After the financial storm, or where is everybody?

Where is everybody?

Over the weekend, we decided to go on a date.
Dinner and a movie.
We live in horse country – the mountains slope gently into green meadows dotted with horses.
We chose a restaurant that we had never tried before, and we bought tickets to a cowboy documentary movie called “Buck”.

The movie theater was EMPTY…
We were the only customers in the whole theater.
They still screened the movie for us.
We rolled in laughter, as we shush-ed the invisible other people in the theater…

Buck was the inspiration for the older movie “The horse whisperer.”

He had a terrible childhood, growing up with a drunken abusive father who beat his brother and him to a pulp.
A coach in school saw the horrible scars on his body, and arranged for the boys to be taken to a foster home.

Growing up, Buck learned to listen and understand the hearts of the horses.
Child abuse turned into sensitivity and he became able to tame wild unruly horses by understanding their fears.

It was a good documentary movie, with a clear message of how we can turn our setbacks in life, if examined and healed, into our greatest assets in life.

Buck now travels around the USA, teaching people how to connect and communicate with their horses, by giving multi-day workshops.

A new and comfortable movie theater… For only two people…
Where is everybody?

Yesterday my husband prepared a birthday celebration for me.
We packed an overnight bag and went to stay in a lovely hotel in Vail Mountain Resort.

Our room was beyond luxurious…
The bathroom was huge and everything was so beautiful and well designed.

The hotel prepared for us a large gift of chocolate covered strawberry truffles, sitting on a bed of shaved truffles on a pedestal plate, with a lovely card wishing me a happy birthday.

We went to enjoy the hotel’s Spa.
It is one of the better designed and more luxurious Spas I have ever seen.
The lockers offer lush robes, plastic sandals, comfy oversized towels and upscale toiletries…
There is rose and lemon water to refresh yourself, and cucumber cold towels to cool your face…

The hot tub is shaded with a sheer chiffon curtains, and comfy leather day beds, offering you a place to lounge, if you feel too overheated from the sauna, steam-room or the huge hot tub.

It was so nice… So beautiful…. So elegant… Yet nobody was around…
I had it all to myself….
Where is everybody?…..

Our dinner reservation was at Sweet Basil, a creative restaurant in Vail Village.
The food was SO GOOD…. A true art form…
Truly the best restaurant in the Vail Valley.

A shoulder above all the other restaurants in the area, Sweet Basil uses organic, heirloom ingredients, the freshest fish and a delicate elegant hand, in perfectly handling the superb ingredients.
They even have a separate sweet chef for the desserts.

They have a printed menu for anyone celebrating a birthday, or an anniversary, and they offer that you take the birthday menu home, as a keepsake.
They also wrote ‘happy birthday’ in swirly-hand -script chocolate on my dessert plate.

The restaurant was not empty, I am happy to say.
They had a lively evening, although the Vail Village felt empty… almost deserted…
Where is everybody?….

After traveling in Asia, in which you are rarely alone anywhere, it is so strange to see all these wonderful homes, the luxury apartments, the great restaurants, skating rink, cinemas, stores…. All standing empty.

I know it is not the tourist season…
People come to the mountains in ski season for the huge bowls filled with vast powder skiing, or during the heat of the summer, when it is one of the cooler spots in the USA.
They come to enjoy the summer classical music festival, hiking, biking, rivers, lakes and water sports here, while the rest of the USA is just too damn hot…

So yes… It is the off season now… And unless you grab a great discounted hotel offering, like my wonderful husband was able to do, the hotel rooms are prohibitively expensive here….($400-$800 per night in the Arrabelle Vail Resort, but we were able to get that room for only $129 through a summer one time 48 hour sale.)

This morning I woke up in the comfortable bed of my hotel.
We plan to have breakfast and to go back home.
There is much packing to do before our trip to New York and Morocco… Which is coming up this Saturday.

We will be celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary in six days.
We will be in NYC and we made reservations for dinner of a Japanese tasting menu at a new Kaiseki place called “BrushStroke.”

As always, I feel so blessed…
A wonderful partner, a healthy body and mind… A career I love… A life that I love.
I also feel that we are blessed with an understanding of abundance.

I must admit that what I noticed in our area was a feeling in the air of “After the Hurricane.”
I use the word Hurricane, as a metaphor for the global financial collapse.

Our area is filled with second homes.
Many people who live here, use their property as vacation homes or as investment rentals.
While the financial and real-estate markets are still so insecure and unstable, vacation homes become an unnecessary expense.

This is where I wish to affirm, my strong belief in PERSONAL REALITY.
You do NOT have to sink with the boat, nor wait until the whole market heals, to better your own situation.
You simply must believe, and live your own reality, regardless of what the trends around you indicate.

For many years now, I have noticed that almost everyone around us is a bigger spender than we are.
Yes, we do have lively homes, travel often, dine out and have many expenses, but in many ways, we are very restrained and self controlled.

Almost everyone around drives nicer cars than we do.
They have between two to four children to support, educate and help, while we have none to support.

I see people around who drink for hundreds of dollars per month in pubs or restaurants, while we stay home, watch comedies and laugh, over herbal tea.

I see people buy all sort of gadgets, spend money on medical treatments, therapy, gamble, take unrealistic risks, thinking that risk is necessary for growth and wealth.

We watch what we eat, stay active and talk over our issues with honesty, openness and willingness to heal all of our issues.
We do not spend money on doctors, surgeries, or “accidents….”
We do not take unnecessary financial risks either.

We do not need rehab, we never buy designer expensive goods and we are not
impressed by any of the marketing driven trends.

We live a simple life, only one without fears and belief in limitations.
A calm simple life that is focused on the growth of our spirits, and on correcting our errors in thinking, feeling, and understanding the real world.

We do not look to others for examples.
We do not place anyone above another, in importance or anything else.
We ONLY yearn for the TRUTH…. For God…. For the LIGHT………The rest is gravy…