Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Curves.
Just as I’m feeling a strong push away from the town I have lived in since 1985—hurricanes, thefts, vandals, the prospect of jobs leaving the area, few or no remaining friends here, my girls wanting to go elsewhere—I’m also feeling a strong pull toward Central Florida. Toward what, I don’t know, but there seems to be a ley line of energy from Daytona up near Gainesville and then, who knows? I have yet to chart it on a map because I’ve only now discovered it.
I first felt this tug a year ago when I drove through the Gainesville/Ocala area on my way to Orlando. Orlando didn’t have the same energy. I’d been to Orlando quite often on vacation and business, but I’d been to Gainesville on a defense contract a few times and had loved the campus at the University of Florida. The whole area appealed to me then, and that was ten years ago.
I felt it again last December when I took the girls to Disney. Just waves of energy that felt so welcoming and optimistic. Like a whole new life.
Normally, I’d travel north of there or south of there, but a few unusual opportunities came up to send me back through there and toward Daytona. AngelSu had told me that the energy in Daytona and in Asheville NC would be very good for me, but I wasn’t so sure about Daytona….
The first opportunity was a writers’ conference in Daytona Beach back in May. Not my first choice of a place to go for a week. I’d accepted the invitation back in March or April of the previous year to speak there this year and had reluctantly agreed, thinking I wouldn’t care for the area based on what I’d been told but it was within driving distance and a good opportunity to visit with my favorite editors and long-time writer pals. Surprise! The girls and I loved it, loved the energy there.
And sheesh, more charming men than I could beat off with a stick! They liked my sparkly shoes and crazy ideas, and they liked me for me. Very different than in this conservative side of Florida.
About the same time, two more things happened to draw me to the area. One was a week-long course I’ve been wanting to take in September…offered in Deland. I didn’t know where Deland was at the time, just that the course was suddenly open to me, but I’ve since had to put that one off until November at the earliest because of my day job’s need for overtime.
The other incident came within a few days. I accepted another speaking engagement, not even knowing for certain where it would be, but saying yes to it felt very right. I’d thought it was in Jacksonville or Tampa, based on what I’d been told. Nope.
Ironic. Usually, when I’m teaching workshops for writers, I know exactly where I’m staying and everything about the set-up. See, I’ve decided to stop teaching seminars specifically for writers, though I may do a few here and there. I’m now moving toward teaching spiritual and motivational seminars, and before I even put my name out there to do my first workshop of this type locally, I have been invited to headline at a well-respected spiritual gathering in late October. In the Ocala-Daytona area. I had no idea it was there, but this door has opened to me to meet people in that area, people who share my spirituality.
Maybe that’s an opportunity to meet a like-minded man in that area?
That’s 3 times business has called me to the area, and though I have friends in D.C. who often hint how much I’d love it there—and Jillian who tells me repeatedly that I should pack up the girls and move there—I don’t have all this other calling of business and opportunities to there. I’ve had non-calls this year: the definitive feeling not to go to conferences in New Orleans or Atlanta this year, or to D.C.
When the girls and I left Daytona back in May, we were so hyped on the positive energy from there. It had been a long time since I’d felt good things were coming. The energy felt so healing, and for the week I was there, it was easy to forget about anything and everything back home. We hung onto that energy for as long as we could, but after a few weeks, it began to fade. We began to feel the oppression again, like we just couldn’t burst through all the problems here to make anything happen.
But we’ve focused on the positives of the future, on making things happen, on laying out our blueprint and taking our first steps and we’re feeling something breaking through again.
Do you know how, when you clear your mind to sleep or when you’re in the middle of your daily life, suddenly an unexpected thought will bubble up? That’s how it’s been this past week.
While sitting in a briefing, while in mid-sentence in a briefing, I suddenly got a strong glimpse walking through my hotel in Daytona Beach, toward the ocean on the other side of the doors and windows. That happened several times over the course of a few days. Strong, persistent. Nothing special or unique about the memory. Just a wave of that energy. I had to shake my head to clear the images that intruded.
The most recent intrusion, for lack of a better term, was last night at bedtime. I’d cleared my head to meditate, and the memory slammed me into my sheets. I was sit- ting at a Dunkin Donuts shop in Palm Coast, north of Daytona, reading the map to find our way from there to Gainesville just as I did two months ago yesterday. I can still taste the chocolate-glazed donut and see Aislinn lick her fingers discreetly. And a few seconds later, I’m out- side at the car, glancing one last time at the map and hearing the Morrigan’s crows calling—the only crows we saw on the entire trip—from a pine tree above us.
I’m eager to see what lures the area offers me next.
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