“I told myself if I saw you walking I’d stop to give you a hug and a kiss!”

The smile on my face agreed with my words:   “I love it!”

The great thing about love at this age, you don’t worry whether anyone cares that you enjoy a little PDA (public display of affection) and you certainly don’t care about appearances or acting your age.  All you care about is that you have finally found someone who accepts you as you are and you revel in it.

Post-divorce when anyone asked whether I would marry again I answered no way!   I meant it, too for at that time I defined marriage and love as responsibility. How many times has marriage been laughingly referred to as an “anchor” or the spouse as the “old ball and chain.”   Those definitions are true for some, unfortunately, and witnessing the interaction between two people in a restrictive marriage makes one wince with their pain.  As I considered marriage I created a list of pros and cons in my mind.   Companionship dominated the pro side of the list, a big factor to be sure, but the cons weighted down the scale.    It meant checking in with someone and letting that person know what I was up to at all times of the day.  It meant they would check in with me whether I wanted to know their whereabouts or not. In a subsequent relationship post-divorce I was astounded when my weekend companion thought I should seek his approval before going out on my own during the week.  It stunned me when he disapproved of my decision to go back to school.   I wanted to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.   For I discovered post-divorce that singlehood was freedom.   FREEDOM!   Yes!   In big, fat capital letters!  Freedom to explore life, freedom to expand, freedom to feel young, and most importantly, freedom to be authentic; I couldn’t trade those things for anything or anyone.

Then I met Tom, a man who experienced those same feelings after his divorce.  A man who accepts me, flawed as I am.   A man I accept without reservation.

As I sit and write these words the small Navajo rug on the floor catches my attention. I found this rug at the thrift store for six dollars; it fits perfectly in front of the French doors leading to the patio.   Blue, green, several shades of red, tan, brown and yellow are woven together in a central pattern bordered by star-like shapes.  Simple yet pleasing to the eye, the pattern is a lovely balance of contrast and complement that softens and warms the room.  It occurs to me that each, the contrast and the complement, are equally important.  Tom and I share many values.   We love the Earth and hold similar Spiritual values.   Yet we are different:  he is fiery red and I am cool blue.   Some days we work together, some days we work next to each other and other days we separate but each evening we come together eagerly to share.   As we do we are weaving a life together that puts each at ease.  Our times together are soft and comforting even when we don’t agree, for we know that it is our differences that light the fire between us and our sameness that keeps the fire smoldering.  Unconditional acceptance gives us the freedom to be authentic.   Authenticity fuels unconditional love.

We don’t need marriage to live our life together yet both feel it important to celebrate our commitment and joy that we have found each other.   And so we embrace the ritual fully knowing that it will not be a rite of restriction but a rite of expansion that will allow us each to continue to grow into ourselves and into our shared life.

I feel so blessed.

It was my first rodeo and we managed to snag ringside seats in the blazing eighty degree February sun.   Like a county fair, vendors hawked every kind of fried food from corn dogs to ice cream, rock music blared from several stages and the screams of kids on carnival rides filled the air.   Tattoos and cowboy boots were everywhere as we stood in line for the rodeo.  For this was the main event!  The arena was the size of a football field and the steel bleachers rose high to block the blistering sun.  A heavy steel bar fence separated us from the action.  Dust cloud after dust cloud swept over us as the horses and cattle raced around.  The first rodeo to be recorded was held in Arizona in 1864 and the sport began when bored cowhands decided it would be fun to compete against each other in skills they used in their work.   Rodeo is big here in the southwest.  In fact, when the rodeo comes to town in Tucson the children get a day off school!  I am not sure if that’s the case here in the Phoenix metropolitan area but it was Saturday and the crowd was huge.

