My “What’s Next” has Arrived!

 

A few years back I wrote a post about the time of transition our family was experiencing. The kids had moved to a new school and were gone for longer parts of the day, and I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing with my days. A dear friend advised me to take some time for myself and not worry about the What’s Next. “It will come when you’re ready,” she had said. And she was right. For the past several years I have “refilled” my well, taking really good care of myself and spending my days doing things I love to do. And then, last year, around February, an idea popped into my head. And that idea soon became a seed, and that seed began to germinate and eventually spout.

And today, I’m so happy to announce that that little seed is now a full blossom, ready to greet the world.

My idea was about Magic. That there is so much Magic in our lives if we’re only able to see it.

So I hope you’ll join me on this journey and discover the wondrous possibility of Magic in your life.

Here’s an excerpt of that original blog post that led to this moment. What I love so much is how my friend’s advice was so perfect. That sometimes we want to rush the process of what we’re supposed to be doing, but in trusting that everything happens in perfect timing, we

Walking through the woods thinking about transition and where I am in my life right now, the same question kept running through my mind… What’s next?…  What’s next?… What’s next?  I walked in rhythm to that chant until I hardly recognized it was there. I walked on until I emerged from the woods and saw a friend out in her garden.  I sat down on her stonewall and found my chant spilling out into formed words.  “I don’t know what’s next,” I told her, explaining how straight out of college I’d started teaching in Boston.  How just months after Tucker’s birth I’d started after-school creative writing workshops, and how upon moving to New Hampshire, I’d thrown myself into the process of writing, publishing and promoting a book.  And now, I had no idea what was next.

Picking up a few of the hydrangea she’d just cut, my friend paused.  “I guess I’m using this time in my life to refill my well,” she said.  Her words seemed to float in the air, enveloping me in their simplicity.

“You’re allowed to do that?” I asked, both of us laughing and sighing simultaneously.

The rest of my walk home brought a new theme song; the What’s Next song, replaced by the Refilling My Well song.  And that new music washed over me like a joyous symphony.

I’m just discovering what refilling my well looks like, but I’m pretty sure that in between making breakfasts, packing lunches, washing soccer uniforms, gluing letters on poster board projects and driving back and forth to school and soccer games, it involves lots more long walks, yoga classes, hand-written letters to old friends, wandering through garden and vintage shops, meditating on my yoga mat, diving into the stack of books piled on my bedside table and filling the pages of my black and white composition notebooks with new thoughts, stories and observations.  What I also see in that “Refilling My Well Picture” is a more present, centered me, ready to meet and welcome my children back into our home, the place that waits for them as they move further and further out into the world.

This blog has been a place I’ve so loved meeting you every week for the past couple of years, but I feel it’s now time to close my computer for a while and allow those fresh story and writing ideas to emerge as I begin this well-filling process.  I will so miss our connection, but as heavy as my heart feels, I know for now, that this is the right decision.