Trauma

The past year and even further back, I’ve been more out of touch with my friends and writing sisters than ever before. Today I attempt to catch up with you and to do much, much better, communication-wise, in the coming year.

The warm sunny morning on October 20, 2020 about 10:30am brought my life to a complete standstill. I rounded a blind curve on my narrow country road and found a huge and heavy Ford F550 barreling toward me in the center of the road. An hour later I was admitted to UVA’s trauma unit. A day later UVA released me with a brain concussion and orders to rest my brain.

How do you do that, I wondered? Rest your brain, that is. Turns out you don’t use your computer, tv, cell phone, email, or any other electronic devices for about a week. Also–advice from me–you keep worries and concerns out of your mind by giving gratitude to the Universe. After all, you are alive and able to figure out how to start the next chapter of your life. Don’t wait until you have a concussion: brain rest is amazing and I hope you’ll try it soon.

Some of you know that last year I purchased a 3-acre parcel adjoining my daughter’s property. Then I sold my home in April of this year. 2021 was a great year for selling real estate here in Virginia, yet it also lumbered into immense building challenges. Projection for completion of my 735 square foot cabin was originally for September, 2021. Economic delays brought us to, now hopefully, completion in early January. The very latest, I hope, will be by my 80th birthday in early February. 

I’m not recommending you have a big, bad truck hit you head-on. Or build a house in your late 70s. Or

even publish a memoir in your mid-70s, for that matter. Yet, each of these major events has brought profound blessings I could never have imagined. Truly, there are gifts in all that comes into our lives.

The process of building my small home has been a continual beckoning light in the midst of COVID. I’ve named her “Creatrix Cottage” (below) and will soon open my long and quiet Winter Solstice days there. I’ve already implemented changes in my new life chapter and will continue the process in my office, aka my Creatrix Room. I’m considering another book; please know you are hearing that only as a whisper right now. And considering other new projects.

As I close, my hope is that this past year has held both small and large blessings for you each. For me, I have found that I have too often taken those everyday gifts for granted.

Shalom, dear friends. And my biggest, best wishes for a healthy, rewarding year ahead,

Mary Jo, in Batesville, Virginia 12.24.2021, looking forward to entering my life’s next chapter.