Why Boulder?

Hi! Welcome to my very first blog entry. It's a doozy. Bear with me. :)

People keep asking me why I'm moving to Boulder since I don't seem to have any of the expected reasons. I've never been there. I don't have friends there. I'm not following a boyfriend there. And nope, no job, no apartment.

So what, then?

The fact that I'm about to write several paragraphs would make it seem as though I actually have a concrete answer to that question. I don't necessarily. But I can tell my story here as much as I'm able, knowing that the answers will unfold once I actually get there.

I'll start by saying that I've wanted to leave Chicago for quite some time. While Chicago, binge-drinking, bar-on-every corner Chicago, was a great place to be in my early- to mid-twenties, I'm over the smoky bar scene, which was a big draw for me in the first place. I move on not without nostalgia, I promise you. For many Chicagoans, it seems drinking is the only social activity outside of work, and it feels like a staggering number of people here work jobs they hate. But they stay, and party (hard), trying to offset the lack of passion in their work. Where's the play? The connection to nature, the adventurousness, the joy? I want both the partying and the play. (I conceed that it's a narrow vision of Chicago).

But the real reason for my desire to leave has to do with the weather. If you've ever been here in February (or December or January or...), you know that it is oppressively, bone-achingly cold and grey here. (I'll pause here to agree that I've not painted a very flattering picture of Chicago, admittedly a wonderful city. At times in my 7 years here, mostly summers, I've been very much in love with this place. So much so that at times, I thought I'd live here forever. However, this post is about my leaving rather than all the things about Chicago that do make me consider staying. So, one-sided it will stay.)

About a year ago, I decided to move to Santa Monica, where I'd also never been. This must be the perfect new home for me, since I could trade my umpteen winter layers for flip-flops most of the year. The ocean and mountains? Sold.

But nothing happened. When I say nothing happened, I mean that I talked about moving to Santa Monica an awful lot. Everyone that knew me knew I wanted this. But I didn't do anything. For one reason or another, the steps did not unfold before me (nor was I able to make them), as much as I thought this was what I truly wanted. I told myself moving across the country was hard. Finding a job that would pay me enough to keep up my standard of living was hard. I was making it hard.

Early this summer, the name of a man I'd never heard of kept entering my consciousness.  Ken Wilber. People would mention him to me, I got emails with his name in them, I'd see people reading his books. Then Bhagavan Das (Ram Das's teacher) came to Chicago to lead a kirtan and give Vedic Astrology readings. A friend of mine had had a reading with him several weeks prior and it changed his life. I wanted one immediately. The reading was wonderfully affirming and Bhagavan Das told me things about myself that were filed away in a place of truth I hadn't yet acknowledged. Yet I sat there thinking, "Get to the part where you tell me that moving to Santa Monica is a great idea." (Clearly my ego was driving the boat, at this point).

Of course, Bhagavan Das does not say this. Instead, he says, "Yes, I can feel that Chicago isn't your home anymore. You know, I really see you in Boulder, Colorado, with the whole Ken Wilber scene." He repeats this several times. He really wants to get this point across. WTF? Who is Ken Wilber and why does he keep showing up for me? While I was baffled at that moment, I have to say that when Bhagavan Das first said this, I felt enlivened, at home, and somehow...activated. In short, I felt the truth of what he said and deeply knew he was right.

For three days I walked on air, overjoyed by the fact that there was a place on earth called Boulder, Colorado and that it was filled with people in my "tribe." It was most certainly my home. I felt it.

Then I crashed. I crashed the way a person crashes after they've given their power to someone else. This isn't to say that my feelings about moving to Boulder weren't real. They were real and I'd given my power to Bhagavan Das to decide where I should move. In my disorientation, I rebelled against the idea of Boulder (it does snow there, after all) and buckled down to make it happen in Santa Monica. But I kept Ken Wilber's name in my mind and did a bit of reading about him online. What I read of his work resonated with me, but I kept it at arm's length. Still no movement on the Santa Monica plan. Of course.

Around that time, a dear friend of mine who'd shared my desire to leave Chicago for "someplace more me," told me she up and quit her job here and was moving to Boston in a month. She wanted me to drive cross-country with her in a Penske truck. YES! I will say yes to adventure, yes to fun, and I will celebrate her transition with her, also acting as if it were happening to me. The trip was a godsend. It was an uproarously good time and cracked me wide open to the limitless possibilities my life holds. When we got to Boston and met up with the few people she knew and their community, it was as if my friend had come home. She belonged there. Surely she'd known these people for a lifetime rather than just a few days! I knew that there was a place out there that I could come home to in the same way.

Upon returning to Chicago, my best friend offered me some advice about non-attachment by saying, "You know, Laura, there could be a beautiful hut in Tibet with your name on it and you could be missing it because you're so narrowly focused on Santa Monica." She knew it was freedom I wanted, which had nothing to do with where. To say this was an eye-opening revelation doesn't seem to quite do it justice. From this expansiveness, and in that same phone conversation, I vowed to give up struggle. And I did. I released any idea of where and I began to allow.

I embraced freedom! That month I'd gone to Boston, then also went camping, did a yoga intensive, and went to Vegas (bachelorette party). When I get outside my day-to-day life and travel, the infinite possibilities of my life flow through me with such joy that anything seems easy. In that space, I realized that I didn't want to move to Santa Monica (at least not yet). I allowed the idea of moving to Boulder to come into my consciousness and miraculously the move began to lay itself out in front of me within three days.

I decided to go. A relationship that tied me to Chicago ended. My landlord called to ask if I wanted to renew my lease (no). The money for the move showed up. My boss scheduled me for an out-of-season review, which was the perfect opportunity for me to tell him I'm leaving and ask if I can do contract work while I transition. He said yes.

And so, I am moving to Boulder, Colorado!

As for Ken Wilber, I still don't know what that's about. When I decided to move, I remembered my barely-populated profile on Zaadz and spiffed it up thinking this would be a great place to meet people and possibly find work. It was no surprise when I found out that the first several people I contacted on the site have strong connections with Ken Wilber. Interesting. In the divinely appointed time, I will become familar with him and his work and may or may not gain clarity into these special synchronicities. In the meantime, I'm awfully excited about the whole thing.

Last night I met in a sangha group organized by my spiritual center here in Chicago, a group I've been gathering with for a year now. This was my final meeting with them before my move. Appropriately for me, our theme was community. I left that gathering with the following quote in my purse:

"We are all longing to go home to someplace we have never been---a place half-remembered and half-envisioned, we can only catch glimpses of from time to time: Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold as we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. A place where we can be free." ---Starhawk

Boulder, here I come.