It’s been a while since I’ve written in my blog or my book, but today I  forced myself back into the chair. For the first time in three months I decided to declare that the move was behind me and that life must go on. Way back in August, once we had set upon this new plan for our lives, to make the move to to be closer to all our children and grandbabies, we found ourselves having to manage a lot of moving parts. At first it felt very amorphous, like a distant goal without much of a timeline.  But with the coming of the new year, the pieces all began to rapidly fall into place. I could no longer ignore that my time in Sedona was quickly running down. As February snows fell, I began a bittersweet countdown of goodbyes to all the things I loved about my 8 and a half years in the desert.

I think the Super, Blood, Wolf Moon had something to do with the timing of things. That rare and beautiful celestial event occurred in January right around Mark’s 60th birthday. We were in Florida, surrounded by all the kids and babies, as we watched the eclipsed moon turn red. When I first discovered Mark’s birthday was being ushered in by an eclipse with such a powerful name,I did some research. Mark gets a poem from me every year on his birthday. As soon as I heard about the Super Blood Wolf Moon I knew what the topic of this year’s poem would be. I soon learned though that this this moon was a whole lot more than just a topic for a poem. It’s presence in the sky seemed to have a particular relevance for what was happening within my family.

Any eclipse you see in the sky carries the meaning of beginnings, endings, culminations and clean slates. Eclipses are necessary times that book end the period you’ve been living in. It signifies that your current story is over but a new one is about to begin. You are entering a period where you will be encouraged to push out of your comfort zone. Whether you succeed or fail matters not to the moon. What matters is that you will learn and grow. One of the articles I read took the uncanny relevance of this moon to a whole new level. It stated that Super Blood Wolf Moons set patterns in motion that run in eight year cycles. It then went on to say that the pull of this particular celestial event was beginning to influence us as far back as this past July. Well, that caught my attention. Eight years ago, at the end of July, Mark, and I, along with David, Natalie, Jamie, two cats and our little five month old puppy, Lucy, made the big move to Sedona. Just a little over eight years later, in early August of this past year, Jeremy, Julie and Jamie made their pitch for all of us to live closer together again here on the east coast.

All full moons demand that you face your deepest, darkest emotions, but a full moon of this rarity is even more insistent. It will yank at what’s hidden within until you bring it to the light and allow it to be set free. Certainly in my family it became clear that we had reached a time of major shifts, of letting go, and of moving on.

After we left Florida things began happening at a dizzying pace. David and Natalie found and bought a house in Connecticut, just two miles down the road from the one we had bought back in October. Their house in Flagstaff sold before it was even on the market. Then began the arduous task of packing up our homes and the poignant task of saying goodbye to people and places we loved.

Mark and I had one other task that we had set for ourselves. Our eight years in Sedona had been ones of real growth for us as a couple, but growth isn’t often the easiest of processes, and the pathways forward are not always so clear to see. Last August we not only made a decision to bring our family closer together, but we also decided to see if we could find a better way to handle issues in our relationship that we had been struggling with since we were first wed.  We signed up for four days of Marriage Boot Camp in Dallas in early March. At the time, it seemed like we had already set so many things in motion that March would be the best time to go. We didn’t know it then, but it turned out to be the very last thing we did as a couple before leaving Sedona for good.

I remember sitting with Mark in our hot tub the night before we were to leave town for the Bootcamp. I was looking up at the multitude of stars in the Sedona night sky, trying to memorize how beautiful it was. A part of me realized that something of such infinite beauty, while it can be seen and felt, is just too large to truly hold in our minds. There was no sufficient way to say goodbye to such a sight, so instead I moved onto something much smaller in scope, but equally intangible at that moment. What would Marriage Bootcamp be like? Would it work? Could four days really change nearly 40 years of ingrained patterns? It turns out that the answer to all those questions is yes. I think part of why it worked so well for us is that Mark and I were really ready to make that change, but we needed someone to show us a different lens for how to see ourselves and each other. Marriage Bootcamp was able to help us do that. What was revealed to both of us was just how much we really do love each other and value the life we have built together. I think one of the most powerful moments of Bootcamp for me was when I was encouraged to forgive Mark. If you had asked me before Bootcamp if I had forgiven him for past hurts, I would have said of course. But what I realized at this workshop was that while we had spoken of all the hurts before, I had never completely vocalized to him the extent of the pain I had felt and was still feeling. In this bootcamp setting, I held nothing back, and he took it all in with such love and compassion in his eyes. There was no doubt that he’d heard my words, felt my pain and wanted something different for me. The other moment that really rang true inside me was when we were asked to forgive ourselves. They had us visualize ourselves as babies, small children, and to hold those children in our arms as if they were our own babies. And then they asked us if the things we said to ourselves everyday were the things we wanted to say to this child in our arms. It shocked me to realize just how unkind I have been to that inner child. I would never treat one of my children in the way I have treated myself.

There were many other moments, and many people, that touched me deeply during Bootcamp. It’s not called Bootcamp for nothing. It’s a lot like that Super Blood Wolf Moon, forcing you to look at your deepest fears and darkest emotions. It yanks them  out into the cold light of day so you can really see them, and in so doing, those fears and emotions lose their power over you. It becomes possible to let go, to finally be free.I don’t think either Mark or I will ever forget what it felt like to look into each other’s eyes and see all the love each of us truly has in our hearts for one another. It was all just waiting there for us to notice and let in. It will be there for us whenever we next find ourselves in conflict, and it will help us find our way through.

