This week was a doozy. Super moons in rebellious signs, or something like that. So I heard. For me it went from comfortable flow, to sudden shock, to fear, change, and ultimately, acceptance. 

Another blow to my stable nest. Rent raise, and the reality check that for as much love and time I pour into this little home, ultimately it is not mine. Someday I will have to move on, and pour my heart into something my own. Like, the abandoned building that I bought in the next town over, sitting, waiting for me to stop avoiding it, and dive in. 

I spent a day in dazed depression, as goes the breaking of one spell and the transition to the next. Like birth. I grieved each comfort as I still lived it. Waking to silence and trees, driving through winding forest roads, shopping the local store, all my cozy systems built over the last four years.

And gradually I started to shift towards the next phase, planning new steps and systems, as they emerged from the oppressive fog, the creative cloud. The inevitability of this change hit me with force. There was a mountain top I craved, but I needed to walk the trail. The first step, the hardest step, was deciding to move.

I’ve been comfortable here. My sad moments have not found me here. Or, yes they have. They have found me with just as much force. But I have waded through them here, without running. So the place is special, right? Or is it me? I want it to be me…that is what I will test I guess.

Two days after the shock, I saw strands of excitement weaving through the doom. A fantasy of my new apartment, of laying on the floor, gazing up at the whitewashed rafters of the roof we built, at the garden loft I plan to build. Of the home I own. Standing in my outdoor jungle kitchen, where I’ve spent years cooking naked and working my way through a curriculum of solitude, I suddenly imagined a pantry, a big sink, a tile floor, a working fridge, and all the ingredients I could buy, all the food I could create. 

A buzzing hum pulled me from under my imaginings and the patchwork tin roof. A cloud of bees swarmed the mango tree just beyond my uncovered bathroom. I smiled to myself, taking their presence personally, sure they had come for me. And as I ate on my outdoor deck, the evening ocean peeking through thick summer foliage, stray bees swarmed my lights, landing gently on my skin before buzzing away again.

Animal medicine of course. I pulled up their spiritual meaning. 

“Bees are often remembered for their hard-working spirit, so dreaming of bees could be a spiritual yearning for more progress in you life.”

Over the next days, my grief turned to resolve and certainty. Still, I would miss this town, my fifteen minute commute, five minutes of forest, five of plaza, and five of coastline. I would miss the peace of my shack, the bamboo and palms and thick green that cocoons me as I sleep, wake, gaze, rest, grieve, and create. I still worry about moving my cat from nature to neighborhood. Not sure if we’re made for it.

“Maybe you can come back?” I said to myself, but the thought struck a nerve and stung, surprising me. Suddenly I realized my hesitation. I didn’t think I would be allowed to come back.

So there it was, the root of it, the core. A tugging fear, keeping me from letting go of this place, from moving on. The fear that I was always on the outside of this property, of this family. That I was just a renter, and once I left, my spot would be scooped up, and my tie to the place would disintegrate, especially after years of tension with the matriarch. 

I embraced the fear though, happy to see its face so clearly, relieved for a diagnosis. I considered sharing it with the doña, just to be open, to be soft. But that was never the kind of maternity she held, and that was why I needed to detach. To build a world in tune with my own constitution. And in reality, her edge has repeatedly pushed me to seek my own path. If she had made it too comfortable, I would have no reason to grow. Ultimately I am grateful.

So I met with the electrician at my building, poked at window cranks, peered down plumbing, peeled at paint. And I looked around the shack, planning projects to prepare it for the next phase. I held my tongue. Kept my cards close. I wanted to share with the family, but I wanted to be sure and concise and have a time line. I glanced at my calendar.

August 6. Circled as an important day, according to my tarot reading months ago. I hoped maybe I would meet my soulmate. But the day was almost over. I sighed and settled in to read my book, coquis chirping in the night. Oh well, it had been an important week, if not a specific day.

Then my phone lit up, a text from the son of the family. An acquaintance since birth, a cousin, brother, project buddy. 

“What r u doing? Can I call?” I tensed a little. I’d been avoiding the family since the rent raise, since I wrote the mother my feelings of unfairness and self worth. It was nicer just to make my plans and live my life. 

“Sure,” I responded. And he called. And he gushed, a little drunk of course, and asked me not to leave. I’d let my plans slip to a friend. He agreed with me, defended me, validated me for my contribution to the property, that they needed me, my work, my rent, my presence. So much that I couldn’t help but smile.

Here was the family I craved, the connection. I reassured him. “I think I need to leave, though. I need to fix my building. But I’m not going to leave until we make this place amazing! Let’s do it together,” I said, grateful for someone to plan with, to work with, to share a vision with. Then I melted, “But I’ve been scared that if I leave, I’ll never be able to come back.”

He scoffed, his typical approach to tenderness. “Oh no! You are always welcome! You can always come build a shack somewhere, or be a part of it!” And even though I’d already accepted my fear, and the possibility of its truth, or maybe because I had, and I was already free, his words warmed me to the core.

I hung up and smiled. August 6th, special after all.

I turned off my phone and settled in to sleep. Eyes closing, body sinking, pleasant thoughts wrapping me, when a thick body flopped against my neck. My jungle brain took inventory. Too heavy for a cockroach, too soft for a beetle. Maybe a lizard? Usually I ignore them, but this one hadn’t seemed to hop away. It was still somewhere in my mop of hair. So I sighed, turned on the light, and gazed down at a fat green grasshopper, eyeing me from my pillow. I poked him and he flitted to the wall, looking back at me intently, unavoidably. Wake up! he seemed to say.

I had to know. Mind still buzzing from emotional catharsis, I turned on my phone to check grasshopper animal medicine. But instead a slew of messages blew up my screen. “Lauren is in labor. Midwives are already there.”

Oh shit, my massage client! She’d wanted me at her birth. Today was her due date. August 6th. Why did I forget to leave my phone on? Are babies born at night? I had so much to learn. I got up, dressed, and drove the dark, island roads to her quiet, gated neighborhood, stepped up to her dimly lit house, and knocked.

Four hours later, I hugged the doula, the father, and said goodbye to the three precious Puerto Rican midwives. I gave the proud, brave mama a last kiss on the head, and placed my hand on the warm, sleeping back of her ten pound baby, the boy the grasshopper wouldn’t let me miss. 

Then I walked through the sleeping neighborhood, and drove through the witching hours back to my shack. I settled in to bed and finally returned to Animal Medicine.

“The green grasshopper is symbolic of a fresh start, cheerfullness, adventure, and rejuvenation…a phase of healing and growth on your way to freedom. A very positive omen that good things will be coming your way.”

Ah yes…good things indeed…