I still remember the first dream. At the time I didn't know the dream had anything to do with me, I woke up in the morning just lost in the glory of having spent the night with a Goddess in a palace in the glowing Southwest. I just felt so privileged and so blessed to have had that dream. I felt touched by the divine. But it was at the point when I was still writing down my dreams in a book each morning, and I remember now the dreams continued, nothing like the Goddess and being at her palace, but all having to do with being in California. I think in my dreams it was always California, but the CA of the Southwest. These dreams continued as my NYC life fell down around me, and finally the definitive dreams began.
Leaving New York
Wednesday April 13 2005
It wasn't a random choice to move to the southwestern desert. It began off in my dreams when I still lived in NYC. There were a series of dreams for a month or two. And when the dreams ended I had arrived in Tucson. Altho naturally I had no idea that is where my dreams were leading me. I did not expect to move.
I dreamt I was at the candy store, Gem Spa. Originally an old NYC cigar store, which sold magazines, ice cream cones, and fountain drinks, on the corner of St Mark’s Place and 2nd Avenue, a few blocks from my apartment. And I ordered a chocolate egg cream. In my dream I said to myself “this is my last chocolate egg cream from Gem Spa.” Then I crossed 2nd Avenue to head home, and 2nd Avenue changed from a city block on the Lower East Side, to desert, heading steeply down to water down below, and I started to head into the desert.
That could have been an afternoon dream when I dozed off, or was the dream the night before.
Because the following night
I dreamt my big cousin Carl was in NYC from San Francisco, and he saw a beautiful Monet painting he wanted, it must have been “Water Lilies." He did not know if he should buy it, but I consulted with his mom, my aunt Esther, who was in Heaven, but in my dream she was available to consult. “Go for it” she said. So I said to Carl “go for it.” I told Carl “I am a great girl friday, I will bubble wrap your painting to death, insure it for a million dollars, and send it to you." So Carl decided to buy it.
That evening as I sat at my kitchen table with my life in smithereens again and I asked my Higher Self the old familiar question, “what should I do?” I didn't get the old familiar answer. The old familiar answer was always “Do nothing, I love you, calm down, have a cigarette, have a cup of coffee, have a piece of cake, have a second piece of cake, here let me pour a cup of coffee for you and cut you a piece of cake.”
This time the answer I got was “Move.”
“Move where?” I asked.
“Move to Tucson, your aunt is there, she can help you.”
“But what about all my stuff?”
“Just leave it behind” she said, “take your writing and your computer and that's all.”
“But how can we get there, we have a dog and no drivers license and no car?”
“Take the airplane, the airplane accepts dogs.”
“But how can I do it, if I can't even think about it?”
“Don't think about it,” she said, “just do it.”
So now I knew the decision was up to me. I was terrified to decide yes. But I did. And instantly I made the decision I knew it was the right decision. I was flooded with liberation. I knew I had decided to be free and I was free. In that instant I had left NYC. I hadn't arrived in the Southwest yet, but an old life ended, new one had begun.
July 4 2006 “Letting My Hair Down”
In my dream before I awoke this morning Franny and my aunt Celia were having conversation. It was intellectual conversation. They were both very intelligent and intellectual. Celia is the youngest of my father’s siblings. She is 12 years younger than my father, and 13 years younger than Esther, the eldest. Franny is Celia’s Tucson friend, a few years younger than she. Franny was also my first friend when I moved to Tucson. Because she found the apt. for her friend Celia's niece, me. And lived in the same apt. complex, and befriended me when we first arrived.
When I first decided to move to Tucson, I called my cousin Pete and asked him to find me an apt. which accepted dogs. My aunt Celia was in Tucson, her son Pete was in Tucson, and the youngest of her 4 children, Jimmy. Her other two children were living in California. I chose Pete, because when my dad was driving my aunt Esther and me back to Manhattan after a family gathering at his house, my dad and his sister gossiped in the front seat. All their concern was about their baby sister in Tucson. When her husband left her, they took over worrying about her and being in charge of her. It was the ‘60s, and they were very concerned about Celia’s report that her son Pete was now living with the Jesus freaks. My dad said “but they have a good record of getting kids off drugs.” And my aunt Esther said “but we don’t know Pete is on drugs.”
I was so young myself then that I had no judgment about my cousin Pete in Tucson living with the Jesus freaks. I merely thought it was interesting. But by the time I decided to leave NYC and move to Tucson, Jesus was a big part of my life. And it made me feel close to my cousin Pete in Tucson that he believed in Jesus, which is why I chose him to call and ask for help.
I confided that to Pete after I had been in Tucson for several months I told him why I chose him to call and ask for help. There was a long silence and finally he said, “that was an embarrassing episode in my life and I don’t believe in Jesus.” So much for having so much in common. But I guess it served its purpose. I needed to feel close to someone to ask for help.
