2014 Year in Review

Greetings from Prescott, Arizona, where snow is falling as 2014 comes to a close...

2014 included one of my biggest and most anticipated travel goals: I went on a double home exchange to Denmark and then Sweden. There were a few things I lost during the year, but what I gained was way more valuable: a state of deeper happiness, a more savvy adaptability, new friends that instilled and returned to me the interconnectedness of our humanity (imperfect or messy as they were), some killer dinner parties, playtime and celebration with ranch horses out in pasture, practical experience at an equine facility/horse ranch, time with canine pal, Otis, soaking at Eden Hot Springs, and lots of Real Love encounters = being a better steward of this lifestyle.

I am going into the new year living life a little slower than I have for the past several years. I'm shifting my extra time towards homesteading in my backyard and classes at the local college, while I continue to sell beautiful things online. I'm finding myself more content with what I have, learning to sit with loneliness and not run from all of the feelings that come and then go. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that I do the best when I let my heart be broken for the world around me to see and focus on all the good I have. Gratitude and hope are the "drugs" that get me through.

I have also learned that the value other people communicate to me does not have to speak louder than the value I find in myself. This has been work, but it's so worth it. It'll keep being worth it. If you've been following my blog, then you've seen my recent posts of the events mentioned above. Just me, saying thanks for being a part of it and I hope to thank you in person over the next couple weeks. With much Love, Sharon

Still here

I have been a bit absent from the blog lately — both in terms of actual blog posts but also in terms of really "being" in the blog posts. One of the reasons has been lack of time due to reconnecting with friends that I missed over the last 3 months, but I have to admit that I've also found it hard to be inspired in terms of creating content.

November is not my favorite month of the year. Days are getting shorter and although I did very much welcome fall and the end of summer, I can't seem to get used to the early darkness and chillier weather in the evenings here in Prescott.

For now here is a pic from my friend's ranch the other night when the light was still there and winter time hadn't set in yet.

Enjoy your weekend!

Love, Sharon

Forward

I handed over the keys (actually left them secured in Lotta's box) early November 1st, with one last look, I stepped out of the apartment door for the last time, walked down the path for the last last time and looked back down Ulvsundavägen for the last time. Home exchanging has been such a process for me. Both literally and figuratively. Ironically, it feels like I'm leaving and forgetting all these parts of me (where I'd make trips back and forth to clear it all out and erase all traces) and being able to in less than an hour, pack up and go forward. What feels like a myth will take many days of processing: it's almost like something that never was, but will always be happening.

The apartment saw me live, fade, and come back to life again.

And even though there was never a person to "come home to" in this apartment, I celebrated everything and everyone I love in this space in one way or another. Even if was just writing their name on a piece of paper or sending them a secret wish for Real Love right before I fell asleep at bedtime.

And even though the apartment was not mine or decorated with my taste, some things about it exuded my personality, by accident. For example, there were flaws in the apartment.

I walked out that door, slightly wistful, but also so relieved. I am ready to put my energy somewhere else now. I'm so excited to get to start a new chapter in Prescott hopefully working with horses in my favorite southwest setting that is a traditional ranch. Or I am thinking of homesteading by turning my entire property into a functional gardening space.

Life is not what I thought it would be. But it's hard and good. Bitter and sweet. And I'm not looking back. I'm not going that way :-)

Love, Sharon

How's the ranch life?

This is the question I’ve been getting a lot lately. I’m not totally sure how to answer that question because I haven’t solidly wrapped my head around the fact that I’M WORKING AT A RANCH (and this has been a dream of mine since the urge to be with horses took hold in January). This is mostly my fault because I think my little stressed self had a hard time believing that someone would actually hire me. My life has not been the easiest for a lot of years so I just didn’t spend much time thinking about what life would be like after I started this job, just in case something happened to curtail it.

