Yesterday was the big day, the get down & dirty…literally.

I spent the day filling boxes, thank goodness Jane Ellen (one of the cowgirls from our ranch, well I guess technically she is a “goat girl” as she tends to our hundreds of goat that we raise).  She gets down when she packs, seriously she has rhythm for it!  I didn’t know she was coming, I thought Rusty our ranch foreman was making the box drop.  Last year when we arrived I had the sense to save all the boxes, knowing that we weren’t going to stay too long in one spot. The cowboys loaded a pickup truck and took the boxes back to the ranch.  Where they stored them was unknown to me, that was until this weekend when Lee opened a stall and revealed the hot mess of card board awaiting attention!  That’s right folks, our boxes were sitting in hay and smelling pretty!

Of course Lee thought it not a problem, in his rough cowboy talk “Don’t be a Princess, we’ll dust ‘em off and they’ll be fine.”  I crinkled my nose and thought Oh, mang (Tony Montana inflection) : “Well I’ll be sure to put your stuff in ‘em.”

The good news was that when Jane Ellen showed up with ‘em they were really cleaned up, minus the few worms, what kind I have NO clue, only Alma mumbled something in Spanish regarding the possibility of them falling into my coffee and killing me.

Once again Jane Ellen came to my rescue, bending over and scooping them up with her fingers, I shrieked like a chicken, Jane Ellen just calmly kept to the task and in her warm Tennessee accent said “If that’s the worst thing I pick up today I’m siked.” Then my mind flashed to watching one of the cowboys stuff the “Bulls Meat Wallet” back into a momma cow who had just bore a new calf, I think it scared me as I was pregnant with my first baby and the fear of what would happen if I went into labor way out there on the ranch!

Anyways, back to the move, Brooke (a gal pal and friend of Lee’s) wasn’t really into the remnants of mice poo either, but we made it through the trauma, I’m thinking it might-could do me good to spend the day with Jane Ellen out on the ranch, buckin’ up and gettin’ tougher with the outdoor world….Hmmmm?

I know that moving is traumatic as I have done it so many times since I met Lee, we’ve set up more house’s than I grew up in.  We lived like gypsies for years, splitting our time between 4 different places all at the same time.  I decided it was better for us to travel and stay together than apart when the girls were babies, plus it was way easier having a home than a hotel room.

Yesterday I was smacked by time, what the last year has been about and who I was just a year ago upon moving into this big ‘ole house.. The emotion that came as I cleared each room was huge.

A year ago I thought I was going to die – seriously – die, I thought there was no turning back.  When I arrived in Nashville I had been told I had a 50 percent chance of intestinal cancer.  A year later I’m leaving this house – knowing that I’m going to live.

I know you all are jonesin’ for Part 2 about my house, but I gotta keep this blog real and how to do that is to share where and what I’ve been up to this week.

Right now, I’m flying over the Rocky Mountains and listening to Ice Cube’s Death Certificate…No Vaseline.  Not sure if you are all down with this CD or Ice Cube (before he was a big movie making dude). But back in the day, he was a real rapper with beats that I used to love to bump – loud. The real hook for me is his irreverence, you see Ice Cube says what he wants to say, there is a freedom to this, so incorrect in a social way – totally un-princess-like and rough and edgy.

I dig this, because fo’sho there is a part of me that is the truth-teller, always has been ALWAYS will be.  I’ve got a big old mouth and when I see things, I gotta call it.  I used to think that coming from “The Other Side of The Track” was a bad thing, however now I KNOW the tough side is the RIGHT side. Hunger, humility and loss all fed my dreams and when you have NOTHING your desire is greater than your fear. In fact the only part of my life that made it the “wrong” side was that we didn’t have material items, now I KNOW that even thinking this way is an insult to my family. They gave us so much love and taught us value. How is that the bad side?  I listen to rap like Ice Cube when I need to be reminded to say what I feel, express and remain in my raw, authentic place.  This is where my inspiration comes from.