It had made me feel close to Pete. And Pete had delivered help. He had found me an apt in apt complex called Willow Brook which accepted dogs, and which was the price I wanted to pay, $300 a month. But it fell thru because dog could not weigh over 33 pounds and Clio weighed 37 pounds. But I was immensely encouraged. Then I got phone call from Celia saying Pete had tried and not succeeded so he had turned the job over to her, and she had consulted apartment finders. “It is not easy to find apt in Tucson which accepts dogs.”
Then I got the phone call the apt had been found. I had asked for one bedroom for $300. I was sure I could not afford bigger apt. But Celia had found 2 bedroom for $330. “Great! take it!” I said. “Drive right over, put down the money and take it, I will send you money order for it.” And that is the apartment we moved into two weeks later.
It turned out Celia had been visiting her friend Franny and said to Franny “what I really want for my niece is an apartment like yours, Franny.” So Franny said “let’s go over to management and see if they have any.” And sure enough they had the two bedroom for $330. And when Celia called me, I said “grab it, drive over now and put the money down.” And Celia drove over and put the money down. And when she got back home she said “the apartment is yours.” And I said “great!” We had already started packing up all our stuff in boxes, but we now had an address to send them to.
And when we walked into our new Tucson apartment in the middle of the night two weeks later there was a note from Franny with a jar of salsa as a gift. The note gave helpful hints and welcomed us. Unfortunately Franny had forgotten how old-fashioned NYC is. We shivered at night in the Tucson apt. for a whole month before Franny showed us how to turn on the heat.
Back in NYC at around 5 o’clock on cold winter nights, you would hear the reassuring gurgle of the steam in the radiator. It meant the landlord had turned on the furnace. And at 5 PM in Tucson, when Sun went down and it turned ice cold, I listened for that reassuring gurgle but it never came. I had no idea there was a dial, which you could set at any temperature you want, and be as toasty warm as you wanted to be, and didn’t have to wait for the landlord to decide to give you heat.
Franny had walked with me a few mornings when I walked my dog. She was the only person I knew in Tucson, I was grateful to have her as a friend. Franny told me all about herself, and I did learn a lot about Franny’s life as a result, altho I could not absorb any of it at the time. She did say one very practical thing tho. She pointed to the mountains which were always in view, and said “that is north.” After that I stopped worrying I would get lost when I took my dog out in the morning, I knew I could always orient myself from the mountains.
When we were here 3 months we ran into troubles. And when Franny passed by, instead of hiding my troubles, I confided all of them to her. And a very remarkable thing happened. Because I had let down my hair, Franny let down her hair, we became very close. Before that I had been her best friend’s niece in her eyes, and she had been my aunt’s friend in my eyes. For both of us the other was an extension of Celia.
The wonderful thing about that conversation with Franny at the table was how much we laughed about all our troubles. I said “come in Franny sit down, I’ll make us a cup of coffee.” And as soon as I poured the coffee, she said “Where’s Bill?” I said “Bill got drunk on his night job, and passed out. They didn’t know he was passed out from drinking, they called ambulance and took him to the hospital. Then Bill got home and for 3 days he raged at me ‘call up your family and have them find you an apartment in New York City, we’re going back.’ And I refused. Finally the neighbors called the cops on Bill. The cops took him to jail last night. This morning, Ron from apt. A4 and I went to the Pima County jail and picked Bill up when he was released. Then Ron told Bill about the Lark, a treatment center for free. Ron told Bill it is very nice there and they all have a lot of fun. So Bill said ‘OK I’m willing to go.’ So Ron drove him there. He will be there for two weeks. So that is why I am alone, and you can sit at kitchen table and we can talk to our hearts content.”
And I cracked up at everything I said. I laughed uproariously at every step of the misadventure, and especially laughed at the point when Bill was hauled off to jail. Of course none of this was funny while it was happening, the whole thing from beginning to end had been one long nightmare. But confiding it to sweet Franny across the table, and laughing my head off about it, was the sweetest experience in the world. I was girl who needed a friend. And Franny was willing to be my friend.
Obviously this changed the entire atmosphere between me and Franny. Instead of being the impressive niece, which is how Celia had billed me to her friend, of her impressive friend Celia, I was just a girl with problems up the bezum. My husband had just been taken off to jail the night before, I had spent the morning hanging out at Pima County jail waiting for him to be released. He had gotten drunk on his first Tucson job, passed out and taken to hospital. I was alone friendless and broke in Tucson. Franny and I drank coffee and laughed and laughed and laughed. We let our hair down about everything.
