Well - if this is to be a documentation of these years of my life - then I've been slacking a bit - this week, an incredible woman died and in mourning her, I've been atuned to my own gratitude more than ever. S

he was my grandmother, and we didn't see eye to eye on much but her quality as a person filled with love was never in question. I imagine her figuring out ways to spread that around to the rest of us left behind. She was what could be described as "very religious" but I don't think she ever made a single person feel uncomfortable about not being like her. When she said "bless you" - you didn't feel like it was partly condemnation like often is the case with other religious folks - she lived in the mystical and truly spiritual - beyond dogma and earth level religious concerns. She BELIEVED - and although I don't share the particular belief she held, I hope she is happy to know that she opened the door for me to believe in anything at all. I hope this fantasy has some truth. She was already mentally gone with late stage alzheimers and a couple months ago I had a dream that seemed to point to her dying so I'm not surprised. I'll miss her, but I've been missing her for years - there is something though, in knowing that she's no longer here among us. In my dream, she had returned from a state almost like a spiritual walkabout - and looked like she'd found complete enlightenment - before heading into a doctor's office and disappearing, she held my face and said "I can see it now - in everything good there is a little bad, and even in the very bad there is a little good" The waiting room flooded with relatives and friends telling stories about her as you'd do at a funeral. So I knew...

I'm in Arizona now and living better than I ever have before. We have a studio and enough space for all our stuff. We live right in the heart of Mormon central but everyone is nice to us and if they're planning something, they hide the pitchforks well here in Stepford. We went to a burner party and I really like the burners here - smart, funny, and seemingly sane. We've also met a few really fun and interesting people outside that community - which is a whole lot quicker than either of us made friends in Colorado. We've only been here two months. There isn't a lot of fantastic art here but apparently there is some coming in from L.A. that is amazing - maybe it will be a trend.

I've surprised myself that I love the weather. I thought I might not but I'm enjoying it and rarely have had to turn on the A/C - although still waiting on the worst of it to see how that holds. I realized, as I was setting up the house and unpacking all our stuff that I've never had a decent house before - never had enough room, space for the things we have. I've had many people comment on how much stuff we have - but I realized with this move that we rally have less than most families of four - we just never had the right combination of rooms and storage and studio to accomodate it. Now that we do, I see how easy it is to keep a house nice and clean and organized and even a workspace too.

And things are just coming naturally and easily for us here - serendipity everywhere - it obviously was the right move - we'll sit and tell each other what we need for furniture, and the next day, a neighbor has exaclty that thing for sale for just what we want to pay and we just look out the window and see that it's so. Life is far cheaper here and having a pool and hot-tub makes it a lot nicer too.

So life isn't exciting right now - but it's extremely comfortable and kind and soft and happy. And when the studio is completed shortly - we'll take out the idea files we've been collecting and have decided to just start doing them all - every idea - just do it till it bores us or evolves or we decide to give it away.

Yeah - this is a good life. And well worth the hardship to get here. Hope all on the reading end of this are equally blessed.