WHERE IN THE WORLD…

Where in this world would I be if it weren’t for Ben Dyer?  My life partner.  Did I tell you how we met?  Let’s start there.

In 2002 I was living on my own in a beautiful little cabin overlooking a small stream in the woods of Ashe County, about 12 miles from Boone, North Carolina.  I’d been divorced for two years, bought my first house, and adopted my prize Welsh Corgi, Sir Berwÿn of Bethel.  I was feeling pretty dang good.  Kicker was that I was scheduled for a partial thyroidectomy three weeks after my move, to remove a benign tumor.

The phone rang.  It was my friend Chilton.  “I have a funny story for you.  We have this friend who stays with us once a month for a few days while he goes to acupuncture school.  He lives near Chapel Hill but he wants to move.  He told us he’d been going on Match.com looking for a woman to get to know in the mountains.  He found someone but she won’t answer his messages.  I told him to pull up the profile.  Boone’s not that big.  Maybe it’s someone we know.  And guess what, Chris!  It was you!  Can I give him your number?”  A life-changing phone call to say the least.

That first call happened two nights before my surgery.  I met him 10 days later.  He arrived in my driveway with a big smile and spent the day taking care of me since I was obviously still recovering.  Walked my dog, brought lunch, washed dishes.  That was 18 years ago.  Hard to believe.

We dated for 3 1/2 years long distance.  I was a home health nurse, he had his own handcrafted jewelry design business.  On one of his visits he suggested I consider going to massage school since my nursing job was completely exhausting and my real love was Healing Touch.  “You could live with me and go to Body Therapy Institute.  It’s one of the…..”  He had me at “live with me”.  I sold some of what I owned, including my sweet cabin, filled up a 26′ U-Haul and moved (with Ben’s help, of course) to Hillsborough, NC.  Only the beginning of a big new adventure!

Ben promised to take me to Italy (how romantic!) but it took 12 years to make it happen.  Between his work and show schedule and my school and nursing schedule, we stayed pretty busy.  When Italy finally happened we both realized how much traveling enriched our lives, brought out the best in us.  We took many trips between 2014 and 2018, mostly in the US.  We hiked in Washington state, Bainbridge Island, Victoria, BC, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Canyonlands, Arches, Dead Horse Point, south rim of the Grand Canyon, Durango, Mesa Verde, Ouray (CO); visited Manhattan and Chinatown, Chicago and Oak Park, Seattle, Sisters, Bend, Ashland and the coast of Oregon.  In 2017, having decided not to spend the money on travel to London or Portugal, we spent a week in San Miguel de Allende, México.  I had been to Tijuana and Ben to Oaxaca years before.  When you see the colors of México, he told me, it will change your life forever.

If you have read my posts from the beginning you know that it took a lot of work to make this move.  After our trip in January 2017 we began to research locations.  We wanted Mexico but took trips in the States with an eye toward other possible locations.  That September Ben met his sister Melanie in Ajijic, Mexico, a place we’d learned about through our research and conversations with friends.  We returned together for a week in January 2018 then house/pet-sat for friends of Ben’s cousin Gayle for two weeks in March.  We found an apartment in the village for the month of August, determined to decide by then whether we wanted to live there (here!) or not,  It didn’t take long to decide so we started looking for a place to rent, with the aim of moving by December.  We found our Casa Morada, west of town, the last week we were visiting and signed up for renting as of November 1.

Back in NC the wheels started rolling and we spent the next few months winding things up, visiting the Mexican consulate for visas, stopping unnecessary mailings, making financial arrangements, closing down Ben’s business, etc.  I completed my nursing career in May and dived full-time into making it all come together.  In October Ben shut down his business and we had a huge estate sale, ridding ourselves of about 85% of our belongings, most of which we haven’t missed.  By November 27th, 1918, we were living in Ajijic.

Now here I sit on the terrace of our beautiful modern home, looking out at Lake Chapala, the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, palm trees and terra cotta rooftops, writing this post.  Not anything I ever imagined for myself.  Not anything that I would’ve thought possible without Ben’s sense of adventure and possibility.   We could’ve stayed in Hillsborough, but we were bored, boxed in, ready for a major change in our lives.

Ben turned 70 last September and thanks to the generosity of a friend we held a blow-out birthday celebration at her house (her sister’s birthday also).  50 people came!  This year is a bit different.  With Covid restrictions in place, we’re not doing big gatherings.  And we aren’t traveling.  But Ben turned 71 yesterday and we’ll be going to dinner with friends tonight to a special restaurant to celebrate.  Maybe next year we can hold another grand celebration or visit some spectacular Mexican town.  But for now, with so much accomplished in the past 3 years (including the addition of our granddaughter in NC and adoption of our mini schnauzer Tumi), a nice quiet dinner with friends sounds good.

And so, dear Ben, Happy Birthday!  Feliz Cumpleaños!  Thank you for this great adventure!  I love you.