Then Bill, surprisingly walked in the door. I guess he didn’t like Lark, he didn’t find it so much fun. And Franny left. And phase two of our Tucson life began.
Bill said everyone at Lark was just like him, and one thing he learned from listening to them all, is Tucson is a place where it is very easy to start your own business. And that afternoon he and Ron started their business as handyman. And when Ron did not want to keep doing it, Bill started his own business as yard worker, which he did successfully and full-time until he started art school. Becoming an artist was Bill’s dream, and he decided to follow his dream. As Grant Lewi, my favorite astrologer, wrote, “One moves to New York to fulfill a dream, and one leaves New York to fulfill a greater dream.”
"We buy the truck"
When we first moved to Tucson my cousin Pete had just bought himself a new compact truck. It was his first new car, all the others had been second hand. He liked having a new car so much that when we planned to buy a secondhand car and Pete was taking us around to lots, he found a brand new Isuzu compact truck on sale at the dealership for $7000 and suggested we buy it, which we did.
I don’t even think Bill was at home when Pete arrived with truck from the dealership. I got in the truck with him. We went back to dealership together, Pete took the truck for test drive with me in it, I consulted with my Higher Self, and I bought it. My aunt had told my father “Annie has to have good used car, send her 3 or 4 thousand,” so my dad had sent $5000 for good used car. And the truck Pete had found was $7000 so I had the money in the bank for it. So I just asked my Higher Self, and she said “go for it.” And Pete and I did the paper work with the dealership man, Greg. We became friends. And then Pete drove the truck home for me, since I don’t know how to drive.
By now Bill was back home. I didn’t know how to break the news to him. I wasn’t sure he would like it. He had his own ideas of what he wanted in a vehicle and this was not his idea. Plus he only knew how to drive automatic, he had just finished his driving lessons and passed his test, he was new driver.
So Pete was very surprised when the conversation was so desultory. Bill was talking about the Wildcats and I was going along with the flow of that conversation, how the team was doing, and then maybe the conversation had segued into food. And finally Pete looked at me aghast.
“Aren’t you going to tell him.”
And I said “O yeah right, Bill I just bought a brand new truck.”
Bill was stunned and Pete got on the phone to tell his girlfriend. He was thrilled at the deal he had worked out for me. He told his girlfriend all about it in the happy exited joyous way he had thought I would tell Bill.
We just sat there quietly while Pete told his girlfriend all about our new truck. That is how Bill found out all about it. Then Pete said “you will need insurance,” so he called his insurance, Farmer’s, but they wouldn’t give it to Bill, he is new driver. So he called Greg at dealership and Greg told him where we can go to get insurance if we are new driver.
And then Pete left to go home and Bill said “I don’t want it.” He said “I am a brand new driver, I don’t want a brand new shiny red truck, I will feel self conscious, I want what I planned, beat up old car, while I am still getting the feel for driving, and I don’t know how to do a stick shift.” So next day Greg from the dealership came over to teach Bill how to do the stick. And the day after that he had his driving teacher come over for another lesson and they did stick shift together, and after that Bill knew how to do the stick shift.
But he still didn’t want the fancy new red truck.
“Take it back” he said.
“I won’t” I said.
But it worked out. He started his yard working business and a pick up truck was very convenient for that. He loaded all his tools on it and yard working means when you finish the job you take all the weeds and branches you have trimmed to the dump. And he felt much more comfortable once it had turned into a work truck.
In retrospect I understand. I understand Bill’s feelings and why he didn’t want it. But I also see why his idea, we buy small old beat up sedan, was not a good idea. When we first got truck we didn’t know a month or two down the line, Bill would decide to open up yard working business and the truck was perfect for that. And having all this experience now of car trouble and huge car repair bills with the 2nd hand Chrysler 5th Avenue we bought 7 years later, it was smart to buy brand new truck which never had any car trouble at all.
That is the whole deal when you make a decision based on what your Higher Self tells you instead of going by your feelings. Your feelings only describe what makes you feel comfortable in the moment. But with our Higher Self a decision is made which takes in a much bigger picture. 12 years later I can see all the reasons why it was exactly the right vehicle for us. For 13 years it has served all our needs perfectly. Bill took perfect care of it and it still runs perfectly. And when we bought the house a year later we needed it to move our stuff plus all the things we bought for the house.
It caused a lot of commotion in our relationship that I tuned into my Higher Self 7 years before Bill did. Because I made all decisions based on her suggestions and the suggestions were never what we felt comfortable with at the time, but were always ways to renovate our life, to expand opportunity.
I had already formed the habit of going along with her suggestions, instead of my own feelings, for everything in my own life. I had discovered her suggestions all worked. I trusted her and them. But when it came to our life together, and I carried out her suggestions, I bought the new truck and I bought the house, Bill was extremely upset that I had gone ahead and done things which were the opposite of his feelings. He could not understand why I was acting how I was. And that I was unbudgeable about it. I couldn’t explain about my Higher Self, he wouldn’t have understood.