I first moved to Los Angeles when I was in my early 20′s, I had one duffel bag of belongings and $900 bucks.  I handed all the cash over to my BFF Gretchen and we rented an apartment on Venice Beach, not a stitch of furniture or a car to make my way around the city.  What I did have was $5 bucks left over to buy myself a proper journal, up until then I’d only scribbled my thoughts in notebooks and scraps of paper.
I climbed the rickety steps of our new building and found an old broke down lawn chair to sit in, looking out over the sea I wrote “I’ve Made It”, and I had.  You see I’d done something big, I’d chosen to live life and not from a frightened point of view – I’d taken the NOT safe route, the world was mine to create a life in. Life in Los Angeles was like being inside the lens, everywhere I turned, I was struck by images that had been placed in my mind via television – the landscape was my favorite: mountains and the beach.

WE DIE, LIFE IS IMPERMANENT.

Sitting up on that roof, I was reminded of what I’d learned, life IS impermanent and meant to be lived, therefore I was determined to give it a shot and see where it took me. Granted,  lots of those places weren’t always so glamorous, but never were they wrong and always they were “Good Enough”, that’s my thing: our lives are good enough when we see them as being so.

Flying into LA I was reminded of the girl that I had been on Venice beach and the movie played in my mind everywhere I turned.  I immediately jumped in a cab and found myself delivered into the arms of my best friend Fab Gab.  I love how folks live in LA, in their own movies. Los Angeles is scenic, hip, progressive, forward moving, creative, crowded and alive.  LA is flawed to the bone and totally perfect, maybe that’s why I adore it.  LA took me in and never asked me who I was or what my parents did! Los Angeles whispered in my ear “You Can Do It”, if it’s meant to happen, it CAN happen here.  Guess what? It did happen for me there, I grew into MEE, I discovered my spiritual relationship with life, I acquired languages, friendships and met my husband.  I learned tough lessons too – I made life long friendships and lost people I adored due to my own self judgments that flew out at them.

The best Los Angeles ever gave me was that I could try things I had NO clue how to do.  This is really how I became a writer, after working as a commercial actress and not really digging it as much as one might think, I asked my agent at the time if I could give writing a try.  He was cool and said “sure”.  I then called my dearest friend Denise Roberts. You see, Denise has a foundation fighting breast Cancer and she herself is a survivor – Cancer has also touched just about everyone in her immediate family – Denise’s foundation is the real deal – she is helping folks in the minority community to get well, no matter what the situation.  She goes into folks’ houses when they are sick and makes sure there is food for their kids, shoes on their feet and laundry tended too. This pulls my heart ’cause when I was a kid, we were left alone often as my mother spent weeks at a time in the hospital, my sister was left in charge at 9 years old, we were hungry, lights cut off leaving us cold in the dark.  We would have LOVED Denise’s foundation to come through and help us.

Well for my first project I knew what I had to do, I’d just finished a long run of womens’ workshops and trips to the Pyramids in Mexico, where for the first time ever, I really looked at myself and my life. Granted, I was physically healthy, but I’d seen a direct relationship with ill health and our emotional selves. I called Denise and ran the plan by her, I was going to write a play about my journey to the desert, since the majority of the women Denise helped couldn’t come to an actual woman’s journey in the Santa Fe Desert or fly to the Mexican Pyramids, I was gonna take ‘em via my writing.
Denise, loving my enthusiasm said “Right on little momma, I only have two questions fo’ya  1.) Do you know how to write a play?  2.) How are you going to pay for the production?”

This was the moment I will NEVER forget “No I don’t know how to write it but I’m fixin’ to learn and I might as well learn how to produce while I’m at it.”

Guess what? I learned how to write a play and the money was a gift ” I organized a fundraiser, brought folks together and then went to the bank where I opened a business account that was used to produce my play.  We sold tickets for $50 bucks a person and $100 dollars if you wanted an “Angel” seat – we SOLD OUT!  This play was meant to run for one night and stayed up for 6 weeks, Princess Know It All was born.

