I am grateful for Bougainvillea and so happy to have a photo album filled with pictures of them to remind me of the one place I have loved the most in the world, since my first visit there in 1967, Maui, Hawaii.
In January 2009 my husband, Wild, and I moved from Maui back to my hometown, Tacoma, Washington. After finally living in the land of my dreams, and even having a Hawaiian drivers license to prove it, I found myself back in Tacoma. Like a boomer-rang, only this time it is different. I am here by choice after carefully and consciously choosing Tacoma!
I love Tacoma! I really do! It delights me to be able to say I love Tacoma, and mean it! I love the beauty of the Olympic Mountains to the West, Mt. Rainier to the East, the waters of Puget Sound, Commencement Bay, Pt. Defiance Park and Zoo, The Glass Museum, the evergreen trees that are everywhere, the deer on our front lawn in the morning as we gaze out over the Narrows towards Gig Harbor and the Olympics. It is absolutely beautiful here! There is a unique quality to the Northwest that I never fully appreciated before. I think that the vast amount of travel I have done in the past six to seven years has given me a new perspective of the beauty of the Northwest. We are blessed with mild tempertures in the Winter and it rarely gets too hot in the Summer. It is beautiful here in the Fall, as the air begins to cool to that fresh crispness I love, and the deciduous trees turn to yellow, orange and red against the always present evergreens. Spring is exquisite, my favorite season, as every week it seems there are different plants, schrubs and trees that begin to blossom in the gloriously soft and gentle hues that feel like the promise of new love! Ahhh...
I am so grateful to be in love with Tacoma! This is the first time in my life I can say this with such honesty, clarity and joy! I have always wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. As my life unfolded, no matter where I went, I always found myself back here. Resigned to being here. Not wanting to admit to living in Tacoma. There was a time when people didn't even know where Tacoma was. I always explained it was 32 miles South of Seattle. When I was elsewhere I learned to say I was from Seattle. People knew Seattle and it was seemingly cool to be from there, where it often felt not so cool to be from Tacoma. I have seen a lot of changes in Tacoma. I have come to realize that it is not the changes that have taken place in Tacoma that make me love Tacoma. It is the changes that have taken place in me.
I have spent the past eight years in a constant state of self improvement, travel, self development, travel, education, travel and transformational courses. All the time telling others that I was re-designing my life. Recently I had a profound realization. It occured to me the day after I completed the Curriculum for Living with Landmark Education, that I was no longer re-designing my life. I was now living my life with conscious choice and intention.
I finally realized, and came to know, that from the moment Lee died, on December 18, 2001 at 6:15 am, while we were on Maui, (I wrote about my late husband, Lee Oberbeck, dieing in my 3-25-2009 entry) until November 22, 2009 at 10:00 pm when I completed the Curriculum in Seattle, I had been in a long process of transformation. I know the exact moment it started and the exact moment it ended. I am so grateful to have the awareness of it all. And I am profoundly grateful to now be right in the middle of my life, consciously living it full out!
My life is filled with love, gratitude and possibility. The reason that I have come to love Tacoma is because I have come to love me. I am overflowing with love and gratitude. As I write this I am reminded of something my Dad said to me when I was in my teens. He said in the form of a question, "If you don't love yourself how is anyone else ever going to love you?" Good question, Dad. Now I know the answer.
Happy New Year! May it be a year filled with wonderful possibilities realized!
With love and gratitude,
Dyann