The glow of that incredible experience stayed with us as we watched all our belongings get loaded up and sent on their way to our new home in Connecticut. That loving connectedness was there as we settled Lucy into our camper van and headed out of town. We had one last breakfast with the kids in Flagstaff before we officially hit the road. Then the final moment was upon us. We hugged the kids and our grandbaby, told them we’d see them soon (they were leaving two weeks after us, and would be moving in with us for a couple of months while they did renovations on their new home). When all the words had been said and a few more tears shed, we climbed up into the captain’s chairs of our RV, and with Lucy staring out the window we began what was now a familiar journey to us, through the wide open  spaces of the Navajo and Hopi reservations, through the New Mexican Pueblos, finally stopping that first night in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Day two, after a breakfast at a diner on route 66, we left the southwest behind, driving through the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma. We spent our second night at an RV camp ground beside a serene lake. Day three we drove through Missouri, where the highway took us up close to the St. Louis Gateway Arch. We then cut through the lower part of Illinois and into Indiana, where we finally got around to having some BBQ that was good enough to make up for the fact that we missed it in Texas. We spent the night just east of Indianapolis at a truck stop. Day four we traveled through Ohio, then crossed the Mississippi River for a quick pass through West Virginia and into Pennsylvania. We spent the night with family just outside of Philadelphia where Lucy had a chance to meet her new best friend, a doggie cousin named Moose, who is also a golden retriever. Julie’s parents made us a lovely, home-cooked dinner that night. The last day of our journey began with Julie and Jordan stopping in for breakfast and a quick visit with us before we headed off through New Jersey, New York and finally into Connecticut.

Before we ever arrived at our house, we made a stop at the train station where we picked up Jamie and two of her friends from her master’s program at Tisch. They all accompanied us on those last steps of our long journey in the RV. We not only had lots of help unloading the camper, but then we  got to spend a delightful evening catching up with our daughter, hearing all three women laughing and telling all kinds of stories of life at Tisch and in the music theater world of NYC.

One week, and hundreds of unpacked boxes later, Mark flew back to Phoenix to help David, Natalie, Avery and their two kitties make the journey, this time by air. Little Avery, who had found packing an interesting game in the beginning, found the last days of the move very stressful as literally his entire world began disappearing into boxes. By the time he was on the plane, he was not only stressed out, he was getting sick. Jamie, in a continuation of her role as official greeter, met up with Mark and the kids at the train station on their way home that night. The next day, Friday, was Jeremy’s birthday and he arrived with Julie, Jordan and his dog Bowser in tow to christen the new house with its first birthday celebration. It was wonderful having the whole family here, but Avery’s condition continued to worsen and he developed a high fever. For a little boy whose natural state  is always laughing and running, his silent stillness in his mother’s arms became alarming.

By Monday Natalie decided to take him to the doctor. She and David came back an hour later having been turned away from three different doctor’s offices. Needless to say, it was a most upsetting, unwelcoming beginning. As I held my distraught daughter, and heard her tearfully tell me that no one would help her baby,  I had a very up close and personal look at how very broken our healthcare system has become. Fortunately, Avery started to turn a corner that night, and Mark had found an office in Stamford that took the kids’ insurance and who were able to see Avery Tuesday morning. So now the baby is registered with a practice we all feel very good about, and he is running around the house fever free, laughing, and playing, and talking up a storm.

We did have one other unwelcoming event. After searching for some place to go hiking with Lucy, we finally found some really nice trails that run along the Mianus River, just a couple of miles from our home.  As we walked, we saw other hikers with their dogs off leash, so I let Lucy off too. I had heard there were some trails along the river that did allow dogs off leash, and for a brief moment I thought we might have found that place. I allowed myself to relax a little and enjoy the natural surroundings. It was so different from my desert, but equally as lovely with sun dappled trees, granite outcroppings, ponds, and many stretches running along the river. On the way into the park, Mark and I had even had our first sighting of a wild turkey. I found myself imagining that this could be my place, where Lucy and I walked free and communed with nature. But that vision was quickly shattered when we crested a hill and found at the bottom of the trail a policeman, gun holstered, violations book out. Apparently, we had crossed over to the Stamford side of the park where off leash dogs were not only unwelcome, but the offense came with a $100.00 ticket. I’d been trying for several days to just be patient and accept that finding my place in this new community, this new life-style, was going to take some time, but now I found myself fighting back tears. At least I managed not to cry in front of the policeman, but I no longer tried to stop myself from unashamedly yearning for my red rocks and open trails. When we got home that night, Avery was playing with a bowl of red rocks I had taken with me when we’d moved. We’d been assembling this collection of  stones ever since we started walking the miles of desert paths behind our Sedona home. Many had come from my favorite meditation spots. As Avery played, he started taking the stones from the bowl and putting them in a wooden bird cage. I couldn’t help thinking it was a very apropos metaphor.

Now don’t go feeling too bad for me. If this is a cage, it is an incredibly beautiful one, one that allows me entertain Jamie and her NYC friends, celebrate Jeremy’s birthday, and live just around the corner from David, Natalie and Avery. I just need to be mindful that the Super Blood Wolf Moon doesn’t care if I succeed or fail. The moon’s only demand is that I change. I think I can safely say I’ve made some major changes. Hopefully, that big, old moon is satisfied.