Seattle Girl on Cape Cod: Disappearing ACT

 Dear fellow Earthlings,

It's been a long time. Over 10 months to be exact. I didn't think I'd disappear for so long and so much has happened in that short time. Here's a quick timeline to catch you up:

• At the end of March, Scott stopped working for his friend in Welfleet. Since then, he's worked for another company, done handyman work and worked for another friend. And is now pretty comfortable working at Thor Construction in Wellfleet, MA where he's been for awhile.
• I closed on a condo on May 3rd in Dennis, MA which is on Cape Cod.
• We immediately got down and dirty with fixing our condo up. It needed a lot of fixing. It's now looking quite nice and homey, but still isn't 100% done. Hopefully by this winter it will be almost complete. I don't want to show before and after photos until it's done. We scrubbed walls, put in wainscoting, put in new floors, baseboard, crown molding and kitchen cabinets, all new kitchen lighting, including pendant lights over the island. We still have to do kitchen countertops, new appliances and probably a bathroom remodel. We've made it nice and definitely increased the value of the place. Real estate is prime on the Cape, so it's a good place to invest.
• June & July were all about a little remodeling, but mostly enjoying the summer on Cape Cod and spending time with new friends (I'm so happy to have good friends here now!) 
• In August, I went to Seattle with Scott to reconnect with family and friends there. We had a great time and it was great weather! We stayed 5 nights on Whidbey Island with family in a gorgeous house overlooking Saratoga Passage. We also spent time in Seattle, Sequim and Port Townsend. I sprained my ankle there while out to dinner with a friend and it's taken some time to rehabilitate my ankle, but I'm getting there through Physical Therapy and I'm back to hiking 3-4 miles a day.
• September-December was about teaching fall quarter online AND enjoying my favorite season—FALL!!! I went to Mirabeau Spa in Plymouth for my birthday and got a massage and used the spa facilities. This was wonderful because our power went out at our house during a storm, but not at the spa. I got a complimentary champagne drink at the bar and ordered lunch. That night a girlfriend and I went out to dinner at The Ocean House in Dennis. It has a gorgeous view of the water and the food is delicious. I had the scallops. For my birthday weekend, we drove to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for lunch and then on to Kittery and York, Maine where we stayed a night at an amazing boutique hotel overlooking Nubble Light House. It was picturesque and perfect. We were back in time for the Salty Witches Samhain Market (A Halloween Festival) at Ritual on Cape Cod where Scott and I take and teach classes. It was fun dressing up, carving pumpkins, roasting marshmallows and enjoying the festivities.
• Our Condo had a Friendsgiving the Sunday before Thanksgiving and we all shared food together. It was really nice and then we went to Scott's mom's place for actual Thanksgiving and spent it with Scott's mom and cousin.
• For the Christmas season, we enjoyed both the Yarmouth and Dennis Christmas Stroll, tree-lighting and caroling in town. I hadn't participated in any of the strolls before and they were really fun. I also had a very interesting experience eating inside an IGLOO at the Ocean Edge Resort in Brewster. It was an all-clear dome structure equipped with a heater, blankets, cozy chairs and a drink/food menu to order from. It was really fun and festive. We had Christmas dinner and opened presents at our condo in Dennis. Scott's mom, who is almost 98, made the trip. She hasn't been out of her neighborhood in YEARS, so this was epic. On NYE we went out with friends for dinner and live music and then did count down in our own home. The next day, on January 1st, we went out to lunch with Scott's mom, brother and cousin at The Fisherman's View Restaurant in Dennis, MA. Then, on Sunday, January 2nd, I taught a VISION BOARD workshop for the New Year at Ritual. That was fun and well-attended.
• On Wednesday, January 5, Scott started to feel unwell. He tested positive for COVID and I got it right after. We are still crawling out of that hole, but felt well enough today (10 days later), to take a hike and visit Nauset Beach. This OMICRON variant is going around and is infecting everyone, regardless of vaccination status. I'm kind of glad we got it, because we overcame it and now feel stronger having been through it. It's not for the meek or weak, that's for sure, and we made sure we quarantined and stayed home.
• I'm teaching a full load online at the college now, A Level 5 ESL class and a business class. I missed two Zoom classes online last week due to COVID, but I'm up and running again and feel pretty good again.

So as you can see, I disappeared from here, but I have been pretty active in life. I feel more a part of my community here on Cape Cod. I have friends now, which makes a HUGE difference. 

While I was sick with nothing to do, I felt a strong urge to write again. I felt a strong pull to write on my blog AND finish my current book. I'm not sure how I'll do it with my busy teaching schedule, but I'm pretty determined. My goal is to write here every Friday and to write my book Thursday-Sunday, when I'm not teaching. 

I've been having really intense dreams, but when I wake up, I forget to write them down and "poof," they are gone. I feel like those dreams are are pointing out where I need to go. If I could remember them, it would help me. Also, I've been channeling quite a bit and Scott's been recording those channelings. I hope to share them here. It's a little scary to share those, as I haven't done that before, but I feel this is the year to not hold back. This is the year to allow "my full self" to come to the surface and those who like it or resonate with what I write/channel are welcome! 

What feels most true to me during this GREAT TIME OF CHANGE is to turn my mind away from mainstream news and more toward's NATURE'S NEWS. 

