Where IS Here Now? Contemplation on a Year

[here is yet another Kinda-Finished piece that i feel like i must send out into the stratosphere before i put 2012 to rest.  i wrote this over a month ago.]

Ha ~ that is a LARGE title.  I'll see what writing I can accomplish in this window of time, with this melancholy music of someone else's choice in my ear, and an interview for a newspaper going on at the table to my left.  I sit, just having finished espresso, at North Lime Coffee and Donuts in Lexington, Kentucky.

"Everything's already alright, always alright, always alright.."  A favorite line from a newly-favorite artist [Nahko and Medicine for the People!] rolls through my head as I attempt this essay.  I can use the reminder today, as I'm feeling heavy with the reality of so much change, so much expectation, so much unexpected.  So much change.

This morning I looked out a second story window in Lexington, Kentucky, and viewed a neighboring rooftop crusted with sun-gleaming crystal frost.  A year ago at this time culminated almost two years of planning, scheming, moving ~ jobs, houses and situations, preparing for a Big Move to Baja California Sur, Mexico.  Last year at this time we were in North Carolina celebrating Thanksgiving with family, heavily anticipating that move, which began in the following weeks of December.

So what are we doing having just moved to Lexington a week ago??!  What happened with Baja, anyway??  It has become part of our Story ~ a story that could barely be uttered at first and has now found its wording and rhythm until it has woven itself into the fabric of our life.  our Story.  For those of you in my close circle, you have heard the bits and pieces hashed and rehashed till it's your story, too.  It has been distilled into a pallatable few sentences acceptable at casual cocktail parties, where ~ similar to hearing about an illness, the person hearing it is able to keep a politely straight face as they take in the news and respond appropriately.  What happened, was, that the person who loaned our group of Lumbini owners the money to own the property (who happened to be a spouse of one of the owners; complicated, no?) decided he was tired of waiting for us to repay him.  What happened was that he gave us an ultimatum of either repaying him a very large sum of money in the matter of a few short weeks, or he would put the place on the market ~ in two weeks.  When our family had just moved our whole life down there, onto the land.  What happened was that we essentially got kicked back up here to the US when we felt forced to make the money, or lose the dream that we had been cultivating for several years.  What happened was that, all at the same time, there occurred some deep discord among members ~ business partners and best friends, alike ~ about what happened on the property, while we lived our lives there, and others wanted to make or break our daily decisions from afar.  Details as seemingly minor as where a short-term tent was pitched, practices as fundamentally integral as raising and harvesting our own meat.  What happened was what has happened to countless other intentional communities over the years, almost textbook-classic (as I later read in Diana Leafe Christian's invaluable tomes Creating a Life Together, and Finding Community):  financial difficulties, and internal disagreements.  That's what happened.  What it felt like was.. like a stiff kick-in-the-stomach to a long-nurtured Life Dream.   What it felt like was the rug getting pulled out from under our lovingly cultivated life.  What it felt like was being hurled into a deep, dark vacuum-like stratosphere of unexpected un-knowing.
What it felt like (from what I can only imagine) was a mis-carriage of a Beloved.

Troy was the only one in the group who could even think about making up the sum of money required in such short order.  And he is the only one who can repay the next, equally large, sum of money expected in a year's time (from then) ~  in June.  So we agreed together to "buy the time" to keep Lumbini a possibility at least for another year.  We took a loan from a friend, and moved back up to the US for Troy to work the shifts necessary, for Anjali and I to play our supporting roles and keep our family together.

From a place of feeling like we were the leaders of our life, the choosers of our destiny, it felt like the ground has shifted to one of constantly reacting to this shocking life change.  From feeling like the dealer, we have moved chairs to dealing with the hand dealt.

What else happened?
Our moms, on the East Coast, each became ill and were hospitalized (and are recovering).
My Granny died, and then my Granddaddy (on the other side) died, both on the East Coast.
We agreed that the work situation that we tried out while in Baja ~ of Troy coming back up to the US for stints while Anjali and I stayed down there ~ didn't feel good to us.
We desired a lot more knowledge in Permaculture.
We were lonely and wanted Community.
We decided to move to Earthaven, a relatively long-running, exemplary, permaculturally-based intentional community (coincidentally the home of aforementioned internationally-recognized Diana Leafe Christian!).
We reunited at Burning Man with fabulous folks who already know us and love us, who live in Lexington.
We realized and agreed that we wanted tight community NOW.  That, right now, we were tired of trying to start things from scratch.  We wanted to feel known, accepted, and loved Now.  And that was available to us Now ~ in Lexington, Kentucky.
Troy finished up his contracted time working in Oregon.
We traveled down the West Coast being embraced and supported by the folks over there who also love us.
We moved to Lexington.  




.....
What I want to celebrate today and right now is my reunion with my feral wild woman body and its source, that vast and deep Mama Earth ~ her sands, her dirt, her oceans, her inhabitants.

What I want to celebrate today is my re-acceptance of my own personal vision, and my leadership and responsibility in the Great Turning that is Now.  That with my own two hands, I can make a difference, and that it's worth it.
What I want to celebrate today is acceptance of the fact that I Have a Community.  I'm not searching for them.  I have leapt into a warm and solid embrace.