reached out to me online years ago after reading my memoir that treats my experience with a brain tumor. She’d shared with me, a stranger, her own youthful medical challenges, and ever since I’d felt a kinship with her.

There were others whose backgrounds I did not know, either because I’d never met them or they’d never shared intimate details about their lives. I thought of the Zen parable of the woman who begged Buddha to bring back to life her dead child. He said he could do so if she brought him a mustard seed from a person who had never had never had a death in the family. Filled with hope, she went house to house…only to discover no one had been untouched by tragedy. She made peace with her pain, knowing that suffering wasn’t personal but was the human condition.

My nephew told me he was surprised by and grateful for all the online kindness directed his way. When I shared with him my thought—that giving and compassion often come from one’s own struggles—he was deeply moved. Since then, we’ve been more in contact than ever, this experience bringing us even closer together. I hope all the love and support is helping him to remain in good spirits as he waits in a back brace for professional advice about the next medical steps he needs to take. And I’m glad to have been reminded of the Internet’s power for good, especially in such divisive times. The next time I see a trainwreck of nasty comments online, I’ll try to remember that not one of those people could hand me a mustard seed.

*UPDATE: I wrote this a few months ago. Fortunately, Beau didn't need surgery and is out of his brace and back on the waves!

More Than Our Bodies

Sunset in Baja (photo by Dave)

Next to "It's benign" and "the margins are clear," hearing "it's not broken" is the freaking greatest news.

Two weeks ago I took a bad spill and messed up my ankle. Initial x-rays were inconclusive. I had no idea that sometimes a break won't show up for a week or two after a trauma. So...today I went back for another x-ray.

I was trying not to catastrophize. But we are supposed to take the long drive up Baja in two weeks to get to a housesit in California and I was wondering how that would work with a broken ankle...much less one that might need surgery.

Bizarrely, in the past days, THREE friends have fallen off their bikes and suffered compound arm fractures that required surgery.

I just keep reminding myself that a) the body knows how to heal, and b) we've faced a lot of surprises and unknowns in this nomadic life we live, and we're always able to figure things out.

My mantra has been LOVE on the in-breath and HEALING on the out-breath. One of my arm-healing friends said this helped her a lot, too. It's so soothing that I think I will continue to use it, especially to help me get to sleep. 

So today I went back for the second x-ray...and, yay, it's a bad sprain, not a break. Doc told me to start walking with the boot. I did immediately when I got home. It's like being half non-automated robot. But I'll take it.

My 50s have been quite a ride for my body, what with brain surgery (for a benign tumor), thyroid surgery (for a benign tumor that had initially been diagnosed as cancer), surgery on my leg to remove a squamous cell growth (clear margins), and now this.

In Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying, Ram Dass talks about how if we live long enough, all of us face physical changes. This is an opportunity to learn we are "more than our bodies and our minds."

This decade has been teaching me this, it seems. 

Angels Everywhere

Me today

I had a freak fall while walking to the beach and was in such extreme pain I couldn't put weight on my ankle to stand. Three strangers in a truck heard my call for help and drove over. The young woman hovered over me, lightly placing her hands on my leg and shoulder, which immediately made me less nauseous. I asked her if she's a healer. She said no, but one of the guys said, "She just might be."

Still, I was wailing in agony.

They helped me into the truck. I said to the driver, "This hurts worse than my brain surgery and thyroid surgery."

He said, "I just had a tumor removed from my chest two months ago. I still have some morphine pills they gave me. I have no idea why I brought them today...but I guess you were the reason."

He handed them to my neighbor Vivian who had appeared as the two guys helped me hop on my (thankfully strong) right leg into my house. Dave and our friend Art, who were doing yoga, jumped from their mats into action:

elevation

pain meds

ice

love and kindness

reminders to breathe

reminders to accept the pain and let it flow by

checking if I could wiggle my toes (yes)

I reminded myself that I'm a good healer. And I activated my mantra, Something good will come from this.

I'm not big on morphine because it's addictive and causes bowel impactions, but damn, I wasn't going to say no at that moment. (It'll be ibuprofen from here on out.)

Art, a former college basketball player, talked me through similar injuries he's had. I was extremely uncomfortable on the couch so Art PICKED ME UP and carried me to my bed! Let me just say I'm not feather-light. His care almost teared me up.

Vivian brought me herbal tea and essential oils from our other neighbor, Chelle. Chelle's husband Kris gave us the ace bandage. Another neighbor, Julie, loaned me her crutches.

And of course Dave has been caring for me ever since.

