Good morning from Martha’s Vineyard. I woke up this morning and thought to myself, okay, can I change things up? So I went to look at the Chilmark Writers workshop website and sure enough the only workshop happening on the island this summer started yesterday. My heart sunk, and my first thought was oh, well, it’s not meant to be. But a little voice was telling me to just try.

Now, people aren’t normally allowed to join the group after it starts because we create a very private environment often called a safe container. It’s when you’re in an intimate workshop, sharing very personal stories, bonding starts from day one. I decided that I was going to call the leader of the workshop. Her name’s Nancy Aronie. She’s a legend on the Island. She answered the phone and I said, Nancy, this is Constance. I know I’m late. If by any chance you would allow me to enter, I would love to join today. And she said, heck yeah, you already did yesterday’s exercise. Get on over here. You’ve got 45 minutes.

I thought to myself, this is such divine timing. Literally and figuratively speaking. It got me to thinking about all the times in my life when. I had that same feeling. I do believe in divine timing and the more I trust that I’m right where I’m supposed to be, the greater ease I feel in my life. Sometimes what helps me trust in divine timing is to think back on all the times that things worked out just perfectly. When I decided that I was done with my business, Scout Talent, four weeks later I found out that my sister had been diagnosed with cancer and was not going to be with us much longer. I was so very fortunate to have had a lot of quality time with my sister in the last six months of her life. Something I will be forever grateful for. And when my father had the car accident, seven hours later I was to be boarding a plane to fly to Argentina for Christmas but I was able to get to the hospital before he passed.

Those are big life events, but there are many, many times when I think, wow, the timing is just perfect. I think it’s important to think about that because when you are worrying and having anticipatory anxiety, it’s good to be able to look back and remember that things generally work out just the way they’re supposed to work out.

So anyway, in the workshop, what happens is that on day one is you go around the circle and introduce yourself. You tell people where you’re from, why you’re there.Then we do the prompt in class and read aloud to the group. The prompt is the same every year It’s a very important moment because that’s when you start to get to know people. That’s when the bond and the energy of the group starts to take shape, and I was so sorry to miss it by joining the group on Day two (but also so grateful to be there). So today for me was all about being in listening mode until about 20 minutes before the end.

Someone asked me if I by chance had the piece that I had written last summer with that same prompt. Interestingly, when I pulled up the piece I had written the previous year, I again felt that divine timing. I had written about my mother my father and my sister, and I got to have and to share with the group a beautiful moment of remembrance. I’m going to end by reading this piece to you. The writing prompt was this: Growing up in my family, the dinner table was (..)

This piece is called Growing Pains. Dinner at our house was typical of the sixties until it wasn’t. The mood around the table was dictated first and foremost by our large and In charge father. He worked long days at our family-owned variety store in the heart of the worst neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.

Whatever he brought through the door, set the tone at the dinner table, . Even when he was tired, more often than not, he was full of stories and gregarious, contagious positivity. I think he was probably trying his best to drown out the various hormonal growing pains of four children. Or maybe relentless positivity was his way of trying to silence his own raging discomfort. We were a normal family until we weren’t the growing pains of a four child family. Five. If you include, Nana played out perfectly in sync with everything that was happening in America at the time.

Spiritualism brought tofu and brown rice and sprouts. Racism, war, civil strife, drugs, and rock and roll music. Brought the menace of my brother being called to Vietnam. And my sister dating a black man, and then going braless as she ever did to make friends with her. Queerness Mom and dad were out of their comfort zone.

I pretty much lost all memory of my early childhood. The day I heard my quiet, unassuming mother screaming my sister’s name, we were waiting for my father to come home from work I was watching. Leave it to Beaver. Mom was making dinner. Pam, Pam, Pam. My heart formed a lump in my throat as my mother broke down the bathroom door.

Pam lived my seven-year-old voice. still gets stuck in my throat over 50 years later, one by one, my siblings left home until I was left alone with my parents and nana. That is when my memories begin. When I began to learn about prayer, intuition and my higher self, Nana learned too.

Nana died. I left for college and my parents sold the store and a house full of loving memories to pursue their spiritual path out west.

I hope you enjoyed that. That’s all for now. Until next time, from my heart to yours.