Life is a strange dance. We think it will look one way and sometimes it turns out entirely different.

Or maybe it does turn out the way we thought it would, except the process of how it turns out looks different. Like when they make a movie out of a book and they keep the beginning and ending the same, yet they add, interpret, and change what happens in-between, so it doesn’t go quite the way you expected even though the outcome is the same.

These are the outcomes I knew would happen moving to Kauai. 1) I would be better energetically and spiritually supported on this island. 2) New work would begin to open up for me in keeping with my creative, spiritual, and healing goals. 3) I was going to get to see a whole lot more ocean than in Anchorage, Alaska. 4) Somehow, everything would work out.

Here we are 9 months into the move and when I look at the list above I can see- minus the one about the ocean- that all those outcomes have happened or are in the process of happening, and yet the way it’s spun out has looked very different than I thought it would, with ups and downs, false starts and sudden stops, and then everything coming together at once or happening out of nowhere…

Kind of like the creative process, which never ceases to amaze me with how it unfolds. I’ve been sitting dead in the water for several months with most of my projects feeling so stalled out that my creative pinnacle has been making instagram quotes. February through the beginning of March just didn’t seem to have any flow.

Then something happened about a week and a half ago when I had this realization that I wished to be somewhere else in life than where I currently am. I wanted to be about one or two years ahead of myself, so I could see how it all works out and so I could skip the confusion and growing pains this first transitional year has held.

And that’s when the thought smacked me in the face, Well that’s no way to live.

And it’s not. Because it’s not really living in the now, it’s living in a someday and that someday might turn out different than expected, so why not appreciate today? Happiness isn’t going to somehow magically be found one year from now, happiness is happening right now. It’s just up to me to find it.

Something shifted that day. I made an intention list that had whimsical goals like: “I want to be creative and happy. I want to write poetry about crystals and love and the moon and things of that nature. I want to embrace change, all while appreciating the gifts of right now. I want to keep my heart open, and never forget that everything has its own wisdom to offer.”

The list brought me back to myself, and drove a stake in the sand that said- I want to embrace and cherish who I am now. Sometimes keeping our heart open simply means keeping it open to our own self. Keeping it open to our moments and moods and beautiful humanness-

Even when we’re not exactly where we want to be, which doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly where we need to be for our own soul growth.

And with thought, a new book began to birth itself. I didn’t even know I had it in me, except it is all me. I’d been working on Revelations of The Light, which was supposed to be a follow-up to my grief book Lamentations of The Sea, with a focus on my interactions with my brother in the spirit world. But nothing has been coming through for months.

I’ve been a writer who isn’t really writing, and then it occurred to me- why not write about right now?

Why not write about life and these changes and leaving Alaska for Kauai. Why not write an in-between book that bridges Lamentations and Revelations and tells the story of who I became after loss and how the loss of Brent fundamentally changed me, grew me, and forced a new beginning and becoming. Start with right now. Start with where you are at. Love yourself where you are, and tell this story.

At times we just don’t see what’s right in front of us, and then something happens that shifts our perspective and we wonder how we missed the obvious.

I’m a week and a half into this book project and I’m shocked to see how much I’ve done. The flow this past week has been constant and welcome, and I feel like a writer again. It’s the same feeling I had when I was writing Lamentations, everything in me is vibrating with the rightness of the book and the rightness of the timing. I can even feel my brother nearby and his presence feels like a benediction:

Help me write this, I said.

No Little Sister, you don’t need my help. This is your story, your book, and it’s already all within you. But you do have my support. Always.

And so it is. Transformations of The Sun: 122 passages on finding new life after loss will be out this September. In the meantime, I’m going to keep working on finding happiness right now, setting my intentions for who I wish to be, allowing Life the space it needs to shape my days-

And believing that even if I can’t see how, it will all work out exactly as it should.

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