Something good has come from this.

A reminder that angels are everywhere.

In human form.

"I navigated my own path in life."

An American woman who spent time in Afghanistan and other warn-torn regions? Who loved both men and women? Who sought a spiritual path? I knew I had to read her book, My Journey Through War and Peace: Explorations of a Young Filmmaker, Feminist and Spiritual Seeker, for my Books That Inspire series.  Currently available for pre-order, it’s coming out March 1. I was able to get my hands on an advanced copy and had a lot of questions for Melissa.

Melissa in Afghanistan, 1982

You've had a pretty amazing life. You spent time as a photojournalist in war-torn Afghanistan and the then-U.S.S.R. You were involved in love relationships with an Afghani fighter and, later, a woman artist-activist. Action was a kind of drug that medicated your anxiety. You also talk about using food for a similar reason. How do you deal with anxiety these days?

Now I don’t have anywhere near the level of anxiety I had in my twenties. Maybe I was at a 10-plus then. Now it comes and goes around 1 or 2. So I notice it, sense it, sometimes give a mantra like “Blessings on all beings” then let it go.
 
Why do you think you have less anxiety now than you did in your twenties? What would you say to your younger self?
 
Lots of emotional and spiritual work. And doing what feels right. Joseph Campbell said "follow your bliss." I did this, even when it didn't feel blissful after I chose it! I navigated my own path in life, didn't follow anybody else's idea of what success is. I would tell all 20-year-olds to do what feels right—and teach them how to pay attention to their senses in their bodies so that they can start having a trustworthy feedback loop for life.
 
In the book, you write about affairs you had while you were engaged to George. You've now been married to him for 25 years. Did you worry about revealing those things to him and/or anyone else? What does George think of your book?
 
He knew from the beginning. We’ve always had a very transparent relationship. He’s been a big fan and supporter since the beginning when it was at the shitty first draft stage. He read all the drafts except the final final version! He says he loves it.
 

Melissa and George in Tinos, Greece, where they now live.

 
When you were in Pakistan in your twenties, you had an ecstatic awakening, a kind of a merging with (or sudden awareness) of the Divine. Why do you think that happened at that time?

I think being out of normal routine, adrenaline, and I think I had a born leaning (in homeopathy it would be called susceptibility) to mystical experiences.

Do you still get "shot with a blissfulness" at surprising times?

Yes, now there is more knowing of the experience then the dramatic first time.

I was especially struck by the scene in Afghanistan where instead of being afraid of death in one dangerous situation, you felt peacefully accepting of it. Why do you think that happened?

I think part of it is adrenaline, the other is there is often a pause, a peacefulness others have shared in near death experiences. My theory is that the right brain kicks in. Maybe it’s a form of survival, or maybe again my susceptibility.

Interesting you’d say this because that calmness came over me—after the initial terror—when I was having a seizure caused by a brain tumor in my right hemisphere. So, do you still have that type of relationship with mortality?

Even more so. I took 5-MeO-DMT for my 50th birthday. As described in this article about the shaman I worked with, it’s a “spiritual medicine from the Amazon, used shamanically by indigenous peoples there to contact the spirit world.” I never really did drugs—once pot at a party in high school and hashish on the border of Afghanistan, and didn’t feel anything both times. But with 5-MeO-DMT I experienced an intense going into a tunnel of light and merging with an intense energy source beyond anything I could imagine or had experienced before. I was that drop in the ocean of energy, and there was me like a garment I could put on, comforting and familiar. This gives me a deep insight into what death could be.

Now that you had such an experience, does it make you want to do the drug again?

No, it was really a one-time thing, truly intense and lesson learned!

What do you wish Americans knew about Afghanistan today?

We are causing extreme suffering over there. The invasion, bombings, drones, torture are hurting people.

The book also deals with your time after Afghanistan. I enjoyed reading about your creative life in New York, where you and a group of women decided to work together to make art and independent films with complete freedom of expression—beholden to no gatekeepers. Can you say more about where you stand with this notion today?

I think writing has a similar freedom. It’s low cost and a way to get out ideas quickly and with depth. I’m also interested in the collective process. I lived in community most of my adult life. I’m interested in both the challenges and benefits of working together and how to make that work better, with more diversity and authentically.

What advice would you give to people who want to write a memoir?

I think journal writing is the best place to begin and then see where that leads. Write everything, all the memories. For my second memoir I was more organized. I typed and wrote on index cards every memory/story and then saw what themes appeared and how it all connects.