I always thought rodeo was a wild sport using wild animals.   In fact when I was a child I remember the bull my uncle and aunt owned up on their dairy farm in Wisconsin.  The bull was mean or so we were told, a surprising thing since he had so many ladies.  He had a ring through his nose and was chained up something I always thought must hurt like the dickens.   Was that behind his fiery temper?  No matter but that long ago bull came to mind as I watched the Brahmas tossing cowboy after cowboy around the arena.  After dumping their riders most of the bulls ignored the pick-up cowboys and simply trotted off to the corral gate.  In fact I noticed the bucking broncos and the steers did the same and I discovered a surprising fact.   These were trained animals!  Raised purely for rodeo events!  Riders were matched to animal by the luck of the draw.  A bucking strap was placed around each bronco and each bull and pulled uncomfortably tight.  The strap was the animal’s cue to buck and buck they did until the strap was released.   The pick-up cowboys were efficient and slick, herding the animal away from the cowboy on the ground and reaching down to release the strap.   I felt the bucking strap a bit unnecessary for, after all, the bulls had reputations to uphold.  It looked like they bucked for the sheer pleasure of it.  As I watched it seemed that each bull was quicker than the previous one in dumping his rider.   The cowboy on Al Capone barely made it out of the chute!  Did that bull just snicker and snort as he flipped his rider?  I imagined the bulls huddled together before the rodeo placing bets amongst themselves as to who could flip his rider fastest.  Al won that bet hands down.  As the bulls fearsomely kicked and stretched I thought I caught a whiff of an air of arrogance as if this was really all beneath them.  But they also had a little ham in them and I swear I caught a few playing to the audience, tossing their heads up and high-stepping like a Clydesdale.

Round two of the bull riding began and it seemed to be a repeat of round one until a young college student named Justin climbed atop a black and white Brahma.  Thin and gangly, I thought he didn’t stand a chance.  He wasn’t even dressed the part opting instead for blue jeans, a short sleeve black t-shirt and a bicycle helmet.   The corny rodeo announcers poked fun at the helmet but were put quickly in their place as Justin held on for the qualified seconds.  When the buzzer sounded Justin crashed to the ground landing on his tail.   His bull hung his head in embarrassment that he had been bested by this scrawny boy and ran quickly for the corral.  A second college kid followed suit and these two non-cowboys were the only ones in the running for the money.  The rider is judged on two things:  his control and ability to keep his seat and the feistiness of the animal.   The harder the animal bucks the more points the rider earns if he manages to hang on.  Despite the fact he came up limping, Justin won by a good ten points thanks to his bucking Brahma bull.  One of the pick-up cowboys gave Justin his mount, helped him swing his gimpy leg up and he rode around the arena in a victory lap waving to all.

Miss Kitty spent a small part of her day outside when we lived in Aravaipa.   Initially I worried she’d be killed by a coyote or Blackhawk but the wilderness of Aravaipa was lush with plentiful game for all the major predators.   The mountain lions preyed on deer and javelina, the hawks went for the jackrabbits as did the coyotes.   In terms of dinner, Kitty was too small to be satisfying or appealing.  I still played it safe, keeping her in at dawn and dusk, but at least once a day she went outside to roll in the dirt, nose through the corral and climb the pecan trees.  The mouse population of the old singlewide kept her plenty busy.  There are no rodents in the house here in Gold Canyon, a fact that has fueled Kitty’s desire to go outside and hunt.

Of course the three dogs go out all the time, a fact that rankles Kitty.   It doesn’t matter whether we are inside or out, she paces by the French doors, peering out the glass, meowing loudly.   If that doesn’t get our attention she runs at the back door, slams into it and climbs it like a tree clawing the framework.     It is quite the attention getting stunt I must admit, but it fails to earn my pity.  “No Kitty” I say in my I-mean-business voice but it only spurs her to try other means to get outside.  Taking advantage of the fact that a set of three bar stools are perfectly lined up with the back door, Kitty will curl up on the middle stool feigning sleep, but once the door opens she springs to the next stool and flies at the door.   This worked once but now I am onto her and like a middle linebacker I use my body to block her leap.  Either athleticism runs in her blood or Kitty must have seen some ice skating shows on ESPN and practiced the moves when I’m not around as her latest trick was quite cunning.  She sat patiently on the kitchen counter as I carried in bags of groceries.   Yelling “back, back!” at the top of my voice, I was amazed to see Kitty whirl up into the air, perform a perfect double toe lutz with a back flip, land on the trash can cover then somersault over my shoulder and out the door.  I had to hand it to her, Michelle Kwan couldn’t have done it better.  As she sprinted towards the pool I sighed in defeat.  There was nothing more to do but grab a glass of iced tea and sit out on the patio to wait for the queen to come back to my applause.