When I'm in a stall or paddock, I think about how much I’ve fought the waves of change. How I haven’t been as authentic as a could have been, and how I’ve been so timid with expressing who I am. I’m not very proud of this last year of my life, I feel like in many ways I’ve failed. There have been a few bright and shining moments where my head finally surfaced above the clouds and I actually got to SEE what I have and what I’m living, but many, many of them have been marked by fear.

So here’s what I’m learning now: the lesson that I have to learn over and over and over again. Surrender. I will never be able to control every aspect of my life. I may never know what the next six steps are. I may never know what’s next. But I am choosing to believe that whatever’s next, it will be OK. I have 50 years to tell me that whatever comes, I will BE OK. In the next month I will likely be sleeping out in the wildness with a herd of beloved horses or traveling to another country. I don’t know which pasture and if I for sure will be moving the herd, but I’m choosing to believe that whatever it is, that’s the place I'm suppose to be in. I’m choosing to remember that my life has always been orchestrated in ways more beautiful than I could ever have planned myself. I’m choosing to stop fighting the waves.

So anyway, how’s the ranch life? Right now I’m ENVELOPED IN THIS AWESOME ATMOSPHERE. I think it’s good. I keep looking at each horse I feed or water, across the stall, or across the paddock and I feel so incredibly thankful. I get to spend the rest of my life doing something like this. Most horses are incredibly patient with me and I think back to what I wished for, 4 years ago, when I was taking all of those blind steps forward, not knowing where I was going. I think back to those times when the hope of what could be in the future was all that got me through. And I realize that those things I hoped for, those things that I wanted deep in my bones, THOSE are the things I got. It’s like someone knew me and made it all happen. Love, Sharon

Story of the Coyote

I dreamt...
My sister was once manager of a horse barn, which occasionally coyotes liked to pass through. At the time, a coyote killed several horses on the ranch, and no body managed to shoot it or catch it. The neighbors, feeling helpless as a crab skittering across the sand, called on the manager to recommend my services, as Sharron the Hunter, to kill the coyote feeling no other person was equal to the task.

However unfortunately, the dream was I was killed by a coyote during my last trimester of pregnancy. The doctors were able to keep me alive long enough to extract my baby daughter. The father, standing close to his newborn as a shadow, prayed and made a wish about his daughter: You must kill coyotes for your livelihood, that is your calling. Owing to this, all of the Sharron women were experts at hunting and killing the coyote.

So finally my sister employed the Sharron Hunters, promising a large reward. When they rode in on horseback, one was an old woman with white hair, who coughed and wheezed, and had pronounced veins in her cheeks, and the other was a seventeen-year-old girl with dull stays on the sides of her vest. The barn manager was greatly disappointed by their appearance. Noticing the disappointment, the old woman knelt on one knee and said, "I hear that this evil coyote is only 5 miles from town, so we had better get going and catch it before it travels any further." And so they set out at once, pressing their heels into their horses' flanks silently urging them on.

At an easy lope they followed a narrow dirt road through a desert-like pasture and found the den. Outside the den, the girl howled loudly like a coyote, and in no time the coyote rushed out with its ears flicked and leapt at the old woman. The old woman stood her ground, raising a short switch blade, three inches long. As the coyote was about to attack her, she dodged to one side, and the coyote jumped over her, landing in the pasture with blood streaming out. They crowded around and discovered that the coyote was neatly cut right from the chin to the tip of its tail as it touched the blade. My sister then generously rewarded the Sharrons' for their help. The old woman recounted that she had trained with knives since she was ten years old. She could also stare for a long time without blinking and her arms were so strong that even a strong man could not move them a little.

To conclude and in support of my afterthought, achievements through practice are always convincing. A person who is born clever can never surpass one who constantly practices.

{{Dedicated to the 2 coyotes that inspired this piece: one that crossed the street in front of me on my drive to work in the morning and one that crossed it on the way home (neither were killed). And to Debbie for allowing me a journey and a place to practice.}} Love, Sharon