Melissa Burch is an author, filmmaker, producer and former war journalist for the BBC and CBS. She is also a spiritual practitioner. For more information and a special gift visit www.melissa-burch.com
 

Two Missing Breasts...and She's Never Loved Her Body More.

When I saw Darryle Pollack's Ted Talk about what she learned from life as a result of having cancer and a double mastectomy, I knew I had to talk to her for my "Books That Inspire" series. 

 

The title of her talk and book--I Never Signed Up for This: Finding Power in Life's Broken Pieces--reflect her belief that that we can learn a lot from life's unexpected struggles.

 

 

Darryle, you say, "Chasing perfection is a prison. It's a mindset that narrows your vision and takes away your freedom to be the artist of your own life." How did you come to learn this? How can people break out of that prison?

 

I came to learn this lesson from having cancer, which forced me to see the futility of trying to have perfection in any area of life. Not that I’m recommending cancer as a teaching tool.

 

Experience is a tough teacher, sometimes the only teacher that gets through to us. I sure wish I had figured out an easier way to learn and break out of the prison of perfection. I think a better way to break out of this mindset is switching over from seeking perfection to seeking perspective. One suggestion for how to start is simply to have gratitude.

 

The title of your book is I Never Signed Up for the This. Why did you choose this title?

 

This was also the title for my blog, which I started in 2008. I often say I chose the title because of all the times in my life I’ve said those words. I wasn’t entirely joking, and I also felt most people would relate to what I meant--that life turns out to be nothing like we imagine.

 

The subtitle is "Finding Power in Life's Broken Pieces." This metaphor comes from your art work. Can you explain the connection?

 

I was never artistic.  I had no talent or interest in art most of my life. That turned out to be another lesson from cancer. 

 

I couldn’t find anything to help me cope with all the stress and fear. One day, I happened to take my son to paint a plate at one of those little do-it-yourself pottery studios, and I painted with him. It was amazing for me. This activity I’d stumbled into was the first thing I'd done that actually allowed me to forget about cancer for any amount of time. I wasn’t good at it, trust me.  But focusing on the art and the colors, and just being there helped me relax.  So I started going there. Constantly.

 

Painting on ceramics, inevitably I broke something. I used the broken pieces of tile to make a design around a mirror, and pretty soon I had a new addiction. Mosaics.

 

I became completely obsessed with making mosaics, and one day I finally figured out why mosaics had such a special connection for me. I was picking up broken pieces and putting them together to make something beautiful, different from what I started with. That was the exact same thing I was doing with my life. 

 

 

 

When I found out I had a brain tumor, I realized I can't heal what I don't love--and that I'd spent way too much time berating my body. I had taken it for granted, and suddenly I was flooded with appreciation for it. You went through something similar. Can you talk a little about your journey with your body? 

 

Like so many women, I struggled over my weight, and I never felt thin enough. Even when I was thin, I felt fat. When I looked in the mirror, I never saw what was really there—a pretty great body.

 

And then I got cancer. During chemotherapy, I had no appetite and couldn’t make myself eat.  Every day I got on the scale and the number kept going down. Pretty Ironic. This was what I had wanted all my life. To be too thin. Now even I could see it. Only now I realized, this wasn’t what I wanted. It was scary.

 

One day I looked in the mirror at that skinny body and I promised myself if I survived, I would never complain again about being too fat and I would love my body no matter what.

 

All these years later, I have two missing breasts and I’m nowhere near thin and I’ve kept that promise. I’ve never loved or appreciated my body more than I do now. Yet another lesson from cancer. 

 

What would you tell your younger self?

 

Be kinder.  Don’t be so hard on yourself. Don’t make decisions based on what other people say or think. Trust yourself and your instincts. To discover and become your authentic self, no one knows what you need or who you are better than you.

 

What advice would you give to anyone who wants to write a memoir?

 

Do it.  I’m a big believer in the value of our stories.

Author, artist, and activist Darryle Pollack is a twenty-year survivor of stage III breast cancer who uses her experience to inform and inspire others. Darryle's writing has appeared in the Huffington Post. A former TV newscaster and journalist, Darryle is the co-founder of WHOA Network, an online platform for women over fifty.
 

"Something good is going to come from this."

 

Continuing our nomadic ways, we are housesitting in South Lake Tahoe. This wonderful house overlooks the lake. Out the front door are acres of trails, where we enjoy walking with the lovable, furry Ely.

In January, we are moving to a condo, also in South Lake, a house-swap for the whole month.

