Hindsight In The Rearview

I am home.

After a month in Ireland, I can say those words with meaning and delectation. Our travels were just the ticket. Ten years in the making, going to Ireland was more and sideways from what I thought it would be. To say that the island is colorful is an understatement. Vivid, vivacious and versatile - Ireland is a land full of charm, beauty and hilarity. Affability baas from the sheep and moos back to the cows.

Being in Ireland afforded us a break we desperately needed. For the past year we have been running. I say that with Forest Gump echoing the words back to me. "And I was run-ning!"

Running towards creating a family, running away from the horror of a second miscarriage and dispersing of dreams and then sprinting towards whatever else we could grasp on to, in efforts to distract away the pain.

After all that hop, skip, jump and bolting, man I was fucking tired.

Looking back, I don't know why I did all that hurtling. Hello Hindsight, what have you done for me lately? My wheels were spinning - sort of suspended over a tar pit, like Scooby Doo gearing up to take off into air mid-flight. But in trying to control the direction, I missed the scenery.

In Ireland, I soaked up the world as it passed me by. I'm still processing all that I discovered and uncovered.

Once home, I was smacked in the face with jet lag. The most severe case of it - resulting in a lot of toilet hugging and whimpering, as I tried to find the strength to crawl my way from bathroom to bed. Again and again.

I'm still aching and worn thin. But it's no longer the Bilbo Baggins variety. I don't feel spread thin like butter over bread, or jam over bagel. I'm simply draggy from all the healing. The purging of toxins and rejuvenating of cells. The body knows how to and wants to heal itself.

So I am. Slowly but surely healing. And I'm not sure where my tomorrow will lead this today. But I feel like I found something important. Something pivotal and joyful that I had lost. The things that matter most are worth all the struggle, strife and steps necessary to reach them. Now that I can glance back, I see that with 20/20.

Today's word is: propagate



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Writing Into The Next Phase

Inspiration is the greatest reward to a want fulfilled. My desire, when writing or reading, is to offer (and find) a new world. A new perspective in hope that lifts, unveils and shakes the reader. In all good ways. I am, like most people I believe, just trying to matter. To make whatever difference the ripples my actions send forth into this world count. To bring a smile, a sense of empathy and a laugh to the Now of someone else.

Books are the most sound bit of magic I know. They can do anything, go anywhere and be anyone. Gandhi offers the advice, "be the change you wish to see in the world." Mother Theresa gently reminds, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." Buddha shares, "A jug fills drop by drop," and Jesus told, "And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for."

Words inspire me. There are so many great sayings, from great men and women, that offer hints of wisdom. Arrows along the long and winding road of tomorrow. We all have them in us, the words, the voice, the answers. If we're only brave enough to use these talismans of talent to our advantage, and unlock the way -- as the way is rarely entirely shut.

Today's word is: amorous

The Winding Stairway To...

Yesterday I made out with a rock. No, really. I put my pucker skills to work and kissed the Blarney Stone. It sounds uber delicious when I read the words, but getting there was not the most supreme happiness I've ever tasted. In fact, as I climbed up the 100 teeny, tiny, narrow, dark, dank stairs, I went into full blown, straight jacket required, escape hatch needed, panic mode. I am not a height or small places girl.

I'm also not usually this big of weenie. In fact, I've been in She-Ra mode for the past few weeks and the weakness took me by surprise.

Panic attacks suck ass. It's a heart racing, the whole world is gonna end now, the room is shrinking and I. Can't. Get. Down. hell. But it's only in my head. Since I knew this was all me, I went to my yogic breath, crawled out of the next opening into a room the size of a toddler's bathtub and willed myself to stop thinking.

I managed to find a center of some form of balance, climbed back into the stairway for Lilliputians and army crawled the rest of the way to the stone. It wasn't as far as I thought, but it felt endless and effort-filled.

I had a few bad moments that I was going to live my life at the top of Blarney Castle, crouched in a corner, eying the mythical stone and hissing at any well-meaning passerby. But I rallied. My Mister distracted me and I forced one step in front of the other. I witnessed his chaste Blarney makeout, then decided to go for it -- just do the damn thing and let go.

It was surprisingly easy....

And the stairwell back down wasn't nearly as harrowing:



The reward of faith and determination was the greatest prize. But...we're rebels, so we said screw it and snuck a shot behind the rock wall.



Life is meant to be lived, celebrated and shenaniganed. You never know where that next step will lead you.

Today's word is: Paigey

Edging Out The Comfort Zone

I talk a halfway decent game. In my head. The truth is I'm often a panicked Paige. What I want to do, and what I will do often battle each other while wearing paper bags and running willy nilly into walls, while getting tangled in hanging vines. Even my mental superheroed versions of me are, well, a little mental.

But I've shed a number of my comfort layers, stepping out of my fears and phobias to try and live my life as I want it to be. It's a grand concept, but one that is so much easier to theorize than act.

What I have unlocked is the key to a phenomenal moment. When you find yourself stepping onto the next platform of becoming who you are, you're over the line of norm and into the realm of everything else. The place of wonder, where possibility becomes a miraculous and available commodity.

I hope this weekend you will step out of your own comfort zone, shake off the fear and jump for the future that's reaching out to you. The first step is only a dance into the greatest shimmy of your life.

Today's word is: mumpsimus

A Musing Influence

Inspiration walks in different forms. The laugh of a child as an extra large glop of ice cream drips across their freckled nose, the rising of a mammoth cotton candy cloud from behind an endless sea of horizon, or the kindness of a stranger reaching out when no one is looking. Inspiration influences.

