Blessings and Curses

This time last year my life seemed both blessed and cursed. On the blessed side, I welcomed a new grandson and, then, several months later, another. Two grandsons in less than a year. Who could be more blessed?

Well, and here’s where the cursed part starts, they lived all the way on the other side of the country, more than 2,000 miles from my home in Detroit. And there were no plans or even any interest in “coming home.” They were already home on the West Coast. So I traveled a lot to see everyone, even more than I had previously. What used to be once a year became three times to Seattle last year and once to meet the new baby in California. Travel is a blessing. I adore the entire Pacific coast  and will never tire of exploring its seascapes, mountains and canyons. Visiting my sons and their families enables me to do that. Blessings.

A bit of a curse creeps in still when my heart yearns to relocate. I feel particularly drawn to Seattle, where people seem more in tune with my core values than here in Detroit. I love that people walk everywhere or take mass transit. The massive recycling. The politics is more in line with my way of thinking and so is the spiritual side. I love the ease of getting around in the great neighborhoods to shop, to dine, to hang out. I love destination walking with hills. I feel very drawn to Seattle. The curse is my husband does not share my attraction. He likes Seattle fine but he’s still a Detroit boy at heart, while my heart is firmly west of here.

Partly as a result of this, my marriage seemed cursed last year. I took steps away from my longest, most enduring relationship. I almost left. But something in my body, literally, made me stay. It was a wake up call like I’ve never had, a big epiphany in one little life. I was signing a document that would put one of the last nails in the coffin that had become my marriage when I literally became paralyzed. I had written C-Y-N and then could not write further. And I’m a writer! Yet my hand refused to move.

I could not finish signing my name to the death warrant for my marriage. It wasn’t happening and it perplexed me. Isn’t this what I wanted? Isn’t this what I’d carefully considered and about which I’d done a fair amount of footwork, not to mention soul searching? So why was the pen not moving across the page? “I need a minute,” I told the person on the other side of the desk. “Take your time,” came the unruffled reply. I breathed. I tried to write. It didn’t happen. I tingled from head to toe. What the hell was going on? Something like this had never happened to me before. I’m a person of action, and when I decide on a course of action, I see it through.

Not this time. I finally put the pen down, tore up the document, and excused myself. I still didn’t know what was going on. But when I felt the strong urge to connect with someone, anyone, and share what had just happened, the person I called was my husband. He was the one I instinctively turned to with my overwhelming confounding experience. And thus everything I’d been feeling and doing came out over a long intense conversation, paving the way for reconciliation. We rebuilt our relationship from the crumbles of the castle it once had been, stone by stone. It wasn’t easy, but a year later, the fortress of our love is stronger than ever.

And I owe this to the intuitiveness of the body. My body knew the correct path before my mind could comprehend it. And my body, as it has so often done, reacted in a profound way that got my attention. I’ve never been a mind-reader although I dabble in Tarot and Astrology. I admire people with the ability to intuit others’ thoughts and feelings. I wanted that ability for myself, worked hard to hone it. In the past twelve months, I’ve realized I had strong intuition all along. It was in my body, if only I could learn to read its signals. Because I listened to my body, I know that this is where I need to be right now. In Detroit. In this marriage. And knowing where I belong, well, that is a true blessing.