Adjusting to life in Gold Canyon has not exactly been a challenge rather it’s been more of a surprise.  After two years living in the isolation of the canyon, I anticipated my re-entry into civilization would be harsh on the senses but fortunately I find myself nestled in the foothills of the Superstitions, a place halfway between rural life and city life.  Each morning I leash up the three dogs and within five minutes we are picking our way through jojobas and brittle bush in the Sonoran Desert.   In the month I have been here I have hiked the Hieroglyphic Trail twice, climbed the Huff N Puff Trail of Silly Mountain and scampered up washes and mountains with Tom and the dogs several times.   It satisfies my need to stretch my legs and my appreciation for the beauty of this land increases with each step I take.  But there is no surprise in that, the blue sky of the Arizona desert and red rock of the mountains has become part of my soul.   Rather it is the city part of this life that catches me off guard, tickles my funny bone and sparks childlike wonder.

So what else besides the alpaca has made me giggle and smile?

1.        Trains spooling round and round an elaborate layout in a neighbor’s yard in honor of the Christmas holiday.

2.       Cacti with Styrofoam cups on their heads to protect them from an unexpected freeze. 

3.       A St. Bernard dog wearing hiking boots on the Hieroglyphic Trail.

4.       A double rainbow spanning the Mountain at the end of a stormy day.

5.       Yellow and white roses in full bloom on the side of the house.

6.       Texting, something I couldn’t do at Aravaipa due to a lack of connection.

7.       Decorating a tree and baking holiday cookies for the first time in years and celebrating the holiday with my kids.

8.       Building a fort in the sand with Tom’s grandchildren.

One of these days I will figure out a gracious way to meet the owner of the alpacas.  I have also considered getting our dog Hank a little coat to keep him warm on the cold mornings during our walk, although I highly doubt he would want to wear it.  For now I think I’ll simply grab a magic marker and go out and draw funny faces on the Styrofoam cups.

Clouds dulled the sky.   I should have hurried along but I didn’t, preferring instead to savor each step and look at the landscape with wide eyes.  The trail wended through larger and larger rocks and as I climbed around yet another turn I nearly slipped in amazement.  Forty yards up the mountain six bighorn sheep pawed anxiously, unnerved by my presence.  One ram and three ewes tightened a protective circle around two young lambs.   The young ones, curious about the two legged creature that ventured so near, poked their heads between the legs of the adults only to be quickly nosed back into the circle by their mothers.  Their brown bodies melted into the mountainside and I might have walked right past if it weren’t for the creamy white flash of their tails.  I didn’t move.   I barely breathed.  The ram stood in profile positioning himself between me and the herd.  His horns were magnificent, the curve a perfect crown for his kingly head. 

Aravaipa, where I recently lived, is bighorn sheep country.   At the beginning of the hunting season it was reported that the herd was close to two hundred strong and sheep were spotted on both sides of the creek throughout the Galiuro Mountains.  Guests to the ranch were always excited whenever they spotted the sheep high on the mountain or making their way down to the creek to drink.  Sightings, though exhilarating, were routine except for me.  Only once did I come across a ram and once he spied me he turned tail and ran, leaping delicately up the mountain.   On moving day, I drove slowly on the ten miles of Aravaipa Road hoping against hope that I might spy one of these magical animals on my way out of the canyon but they remained hidden from my view.   And now here I stood, in the middle of the Superstitions, under the watchful eye of this regal ram and his flock.

Slowly I raised my hands to waist height and formed the symbols for distant Reiki.  Holding my palms out toward the flock I expressed my intent to send a wave of peace to the animals.  The energy flowed softly, so softly I thought the sheep might not receive it until the ram turned.    Locking eyes with me he held his head high and stood facing me without threat.  One by one the other sheep turned to face me as well, allowing the little ones to move into line next to their mothers.  Six pairs of eyes stared and rooted me to my spot but my connection was with the ram, his energy overwhelmed me and drew me into his circle. 