We've been planning this time in Tahoe for a while. So imagine our surprise when we went to Heavenly Valley Ski Resort to buy season passes--and were told we were three days too late. They'd stopped selling season passes. We were stunned. For the amount we wanted to ski, daily passes would cost an arm and a leg.

We asked to see a supervisor, pleading our case that we'd been visiting Heavenly's website for months and had seen no notification. He said sorry, there was nothing he could do, but he gave me the number of his higher-up.

On our way to the car, I said, "Dave, something good is going to come from this."

That's my mantra when things don't go as planned. I used it when our rental house went on the market. I've used it when we are stuck in traffic. I used it when I found out I had a brain tumor.

It's a reminder that whatever is happening isn't the end of the story.

I wasn't sure I believed it in this case, though. Heavenly is owned by Vail Corporation. I don't care what anyone says but corporations are not people.

As soon as we walked out, I left a message on the higher-up's voice mail: I'm a writer. I'll be writing about our time in Tahoe. Friends of ours are coming to visit who'll be buying day passes. It will be good for business. There was no warning about the deadline. Please have some compassion for our situation. Yadda, yadda.

I texted Suzanne, the woman we are housesitting for who's a big skier. She texted me back, "Well, maybe you could get passes at Sierra-at-Tahoe. It's not as close, but I love skiing there."

Sierra-at-Tahoe? Why was that familiar? Oh yes, we'd never skied there but we'd seen our favorite band play there a couple of years ago. The place was charming. I'd love the feel of it. It was small, tucked away, more of a local's resort. We'd been so Heavenly-focused (for the ease of location), we hadn't thought about that. Yet would it be a pain to drive 30 minutes to ski?

We walked around town and popped into the Visitor's Center to browse. I mentioned to the young woman behind the counter that we couldn't get Heavenly passes.

"You should go to Sierra-at-Tahoe!" she enthused, adding that she worked there for eight years and loves it. She whipped out a map of the resort, excitedly talking about her favorite runs.

Seemed like a thumb's up from the universe to me.

I had such a good feeling about Sierra-at-Tahoe that by the time the higher-up called me back, I almost hoped he'd say no.

And sure enough, he checked with his higher-ups, and there was a consensus: They didn't want our business or our money.

Dave went onto the Sierra-at-Tahoe website. Their passes were half the cost of Heavenly's!

And get this: We have good friends who will be skiing at Squaw in January. We were hoping to join them, all the while knowing we'd probably be paying a lot to do so. But our Sierra-at-Tahoe passes include two free days at Squaw!

The drive to Sierra-at Tahoe was easy. We immediately loved skiing there. There's a low-key vibe. And the runs are really, really long. Like over a mile. So fun.

It's funny. With big things--like my brain tumor and losing our house--I really did believe that something good was going to happen. That the journey would be expansive. But with something small, like this ski pass thing, I wasn't so sure. But that what a mantra's for: to interrupt a habitual pattern of thinking that doesn't serve you.

It serves me to believe that life is an adventure. That what's around the corner isn't determined by what's right in front of me. That whatever I face, something good can come.
 

A Hundred Beds

 

Dave with our friends' kids on our way back to Nor Cal after a month in L.A.

I wonder how many beds we've slept in since June 1, 2013 when we left our house, our town, and our jobs to live a traveling life?

Maybe a hundred?

A friend asked me the other day if I'm tired of moving around so much.

For the most part, no. Usually when it's time to go, I get excited about our next move--while simultaneously getting a little nostalgic about leaving critters we've spent time with on housesits. (Packing and repacking can get a little tedious, but we're pretty damn efficient at it by this point.)

Besides the fact that I was born to run, I'm okay with our lifestyle because we've spent long periods of time in some places (six months in Mexico, four in Tahoe, a month-and-a-half in Australia and India and Chicago and Port Townsend, and a month in L.A.). Also, there's the constancy of my writing and writing coaching wherever we go. And the knowledge that next year, we will be returning to Mexico for another six months.

A walk in San Rafael with Pat and Sherlock.

This month is unusual. It's involving a lot more short spurts: a weekend in San Rafael, two weeks in San Jose, a night in Sacramento to visit my 92-year-old aunt, four nights in Sonora where I will be doing several book events, a night in Yosemite, and ten days of housesitting in Alameda.

Because we are in the Bay Area, I was able to go meet Judy, the Alameda woman we are housesitting for starting next week--to get the keys and meet her cat. And here's where the magic comes in. She invited six of her friends over to meet me.