This weekend I returned to LA once again to go through the writer process of pitches and meetings, this is a VERY exciting process.  Don’t get me wrong, it can be totally nervy, but now I know my level of capability and I’ve ALREADY got a platform where I can express – so there is NOTHING for me to loose.  With this said, the meetings were AMAZING, I had to totally control my “inner Chihuahua” from not totally spazzin’ out and pissing on the rug!

I controlled my tiny bladder but some dog let his stool splatter and just as I walked into my final meeting, I felt that oh too familiar squishy feeling underfoot….Back to Ice Cube and my version of irreverence, I gotta remember to be truthful to my vision, what I want to convey & share without fear of rejection, gotta be “True to the game.”  This weekend I hooked back up with Denise Roberts and once again confirmed my connection to her foundation and just maybe this time around we will bring some noise to her projects.

I’d heard a LONG time ago that LUCK is when preparation meets opportunity. Well, a few months ago, I went to LA for direction, got it – headed home and returned this time with my homework – I got an A! Now I’m heading back to the lab with a new list of work…what I now KNOW is that when I don’t know how to do something, I step to the table and figure it out.

This week I said Yes!

Today is the anniversary of my mothers death and she would for sure be so proud that I have said yes, all she wanted was for all of us to be people that said yes to life and then showed up to make it happen.
My sister rolled into to town last week to drop her love on my house and tend to my girls, her nieces.  You see, this is how we see it, these are “our” kids and we each have a role to play with a different direction to lend to their childhoods. Thanks Nicole for showing up so I could once again give it my best.

The plane is landing soon and once I hit the ground, I’m fixn’ to take off running between work and moving to our new house, this winter is gettin’ ready to heat up!

Peep it all…A new Blog, PKIA VIDEO, A Fresh STYLE GUIDE, DEAR PKIA with Malibu-Yoga-Momma Michelle & A Podcast to Inspire you!

This is gonna seems nuts and I’ve struggled to take it out and even as I sit here in my kitchen wondering whether to write about it all or not, the writer in me has got to express!  Maybe if I take it out I’ll be able to read it with a readers eye and get some clarity on the craziness, after all everything we do and say is really for us first…Art is truly for its creator first.

Now that 2009 has come to an end and 2010 has begun, I’m full of reflection, I usually burn a candle for what I want to release using the flame as a metaphoric fire to move forward with my dreams.  Recapitulating this past year was a lot to digest and some of it I’m still chewing.

When we arrived last winter our plans were to stay in Nashville for only a few weeks, long enough to get my health sorted out and then head on home to the Jungle. Well you all know the saying “tell God your plans and for sure they’ll change”.  By January it was clear we were not going to return, I set out to find us a proper house in town – life way out on the Ranch was far too isolating for us, not to mention that the girls really needed to attend a good school.

Lee and I drove around looking to buy a house, however with the market collapsing the way that it was and our indecision we opted to lease.  One day we drove by this big old prestigious looking, mansion-like house, there was a private owner “FOR RENT”  sign, so we pulled in and looked around.  Looking back I felt the cold of the casa right away, but my health was so weak I could barely see my own feet in front of me.  We walked through the house and no my heart didn’t jump with joy, but my desire to put down roots was great.  The next two weeks were spent deliberating. I felt so unsure, but I was torn with myself not knowing if my intuition was talking to me or my fear of being trapped in Nashville…finally a decision was made, the owner was so accommodating and patient we knew we needed to make it happen and signed the lease.

One afternoon I drove into town to meet the cable guy, Lola and I sat on the floor in the dining room cuddled next to the furnace, alone.  Our furniture was not going to arrive for a few more days and so the house sat empty awaiting the McCormick Legacy to fill its 17 rooms!  I should have listened to Lola as she whispered into my ear “Momma there are too many people here, I don’t like it.”  I giggled and said yes, this is an old house in an old city and I’m sure lots of people have lived here.

