A miracle has, in fact, occured. The offer fell through, in a strange and random way. Then, a few days later, another offer came through from some people who want to keep renting this little house out, which means... we get to stay!

The FOR SALE sign now contains stickers that say SOLD, and for awhile longer, I can breathe a little easier each morning as I get up and see the sky lighten through the windows. The boxes can stay in their places for another while. The plants can stay on their windowsills and I can keep watching the ducks that waddle around out in the front yard.

Had a fantastic show with Twilight Hotel last Wednesday night. A good time was had by all. Thanks to all who showed up.

Outside there is the tiniest bit of snow falling. The evenings are stretching out a litte, it doesn't start getting dark now until almost 5. Halleluiah for that. Sometimes it feels appalling to think that I spend almost half the year waiting for warmer weather. Maybe I should consider relocating to Mexico.

The winter seems a little empty. My days are filled with happy work, though. Work on projects and new dreams starting like little tiny buds. I feel them there, under the ground.

Life has been a little monotonous these days. Words have not come easily. Songs have not been winding their way through my brain like they usually do.

Today I found myself browsing in the health food store again. What is it with me and health food stores? I feel I could spend hours there, trying on face creams, reading the yoga magazines, looking at all the ingredients in the salad dressings. It's a little wierd.

There is a part of me that has always wished that I smelled like sandalwood and wore long, linen dresses and made crafty things like beaded necklaces or crocheted scarves. I would shop in organic food co-ops and walk slowly all day long with lint between my toes and live on a little island selling handmade things forever and ever and ever.

The health food store has these amazing dark mint-chocolate bars that it would seem I am heavily addicted to. They're costing me bigtime, but I can't stop. I drive across town just to buy one for $3.25. It was really stumping me as to why I was so in-love with this chocolate. I started to wonder what kind of strange drugs they secretly make it with, and then it hit me...

SERATONIN.
Every year in January, I get the winter blues. Dark chocolate produces seratonin, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the hormone you lack in the long, winter months. I have not had the winter blues this January for the first time in years, and this may be a crazy theory, but... I think it's the CHOCOLATE! So now I can stop feeling guilty. It's either dark chocolate or therapy, and the chocolate is (slightly) cheaper.

After the health food store, I went to a yoga class down the road. I got there a little early. Before class starts, everyone sits on their yoga mats while the candles burn on the windowsills and soft whooshy music plays. I sat there, stretching a little. Other women began to arrive, and most of them were over 50 or so. They were beautiful, fit, grey-haired women who all knew each other. They whispered and talked and laughed and hugged before class started. I found myself watching them, something inside me wanting what they had. I could see it; they knew who they were. They had learned a lot of lessons. I could see it in their eyes. I wanted to be 50 in the worst way.

I have days when I know some of my own answers. I have days when I know where I'm headed and why I'm here and what matters and all of that. I have days when I am sitting in the sun and I look at my daughter and think: I have everything.

But lately I've been feeling so ready to be done with self-doubts and the questions; not the big ones that will never have anwers, not the big ones that we all have to come to peace with or the ones that are SUPPOSED to be there. But the ones that are not. I'm ready to be loosed of the feeling that sits with me often lately: like I am driving in a car, not quite sure where I'm headed and not even sure I want to be in the car. Or like being at a grade 7 girls birthday party sleepover and everybody's playing Truth or Dare and you're all pretending to have fun, but really you all just want to be in your own bed in your own house with your mother sleeping in the next room. If that makes any sense.

So I found myself watching them, wanting to be part of them. Wanting to know what they know. Wanting to stop spinning and stand firmly on the ground like they seemed to do.

The class finally started and I suddenly remembered how terrible I am at yoga. I am always the person the instructor keeps correcting & adjusting. She is always moving my feet and my legs and my arms because I seem to do so many things wrong. And I guess that's why I go. Because every class I get to the point where I want the clock to tick faster and I want the end to come, or I want to pretend I twisted my ankle and have to leave early. But I keep going. And at the end, I am so glad I did. I feel fantastic, like I have just climbed an enormous mountain. And my face is sticky with sweat and my muscles are a little shakey, but I am on the ground. And this class was no different.

Afterward, I wandered out into the dark, little tiny bits of snow falling in the air. I thought: if I can just do my whole life like that. Sometimes I get caught in the trap of believing that everything that's right is supposed to come easy, is supposed to come "naturally". Suddenly, I remembered something the instructor said to me as she corrected my foot position in one pose. As she moved my ankle, I said: "I don't think my foot DOES that." She told me that just because our body doesn't do something, doesn't mean it's not SUPPOSED to. Sometimes it wants to, but it can't because there's years of resistance in our muscles, years of tension. It's our job to work at it and over time, things change.

I climbed into my cold car. It is as cold as the North Pole right now. My breath made clouds around me. And I reached into my purse and pulled out what was left of my chocolate. It was warm and soft and it melted against my tongue.

Snow is spinnning outside under the streetlights, and there, in the semidarkness, sits the FOR SALE sign. An offer has been made on "our" house. I am trying to believe in miracles today, oh I really am. It might be working, I don't know.

When the realtor brings people to look at the house, I want to tell them it's a terrible neighborhood. I want to tell them there are spiders in the basement and drug addicts across the street and people staggering in the alley. And it's true, there are. (And I do throw hints.)

I don't care, I love it here. And who else will love it like me? Who else will love the addicts across the street, who only hang out there because there's trees and a small creek and ducks, and they need something beautiful, they need it in the worst way, and so who am I to want them to go? While all the rest of the neighborhood calls the cops, we let them be.

If the house sells, if we have to move somewhere else away from MY walls, MY tree, MY sparkling water, I don't know what I will do. Life can feel like a kick in the butt sometimes, but I don't think it stops there. I have to believe something bigger is at work. I have to believe there is an order, a story, an adventure scripting itself out in me. I've lived once before with no faith in anything, and let me tell you, it's a lonely. lonely place.

So outside, as the snow spins and as the FOR SALE sign sits, awaiting the verdict, I am here. Here inside, boiling the kettle for tea, tapping keys.

What I'm trying to say is that tomorrow is an illusion. Things could change in a second. The offer could fall through, or a tsunami could splash across the land or we could find an even MORE beautiful place to live. No body knows. But for now, here I am drinking tea while the snow blows outsid the window. And this moment is perfect, without all the fears, without all the 'what ifs". Without worrying about what may or may not happen. It's perfect.

Send prayers and good thoughts my way tonight....