8 October 2023, Day 498

Hi! It’s been sometime since I have written and I am delighted to be in contact with you today.

It’s been an interesting month plus since I last wrote.

I have landed in a place called Carbondale, Colorado. In fact, I face-planted here on 16 September 2023.  ‘Face-planted’, you say?

Yes. I played tetherball with a 10-year-old friend on her school grounds on that day. Winning the first game was fun for me after not having played tetherball for 6 decades.

My friend, a highly-competitive, strategically-intelligent gal, elected to quickly adopt (as we had agreed was allowable) new rules for the second game, which she commenced to play immediately.  I responded in the best way I could and yet missed hitting the ball..  My body continued in the direction I was headed.  I went down a slight incline and then further down an even steeper incline.

At the bottom of the incline was grass, then a sidewalk and then grass on the other side of the sidewalk. Fortunately for me, I stumbled and fell on the sidewalk before face-planting on the grass beyond it. My chin and lip hit the sidewalk before I bounced onto the grass with my face.  My knees were both scraped by the concrete.

The impact was significant.  My face, skull, jaw, neck and left arm absorbed the full and unimpeded landing.

Pulling myself up from the grass, I discovered a very broken lower left arm, wrist and hand underneath my torso – positioned as one instinctively does when bracing for a fall – arm outstretched and wrist bent ‘backwards’. 

While the injuries were significant, there were fortunate aspects to the fall: 

I didn’t land on my face on the sidewalk. 

The impacted limb is my non-dominant arm.

I didn’t break my nose (though I had a very bloody one for awhile and my right sinus hasn’t yet healed fully). 

AND I was with a new friend, M and my other friend, A’s, daughter AR.

M & AR took me to Urgent Care, stayed with me through several hours of care; minded my handbag so I didn’t need to carry it with me into treatment; and brought me home.  

Initially, arriving on 15 September, I came to visit for 4-5 days. I was injured on the 16th and had reconstructive surgery on the 19th (of September). 

It’s 8 October today and I am still in Carbondale, Colorado. 

Blessings include that I feel genuinely welcome to stay with these friends until I am more healed (recovery estimated from 8-12 weeks from surgery) and can find housing here. 

My intentions were to visit for a few days (as I mentioned above) and then to travel on to Denver, Boulder and Greeley (Colorado) where I would visit friends and family.

Had I done that, I would have missed recognising that this place – Carbondale – is an ideal place for me to settle down for a while .. maybe even for a few years.  My onward projects in other parts of the USA and in France are several years from launch and I’m ready right now to have fun being part of a village, a town, a community already established with fun activities and features and, so far, welcoming residents.

I have been on the move for awhile now and would love to have a place to invite you to visit and to enjoy being in and facilitating you to see this beautiful part of the Rocky Mountains with me.  Let’s see what sort of home and lifestyle I am able to create here and then we can set intentions for your visit, okay?

Am having fun imagining how I can contribute to this small city (6,500+ residents).  Initially, I envision helping to create more awareness of recycling in the community.  Another initiative might be to help set up a Repair Café in Carbondale. 

For the past two winters, I’ve wanted to body build and take archery lessons. When I was in Maine last winter, the nearest gym was 1-1/2 hours away.  Winter roads there weren’t something I wanted to drive 3 hours round-trip several days/week.  And archery lessons were not available through the winter. 

So, since I didn’t engage in these activities last winter, I enthusiastically planned to do both of them this winter.

Needless to say, with a few broken bones and dislocated wrist and hand, gym work and archery will have to wait for yet another winter.  It’s something to look forward to!

With two dear friends’ guidance, support and expertise, I am in process of developing a website for a new business I am starting soon called Miracles of Mastery LLC.  I will happily let you know when it’s ready to launch and look forward to working with you and friends of yours who are interested in building skills and awareness of Mastery, both personal and collective.

There are so many significant things happening in our world these days. Many of them are intense and, at times, confusing.  Some people are responding to many things with fear and exaggerated caution. Others I know find it energising and encouraging to know that myriad new possibilities are opening up socially, politically and in many other ways.

Economic hard times are predicted for the USA and much of the rest of the world in the coming year, presumably lasting much longer than that.  I am keen for all of us to meet those challenges together with constructive action and collective will.  I know many people are preparing years of food supplies and other necessities for themselves, their families and communities.  I am not currently part of that movement.  And I am not sure whether I will participate in extensive preparation.   That said, I see the wisdom of creating ways to nourish, protect and encourage health and well-being for everyone, everywhere through potentially challenging times.  Here’s to this not being as serious or long-lasting as many predict at the moment.

An unexpected welcome thing happened for me the other day.  I received a call from a company I engaged 7 years ago to publish a book for me.  Their editing team at the time did such a whack job on my stories that, for me, the fun out of wanting to see them in print was lost.   I left it alone then to ‘address at a later date’ and, apparently, that date is now 2023! 

We have agreed to pick up the process again with each other, and I am looking forward to tell you what’s happening as it does!

I am still very interested in your answers to my five questions about the following:

1. What do you cherish about the country* in which you live?
2. What is your dream for your country?
3. Who do you think can make that dream come true and how?
4. What would you like your role to be in that effort?
5. Is there anything else you’d like to share with me at this time?

* NOTE:  If ‘country’ is not something you’d like to address here, please feel welcome to take another slice of collective living:  family; neighbourhood, village, town, city, state, county, township, etc.

You may have noticed that I am not asking about problems, or what needs to be fixed.  I changed that focus during my time in Maine.  When I met strangers and asked those questions, most people seemed to feel overwhelmed.  Shifting my interest to what people are desiring, imagining, envisioning seems a bit less confrontative.  Too, I prefer the questions to be engaging and compelling, rather than daunting, for people to think about.

That said, so far there has been a very small number of respondents, both in-person in conversation and after-meeting, via email.

If you haven’t told me your thoughts yet, would you please, if you feel to?  I ask because, sometime soon, I will write up my experience with this process.  And I feel that your thoughts are a vital part of what I’d like to include along with my own.  If you feel like sharing, please email me at dswilcox@netvigator.com.

As Autumn moves into Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and Spring moves into Summer in the Southern, I wish you Love, Harmony and Good Health in all ways.

I love you and am grateful you are in my life as you are. 

That said, if you wish to be removed from the distribution for RoadTrip Chronicles, please just let me know.  I am perfectly happy to remove your email to respect you and your wishes.  And, if you feel like communicating what you think about anything I have said, or anything that you are interested to share, I look forward to hearing from you (at the email address just 2 paragraphs above).

Love, Light & Laughter be Yours, now and always.  Diane 🌹

Lake Irwin Campsite at 11,000’ (3,353 meters)          

West Elk Breccia. Pinnacles of ash and volcanic rock.