The Rose Quartz We Left Behind Monday Morning Check-In Post

How Are YOU??!!

Like a beacon, this rose quartz sat there calling us back to Oakley Ave. It was the first thing I spotted after gigantic hugs from Theresa and Vasken upon arriving at our new/old home. It sits in the entryway right outside of the front door of our apartment, right where they placed it when we gave it to them as we were leaving for California twenty years ago when this apartment used to be theirs. They now live above us in the one that used to be ours.

I don’t have all the words to accurately describe these people we are so fortunate to know. They are generous and helpful and always up for fun and laughs while at the same time willing to go deep into sensitive territory without hesitation. They fed us the first night (you guessed it, Chicago deep dish pizza) and the second, Vasken’s amazing baba ganoush with naan and veggies and tortilla chips and salsa bought from one of the many local markets that still populate this neighborhood. There was warm naan sitting on our kitchen counter when we arrived with a whole host of other wonderful things.

It’s largely unchanged here in West Rogers Park. Many of the Chicago neighborhoods have seen gentrification and development, but this neighborhood remains much as it was when we were last here. Now that I’ve moved in, this will probably change as I have a long history of moving into a neighborhood right before gentrification begins at a gallop.

The last full-time inhabitant of the apartment we are now calling home was their faerie/healer of a daughter, Helena. Nine years old when we first met her, she is now thirty years old, recently married, and a nurse who is on her way to becoming a nurse practitioner. It was her move into her husband’s home that created the opening here for us. It was also her insistence back in 2003 that we move in that was instrumental in our decision at the time. Although we already loved Theresa, Vasken, and their seven-year-old son, Paul after drinking milkshakes with them and then touring the second-floor apartment, it was Helena who demanded that we move in on a phone call the next day.

“Please, please, please you just have to move in here. I just know that you’re supposed to live here.”

And she was right.

You can read the full story on how we first came to move into this building here:

Moving Magic - Following the Breadcrumbs

Helena filled this space with love and healing and faeries and unicorns. We are surrounded by posters and artwork with positive affirmations and reminders that we are deserving. We are moving slowly now, allowing for an organic unfolding here as we claim this space while also receiving the love she left for us.

Some Helena Magic

This Rogers Park neighborhood is my portal into and out of Chicago. At nineteen I moved into my first apartment in the city with a college friend just a few blocks from where I sit typing. Seventeen years later I returned to Rogers Park with Jon, and we exited the city a year and a half after that to move to California. Here we are again, back in Chicago right through my portal. History shows I only reside in this neighborhood for less than two years, so I wonder how this will play out now.

It’s surreal being back in Chicago and even more so back in the same building we used to live with the same people we immediately grew to love. I had not imagined returning, and I have not begun integrating all of the changes we have undergone over the past six months since being told we needed to leave our house in Ojai. It’s going to take some time to unpack it all, literally and figuratively. Our stuff has not yet arrived and yet we have everything we need here except Jon’s music studio, audio gear, personal items, treasures, and my wardrobe. We shipped little else since the massive apartment we are in is fully furnished and stocked.

It’s quiet here this morning as it has been every morning. The birdsong is exceptionally wonderful when I step out back to let the dogs out and the color green is predominate now due to the decades-old trees that line our block. Raspberries and strawberries are growing in the backyard along with other delights that Theresa put in, and they have been as welcoming and loving with the dogs as they have been with us.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but we are equally as excited to have dogs in the building as we are you,” Theresa said a couple of months ago. Helena is a dog person and began assimilating her entire family when she was ten with the introduction of Lola the beagle puppy into their home. Lola was also the first dog that Jon and I took care of together when shortly after adopting her they all took a trip to L.A., leaving the wriggly bundle of love in our care. She was so small, that she would curl up on my heart and fall asleep while I sat on the couch watching something on TV.

We sat on the phone with Theresa and Helena from our Encinitas apartment when Lola died. We’ve sat with each other through many events over the years with over 2000 miles between us. Being in each other’s physical presence once more is a gift.

My emotions are all over the place right now and I am prone to tears and then sudden joy and happiness, layered upon each other, it’s hard for me to tell what’s what. I am anxious at times and then also remarkably calm and centered. We are new and not at all new here, and this experience in and of itself is new, to know and yet be open to what’s evolved in us, the people around us, and the city at large.

“Chicago has its own kind of cactus needles. When you run into them (or sit on them), remember that that is all they are,” our friend Judith messaged me after the cactus needle incident in Santa Fe. I immediately recalled this when the speed enforcement camera went off as Jon was driving us to Oakley Ave for the very first time on Friday. Theresa had warned us about them, and yet, we got stung. It also started drizzling, and we both had a, “What the fuck did we just do?” moment.

I expected that moment to happen and it quickly passed for both of us as we faced forward, enjoying and being grateful for all we have, and witnessing the doggies acclimate with ease.

Sookie, Teddy, & Zoey

Arrival Day and Today on the Affirmation Calendar Left for Us

And on the wall in the dining room, the dream of New Mexico persists.

How are you?? Please drop me a comment below and let me know.

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