Her adorable apartment was filled with food and drink...and these women! Creative, fascinating people: a pastry chef and chef instructor, a wine expert (who is going to France to be educated in champagnes), a production editor at Pixar, a former restaurant owner, a jewelry designer, a young woman who educated us about hackathons and who recently launched a technology startup. I told her that's my husband's line of work--so she's going to come over next week to talk to him.

We caught the Blue Angels over the Golden Gate Bridge.

These women love to travel and many are interested in living in alternative ways. I wasn't the only one Judy met through a housesitting website; one woman housesat for her before and is considering a lifestyle of travel and housesitting. So we all had a lot to talk about.

Judy had asked me to share a little about my book. After I did, one woman approached me to tell me that, like me, her daughter had a brain tumor. Her daughter is 17. She wants us to meet. I'm honored...and looking forward to it.

The day felt like a magical convening of things I love: creativity, travel, soul-connection. I told Judy it feels like we knew each other in a past life.

It's true: wherever you focus your time, energy, and thoughts, things blossom. If a hundred beds led to this, bring on a hundred more.
 

The Year of Living Drinklessly

I didn't have a drink yesterday but was offered a beer, a screwdriver, and a glass of red wine.

Living in beach paradise, as we do here in Baja California Sur, it's easy to get caught up in the It's-Another-Tequila-Sunrise Lifestyle. So many people in our little villa love to party. And who can blame them? They are on vacation or retired. Whoo hoo!

I have nothing against getting wasted away again in Margaritaville. God knows I've had a lot of fun over the years doing so. It's just that recently, booze has stopped being my friend. A few drinks at night is a surefire ticket to insomnia, migraines and malaise.

Maybe booze has always affected me like that. Perhaps it's just that in my 50s, feeling like crap bothers me more than it used to.

On my beach walk today, this idea came to me: How about an experiment? Not drinking for a year. The Year of Living Drinklessly (after one of my favorite films, The Year of Living Dangerously).

But wait a minute. Who will I be without drinking? When I'm offered a margarita, can I really say no? Isn't that rude? Won't I be a drag? Won't I be a buzz kill, a party pooper?

What will happen when I meet my sister's new boyfriend, who owns a winery, and I tell him I'm abstaining from the passion of his life? That doesn't seem very nice. (Then again, many people I know have never read my books.)

Most of my friends drink. I heard one--wine glass in hand--say: "I decided to stop drinking wine, but after a week I realized it made me really boring."

The non-drinkers in my circle tend to be pot smokers. Maybe by the end of my experiment, I'll be a stoner. Maybe I'll gain 100 munchie pounds.

I doubt it. I don't care for weed. Once I ate some pot candy and sat, a catatonic marble statue, for four hours on a friend's boat. I felt immobile and silent as a rock. I finally understood why they call it "stoned."

Booze has always had the opposite effect for me, making me bubbly and social and happy. Well, for a few hours. And then if I want to stay awake to keep dancing and chatting, I need coffee.

Maybe giving up booze is just the next level of shedding. In the past two years, I've shed my job, town, house and possessions. Oh, and a brain tumor the size of a walnut.

No, my husband and I are not ascetics. We love a fat steak and Tempurpedic mattress as much as the next guy. But we are experience junkies. We like to fling ourselves into life and try new things. Right now we have two more months in beachside paradise before we leave for more adventures in California, New Orleans and Chicago.

Oh my god. Am I really going to be boozelesss at JazzFest?

Well, that's hardly an epic act. People do it all the time. I'm just not usually in that group. In fact, the last time we were in New Orleans, I had a sore throat--so I drank ginger tea rather than beer, and I still had a great time.

This experiment could be an epic fail. Someone could put a Pliny the Elder in my hand tomorrow, and I could unthinkingly and happily suck it down.

But it helps if I frame the story like this: The Year of Living Drinklessly is an adventure. I'm not giving something up. I'm leaning into my curiosity about living a different way. I'm going to learn a lot. I can already think of a bajillion things I want to write about on this topic. So stay tuned.

 

(Originally published Feb. 16 on another blog, but I've decided to merge them. It's all ONE life after all!)

What I Learned This Epic Year

Swimmable water in Cerritos Beach, Baja California Sur

Breathe in the precious moments and love fiercely.

This has become my mantra during an epic year--a year in which I stared down life and death.

It was a year that reminded me how way leads onto way. How everything is a catalyst. How what we focus on blossoms. How it's not about what happens--but what we think about (and do with) what happens.

Funny how I thought retiring after spending my whole life in schools would be 2013's "big event." But then my mentor, friend and "other mother" died. I was blessed to witness her profoundly graceful transition.

