Locked out of my devices today. All. Yes, it’s rather silly thing to admit. But all of my passwords and pass codes overloaded until I had to reset my phone, and still waiting to hear from GOOGLE. Seems like a sign really. I am leaving my social sites for a bit and it’s so wonderful to be locked out of technology. It’s like my words and my soul are my anchor, other than a Tadasana or downward dog. I’m here on MANGO JANE & it feels as if the world has been freed up for space.
‘Trust the silence.’ I keep hearing that. So I am tuning in deep and it’s okay to step away for some soul time. If you have read any of my books, maybe my first, you might know that making “ME Time” is my life long hobby. Even as I write those last words, that’s I can feel the carved out hollow space dangling in the air…somewhere over me.
I think I will spare you the me-time stuff and you know, you’ve heard the cliche advice from thousands of others promoting well-being, and self-love so you don’t need this segue here of ‘what making time for yourself’ means.
The world has changed since I wrote my last sentence in my column I wrote for a newspaper. When I started writing
Machel’s Ranch in 2008, the world flipped up–as in the phone, texting was Messenger, and my photos in the paper were like a mini Instagram of a select few in a community that became a town when the eucalyptus trees were abandoned by a railroad company.
I had a hoard of friends–far and wide–and when I retired my column after five years to write books, the wind changed direction.
The invitations stopped coming. My phone sounded as if it had been tossed in the middle of a deserted somewhere in Montana under a waning moon.
Zip.
I have to be honest, the original blow to my ego was minor. If these folks had been more like real friends, I am sure my heart might have shattered. However, looking back, to share this is no insult to to them. Who doesn’t want their picture in the newspaper?
You see, this was all before the world of Hashtags, Instagram & Pins. Facebook in 2008, was respectively a friendly place to visit your pictures of relatives, instead of the hate, spewing opinionated posts. (I know there are positives, too.)
Here I am, 11 years later, doing downdog in a fashionable manner, with a new start-up that’s well, starting up.
Ahh…inspiration of the middle-aged, it happens to the best of us, when the world has grown distant and childhood memories disappear into the horizon. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that many companies have been launched by someone revamping their life…midlife.
#MidlifeAdventures
Now my world conists of my ‘beloveds,’ fruit, books, downward dog, and my dogs…let us not forget the kitties. My son is away at college. I no longer write for a newspaper, my column is here under the photos of juicy mangoes. Yes, in bright oranges and yellows with leafy-green tips, inspiring me to free write again, like I used to…I might sharing too much. That’s usually what a column is, flow freeing words inside the psyche of the person behind the pen.
That reminds me, I had struggled many years with hoping to do that ‘Pen Name’ as a writer (which is funny because my maiden name is Penn) because my first name, Machel, most can’t pronounce it at first glance & it’s been the life long story of retelling of how it originated.
Machel is Ma-shel. You see, I can just tell the reader, educate, reiterate how to say it each time I share it anywhere. Eventually, my name will be easy to say, because I keep telling people the right way to say it.
I’m finally at a point in my lovely life to just be free to say what I want again, just like in the good ol days when ‘lock outs’ weren’t necessary to feel like a detox free digital pilgrimage away from the world.
You see, my world has reverted back to a bigger version of my original column and now everyone has their own camera, their own picture….and it is as if we are too genuine because life is becoming a little fuzzy with so much sharing.
Oh, yes, I love all of the food posts, the yoga queens, the divas, the writers, sparking blue waters, bamboo huts in Tulum, the and then a couple of posts from friends that you care about seeing their feed.
I need a break. I’m burned out on photographs & hashtags.
Stop by and hang out with me under the mangoes.
Unplug and read with me instead.