Perhaps a butterfly or bird flew close by, I’ll never know what exactly distracted the lamb but curious it turned with excitement as any youngster would do and it was enough to break the connection.   The ram signaled the mothers and they began to move off heading up an unseen trail deep into the rocks.  I watched them for a time then resumed my own trek to the hieroglyphics.  After spending time exploring and viewing the sacred rock art the darkening sky prompted me to begin my return down the trail.  For once I had my cell phone with me, a habit I am trying to cultivate now that I am back in civilization.   About halfway down my signal kicked in and I excitedly sent Tom a text message telling him about my encounter.

“Wow!  You’re kidding!   No one has seen sheep in the Supers for years and certainly not at that elevation.”

My sense of wonder grew exponentially at that response.   Did the sheep form a welcoming party for me?   Silly, of course, but I’d like to think so.   At least this I know:  our encounter made me feel at home.

The first year I spent on my hands and knees tediously pulling weeds out by hand.   Grit covered my knees, dirt crusted my fingernails and the sun baked me to a crisp but I persevered.  As the ranch is only yards away from the creek the water table is shallow and I hesitated to use any chemicals that might leech into the ecosystem.  Wild tobacco, goatheads, horse nettles and many more plants than I can’t name flourished in the yard but between the invasives was the promise of hardy Bermuda grass.  If I could manage to yank the weeds and water the Bermuda, a lawn would be born.  Day after day I worked on the soon-to-be lawn section by section, foot by foot pulling and raking.   At night I watered and to my amazement my strategy worked!  The Bermuda happily soaked up the H₂O, spread its runners and reseeded itself into a lawn that would make any Midwesterner proud.  It also created a four star restaurant and quite quickly the pocket gophers tunneled in to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I battled those little critters all year.   Most of my neighbors recommended using traps so I decided to give that a try until I discovered what was involved.   First you have to find a fresh gopher mound and determine which way the dirt fans out.  At the point of the fan is the supposed gopher hole.   Once you figure out which way the dirt is flying you take a shovel and dig down to find the entrance to the tunnel.  It rankled me no end to have to dig up the grass I worked so hard to grow but it was brought to my attention that one has to find the tunnel no matter what strategy is employed so dig I did. 

Gophers are crafty critters that do not believe in the value of straight lines.   Once you find the tunnel you have to clear it and stick your hand in to find out which way the tunnel actually goes and it never goes the way you think.   Gopher traps are vicious things that you have to set and carefully place down in the tunnel.   When the gopher crosses it, the trap springs and impales the gopher right through the throat killing it immediately.   Pulling up a trap with a dead gopher on it should bring a sense of victory but not for me. Dealing with dead gophers is not my idea of a good time and getting them out of the trap is no easy task.   The first catch I called my neighbor to help and she brought her dog Brandy.   Brandy whipped that gopher off in seconds flat!  I tried to teach my dog Oro how to do that too but Oro looked at me like I was crazy and backed away faster than I did.  When I nabbed my second gopher fortunately my friend Guati happened by and dealt with the gruesome task for me.   Two dead gophers plus the sheer number of fresh mounds that littered the lawn was all it took for me to decide another strategy was in order.

Rodent bombs, muriatic acid, and poison pellets didn’t really work.   Well, they worked in so far as they encouraged the gophers to move to another section of lawn.  By now it was a toss-up as to who dug the most holes, me or the gophers, but the battle was on and I was determined to save the lawn.  Each morning I walked the grounds looking for fresh mounds and those gophers never disappointed.   In fact during one day’s reconnaissance a gopher had the nerve to poke his nose out of his hole and smile at me!   Cheeky bastard but I had the last laugh as summer rolled around and the snakes came out.   I cannot be sure which species did the trick, rattlesnake or gopher snake or perhaps both.  It didn’t matter to me as they decimated the gopher population quite nicely and the lawn was saved. 

Autumn is in the air and the snakes are holing up for the winter which means the gophers have made their way back to their favorite restaurant.  With dismay I survey the dozens of gopher mounds but my days here at the ranch are numbered.  Right after Thanksgiving I am leaving the ranch and moving to the next step in my life.   The book I came here to write is done and after spending the summer polishing it up it will soon be sent off to the publisher.   The summer also brought Tom into my world and soon we will begin a new life together.  Even the return of the gophers cannot diminish my excitement at this turn of events and so, much to their delight, I concede victory to the critters.   Go for it you gophers.   Go for it.

