I have spent the last four years practicing this prayer given to me by one of my Durango college students:
God, grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change
The courage to change what I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
And every time I walk, I practice Ho’opono pono:
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
I love you
It’s me, begging my forgiveness for all the mistakes I made about selling my triplex and moving to Heber Springs.
Mistake #1: allowing my realtor to go ahead with the listing for my triplex when I had told him about COVID coming soon. I explained to him that I would not be able to find a place to rent or buy if I sold my house in March 2020. I told him that my cousin in California had just gotten a phone call from his girlfriend who was visiting in China. She said that the virus would come our way sometime in March 2020. My realtor didn’t believe this and was almost crying. He said he needed the money to take care of his wife and children (not my job!)
Mistake #2: not knowing that the multiple listing they had created with photos had not yet been posted. He put a sign on the curb. My triplex was on the south end of town, on First Street, the last south street in Durango. He didn’t tell me that the only realtors who knew about the listing were those in Coldwell Banker. If I had made it my business to check Multiple Listings, I would have known this.
Mistake #3: Assuming that the clause on my contract stating that “the owner can stay here until she finds a place to live” would actually be honored. I think I wrote a blog post about this in 2020 about the letter I wrote to the editor of the Durango newspaper. Bottom line: the owners harassed me in so many ways: saying that when I left the premises of my triplex, they would change my locks and not give me a key to my own apartment. They said they would paint my bedroom; one doesn’t paint inside rooms when it’s snowing outside. They said they would go into the garage and take inventory of whatever was in it. They sent me ugly emails about other things they would do to get me out of my apartment.
That’s enough of that.
On the positive side, there are bad things happening in Durango.
1) I happen to know that Durango will run out of water in 24 years because one of the water engineers hired by the Ignacio Indians happened to live downstairs in my triplex and he told me so. He is a water engineer from a wealthy city just north of Denver.
2) Mountain bikers not only from Durango, but from other towns took up all the space on the trails, especially the Colorado Trail that is so narrow that two people have to walk in single file in many of the places on that trail. My girlfriend and I used to walk that trail a lot until the number of mountain bikers grew.
3) The people who moved to Durango from the west coast were… let me just say they were “difficult”. One of them had a dog that barked constantly. She said “If you don’t like it, walk on a different street. I had walked on that street to get to one of the organic grocers for 39 years; there’s no way I was going to change my habit for her.
4) I’ve been told by other friends that the traffic is horrible and that it isn’t snowing there.
It’s true that I miss doing things with my friend like walking trails, driving on the Million Dollar Highway (including Telluride) to see the Fall colors, and just going to other towns to see artwork in Mancos, ride the train to Silverton, or just go on little excursions like the plant place somewhere close to Dolores. I do not have a friend like that here.
Three Things I love about Heber Springs, Arkansas:
1) There are maybe six different trails I can walk. I chose the Sulphur Creek Trail because it’s paved and I’m bug phobic. (Did you know that Arkansas has more ticks than any other state?)
2) The people are kind and generous. For example, when I had to move again, there were people in Walmart who would help me find the boxes I needed. One of the guys in Walmart fixed something for me and didn’t charge me a cent. When I went to Ace Hardware, the man said “How can I help you, darling?” The employees of neither of those stores in Durango were like that.
3) There are lots of consignment stores here and three of them are where I buy DVD movies for $1-3 each.
If I focus on those things, I will be able to accept where I am.
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Till next time,
Please be kind to everyone you meet for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi
skatingthru2012 