Joshua Tree
Looking back on my last blog post, and thinking about how letting go and having faith will never lead you down the wrong path, I thought about Joshua Tree. This is probably the single most important point in my life when everything at the time seemed ‘so wrong’, yet turned out so perfectly right.
Almost seven years ago, Paul asked me to go on a business trip with him down to Los Angeles. We had been dating about a year at that point. I’m always up for an adventure and any form of sunshine during a Vancouver winter, so you didn’t have to ask me twice…but maybe you should have. We found ourselves in the midst of flooding and landslides during a record breaking L.A downpour that lasted the entire week. While Paul was out hobnobbing with rock stars and record execs, I was hanging out in a hotel room feeling pretty bummed out.
On the Sunday before we left, Paul asked if I wanted to go to Joshua Tree. He knew I had always wanted to visit and seeing as it was a desert, maybe we’d get a break from the rain. I was stoked! We drove east, and the further we got, the clearer it became. We found ourselves in Joshua Tree National Park on March 20, 2005 – the first day of spring. We drove through some of the most amazing terrain I had ever seen. It almost felt like I was finding a missing piece of my soul. That’s the best way I can describe how the desert made me feel. We stopped at the first roadside marker after leaving the north entrance and went for a bit of a walk. We scrambled over some very large jumbo rock and headed in a southerly direction. When we climbed as far and high as possible, we found ourselves on a vista overlooking a valley of Joshua Trees. My breath was literally taken away. Paul and I sat down to take in this magical view. He asked what I thought about all this, and I said to him, ‘It’s perfect’. That’s when he opened up a box with a diamond ring and asked me to marry him.
I found my soul mate and the most perfect place in the world. I feel so blessed and fortunate every single day knowing how lucky I am.
When Paul met me I was always trying to get away and go surfing, and the reason it was so important for him to invite me this business trip, was because it was the perfect opportunity for him to propose to me in Malibu – one of the most iconic, classic surf spots. He wanted this moment to be perfect, and the weather wasn’t cooperating, so he made another plan. It wasn’t his first choice, but he didn’t let that spoil this beautiful moment. What he chose in that moment of acceptance, changed the course of our lives. That moment was so incredible we decided to get married in the same spot, on the same day a year later.
I’ve always talked to people who have found ‘home’, that place on this earth that makes them feel connected. For me, Joshua Tree feels like that place. It feels like home.
I heard a wise tale today from the amazing storyteller and artist Roy Henry Vickers. It was about a man that cursed the creatures of the sea during his paddle home after collecting food. He cursed these creatures because they were in his way. Their ‘inconvenient’ timing conflicted with his journey. Once this man realized that he was wrong in cursing them, he made peace with these creatures, and they carried him home.
Mother Earth knew where I was supposed to be, and she carried me home.