Friday’s dining excursion made me reminisce about of this picture of me (age 4) with our feathered friend the pigeon – a.k.a. dinner. Here I am feeding the pigeons. Now the pigeons are feeding me. My how things have changed.

Change has been a theme this year and instead of running from it like I used to, I’ve embraced it. Earlier today Paige and I were doing some fall cleaning and hidden beneath a pile of other books I found “Your Personal Astrology Planner 2008” by Rick Levine and Jeff Jawer.  I bought it for kicks at the end of last year and I promptly forgot about it after I had a cursory look-see into the future.

Now that the majority of the year is over, I just had to thumb through it to see if reality was in alignment with the stars. Did things pan out? Was it all predestined? Of course, I went directly to November to see what was yet to come – here is an excerpt:

“Tension between responsibility and freedom may cause you to reel against the boredom of your daily routine… Short-term crises can trigger flight from a job or a breakdown in discipline.”

Wooooooo-ooohhhh …

“If you seek meaningful change, slow down and plan an escape route that will lead you to a more manageable and spiritual life.”

Admittedly, I have been chastising myself for not forming a more cognizant goal plan.  Levine and Jawer – how did you know???

“Uranus enlightening your mind with an exciting image of the future. Optimism grows from an unexpected opportunity or a surprising vision of a more fulfilling professional life … seeds your imagination with money-making ideas.”

YYYYYEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!

“November gives you the energy to turn ideas into action. The shape of things to come is clearly outlined with the last of a series … the meaning of our life comes into clear focus, increasing your confidence and solidifying your commitment to achieving your goals.”

DOUBLE YYYYEEEESSSSS!!!

Astrology has always been a guilty pleasure for me. Since I am not religious, I tend to grasp on to all sorts of metaphysical interests that have nothing to do with organized religion.  Don’t get me wrong, I highly respect organized religion but I have a hard time committing to which brand of shampoo I use let alone prescribing to a central edict about the origins of all creation.  It’s too much for this poor soul to handle.

Honestly, I can’t help but admit that I am comforted by Levine & Lawer’s predictions for my astrological sign. It is another green light signaling that I am on the right track and I like to show gratitude for these funny coincidences as the happen in my day. I’ve spent years never listening to my gut instinct nor have I ever taken the time to consider the meaning of my actions and the results they manifested. I’m listening now.

But despite it all, I am off to buy “Your Personal Astrology Planner 2009.“ You know, just so I can plant a little seed of hope for next November.

Maybe this is crazy but I feel that we are on the cusp of some kind of wonderful.  Call me the perennial optimist but I believe the struggles that America is facing are just the precursor to a greater shift in consciousness. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  We want more meaning from life, not more things.

So it may be that we are still inundated with the same negative campaign advertisements, same negative discourse amongst pundits or negativity in our own backyards but we cannot deny the fact that there has been an influx of hope into our psyche.  We will still have our own opinion about the current political climate, but we are changed because the general conversation has changed.

Sitting in the front seat of history, watching the alteration of a nation’s landscape and ideology has brought me to tears.  From this point forward a person of color or a woman can now plausibly run for the highest office of our land.  This means that I can now look at my daughter and honestly tell her that she too can run for President.  How huge is that?  How can it not make you well up?

For the first time in history gay couples are being legally recognized as married couples.  So maybe it’s only in a couple of states, but come on … in the same year that we have a African American man and a woman run for President and then another woman for Vice President? At a time when we are demanding more innovation in the fight against global warming?  This is not Obama, this is not McCain.  This time it’s the American people speaking here.

And despite the outcome on November 4th, I can still say that our country has evolved.  It’s crazy and it’s beautiful to watch and it makes me proud.

Nowadays I am trying to be engaged in my life, even though the reality is that on some days I usually can only muster enough energy to poke my head out from the barnacle shell. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit (because I am much more amiable than a barnacle) but I know from experience it is especially difficult to reconstruct your life in the aftermath of heartbreak, a messy break-up, child custody battle, family estrangement, your sweet child turning into a teenager and a plethora of other small seemingly insignificant things accumulating over the years into one big avalanche of “what the hell happened?”

We all eventually get to a point of movement … a shift. Some might even call it a crisis. All the things that were tolerable become intolerable and deep down inside, you know that it’s time for a change. In fact change is waaaay overdue and it’s almost as if you are curdling up inside because your threshold for crap has expired.

So I’m here.  At this quiet juncture in life where I have decided to choose ‘life’ over everything else. What good is social and economic stability when you feel all dead inside?  I want life to be extraordinary.  It doesn’t have to be easy, but it does have to be good.

Given all this recent introspection, I’ve settled in with the notion that all of the emotional tumult that I have been experiencing these past few months is not uniquely my own.  According to this article or or this one here, I am either right on schedule or a tad early (which I believe is attributable to having a kid at age twenty) for a midlife or mid-thirties crisis.  And just like the legions of the other women (and men) who have experienced this ‘crisis’ before me – things that we have been tolerating about ourselves, our lives and most certainly others are now becoming intolerable.  The time that we have spent filling up with unsubstantial or insignificant things now grows increasingly important to us and taking action towards a more meaningful life becomes a premier endeavor.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not gonna stop watching Youtube videos or reading really trashy gossip blogs because I really enjoy those diversions from time to time.

I’m just only going to do those things while I am at work.

Fall has always been my favorite time of year, even though as an adult it now just means I have to get my ass out of bed extra early to get Paige off to school.  And given that I am a night owl, this type of ‘new start’ at the end of summer is just a bit painful for me.  Nonetheless, there is just something about that nip in the air that triggers something in my DNA, as if the rituals of putting on more layers is a sign of something incubating in my mind and it signals that its time to let go of the carefree notions of summer in order to get things done.

So this fall has all of the promise of a beginning, but I feel different.  None of the same distractions or stop gaps that I create for myself are satisfying.  Blame it on Obama (and incessant ‘change’ mantra) but I feel that I need to do something drastic with my life.  Not just the cut your hair short into a bob kind of a different or I think I’m gonna wear less black kind of change.  More like, “WOW the first 34 years went by so damn fast and life hasn’t exactly turned out as planned” kind of epiphany.  I am crawling out of my skin and there is nothing I have found to placate this feeling.

So as of late, I have totally been thinking about packing up shop in Seattle and moving somewhere smaller and more intimate.  Not a place where folks say, “you betcha” or “doggone-it” all the time, but someplace where when I hear a gunshot, I don’t necessarily assume it’s due to someone trying to harm another person. While I don’t necessarily want to attribute gunshots to someone trying to shoot a wolf from a helicopter either, this option seems just a bit better than the former.  But just a tiny bit better.

So here it is, I am saying it out loud:

I am inexplicably being drawn to a more quiet and rural lifestyle.  The kind I used to shun when I was say … about 16 years old.

Let lightening strike down on me now (but only if I get a pair of Tony Lamas and a 10 Gallon Hat).