This morning I woke and went right outside, as is my morning routine. I journal, meditate and just think in the quiet hours before the cacophony of life drowns out my ability to hear and focus. Today, I noticed how seemingly fast the colors of the trees had changed and I mourned the leaves that had already given up and decided it was time to drop from their perches. As they swirled around my feet, I wondered how the warmth and energy of summer had passed without my permission once again and changed into something I never seem prepared for, yet happens anyway.

Each month I write this blog from experiences I have had, lessons I’ve learned or topics that the universe seems to keep repeating into my force field. This one is a question I have continued frustration with, and, at least 2-3 times a week I find others asking – Why isn’t anyone building houses I want to live in?

I’ve always found the first lines of a new blog difficult to write. Perhaps because they are transitions into a bigger topic and need to set tone and provide a starting point. After that initial hurdle, the things that need to be said come with clarity and fluidity.

During a recent purge of my design studio I came across a small suede bag holding 13 tiny, worn square stones. In a studio filled with stone and marble samples it took me a minute to recall what was so special about them to have warranted such safe keeping. And then I remembered. Years ago I picked them up from a floor in an abandoned Italian villa dating from around 100 A.D. Ancient and crumbling, the mosaic floors and walls filled with faded murals spoke in quiet whispers of the craftsmen that helped to birth it and of the life that was once lived there. Those stones brought me right back to the melancholy I felt knowing that a once vital home had been abandoned, never to be loved by anyone ever again.

I had three seemingly unrelated conversations last week with people in the midst of change – one was going to build a vacation house, another was taking the first steps toward divorce and the third was contemplating a new business venture. Even though the issues were very different, I saw a common thread that seemed to keep them all frozen in their ability to make decisions and move forward. What seemed to be tripping them all up was their focus. All were jumping ahead, trying to see what things were going to look like in the end, instead of focusing on the steps needed to get there.

One of the positives about getting older is that you’ve had more time to collect a diverse and interesting caravan of friends. For me, they range in age from 20’s to 90’s, encompass all ethnicities, all spiritual viewpoints and political bends, and have themselves bit into the apple of life making them all wonderfully interesting people. Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the morning with my dear friend Janey. An accomplished businesswoman, painter and astrologer, she is part visionary/part sensei, and among my favorite people to fall into deep conversation with. Commenting on the chaotic state of affairs in the US and abroad (and getting more and more disheartened) Janey reminded me that we have always had a way to process what is happening and discern for ourselves what is truth and what is external, extraneous din simply by checking in with our senses.

As we wave goodbye to another year, many people are already focusing their sights on the new one ahead. Some think about the things they want to accomplish or the goals they’d like to meet and are hopeful that something good is on its way. New Years has become all about saying hello to the incoming year, but few of us take time to reflect on all of the life events, good and bad, that happened in the departing 365 days before saying a formal goodbye.