Life’s Magic on My Road

Like a Deer in Headlights

I remember standing in the middle of the road, looking at all the stars from one end of the horizon to the other. The sky is immense in the desert, the stars clear and vivid. There was absolutely nothing for miles and miles to obstruct the view, no light pollution of any kind. I was filled with awe and wonder, lost in the moment, enveloped by the great big Earth, holding my tiny feet to it.

With a sudden burst of light, I could see a car coming. Bright headlights captured my eyes and took over all visual senses. As the night sky disappeared in the spotlights, my instincts disappeared, and I was mesmerized. Bewitching, these lights. Like the sun drawing me closer, quickly closing the gap. They are almost upon me now.

Does it see me? I realize I need to run in the quickening moments, but my feet don’t move. I’m paralyzed. Panic begins my heart racing.

Standing powerless, realizing what’s coming in the impending moments, I brace myself for the inevitable impact. In my final moments, I surrender and embrace the lights. Magnificent, like I’m moving into a tunnel of light. There is nothing else. I let go and wait for impact. The blow feels like being thrown against a cement wall at 75 miles per hour. Then, everything goes dark.

Gasping for air, I open my eyes. There I am, where I left off, in the passenger seat of my little truck.

Just a Dream

After ten hours of driving through the Nevada desert, my friend had taken over the driver’s seat so I could sleep. Through foggy relief, I turned to explain my transcendent dream, relieved but still in shock. The dream felt unequivocally real, having felt the impact so violently; still vibrating through my body.

She is intensely crying. I pull my head up and register that the hood of my truck is now smashed nearly to the windshield.

The seconds after my awakening could have been hours as I tried to process the magnitude of what had just happened. While I was dreaming, in the darkness of Northern Nevada, we hit a deer at 75 miles per hour in my little two-wheel drive Toyota pickup. Remarkably, we were not injured. Since these things don’t always turn out this well, I’m eternally grateful for our safety. My deepest regret is the cost to the deer.

My reverence abounds at how profoundly connected my dream was to this event that changed my life forever.

Remember Y2K?

I found myself in a hell of a time in history to be stranded with a totaled vehicle in Idaho. The world’s impending Y2K Apocalypse was just a couple of weeks away, casting a hefty shadow of sudden urgency on my situation. We had only planned to visit some old friends for the holidays and then return to Southern California for jobs, family, and our lives. But what now? I couldn’t ignore the weighty set of circumstances.

Throughout the next week, the signs heightened as the magic thickened. Actual bells rang where there were none. One night, I listened to a train go past the house I was staying at, driving on for hours and hours through the night, no more than a half mile away. All night, I could hear the deep rumble from the engine and wheels scraping on the metal tracks.

My spine tingled while the rumble of the engine traveled up my vertebra, settling into my chest. For hours upon hours, the rumble carried on. The following day, I discovered no tracks or trains existed in the area.

There was no mistaking I had an opportunity to see the signs and take a different course. There was more, and it was waiting to be discovered. Okay, I hear you, whatever this is. What is it I’m supposed to do?

A Ramshackle Plan

The truck had to be sold for parts, $200. Then, I used my $200 to buy a one-way ticket to Anchorage, Alaska, arriving on January 3, 2000. Besides, if the end of the world came on January 1, 2000, I would be in the same situation as everyone else. I was gambling everything on making that flight.

I called my restaurant job in California and told them I would not be returning. Graciously, my godmother boxed up my things in the shared room I was staying in. All I had to do now was wait with the rest of the world for that ball to drop on December 31st and see what happened.

January 3, 2000 – Anchorage, Alaska

It was quite the site periodically seeing lights under blankets of snow from my window seat on the plane. People were sleeping all around me. In the quiet, dark cabin I wrote friends letters and contemplated what was about to happen. Soon, I would be getting off an airplane in the middle of Alaska winter.

I had a friend to pick me up and grace me with lodging in their cabin. I would be heading to a place I had just heard of a week ago. It would be different than my home two weeks ago in 60-degree sunny California. The cabin had no electricity and no running water. No problem. What could possibly go wrong?

After all, I had done many cold, snowy winters as a farm kid in Southern Idaho. Plus, I was resourceful and strong in body and mind; I still had $368 in the bank, and clearly, the Universe was sending me, right?

I did arrive and was indeed mind-blown. Stories for another time.

The Year of the Dragon

It’s funny how brave and invincible we can be when the world is our oyster. Looking back at my naive view of reality makes me laugh. Conversely, I envy the uninhibited lust for life and magic that encompassed me.

I became a different person in that next year. A better person. A stronger person. A woman. The intensity of my life experience grew exponentially. I was in the highest vibration of my life for a couple of incredible years.

By some law, where there is light, the darkness seeks. Consequently, it found me. My existence became dark all too quickly and stayed dark for many years. Perhaps the phenomena of the Northern lights, howling with a wild wolf at a telephone booth, the beautiful humans who looked out for me, and digging my way out of a National snow disaster gave me precisely the memories I needed to hold on to, and to prepare me for the next nearly two decades of tribulation. That is, until my liberation at nearly 40 years old, when someone broke open my cage and released me.

Where did that girl go? I miss her and her magic. An adventurer, earnestly seeking. Not even the hard smack of reality that Alaska beat me bloody with could quench my fire then.

Ironically, 2000 was the Year of the Dragon in the Lunar Zodiac. Apparently, so is 2024, and a fantastic year for me, the monkey. Just maybe this Year of the Dragon can usher in a bit of new magic.

A Dance with the Universe

I tell this story to emphasize one of the most pivotal experiences setting the stage for the rest of my life. The juncture when I began my Paso Doble dance with the Universe. A dance of push and pull, frustration and climax, love and despair, smoldering embers and raging inferno, feeling used and feeling empowered, taking from me and giving back. A beautiful, terrible dance to the death.

I’m working on dropping some rocks, that’s true. But I also want my magic back. The wild anticipation of what is next, the whirlwind of possibilities, trains when there are none, to come back to me.

To be fair, I have had glimpses of it over the years, and I’m grateful. I might not have made it through if I hadn’t. The Universe never abandoned me, although I felt it had at times. However, now, with a lot of seeking, I understand the cycle of abuse much better and can see how I got stuck in it. It’s generational, human, and needs to be broken.

My husband tells me that girl never left me, that she is what he sees. He saw the embers I didn’t think were there and stoked them right back to life; his intensity was unparalleled. After some years of healing and soul exercise, I do believe him.

I’m comfortable in my skin…essentially. Likewise, my experiences have led me here, and I’m not bitter anymore…mostly. Still, I want to feel that life magic that wells up from the center of my being and spirals out of me. An energy so strong that nothing could remove the smile from my face or the beam of light that feels like it’s shooting out the top of my head. Something strictly between me and the Macrocosm.

Embrace me, Universe. I’m ready those bells and trains.

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Find out more about my journey on my About Me page.

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