Garnet House Now

This is Garnet House now! I needed a desk, and when necessity calls... I invented this--the ultimate hippie Puerto Rico girl boogie desk! Our stuff hasn't arrived yet, and even once it does, I'm due for a new desk. I will make one--(not telling how just yet, although I know exactly how I want it and it is going to be awesome--as in I could make many and sell them at a nice profit awesome).

I am facing the pool now. There's a guy out there cleaning, spraying the chairs in the gazebo with something that smells bad and wiping them down with a towel. At first I think he's hired, a maintenance guy doing this to supposedly protect us from Covid. But no, it was an action of gallantry. A woman is sitting there now. He changed the music—smartly, from some kind of AC/DC thing to the Open Arms song by Journey my first love played for me. Good choice. Then he left her there.

The only drawback is that it’s a little precarious. If I’m not careful and forget to watch my knees, it could be disastrous, with upending the wine and the bamboo candle torches falling over and my computer crashing to the hard tile, not to mention everything else on here.

But it could be worse. There’s a gorgeous tall fat palm tree out my windows above this makeshift desk of two bar table stools and a cheap boogie board. It’s one Lenore bought us in January when we were in the AirBnB, not knowing how it would go, being on vacation and not wanting to invest in boards to take back to the prairies. Walmart boards we could abandon. Then Andy offered to take my stuff, let me keep it at his place these months. So these two cheap boards got saved.

One day I used one as a lap desk like the kind we used to buy from Chapters in our previous life. You know—the beanbag type ones on the back and a desktop surface on the top with a drink holder. I was sitting on the balcony and wanted to write something so put the board across my knees.

My most important invention though today was my wonderful piece of driftwood I found on this morning’s walk. It’s a reversible fat Sharpie holder. Chad would have been so proud of me. Would have highly approved. You can even stick in the lid so that it holds the lid while you pull out the marker and then have a holder for your lid while you use your marker and you don’t have to worry about forgetting where you put the lid! Pretty ingenious if I do say so myself.

The coral for the pen I already had—the perfect size for my favorite regular Bic pens. On the other side of my desk is a coconut husk with the other Sharpie and a pencil—and my headphones wrap stick, which is driftwood also. I was winding my headphones around my finger trying to think where to put them, what their place was…and abracadabra—there it was! The driftwood I found earlier had a purpose!

Did you notice my cell phone holder??? That is the kind of thing that makes me happy! What a gorgeous piece of driftwood with dark veins in the pale weathered wood, perfect for holding my phone, and when I take my phone, the charger cord stays hung nicely. Practical decorations like this from Nature absorb electrical energy so that we don’t have to absorb the buzz and can have more calm.

All I needed now was a chair—so I took the old rusty purplish deck chair from the living room and voila! Here I am—realizing many people are either too scared or not as dumb as I am to make the move to paradise. People think about it all the time. Ponder the idea on bad days. Think about trading it all in for a chance to live by a beach, to live our best days in bliss, our last days baking in the sun and never have to come back. But most people never actually do it. I mean—who does that?

Who just takes off and lives in paradise? And how the hell does anybody make it happen? Well, if I can do it, so can about anybody. Keep reading and I’ll eventually tell you how I did it. I don’t know if that will have anything to do with how you will do it, but there is much to be learned from my experience. I can point you in the right direction and help to avoid pitfalls—that is, if you actually want to live in paradise and not just think about it.

For now—I’ve got a desk! And yes, the windows are all open in my new indoor-outdoor lifestyle—and I can hear the crickets. The air is warm and humid. Beachy. It’s dark out but I’m still in my bikini and it’s still wet. I have my wine in a mason jar because, as I’ve mentioned, our stuff still hasn’t arrived. But se la vie—I’m drinking wine from what I think was a pickle jar… I’m knock knock knocking on heaven’s door…here in Isabela, Puerto Rico.

This is Garnet House now, baby. Miss you every day, every night.

Today's Treasures

A couple of friends went into San Juan to party last night. They were entertaining the one fellow's boss, who flew in. It is the annual San Sebastian street festival, which is supposed to be the biggest festival the whole year in all of Puerto Rico.

