Your Corner of the World Is Paradise, Too!

Gig updates:
- September 13 w/D.K. & the Affordables, at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos, 2:30 pm
- September 13 w/D.K. & the Affordables, at the Cowgirl Restaurant in Santa Fe, 8:30 pm
- September 17 w/Craig Martin Experience, at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos, 5:30 pm
- September 20 w/Craig Martin Experience, wedding in Los Alamos

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Before we get to the meat of this post, I have a couple "admin" items. First, I post my blog updates on Facebook. If you aren't on Facebook or don't check it regularly, and you want to see when I post something new, sign up for email updates. All you have to do is enter your email address in the box on the right of the page and presto!--you'll know when I post. Second, feel free to leave comments at the bottom of each post, if you are so inclined. I welcome your feedback. Finally, feel free to forward my blog to anyone you might feel is interested. I write on a wide variety of topics that I'm sure will appeal to someone!

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Now, on to this week's thoughts:

A couple weekends ago, I reached a surprising state of near-bliss. I say surprising because the weekend started out a bit rough. My wife was sick starting the Wednesday before, which caused me to miss a gig Thursday night (it would have been an overnighter in Las Vegas, NM, the Mrs. was stuck to the couch in that virus-induced daze I'm sure we've all been through, and she needed help keeping kids on track). But, I got to spend some quality time with the kiddos. On Friday, I ran some errands, took a nice bike ride up in Los Alamos (Bayo Canyon, down & back up), and got a nice walk with the dog. Saturday saw a 2-hour ride on a trail I hadn't ridden in 10 years, which started and ended at the front door. I also got my son out on a trail ride. On, Sunday, we took a sweet hike down to the Rio Grande with the kids (their longest/toughest ever?). That was all while cleaning up/arranging my studio for piano lessons, finishing a shelf/homework center (more on this one later), shuttling kids, mentoring a friend in the use of power tools (no fingers lost!), working on my wife's studio work table (more on this later, too), processing some data from my actual day job, and building/setting up a lamp in my studio (look for this, too, I guess). Life is pretty good, and I had the thought that gee, I live in paradise!

I'm not writing all this to prove that I'm a busy-body with a wonderful life, but to contrast my rosy outlook today with that of several short years ago. When we moved to Los Alamos in 2003, we looked at it as a temporary stop on our life journey, a way to live and work in Northern New Mexico for a while while looking for other opportunities. But then we became involved in community--my wife taught for a while at a local elementary school, and she got to know other artists. I worked (and still work) at the Lab, ski patrolled, and played music. We did as much as we absolutely could outdoors. But we kept looking elsewhere. Car trip conversations would often begin, "you know, when we leave Los Alamos, we could go..." I've applied for jobs in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and Idaho. We've fantasized about real estate in other parts of the country. We were starting to feel stuck in a place we didn't really want to be. The closest we came to actually leaving town, though, was this past spring. I applied for a job at Colorado Mesa University in their Biology Department as a lecturer, and we started packing and getting rid of stuff, putting the energy out into the universe that yes, we were ready for a change. Eventually, what we came to, though, is that we have it pretty good where we are and decided to stay put, town-wise. A month after making that decision, we found and moved to a different house, roughly 2 miles from the old house, and thus embarked on the next phase in our chosen locale. A week after moving in, I got the rejection letter from CMU, which confirmed our notion that staying put was the best decision.

And therein lies the point--we decided to make the best of it. We've always been pretty flexible, as long as we could have a few things--access to mountains and/or open spaces, other creative folks nearby, clean air and water, and a quiet neighborhood in which to call home. Beyond these desires and our creature necessities, we hold firm to the belief that everything else will fall into place. It might not be exactly as we thought it would be, but it will be OK. And so it is with our decision to remain in White Rock. We are glad we chose to stay put, but it took the experience of reframing to come to that place. We had to deviate from the notion that we were stuck--that our current locale was a temporary stop--and realize that we were involved in our community on multiple levels. Our home feels like home, and it is because we choose to make it so.

I hope that you are also glad that you decided to stay put, wherever "put" may be. I hope that you are making the best of your situation and living your life to its fullest. Everyplace has good and bad, every day has ups and downs. It's what you make of the mix that counts. If your situation is lacking, I hope you can find the strength and resolve to either see that you are indeed blessed in some way that you overlooked, or to make the changes necessary to realize your blessings. Taking some time each day to reflect on what is great about your life is part of the power of positive thinking.

In short, if you think that life is wonderful, then it is.

Thanks for reading, and stay positive!