El Juglador and his Traveling Cup

On the road again

As the school year winds down across the country, I find myself restarting this blog with a new directive. To update: when this blog began, I was a high school teacher in Miami with two sons, both in high school, one preparing for his future outside of that reality. I wrote about my experiences in a world outside of my own — a house on a nameless cliff (not in a townhouse community in Miami), a graduate school on a mysterious campus where the teacher (a transforming dragonfly) flitted in and out spouting lessons for my soul. That was my set-up.

I started to wake up to something I didn’t understand. The following year, on an imperative urging from something deep inside of me, I went on a Vision Quest in search of the woman behind the Mother and teacher. I had just traveled “across the pond” on a school field trip to Ireland and England with my younger son. I wrote about our visit to the Blarney Stone giving the gift of gab. But that wasn’t new or enough for me.

I kept searching, determined to find myself. It took me a while… finding and digesting the knowledge one timid bite at a time. Eventually I found that part of me, and she didn’t want to go back to that world locked inside brick walls teaching the most recent “human program” for younger minds. I updated readers frequently as my travels took me across the country, from Florida to Ohio to California and places in between.

As my studies got more intensive, my lessons got more internal. After all, my dragonfly teacher had released me to my own graduate school. I wasn’t ready to disappoint.

My lessons took shape in my travels and became real, not the imaginative that had been my preparation. The lessons progressively got more and more difficult as I fought the programming that has been done to many of us, the “shoulda’s” that kept me from finding the part of me that was fighting to break through.

Then my beloved traveling partner, El Juglador, David Starkey, gave me a twirling baton on my 50th birthday. I became hooked when he taught me to twirl in the deserts of Phoenix, AZ. Now, in retrospect, I see that all along I have been considering a life when my goal of protecting my sons from the world outside would be over. The point where I was asking myself “now what?”  Google reminded me of that when it showed me an On This day image of the high school graduation of my youngest son four years ago today. I am no longer protecting them, I now accept. I had to let myself find Me.

I don’t recommend this road I’ve taken to anyone. It has been difficult and painful — nothing I can’t deal with, but it has not been as easy as my life before. I am a prime example of hard-headedness personified. I needed that hard break from my own pretend reality. Fortunately, I have been blessed.

Yesterday I found an earlier The Dragonfly’s Student post that I hadn’t published (at least that’s was the phone said.) It was a graduation speech of sorts. My graduation. Thank you, my faithful readers, who have followed me throughout the years as I grew from the lost soul looking for solid ground to the me I am today, an ever-developing creation of the Most High on this earth we call Terra. I share bits and pieces of it today as David and I launch on some new experiences traveling with his New York State Men’s Solo baton twirling Grand Champion traveling cup. 

I consider the trophy my own Loving Cup, of sorts. It literally travels with us in our RV.  (The Starkey water bottle in the photo above placing his name where it will be affixed later.)

I now continue learning baton twirling skills that seem to be helping me with my original goal of transcending my Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis — the only trophy I want. (See more in About.)

As a personal graduation gift, I purchased a USA map at the Kutztown, PA, KOA where we are today. … what a great way to keep track of our travels with the New York State Men’s Solo traveling cup!

Until next time, I continue twirling and learning! I’ll let you know what we’re doing.

Always & Forever,

The Dragonfly’s Student

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