Hmmm, no war, no hunger, unconditional love, all the easy answers came to my mind.  I am grateful the leader put this out in advance for my brain does not work at warp speed.  Instead of thinking on my feet I tend to think on my belly like an alligator latching on to what comes my way then rolling it over and over before tucking it into the mud of my mind to let it get soft and juicy before nosing into it.  Poking at the question the word reincarnation popped up as well as my belief that every soul is here in this life to learn a lesson that will allow the soul to move up the ladder towards enlightenment.   There are no free passes.   If you don’t learn your lesson it will be repeated in a new form the next time around. 

Now for me this is very liberating as it neutralizes everything.   There is no good or bad in any situation, incident, or emotion if one can accept that it is nothing more than a lesson.  Knowing that, truly knowing that, brings peace to any moment no matter how challenging.  Personally it gives me the strength to get through whatever life throws at me, to find the purpose in all my experiences.  Every soul is at its own stage of development and therefore faced with its own set of obstacles to conquer.  The soul faces challenges that are appropriate and specific to the soul’s lesson at hand so, no matter how horrific, each challenge is ideal for the soul’s work. 

Standing back, at first glance, the world is a mess.  Young soldiers are maimed and killed in questionable wars.   Substance abuse and disease run rampant.  Children are ripped out of innocent lives and placed in the hands of evil.   My heart breaks when I hear the stories of young women like Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard and yet, when I see them on TV they are luminous!   Despite the atrocities they endured both are filled with purpose, grace and spirit.  I cannot begin to understand why their lives took such twisting paths, but they did, they lived through it and I am humbled by their resulting light.  Yet there are others who crumble, the majority of us do, when faced with adversity.  My heart breaks even more for those who are crushed by the inhumanity of the world.   It doesn’t seem fair but deep in my soul I have to believe that there is a purpose in that too. 

Which brings me back to the question of an ideal world:  what would it be like?  I am grateful to the group leader who threw this question my way.  Pondering it gave me some clarity.  Messy as the world is my answer is it would be exactly like our world right now, today, at this moment.  Reality is ideal.  It’s all we have and if we spend time focusing on the “what ifs” or wishing for anything other than what we have, we miss the now.   We miss the opportunity to live presently, to be open and to fully embrace life.   Even if I don’t completely grasp the why and what of it, this world is ideal for all our purposes and I accept that all is as it should be and someday, when I have learned my lesson, I will understand it more fully. 

I fling hoses around the garden flooding it daily and still the plants wilt.  The tarantula hawks love it though, dive bombing me as I work in the garden.  There must be a hundred of them, I kid you not.  Big black buggers, they’re resemble mutant wasps, twice as big, twice as thick with fierce stingers, some with black wings and some with bright orange wings.   A twelve year old boy explained the difference to me:  orange for males and black for females. It figures the males would be flashy, the females monotone. It really doesn’t matter though as they whir by giving me an early warning to duck. I don’t mind them much except for one thing.  Predators follow prey and the tarantula hawks favorite prey is the tarantula.   As I walk through the garden are tarantulas lurking among the squash?   When I peek under a leaf to pluck a tomato will one be staring back at me with those kaleidoscope eyes? 

Now I step on scorpions without hesitation as I haven’t quite forgiven them for stinging me not once but twice last spring at a time I was already crippled from a horse stomping.  But tarantulas are a different matter entirely.  The Hell’s Angels of the arachnid world, they are big, bearded and brawny, which gives them a leg up in the creepy category.  Their steely hair and bulky thick legs makes me wonder, if I were to step on one, would it be like stepping on a stuffed animal or a satisfying crunch?  I’m not about to try it since they look like they bench press at least a hundred times their weight.  So I step lightly. 

When you think something you call it in.   So it was no surprise this morning as I swept the porch there in the corner sat a tarantula.  Tentatively I touched him with the broom and he immediately rolled into a ball. 

Hah! You’re not so tough.  

