This was driftwood.

I almost lined up with a place in Topanga Canyon. In Oregon the last day it rained all day long.   Soaking rain is what mom would call it, the kind we really count on back east in the late spring.  I was at Gretchen's in her cottage so close to the coast you can hear the sea.  We stayed in our pj's all day long, the pine trees outside bowing way down from the weight of the rainy wind.  She handed me her Ipad on our third or fourth cup of coffee and said c'mon, that's what we can do let's find you your place in LA.

On Craigslist under sublets I searched Topanga.  The only result was the exact place I see in meditation. At work someone said Mama you would love Topanga Canyon, Topanga's where you need to be.  Soon after that knowing nothing about Topanga came the vision of me at a white cast iron table on a patio, surrounded on three sides by potted flowers and trees.  That was the place Gretchen and I found on Sunday, exact pictures and all.  I say almost lined up with it because in the end I said no.  It was out of my price range.

Nikki assured me, as it was she that helped list the pros and cons, that this was driftwood.  It's not her original metaphor, yet it bares repeating.  If my heart's goal is an island, the paradise joyful island where I am heading, then little examples like the spot on Craigslist that I saw first in my head are signs from the island that my tide's moving me the right way.  Little signs, pieces of driftwood, from the island.  My enthusiasm was crazy high so applying practical decision making to this was hard.  Nikki's example really helped.

Before heading south to park at Gretchen's in the rain, Beth and I forged our own paths through the woods on Saturday to pick chanterelles.  The day before that we stood in the bead shop in Nye Beach where I used to work and get paid to make and sell jewelry.  Both times I felt so like myself that everything even looked lined and clear, more defined, somehow crisper.  Lit by light from my heart.

Driftwood.

This is my favorite part of the inventing process.  Scariest, too. When you can just barely, happily and anxiously, start to feel the tides starting to pull.