So I am dog-sitting--a lovely solid, medium-sized, short-haired dog named Ellie, who reminds me of my boyfriend's dog who I love and adore. I thought we would take a walk on the beach, but we didn't get too far before dark clouds rolled in, threatening rain.

Rain comes and goes quickly here, and often I don't mind getting caught in it because I am often in a bikini anyway, as I am now. But today I was rather excited to be working on my new Writers Work profile and did not feel like getting wet, so turned back. Here are our footsteps:

I noticed our footsteps, and found two good pieces of natural sea sponge. The universe seems to provide here, with treasures that literally wash up at our feet.

I can use these in the shower--they are very good for exfoliating--except for that I hardly need to. The sand works wonders. When I first arrived I needed to roll around in it like Ellie did yesterday. I rubbed off winter shed layers of pain and trauma all at once while I scrubbed myself down. There is often nobody else on the beach for as far as you can see in either direction, and even if there were, it would hardly matter. We all enjoy the beach and understand and experience its healing benefits daily. You can hardly go to the beach and not get sandy, so are exfoliating then too. And between the sea-salty water, the sun, and generous amounts of coconut oil... There is hardly need for sea sponges in the shower too, but I take them. I will use them the days I am elsewhere, if not here. I take them because they are gifts.

We came back. It didn't rain. I wrote this. And now the sun is shining again. Time to go for another walk to soak up a little more vitamin D and see what treasures we find. If I'm not too lazy, maybe even a little afternoon yoga--on the beach, in my bikini, of course, here in paradise.

FEELING BLESSED

to be surrounded by so much love and support,

to have health, wealth, love, and the time to enjoy them.

The other day I turned the page of our inspiration book that sits on our dresser to the layout that says “Count Your Blessings.” We cannot count them without thinking of them and putting them into words. The numbers though are not what counts. As we put our blessings into words we put ourselves into the energy of those blessings, where our hearts well with gratitude, appreciation, wonder, love. We feel blessed.

Maybe the first thought is of love we have for others or love they have for us, the love we share. There is something magnificent about that kind of web.

I look around me and see the things I feel so lucky for, the proof copy of the book I have written and am now about to publish today, send the files to the printers.

I look up and see the leather billfold that belonged to my great-grandfather, as though the ancestors are with me; they always are. My mother, my grandparents on both sides, great-grandparents and beyond; they are all with me. The people of this world who have come into my life like fallen angels, here for a time on Earth. My boyfriend in the next room, my children well onto their on own hero’s journey paths, my father off in Italy living the last of his years and days as best he can without my mother, my future in-laws who have taken me in as one of their own, my friends who have stuck by me through thick and thin, the ones who show up when you need them most, the kind people who simply cross our paths, those who steer us on our way.

There is sunshine outside. It is supposed to be warm today, a last day for sun-tanning that September has given us. It is Monday and people are at work. We are here at home, doing what we do, living the best we can, seizing the moment and listening for the next answer, the next instruction, idea or message, watching for the next sign to know the next step.

Living an inspired life is what we aim for, and pretty much how we live. I’m not always sure how we do it. Last week we spent two afternoons at the spa, soaking in natural mineral baths and detoxing in the eucalyptus steam room. It’s not that we’re always dealt an easy hand. Maybe that is what is so amazing, to think of all we have come through and triumphed over to be here.

The map of the world is before me. I look up to the word “dream” scrolled on the cover of a notepad. I take it down. “Dream Big” is what it says. “dream” is our winter survival escape to Puerto Rico for a month. “Dream Big” is buying our own home on the beach there.

To be able to dream and write about dreaming on a Monday morning at home is a luxury I am well aware of. I have written on idleness. I am a big proponent of its importance. There is nothing that has not come from an idea first, an idea born from the idleness of the mind when it is allowed to wander. We have our freedom, owned by nobody, not selling our lives to others in days, hours and minutes. We walk the hero’s journey, make our own paths. We follow our bliss, and when we do that, we feel blessed.

Pause on the journey to reflect on your blessings. Discover awe.

Follow bliss, feel blessed.

No need to count. Quality over quantity always. Simply immerse yourself in feeling blessed.