A Wrong Left Turn Leads to Detroit

January 17, 2009 I stood in front of approximately 15 women and proclaimed, "I am pretty sure there is a trip in my future involving a truck and a Uhaul trailer traveling to Detroit MI." I knew it to be a true statement, as I had become accustom to this knowing feeling months prior, a peaceful certainly without knowing the steps in between the proclamation and the actual arrival.

Two years before the proclamation I had a hysterectomy and two years leading up to the surgery I basically felt like crap, which is how any working mother is suppose to feel right? I wasn't a very happy person and was exhausted ALL THE TIME. Funny thing about your body, it usually keeps sending you the signals until you either pay attention or die. I finally went to the doctor, which led to the hysterectomy, which led to me driving 665 miles to Detroit MI nearly 3 years later.

What I didn't know during those 6 weeks at home on medical leave was that there was a woman in Detroit at the very same time preparing to set out on a journey of self discovery, not dissimilar to my own. She was born to enchant the world with her decorating. As a result of searching during my medical leave, I decided to stage homes as a way to venture out of my corporate job on the way to discovering my purpose. Hey, each leg of your journey has to start somewhere.

Well along the way my journey as a home stager I took a left turn. Yah, I'm sure it was a left not a right turn. I had started to write, which eventually turned into a blog. Hey, I had stuff to share with myself. Well, 4 months into my public writing career that woman in Detroit commented on my blog. The date was October 15, 2008, which is a new kind of anniversary for me. I went to her world on the web and I had that knowing feeling. My logical brain had to first make the connection with her decorating to my home staging, which I had left along side the road by this time. It had served it's purpose, or so I had thought. My brain thought this women in Detroit, who transformed women's shelters into places of peace and possibility, needed my home decor items that I no longer needed. WRONG! Oh how a wrong can be so right.

The wonders of technology failed on my first attempt to email her, but a few months later I saw her comment on another blog. BINGO! I successfully emailed her and a few hours later we were talking on the phone and a few weeks after that I was standing in front of 15 women telling them that I would be driving to Detroit pulling a Uhaul trailer. At the time I thought I would be hauling my home decor items. WRONG! What I did transport to MI, just a few weeks ago, was 20 hope chests and jewelry boxes, handmade by my father, and 20 quilts handmade by women in Minnesota. These items joined many other handmade items from across the world to transform the bedrooms of 20 abused and neglects girls.

Stuffed inside the short little story I just wrote is a story of me unearthing my born belief that I was put here on this earth to be the Dancing B*a*g Lady, Born to be fuel my own and other's Traveling Sanctuaries. I stop at other Traveling Sanctuaries, to fuel myself, so I can share the fuel with others stranded along side the road. What I have learned is that when you take a wrong left turn on the way to Detroit you better have a full tank.