And then months later--when I myself was perched on the edge of dying during my seizure--she visited me. She told me that the veil between this world and the next is thinner than we think. She said if we look closely, we can penetrate the mystery's deepest beauty. She said never to be afraid of death. There's nothing to fear. Even from the next realm, she continued to teach me.

Even though I've been witness to the death of many beloveds--including my parents--the thought of my own death seemed theoretical. But 2013 brought me this gift: a deep, bodily knowledge that I'm transitory in this form. That everything changes. That I will die.

So what to do with this gift? Breathe in the precious moments and love fiercely! I was already on this path in August when my brain tumor was discovered. Months before, Dave and I had packed up everything we owned and traveled to Australia, Southern California, Boston, Cape Cod.

And then the experience of brain surgery and healing--enveloped in vast love and support from family and friends--intensified my desire to live my most authentic life. I launched Operation: Seize the Day!

Living your truth is not for wimps. It involves taking risks: emotionally, physically, financially. It involves being comfortable with spontaneity, with unknowing.

It requires loosing the moorings. When I let go of my job, my house, my neighborhood, my town--indeed, my identity as a Santa Cruzian writing professor--I plunged into a free-float.

I decided to embrace the fertile void.

I decided to reside in a rich space of unknowing.

In this space, I watched my monkey mind. It scrambled around like a kid desperate for a parent's attention: Hey! What are you doing? You're no longer a teacher, you're not a parent, you're not anything! What are you contributing? Aren't you being aimless and irresponsible?

When that happened, I'd gently turn toward my larger self, the sky mind, the god-voice in me who is always deeply present when I open my heart. It always says:  No need to worry, no need to fear. You're valuable, just like everyone else, because you exist. And the more you're YOU, living your truth, the more you inspire. Don't set out to have an effect--just be it. Trust that the fertile void will reveal your answers.

Because we no longer had a house, I was curious what my experience with "home" would be. My deepest realization so far: my home for this lifetime is my body. If I want to be truly alive, I must unconditionally love this marvelous, self-healing spacesuit.

Especially after having my skull cracked open and resealed with glue and staples, I can feel myself reaching new levels of bodily appreciation. While I don't have this love-thy-body-thing totally in the bag, I find it easier and easier to release criticism of my body. To relax into myself and feel life from the inside out. As a result, I'm experiencing new levels of sensory bliss (as well as relief from my occasional claustrophobia).

And wow was that infinite intelligence right-on when it said to trust that answers will appear. In late August, a thought popped into my head:

I want to live within walking distance of swimmable water.

That thought wasn't a conscious creation of my construction. It was a fully formed object like a stone, a heartbeat, a breath.

I have always loved water. I'm a spiritual mermaid, a former synchronized swimmer, a snorkeler, a lover of boats and kayaks and plunging into seas and lakes.

When I pondered my "swimmable water" revelation, I found myself wrangling with it: Did this mean when we decide to settle down again that I'd want a swimming pool? Did I need to join a gym with a pool? Was it a call to buy a place in our beloved Hawaii? But we'd have to win the lottery to afford a Hawaii pad within walking distance of the beach!

I decided to let it go. To trust. To allow the answer to appear as easily as the desire did.

All I have to say is this: releasing to the universe is magic!

Organically, the perfect opportunity arose: to buy an outrageously affordable casita in El Pescadero Mexico (near Todos Santos in Baja California Sur). Yes, it's walking distance to a lovely, swimmable beach. And it's in a small resort that has a swimming pool and a jacuzzi. Water, water everywhere!

The icing on the cake is that some close friends have bought the place next to ours. Built-in community.

We don't know if this will be our temporary or permanent residence. We don't have the details nailed down. We are trusting our guts. We want to ride the wave of the unfolding.

As 2013 comes to a close, we are back in California after a trip to Hong Kong, India and Sri Lanka. I'm looking forward to processing that transformative adventure while I focus on writing in the new year.

It looks like we will be headed to Mexico in May. Before that--for the first four months of 2014--we will live in Tahoe. We are thrilled we can host family and friends there who have opened their homes and lives to us.

In a cozy house sheltered from the Sierra cold, I intend to write the first draft of my memoir about transformation. During that time, this blog will be on hiatus, and I will be less of a presence on Facebook.

I will also improve my skiing and yoga, practice my Spanish, work online with my writing clients, judge a book contest, and allow whatever else rolls my way to perfectly unfold.

Happy New Year to all of you. May you breathe in your precious moments and love fiercely.