mindfulness
On some level I’m ashamed that it has taken me this long on this beautiful blue planet to appreciate this truth. But on the other hand, it is so freeing to let each of us be where we are right now.Family History Comes Full Circle
Deep in the silence of a Colorado foothills snow storm, I see how the generations of my family are now coming full circle. Soon after Mike and I moved down here, in the foothills halfway between Walsenburg and La Veta Colorado, my father told me his father’s retirement dream was to move to the tiny town of La Veta to set up his own barber shop.
This is a man who had always cut hair in Turner, Kansas, outside of Kansas City, Kansas. Grandpa Carter occasionally drove out to Alamosa in the San Luis Valley to visit relatives. Along the way he found La Veta and loved it. Unfortunately my grandpa died just weeks after his retirement from the railroad in 1968.
I guess it is now safe to say my husband Mike had to do some fast talking to convince me to move down here from busy, expensive Fort Collins, Colorado in 2014. He loved the area, especially for the reasonably-priced lots with their own water district, pinon-juniper woodlands and great solar exposure. I love it now too.
This year my estranged brother John, who lives his own version of a Thoreau-like existence outside of Sedona, Arizona, decided to come up to visit us a few times after no word from him in years. In fact, we weren’t even sure he was still alive a few years back. He lives on the land, and a kind forest ranger finally convinced him to contact us. We have all now renewed our relationships with John.
John has not attended our family Christmases in decades, but he is making a point of it this year. My parents are in their eighties and now live in Denver. We will be taking him up there soon.
I feel somehow certain that John would not have come up to visit us if we were still in Fort Collins. He loves the natural setting of our new home. He sits out on the ‘veranda’ every chance he gets, watches nature and plays his guitar, enjoying the lovely silence.
What are the chances that we would all wind up in this lovely place, so close to the town where my Grandpa Carter wanted to wind up? So many synchronicities or “meaningful coincidences” can only be seen in retrospect.
City life, rural life, stress & heart health
I find the gradual transition I have been through in the past few years, from city life, to small town and rural living, fascinating. I did not know until I researched it, that the entire world is moving from rural to urban quickly.
According to a 2011 report from LSE Cities and the Deutsche Bank called Urban Stress and Mental Health:
“Urban living is on the rise whereas rural living is becoming the exception – in all parts of the world and at an ever-increasing rate. The rapid pace of urbanization is an important marker of the societal transition at large that has occurred over the past 30 years. Our world is shifting towards an urban, small-family or single household, and at the same time, an aging society. In the next 30 years we will be faced with the growing challenges specific to our cities’ aged single urban populations.
However, urban living is not only about getting older, it is also about being in a constant state of stress. Stress is the unspecific physiological and psychological reaction to perceived threats to our physical, psychological or social integrity. Urban living can be threatening if you haven’t enough space of your own, if you experience insufficient security or live under unstable economic conditions. Stress increases with the anticipation of adverse situations and the fear of not having the adequate resources to respond to them. From an evolutionary point of view, stress is the mechanism that prepares us for any ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction, and also causes us to evolve in order to better adapt to our environment. Although not harmful per se, stress may jeopardize our health when stress exposure is chronic or when complete recovery is not possible.”
In our first year of living in a town of under 3,000, my stress level fell precipitously. It felt amazing at times. With only two stoplights in the whole county(!) and almost no traffic, I found nobody in Walsenburg CO to be in a rush, unless of course they were tourists. There were never parking problems or lines anywhere. But since my natural stress level was geared to noise, traffic, aggressive behavior and threats from strangers everywhere, it took me a while to adjust. I had to tell myself to mellow out constantly.
In our second year here we moved out to the country on a few acres and began living in a quiet, clean, peaceful, naturally beautiful setting, but my body was still geared to a higher level of alertness and anxiety than my surroundings warranted. It took time to relax by practicing meditation, yoga, and simply sitting quietly more.
I needed to learn again that my emotions were tied to my heart. When my world felt like a threatening place, even unconsciously, I was daily putting my heart at risk. Health practitioners worldwide now see stress as a major risk to cardiovascular health. Cortisol and epinephrine are two hormones that, along with others, raise blood pressure and blood sugars in the body, threatening the heart. Another reason stressed-out people are vulnerable to heart disease is that they rarely eat well, sleep well, and exercise.
In short, I cannot believe how much my life has changed since leaving city life behind. I did not know the level of stress I was living with everyday until it was gone. And even then it took me quite a while to truly relax and enjoy the lack of stress in my life.
Learn more about this major life transition by reading my memoir…
Are you moving towards your life goals?
When was the last time you put some serious energy into contemplating your life goals? Not what needs to happen in the next year or two, but what needs to happen for you to feel satisfied in the long run.
After I lost my job and 25 year career back in 2004, I spent months contemplating my life up until then. After decades of work as an academic librarian, I was suddenly set free to consider every option. This was a wonderful gift, well disguised as misfortune.
My first book Midlife Magic: Becoming The Person You Are Inside is a summary of the feelings I went through at that time. Here I share my own story of transformation from divorced, unemployed and miserable, to my best life ever, explaining how midlife change, changes everything.
Yesterday I went through a list I made back then, a list of my new priorities after I stopped and considered my life at age 49. Here are a few things I wanted more of before I died: love, acceptance, appreciation, access to pure silence, to be surrounded with solar warmth, natural beauty, music, wildflowers, peace, contentment, relief from guilt and shame, and respect for my own integrity.
Such a wonderful feeling to know that I have somehow brought so many of these blessings into my life through my own stubbornness and courage. The way I describe this transition now, on the “About The Author” page of my new book:
“Her midlife crisis began with a divorce and then progressed to the loss of her library career, misfortunes she now finds supremely fortuitous, as everything wonderful in her present life flowed from these difficult experiences.”
Hey! It’s Small Business Saturday and you cannot find a smaller one than mine! Please consider my new memoir as 
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 