Hope After Dark: The Welcoming

Sometimes, you just KNOW you've made the right decision. A pivotal fork rises from the ground and splits your life into two potential paths, and a choice must be made. Night sweats and daymares persist through the first tentative step into new territory. Only then, when you are in your most vulnerable state -- when there is no turning back and you've plunged head first onto the asphalt, hoping to escape the transition with only a skinned elbow or two -- do you you actually find out if you've chosen the correct path.

And then the sun comes out and slaps you on the ass. The planets align, the tiki gods grin in your direction, and you realize you should have moved to Austin six months ago.

Hope no doubt faced similar angst when driving cross-country to work for an eccentric accessory designer she'd not yet met, leaving her fiance, family and friends to spend three months in After Dark Jewelry Land. Wanting to leave a sunny first impression, I whisked her off to Mayfield Park for a picnic with the peacocks.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

Warmth and Love,