After leaving Truth or Consequences and reflecting on the past week and a half filled with amazing people and places, I was so filled up with connection and so grateful for it all and I was also feeling like I was ready to decompress a minute...but wait, but wait there's more.

I was heading to Albuquerque to meet Karen, a leather purse creator, an amazing artist and a dear friend of Kate's. And I was thinking to myself, I am not ready to connect with anyone right now. I got a little turned around making my way toward her house because the street sign to the turn to get to her house is not there.

I talked to myself getting ready to go into her house and worked it out the energy and the feeling of meeting someone new, I rang the door bell and there was no car in the drive and part of me was thinking oh maybe she forgot I was coming and I will just leave her a note.

She came and opened the door, and invited me in. Her house was cool, her home was sweet and all of a sudden I felt myself again start to acknowledge the wonder and gratitude of being invited in.

Shortly after getting there she said, I thought we would go check out the open studios in the neighboring town. That was great. We got to see people work, hear stories, see techniques, studios, and a whole new area in a town neighboring Albuquerque.

Later we were talking and Karen told me, that we all do what we can, the little things, the little things that add up to bigger things, for her that was her two beautiful rescue dogs Roxie and Chiquita, and planting trees in her backyard.

The next morning I got to experience a little bit of that with Karen, as we took a morning walk with the dogs and a hot air balloon rose in the huge blue New Mexico sky.

PS - I write about that uneasiness of meeting someone so freely here because Karen and I discussed it over a glass of cider at the local brewery as she socialized her dogs, that need the opportunity to have the positive interaction after not having it for so long. There is strength in all of it.