I was sweeping leaves from my driveway at midnight the other night under a starless sky. I knew it was a silly undertaking in the dark, but it felt right to me. My rational mind was thinking, 'What if I come out in the morning sun to admire my work and the leaves are scattered everywhere instead of piled in a neat little bunch?' I could just barely see what I was doing. But I could feel the vibration change on the broom handle as the leaves travelled under the bristles to the end of the pavement. The bristles glided effortlessly over the spot when the leaves were gone. I could hear the rustle on the hard surface as the leaves flipped and crunched under the broom along their way. The sound was smoother and more consistent when the leaves had cleared. I had an epiphany. I realized I don't need to see every single step along the way as I work toward a goal. Sometimes I can feel it happening or hear something change and I might not even notice right away, but after I sleep on it, I can roll out of bed and open the door to the morning sun and there it is before me, just how I envisioned it.

Life Up Island is just different. Changing my location ended up changing my thought process. I'm so busy with all kinds of things I never did before, that I have to fit things in when I can. Sometimes I take my dog for a walk late at night, I might make a big pot of chili in the morning, yoga before bed and journaling on a break at work. These might seem like simple things, but it shook my very existence to allow this change in my thinking. Since these little changes, I write more, paint more, think more freely, live more openly. I'm not recommending that everyone change where they live, but just try changing how you live. Just for a day. Every time you do something differently than usual, you become instantly mindful about it.

When most of your tasks in your every day are done in the same way, you start to do them without thinking or feeling. Take a different route to work. Call a friend (that you haven't seen every Tuesday for the last year) to go for Root Beer floats in a different part of town. Watch how mindful and present you become. Act like a different person at work and see if anyone notices. Talk to yourself (silently) from your spirit. You'll be surprised at what you say and how you respond. Feel yourself in your body as a thinking, feeling, active human being with a beating heart. It's super cool.

Up Island, life is good. Not in a I'll-live-here-forever kind of way, but in a I'm-so-grateful-for-the-presence-I-have-moved-into kind of way. You may think the arty-islandy-wholisticness of Up Island, mixed with the Hells-Angelsy-drug-filled-scary-downtown-emptiness of being up here has messed with my head, but I disagree. When I came up here, I didn't really know what I was doing or why, but it felt right. My vision was to be a balanced, healthy, creative woman. I didn't know Up Island would bring that about; in fact, I envisioned the balance coming after I graduated from Malaspina University-College. But you know, every step has felt right and here I am writing this little piece so you can try something new to enjoy your own peace and it's kind of like rolling out of bed in the morning, opening the front door and seeing a neat little pile of leaves at the end of my driveway (even though I couldn't see them when I was sweeping).