I'm exceptionally lucky with my muses. Not because they're always there, or endlessly whispering great diatribe into the tiny holes in my head. No, because I have muses that are more than the fibers of time, being and creativity.

I'm talking about the people that have shaped my life. That are endless in their generosity and grace.

I've been thinking about these people a lot over the past few weeks. As I travel down new roads and witness extraordinary things, they inevitably show up. Kept in my pocket, their name, face or smile will dance across the everglades of my mental landscape, giving warmth to discovery.

I don't know what the future holds. I'm terrible at second guessing it, myself and forgetting to live in the now. But these musing muses anchor me to the possibility and the drive of sheer perseverance.

I observed the fruits of hard work, incomparable talent and pure ambition ringing out a balalaika when my mentor won her Thriller award at Thrillerfest for best Original Paperback this year. For the past year and a half I have witnessed this incredible woman write sentences so flawless and memorable that I secretly considered giving her a wedgie or dying her hair green.

Plot, dialogue, character, imagery, pacing, poetic prose and authenticity pour from her mind without hesitation.

The whore.

But at the end of it all, story rises up like the phoenix, again and again, swiftly pulling me past the words and into the pages as I ride the world of her creation.

It's a hell of a ride. Every. Single. Time.

Perseverance.

Her next sentence is just being punctuated. The journey will be one that climbs as high as her imagination dreams.  And I am so inspired by that, by her determination and gifts, that it lifts me up when I grow weary or scared or doubtful.

A muse of inspiration. A tale of story inside the journey. Isn't it wonderful that we can bear witness to great moments, and find reminder that so much more is brushing against our fingertips. The dream is only the beginning.

Today's word is: virtuoso


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Setback To Go Forward

Last week offered a few setbacks. The way of a traveller often does, though. No matter how much you prepare for something, it will run a little to the left or right of your preparation and imagination. The point is to keep going. To make the art of not giving up a beautiful creation.

I have a busy mind, and something I work on daily is telling my thoughts that I'll talk to them later. When they begin to swoosh from a gentle rinse to the spin cycle's dervish, I have to take a step back.

Because setbacks and missed turns happen. They're not fun, and they don't bring the warm or the fuzzy. But they do offer a new route, a little moment for reflection and a state of inspiration.

I think change isn't always as big as we expect. It doesn't always manifest like a mountain growing out of the water in one breath. It's often a gradual echo of a metamorphosis. Taking place while you're unaware, distracted and simply going on your way.

But when you stop and look up, around and inward, the shift becomes visible. When you discover the resetting of yourself, the most important thing is to smile. Tell any thoughts that battle their way into your head as a negative rainfall to go away. You'll talk to them later. For now, the view is what matters.

Today's word is: rote

The World From A Different Angle

When I'm in my bubble, or shell, or hole, I tend to see things from only one view. It's a self-involved and centric angle. Where my future is being paved bit by bit and the Universe is either for it, or agin' it. The powers that be are either holding my hand or hiding around the corner, wearing a tin cap, drinking from a mason jar and fucking with me royally.

This is not the reality of Now.

It's taken my travels and a separation from Paige and Paige (the working one and the family one) to bring me home. To the knowledge that everything that goes on around us always has and always will be.

Now that can be a little surreal.

But there's more honey than vinegar in that sentiment. We've come a long way in the world, in the caring, acceptance and welcoming of one another. Hopefully we will come a long way yet.

My bubble is shrinking and expanding at the same time. I'm letting go of things with a rate of increasing incredulity and accepting others with the snail's filing of its nail.

I keep finding one semi-truth (for truth is always in circular motion in my search for answer). That bit of know-how is this: life is not a made for TV movie. It's not ever going to be easy-peasy, nice and cheesy. It may provide feel good moments and hearty - bowl full of jelly - laughs. But there are mountains to climb, deserts to swim through and blind alleys to embrace.

It's different for us all. Lucky we are, that we can relate. Still, we always walk a line of uniqueness. Of being our own self in our own space and time.

I'm drifting towards the Goonies here (up there it's their time, down here it's our time -- it's our time down here), but that doesn't make it less true. Insofar as semi-truth's travel. Wherever you are is your time. Make the most of it, tilt you view and alter your gaze. For you never know what you may find.

Today's word is: vista

The Underwear Gnomes Did It

I'm fascinated by the art of justification. An excuse is a false, disintegrating shield. While it may feel sturdy, it's actually the opposite. A flimsy front.

We all wear the justified thinking cap, letting it feed thoughts of me, mine, my and then allowing them to somersault and cannonball into reality.

It's an easy, lackluster, thoughtless way to do something.

But it's not very rewarding.

There is something delicious, filling and sparkly to owning your personal roll call. To calling off the qualities of who you are, and checking in with yourself. Because once you remove the need to butter up the bullshit, you find that there's nothing of consequence there.

That if you do your best, speak with impeccable words (to yourself and others) and remove the assumptions and personal villianery -- you're left with a healthy dose of santosa. A sweet ray of contentment.

On this great and powerful walk of life, the steps are often waked with shoulda, coulda and woulda. But the mistakes are the learning vines. The forks in the road that lead us to a greater, more inspiring tomorrow.

All we have to do is observe, dust off the what has been and put one foot in front of the other. Way leads to way. Even if the underwear gnomes did it.

Today's word is: buanseasmhacht



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A Spot Of Happiness

Life is meant to be lived. I hope that as you're experiencing yours, you're carrying a spot of joy, inspiration and dream.

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