About me...

I'm a not-too-proper Bostonian by birth, without the accent.

I've been a beer tender, construction supervisor, tavern singer, administrative assistant, teacher, writer, entrepreneur. I can hang drywall, grow a mean organic tomato, chop wood, lay tile, refinish furniture, sew, bake bread...even drive a cement block-laden dump truck (but you ask me to do that again at your peril). And I sing better now than I did when I got paid.

I'm a wild and free-spirited, Beatles-crazed, guitar-toting, folk singing '60s hippie flower child.

I'm a Pisces water child, born on the waning cusp. I'm Spring...the promise after each winter of a rebirth of all things growing, and signal for a renewal of faith.

I proclaim God, the Divine, Buddha, the Universal Consciousness as the reason for my life on earth; for the earth itself to exist. I speak to the goddess within, the holy spirit who longs to lead me to my rightful place.

I'm mother of four sons, grandmother, great grandmother. They're distant in too many ways and more than close in so many others.

And I'm on a journey that began when my book clubbies watched the Rhonda Byrne movie that took the world by storm just two short years ago.

Let's start with a story.

I came of age in the '60s. I remember exactly where I was and how my world...the world...stopped, then forever changed on 11-23-63, just as 9-11-2001 is etched in current memory.

President Kennedy asked us what we could do for our country and offered the Peace Corps and the space program.

Then he was murdered.

Reverend King asked us to dream about a future when all were free and led us in non-violent protest.

Then he was murdered.

Robert Kennedy offered a glimmer of the peace and prosperity we could achieve together before he, too, was murdered.

We passed civil rights legislation. We ended the war in Viet Nam. Not the government...but, us, the people, rising together in one voice.

We felt our power grow strong, but, with our leaders dead...well, some went underground and some deferred to something less controversial.

I wanted to be the guitar toting, folk singer, tie-dyed wearing hippie flower child. I wanted to go to Antioch or Berkeley and become part of the counter culture. I felt my passion to teach, to sing, to love...

Instead, life happened. You get that.

Remember the Robert Frost poem? The one from English class? Frost comes to this place in the woods, in his life, where he sees two paths. He chooses the one less traveled and "that...made all the difference."

You talked about it. Yeah, you did...this was one of the easier poems to figure out. The message is you get to choose whether to go the traditional path of financial security...college job, family, house the 'burbs, retirement in Florida...or something less secure but where you felt passion and purpose and you knew it meant something.

Problem was, no one ever told you how to find that "something different." We were even warned that "those" careers would surely leave us anything but prosperous, and we could forget Florida. (That is the muffed job of education, by the way; but that's another story.)

So, if you're like me, you started off in one direction or the other, only to find out that it's not always that simple. It's more like the path chose you, but it wasn't either of Frosts's. It was more in between. Not really a path at all, but brush, or dark forest, or mountains, or raging rapids...lots of jobs, divorce, kids who meander themselves between paths.

And here we are. More bad news every day. We've been in recession for a year now...good to know that the experts finally figured that one out. (We've lost our jobs, our homes, our 401ks, our health insurance, but it took the experts a year. So glad they're in touch. Or was it another political cover-up?)

Now what?

Hey, look. We're here again at those two paths. The one, the traditional worn path, is pretty much gone to seed, so to speak.

It's time to try the other. The one where you find what you're passionate about and how to turn that into prosperity.

As for me, that hippie flower child is on the loose. I may not yet be financially free, but I've at least headed down the right path with a machete. My passion to teach, to sing, and to love is released, and I welcome you to share my journey in these pages.

But why leave the classroom? Hint…it wasn’t retirement!

To my class of wonderful students; juniors in high school just awakening to the reality that “adult life” is just around the corner. It was a joyful moment, as you can hear on the video below.

I also taught the seniors. Since we were a new school and had few seniors, I taught all but a very few.

I promised them all at the beginning of the year that I would help them to see the possibilities for that “adult life” that would soon be upon them. I would offer them a curriculum beyond that of “American Literature” and “British Literature,” beyond what the county and the state had in mind for them, and, probably, beyond what they would find in any school in the country. I would carefully construct a bridge for them, from the sheltered life of home and school to the more impersonal and less-forgiving real world.

We had an exciting journey. At the end, they agreed that I had fulfilled my goal. They saw a different reality than the one they’d grown up with and a different possibility. Life as an adult no longer frightened, but presented them an invitation to live their dreams.

(I’ll soon post an article about those “bridge” lessons. Check back…)

Buy why leave the classroom?

I didn’t retire. I’d been in too many school systems for too few years to collect. From middle school to high school, from seashore to mountains, from snow to sunshine. Wanderlust.

But, no. Not wanderlust. Searching.

Where is the right place for me? Where can I really have an effect? When will I feel fulfilled?

I bet you’ve had those questions, too.

Well, I don’t have all the answers. But I can share my journey.

First, I took out plastic boxes of crayons and markers and colored pencils I’d collected for my students and a big, big piece of paper…

Then, I began to draw my life. In detail and technicolor. A vision emerged. And a purpose.

The walled classroom, with whatever old or new technology, curriculum, or teaching strategy, could no longer contain me.

This is my new classroom. This new technology of computer and Internet. This new strategy of connecting through blogs and articles and video. Wow!

I’ve awakened to the life that’s possible for me. I invite you to share my journey.

Judy

www.wildwealthwoman.com