Today the ocean called. The Atlantic Ocean beckoned me. I wanted to go to our old stomping grounds, Nauset Beach and feel the spray of the salt water touch my face and cold wind turn my cheeks red. I wanted to touch the soft, white sand and look straight into those rolling waves. I wanted to be lifted into the air by the wind, but jumping would have to do. I skipped along the shore and laughed like a child. It was so cold, my hands went numb. I still laughed. I laughed so hard I cried and the tears almost froze right there on my face. Ahhh, to be ALIVE. What a gift it is. We don't have time for disagreements, fighting, deciding who's right or wrong. We don't have time for FEAR. We are all only here for a blip in time. Instead of tuning into people's news, I want to tune into the main SOURCE. 

I am part of the waves,

the salt air,

The children's laughter,

the wind in my hair,

I am bigger than what my body can hold

from a grain of sand

To a wave so strong,

and loud,

and powerful,

that it can and WILL

suck everything away in its wake,

In one instant

One instant

It's all we have here

Until we return to those waves.

How will you spend these fleeting instances?

By telling people what to do 

and how to think?

Will you spend it dividing yourself from others?

Will you insist, righteously, that you know all the answers?

Or will you go

with the wind

to the end

of 

time

**In the next blog post next Friday, I will share my first channeling. Stay TUNED!***

Seattle Girl on Cape Cod: Widening the Lens and Getting a Bigger Perspective

 

Hello fellow Earthlings,

I love taking photos on my walks. Sometimes I'm so overwhelmed with joy and delight in what I am seeing and witnessing that I want to capture it all, but it's too enormous.

While I can Zoom in on a tree's branches covered with white snow and capture how things look up close, I realize that this tree also holds many different kinds of birds in its branches. There are small berries and leaves and a big wide trunk with roots that go deep down into several layers of earth and then there's an entire underworld happening there that I can't capture or even begin to know about. So I'm just getting one small perspective of this tree.

Whatever I see is only part of the bigger picture. 

When I step outside into nature, I'm also part of this picture. I'm part of the bay with the tide receding, the bright sun overhead, the snow melting on the rocks, the razor clam shells, the bright green seaweed. 

I'm every little tiny grain of sand.

I'm that sun that lights up the entire sky. The same one that sinks below the horizon like a huge, orange liquid ball of fire.

From the micro to the macro, I'm part of it.

When I zoom my lens out far, I get the entire scene, but it still doesn't do justice to what I'm seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching and feeling. 

I can't capture the sound of the waves or the taste of salt on my lips or the frozen feeling of my feet walking through soft snow or the smell of cedar burning in wood stoves in houses on the bluff.

These are all pieces of the picture. 

Out here on Cape Cod, the weather can change in an instant. We can go from a sunny 55 degree day in the winter to a frozen 28 degree day with wind gusts up to 70 miles per hour. You just never know out here. 

My emotions and feelings are a bit like the weather. Something can set me off and I feel myself reeling for a while. The funny thing is that when I witness the shift in weather on my walks, I'm able to recognize it simply as a change in weather.

Somehow emotions are bit trickier. It seems that everyone's emotions are on high these days. One little bit of information from a friend or loved one or a snippet of news from social media can set me off down a rabbit hole of confusion, anger or disbelief. 

Have you ever found yourself looking at one thing online and then next thing you know you've followed the information trail down into a hole that is a bottomless pit of information, opinions, ideas, thoughts, angry words or convincing arguments? It's pretty easy to do these days. 

Most of the information out there feels like it's meant to distract and divide people.

These days, when I feel that chaotic feeling creeping in from online information overload, I literally shut off every single device in the middle of whatever I'm doing and head out into nature. I'm able to walk away and leave my work for an hour or so because I work from home and I set the hours. This is one of the silver linings of my online job.

The other silver lining is being able to live out here on Cape Cod, out in the middle of the ocean, where nature literally calls me outside constantly. 

The bigger perspective is right out my front door right now. We don't have street lights out here, so millions of stars and the Milky Way are often visible on a clear night. Sometimes, while working, I hear an owl or a coyote and go up to the upper deck to listen. Sometimes the moon lights up our entire master bedroom on the second floor or the wind howls and shakes the windows in their frames or we wake up to snow gently falling all around us. 

The bigger perspective is always right there and it's not an accident that I've put myself  smack dab in the middle of Nature, where it's hard not to see it. 

The information highway comes to me through a tiny screen on either my phone or computer. It comes in pixels that join together to create this virtual reality.

Outside, the lens is wide. With each step I take outside my front door, I feel a release of all the heavy baggage that has somehow taken up space in my being. 

All of it leaves me instantly when I step outside. It's the one thing that is keeping me sane these days. A call and response conversation with a bright red cardinal high up on a tree branch is more real for me than talking into a computer with tiny squares of pixeled people.

I miss deep connections with people out here. I really do. I have my boyfriend and a few friends, but I miss face to face conversations and looking directly into people's eyes. I miss hugs and body language and laughter and sitting in the same room with people breathing. 

I get a sense of that when I walk outside amongst people, but it's not the same as sitting in a live circle with like-minded souls. 

Inside millions of rooms around the world people communicate with each other virtually. This is both amazing and disturbing at the same time. These quick, short words we type to each other don't tell the full story. The lens is too close. I can't see the full picture. 

I can't hear the inflection in your voice, 

Or see your eyes,

Or feel your touch,

Or really know what's going on inside. 

For now, nature will have to do until I can really experience YOU.