Happy birthday Ginny!

Dearest Dancing Queen,

Well I just finished seeing all the photos you posted on Facebook today, of the birthday you spent at your beautiful chacra at El Hueco. It looks like it was a lovely day, full of sunshine and friends. Sky trelissing beans from the garden, you on the porch with your easle and paints. You were surrounded with laughter and your horses, just like you like it.

I have such memories of our time in El Huecu with its one gas station, clinic and small grocery shop - where you sent me to pick up some FiberOne and yogurt one morning when we were out. I remember walking the dirt road as frequented by horses as cars and seeing the expansive views of the Patagonian mountains all around. For a good long while it was just me and those mountains and nothing else. I remember breathing deeply to internalize the feeling and remember it forever.

What age might you be celebrating now, is it 63 or 64? In the photos you posted you look radiant and ageless. I love the one of you and Sky smiling each other, your faces equally beautiful and full of love. So cool she made you a cake. She can do everything. Your daughter is amazing.

I see you said your birthday prayers too, complete with sage and condor feather in hand. I remember when we did that together, gave our thanks to Mother Earth and the sky and everything else. You taught me how to feel truly grateful, to live every moment full of conscious gratitude. I was drawn to yoga because of it when I returned to New York, and when I meditate I still sometimes think of Volcan Copahue outside our window in Caviahue. Often throughout my day I still think of you.

How you liked to turn up the music real loud and dance, even though sometimes you hardly could.

My life right now is very different from the quiet, nurturing, nature-filled days I spent in your presence full of reading, writing, hiking, laughing, drinking mate - and the great big Patagonian sky. Now I am a social media queen, helping startups do marketing in sunny Middle Eastern Tel Aviv - a place so opposite from where you are in every possible way you can imagine. I still wonder sometimes what my life would look like or who I would be if I had stayed. It was something I definitely considered. For one thing, I bet by now I would know how to ride a horse!

But at least I got to take a part of you with me. I learned how to be more fearless, to laugh more, to try to take it easy even when things aren't. Or to at least take things in stride. I learned how important it is to have as many adventures as possible because that's the only way to discover new places and people that will touch and amaze you and quite possibly change you forever. This has happened to me a few times now since leaving New York to travel or for good. These are lessons I try to live by.

For everything you taught me - and remind me when I see the updates and photos you post every once in a while on Facebook - I am grateful (like you) that you are alive.  Happy birthday dear Ginny and so many more.

Love always,
Karen