Charmed Homelessness

Yesterday I got the keys to my new apartment. I’m so thrilled to be able to afford a nice two-bedroom place with a balcony overlooking a small grove of oak trees, which is where I sit as I write this. The sun is descending behind the leaves and the magic of this golden green late afternoon is giving way to a sleepy early evening. Alas, firefly season is over, but I can see the stars at night! In Los Angeles, this would probably cost at least $2500/month. No kidding. Minus the stars and fireflies. I’m SO glad I don’t live there anymore. Now if only I could just move my favorite people out here… 😊

Reflecting back over the last 2 months, almost to the day, I can see I have been in a period of charmed homelessness. Patrick, Caitlin and I shared a magical, fun adventure across the country. It took 8 days instead of 6 but not only did I/we have the money to pull it off, it was worth every extra second to encounter the strange shapes of Red Canyon, stare into the vastness and twisting that are Bryce Canyon, experience the mid-June snowstorm in Yellowstone, hang out in the paradox of a fabricated Old West downtown shopping mall smack in the middle of the countless square miles of bald desert in South Dakota.

We arrived in Baltimore at the beginning of firefly season on June 17th. Within three weeks I landed a job that is every bit as good as the one I had in Tarzana, at the same pay. And holy cow it buys SO much more out here than it does in LA!! My first paycheck came as I was down to my last $40. No kidding! I never even applied for government assistance. Wow.

I got to stay with my cousin Patty whom I’ve come to love as a sister – including the coveting of her clothes and her dog! – then when she needed me out of her space (fair enough!!) on July 29th, a friend asked me to housesit her dog …. On July 29th! No kidding!! Basically, July and August were spent juggling dwellings. I was able to go between Patty’s and dogsitting at varying intervals until August 18 when I got the keys to my new place. I even acquired the money to move my stuff from LA ASAP, except that it isn’t that simple. I can’t just pay the movers to go do it. I have to be present when they take my stuff out of storage, unwrap it, then rewrap it and put it on the moving truck (spoiler alert!). Yes. Really.

I even got the exact apartment I wanted! I had decided against a house because it’s just too much room for me. And it felt too isolating, like if I didn’t really like my neighbors, I would be isolated. That’s was a scary thought. So I looked at apartments. At Tall Oaks, I drove through the property and nosed around. There was an area tucked back in the trees! Ooh!! And apartments facing into a small grove of oaks!! OOOoooh!! Oh yes – That is the one I want, just there! 3rd floor, in that cranny. So yes, I basically want a cranny in the trees. When I filled in the application week or two later, the leasing agent, Vivian, had only 2 apartments of the 196 units open, and circled them on a map. So I looked at the floor model, and saw the first one, which were nice, but …mmmm… not quite right. I tried not to be discouraged. Then I saw the 2nd one. It was the one I’d picked out!! OMG!! Squeeeee!!! :D Wow!! What are the odds??

This last week was without either of these landing pads. I dogsat for Patty over the weekend, through Monday the 14th, then found myself staring down the barrel of AirBnB or going to Philly to stay a few nights with Caitlin. So off to the Wilds of Brotherly Love! It was a much-needed break. One of the perks of working remotely! 😊 I did have to spend Thursday night at an AirBnB in my neighborhood so I could pick up my keys first things Friday morning.

This was the beginning of The Crazyass Weekend. It turns out “first thing” was 10am. Then the carpets were still wet from having been shampooed on Wednesday. The Orilly men hadn’t thought to leave the windows open and the fans in the kitchen and bathroom on to draw out the chemicals as the carpet dried. UGH! I had been planning on sleeping on the floor if my new bed hadn’t arrived but it was too noxious to even consider it. So back to the AirBnB I went. The guys I had rented from were total sweethearts and welcomed me back! And I found out – quite by accident, thanks to my neighbor Cherise – that I couldn’t just pay the fee and submit paperwork and get my new dog (spoiler alert!). Apparently there’s an approval that has to happen which takes a few days or a week that no one had bothered to mention!! GRRR!!!! As I got all that taken care of Saturday morning (which took 3 bloody hours. Well OK – and hour and a half after waiting an hour and a half but good Lord. REALLY?? I didn’t eat until 2:30pm.

But I couldn’t leave until the UPS guy came and dropped off my packages – a small table and folding chair. Until I then, I only had folding camping chair to sit on. I’d already stood him up on both Thursday and Friday so I really had to stay. And I’d forgotten to walk Koko midday! D: I’d gotten distracted… Crap.

In this 8 weeks period, so many things could have gone wrong, or been awful or whatever, but the worst thing that happened was I got 2 parking tickets and my car was almost towed in Philadelphia. I even had a waspy bee type thing fly down my shirt as I bent over to look at something, and it didn’t sting me. It just flew back out. WOW. Crazy, right?!?

And thus ends my period of charmed homelessness. I now have a lovely little home and a lot of work ahead of me, starting with buying a steam-cleaning vacuum cleaner and getting the chemicals out of my carpet.

Many of you will ask “How did you do it?” I’ll tell you how. It’s taken years of hard work to clear my baggage, anger and resentment with “God” and the Universe and build a relationship in which “All my needs are met generously, lovingly, gracefully, abundantly and in a timely manner”. I’m so grateful to those who have helped me along the way, and to myself for the willingness and tenacity. You really do create your own reality – especially if you don’t do all this work. Your reality is then created by your default hidden beliefs, anger and resentment and that SUCKS.

Creating a positive doesn’t mean you predict the future, but if you clear out all the toxic energy patterns, baggage, relationships and hidden negative beliefs, you clear the way so that “All my needs are met generously, lovingly, gracefully, abundantly and in a timely manner” is actually true. Never mind the Field of Infinite Possibilities about which Deepak Chopra speaks. I limit myself to The Field of Infinite Positive Possibilities. With “All my needs are met generously, lovingly, gracefully, abundantly and in a timely manner” being true, it doesn’t matter what happens. Everything will meet that criterion and it will be more amazing and interesting and connected and, well, charmed, then I ever would have dreamed for myself! And I’m so grateful that really is true.