Fry's Supermarket
Sunday morning. Early. Sun has just risen over mountain. Desert is wet and dripping from big rain last night. Earth is moist and spongy. A sparrow hip hops on it. It is all woodsy fragrant now. But once our huge desert Sun has gained altitude and shines on my backyard the woodsy world will evaporate.
The rain was so big that when Bill and I returned home from supermarket yesterday evening we rode thru flooded streets. Bill was scared our truck would stall in the deep water and we were driving on major thoroughfare.
I let the woman on line at supermarket go ahead of me because she was just buying a small bottle of soda and I had a whole week’s shopping there. I had watched her go over to the case and select which beverage she wanted, and then she stood behind me. “Go ahead” I said, “you only have that and I have all this.” She gestured her thanks.
And then to my surprise I saw her entering her pin number. “Sorry” the checkout girl said, “it didn’t work, do it again.” After the machine would not accept 4 entries by her, checkout girl said “you are only allowed 4 tries.” So woman took out a huge wallet filled with credit cards, extracted a 20 dollar bill and received change. Then she gestured her thanks to all of us and left.
I had assumed she was a very poor woman, and when her card didn’t work I thought I would pay for her soda rather than her have to leave it behind. I still can’t figure out why she would try to pay for the soda with her pin number when she had twenty in her wallet.
I said to the checkout girl “why did she use her card when she had a twenty, would you ever do that?”
The checkout girl said “no.”
I said “no one does that.”
The checkout girl said “you’d be surprised.”
And then I realized she had seen every kind of peculiar behavior.
“I guess you’ve seen everything” I said.
“Yes” she said.
One of the items I had bought was Stouffer’s frozen lasagna. It had been on sale for half price. She picked it up and looked at it for a long time.
“Is it good?” she asked me.
I didn’t know how to answer. I said “well I used to live in Little Italy when I lived back in New York City, I know what good Italian food tastes like.”
As soon as I said “Little Italy” the young guy bagging my groceries looked up.
“I love Italian food” he said, it is the best.”
“Me too, Italian and Mexican.”
The checkout girl said that is her favorite too.
But he said “I am Mexican and I think Italian food is the best.”
I looked out and saw that it was pouring.
“Did you know it was raining?”
“Yes’ she said, and made a face.
I was so surprised.
In all my time in Tucson everyone unanimously and universally has greeted the advent of rain with jubilation. In fact this is the first time ever since I have been on the desert that I have been in a store and looked out the windows at checkout counter and saw rain coming down.
Rain is just not casual, frequent, random, on the desert. It only occurs during certain times of year and then only during certain times of day. We are in rainy season now and the rain arrives around 5 PM, and this is about the time I looked out the supermarket glass doors.
But it was still strange. I have never once walked out of the store into a parking lot with rain coming down.
And then we drove home thru flooded streets, it must have been raining the whole time I was in the supermarket.
Each time we passed a white truck I asked Bill “is that what Pete’s brand new truck looks like?”
Last week he told us he bought a brand new white full sized Ford truck that day.
I have two cousins in Tucson and when we first moved here the older one helped us a great deal for that first month when we needed so much help. After that we rarely saw him. But last summer at the swimming pool when all the lanes were taken and a man was standing there waiting I said “you can share with me” and he said “thank you.”
And after we each swam a lap or so he said “Annie.”
And I turned around.
He said “it’s your cousin Pete.”
I said “how did you recognize me?”
He said “it was your voice.”
And we chatted for 10 minutes in the lane.
A month later at another pool the same thing happened. I saw a man standing there when the lanes were filled and I called out “swim in here the lifeguards are letting us swim in the diving area.”
And again he called out “Annie.”
This time I figured out he was Pete much faster. I don’t know why I don’t recognize him. Then his girlfriend arrived and they swam together. We didn’t chat much that time.
I’m trying to remember what happened last week. This time it was middle of afternoon, not evening swim, the children were playing and diving in the children’s area. Bill and I were only grown ups going back and forth in lanes. A man arrived who I didn’t recognize at all but who instantly recognized me and Bill, and it was Pete again.
Right away I asked him all the questions that last time we had wished we had asked him.
“Do you still have your same truck” I asked.
“I bought myself the truck of my dreams,” he said, “but I am too self conscious to drive it. Does Bill want to buy it?”
“It is the truck of Bill’s dreams, but we don’t have the money for it now.”
“Ask your Higher Self how I can sell it,” he asked.
“OK I will.”
“I just want an old beat up truck that I don’t have to think twice about getting into.”
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