This is how it all began, Lola was not the only one to comment regarding the strange noises and bizarre going ons here.  What really troubled me were the awful dreams I dreamed, always the same theme – unsafe in the house.  I must have dreamed of people breaking in the house a few times a week, the irony now is that in the dream they were always already in the house.  These dreams bothered me so much that I’d spend half my nights walking the halls checking on the girls, then I started hearing doors opening in the middle of the night.  On one occasion my nephew Tylor was here with me – I ran to his room and made him get out of bed and check all the doors and windows.  Nothing, but I CLEARLY heard a door open.

The dreams continued to occur always the same theme, I’d awake in the night convinced that we were not safe in the house.  I’d google crime in Nashville and anything that could give me a hint to the history of the house, I even went as far as buying a book on the history of Nashville and the different areas of town.  I started asking people about crime in the area and I was told that yes robberies were common but that this was the BEST part of the city and we were safe.

A personal fact about me: I have lived in some of the most dangerous cities in the world, I have taken subways and buses by myself at all hours of the night.  I’ve traveled around the globe alone and my children have faced gun carrying Mexican military men as they have searched our car on a regular basis every morning while driving my girls to school.  I also lived in Mexico with my girls alone while my husband traveled – knowing that Mexico has the highest rate of kidnapping in the world.  I NEVER dreamed these types of dreams, NEVER.

I drove Lee nuts!!!

Finally he spoke to this women who trains police German Shephards. She had one who was ready to go to a family ’cause he was good at every thing but sniffing pot out, but then I talked to my hair dresser and he said that they shed way too much..so if you know me I’m way to clean and orderly for that. The only thing I didn’t do was google my actual address…..

The next step was calling in a security service to put in an alarm system, a young guy came out and did the walk through of the house.  When we got to the back corner of the basement we entered a little room that really is not much of a room – it used to be a room. Like I said the house is huge and has tons of little rooms, this one is the only part of the house that was not remodeled.  I’d never really explored back there due to the creepy factor, but this time I looked around and noticed things I’d not before – like writing on the walls and old notes from long ago.

The young guy got really uptight, when we went upstairs to sign the paper work he realized that he needed some info that I didn’t have on the house so he’d have to return the following day.  As he left the house he said “Mam I don’t mean to be rude with you but this here house is the creepiest that I’ve ever been in and I enter 50 houses a day sometimes. If I were you I’d be careful.”  I giggled and said yeah it’s different and for sure haunted but it’s harmless, I bet it’s just Halloween that’s got you thinking that.”  In a very sweet southern way he looked at me and said “I apologize but I’m not gonna be the one to return tomorrow, I’m gonna request someone else to take over.”

I shook it off and thought oh, well…but after being down in that room I started seeing things differently and the dreams increased.

The house is tricky  ’cause of the layout of it,  like I said there are at least 17 rooms in this house, if you include all the spaces.  At least 8 of these rooms we barely use unless we are entertaining or having house guests.  The house is about 100 years old, I’m not certain how long ago exactly they did a remodel on this house and added a HUGE addition.  Cosmetically they kept the new part in style with the old and really did a fine job, however energetically it feels like two different houses, when folks stay with us it’s like they are in another building completely.

Filling the house was not a problem for us, we shipped all of our belongings from California and that meant combing two houses worth of stuff.  Before moving to Mexico we split our time between our main house in Malibu and an apartment in Sausolito (San Francisco); all that furniture found one eclectic house to fill.

An interesting Tit-bit is that I KNEW that our statue of The Holy Mother Mary HAD to come inside the house and live within our walls.  In fact I was quite stubborn regarding this; she had always stood outside of our homes, as a result her painted cast iron skin had rusted and peeled.  Lee agreed and found a guy to sand blast here and repaint. It took 4 men to move her and the day she came into our house we all felt this wonderful sense of peace.  After all, for over two hundred years she had rested in a church and listened to the secrets of the people, I for sure had many of my own to whisper, what I didn’t know was…so did the walls of this house.