I nudged him again and he rolled onto his back all fluffed out, a tactic I’m sure that was meant to throw me off.   To make me think he was cute and cuddly.  But I wasn’t buying it.  I whisked him off the porch next to the lantana.  He plopped onto the fresh, wet earth, popped out his legs and strode out of the sun under a leaf.  Then he turned and looked at me.   Our eyes locked.   A shiver went up my spine.  

Hey babe, you won this round but it ain’t over yet.  Sleep tight tonight.   Heh, heh, heh.

Ohmigod.

Then the next and the next

And it is enough

To trust in Spirit

That all is as it should be

Sweet release of the clutter of the mind

Openings…to everything, to nothing

To whatever comes.

When Guati’s family spent Easter weekend on the ranch last year, all the men teased me mercilessly about my fear of snakes, especially rattlesnakes.  This year when Sonny asked me I told him no although I had been seeing little squiggles in the dust of the road every morning for weeks.  I knew they were around.  I watched for them but wasn’t afraid.   One rattlesnake in particular took up residence behind the old milk house last summer.   Actually, he probably had been living there for years before I came along.  A mature snake he was a ridge nosed rattler, brown in color with at least 8 or 9 rattles although I never heard him use them.  Our paths would cross from time to time but after our first encounter – and you may think this is silly – I offered him an agreement.   I told the rattler that I meant him no harm and that whenever I came into his territory to trim weeds it was only so I could better see him.   And if I could see him then I could simply admire him from a distance and stay out of his way.  He seemed to accept and agree to this for he was as respectful of me as I was of him.   Usually he would spot me first then slowly meander away but in such a way to make me aware of his presence.  He knew I would stand back and admire him because he was quite beautiful with his patterned back and striping just above his rattles.   I always thanked him for his courtesy.  I think he liked that.

The wood pile by the equipment barn needed organizing.  David, the owner of the ranch, and I had been consolidating the wood racks from the barn and the shop.  I sorted the lumber by size and handed it to him for placement on the new rack.  We finished organizing and storing the pile of redwood and were working on the pine boards.  Only a few pieces were left on the ground and I, feeling in a “macho” mood, hefted two boards at a time then jumped back and gave out a yell.  “SNAKE”

It was my rattler perfectly coiled in the cool shade of the lumber.   He wasn’t intimidated or threatened.  For the twenty or so minutes we worked on the woodpile he had to have been bothered by the racket but he never once rattled and he didn’t rattle now.  He remembered our agreement.  Gently I moved the final boards away from him then picked up a one by two length of wood and without touching him carefully guided him out of our way. 

“There you go Snake.  Not that way, head over here.”

 He slipped under the horse trailer, twirled himself into a knot and seemed to go to sleep.  He was out of the sun but still within my sight.   It was comforting to know where he was and that he was not threatened by our presence.  David usually relocates rattlesnakes but said he would rather not deal with him and I was glad.  Like some people, some snakes have a mean streak and can be aggressive but not my guy.    Confident and calm he kept a respectful distance and knew I appreciated his efforts to keep the rodent population under control.    Surprisingly I found that I liked my rattler.

We finished up our project and I walked back down to the creek where Guati’s family was enjoying the day.  I spotted Sonny and called out.

“Sonny!   I just saw the first rattlesnake of the year.”

“Where?”   His eyes gleamed.

I hedged.   “Oh, he’s up there somewhere.” I vaguely pointed towards the equipment barn then turned elsewhere.  About ten minutes later Sonny swaggered up dangling a dead body.

“I got ‘im for ya.” 

There was my rattler, head chopped off and flopping in Sonny’s fist.  A wave of nausea surged through me, not because of the gruesome sight so much as the gruesome sight was my rattler friend.  He was about to be skinned, thrown into a cooler and become Sonny’s rattlesnake stew.   Our agreement was broken.  I promised him I would let him be but then made the mistake of telling Sonny.   I had let my rattler down and felt tears.

 I am watchful again for I know a new snake, sensing open territory, will move in and take up residence here soon.  Maybe one has already come.  I want to find him, check him out and get a sense of his personality.  I hope he won’t be the aggressive type, rattling and ready to strike at anything that moves.   I hope he will be like my former friend.  I hope we can come to an agreement.