The Call of the Palm Trees

Story ID:	2344
Written by:	Carol J Garriott
Organization:	home/retired
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	Seadrift Texas USA
Year:	2007
Person:	Carol Garriott

There’s a little town on the Texas Coast, smack in the middle of the curve of the Coastal Bend, more or less halfway between Corpus Christi and Galveston. It’s a tiny fishing/shrimping/oystering/ crabbing village on San Antonio Bay. I would say I found it by chance, or by coincidence, but I’ve come to not believe in chance or coincidence. I retired there after 25 years in Austin, Texas.


During those typesetting years in Central Texas, I took some self-improvement classes that taught me, among other things, how to set goals and how to visualize desired outcomes. One series of classes concerned our subconscious. Our subconscious has a vision of reality. Whatever that subconscious believes, that must happen. If we want something different from what we have or are doing, we must make our subconscious believe the something different.


We were encouraged to try what seemed like an insane, ridiculously simple, exercise. What did we want that we didn’t have now? We were to visualize the desired outcome, and to assist in that, we were to find or devise pictures that would represent that outcome. We were to post these graphics everywhere that would be directly in our day-to-day vision. On bathroom mirrors. On refrigerator doors. On bulletin boards at the work desk.


In mid-life, more or less, I discovered the sea on a trip, and to say it was an epiphany is the understatement of a lifetime. Much as I loved the lakes, trees, and winding roads of the Hill Country, I began to dream of living by "big water." As an unbelievably independent divorced lady working for a living, I didn’t see any way to achieve that.


Well, for some reason, I didn’t visualize financial freedom in that class. What I DID visualize, and tricked my subconscious into believing, was, "I live by the sea near palm trees." I had palm trees plastered on my work cubicle, on my bathroom medicine cabinet, on the fridge, in the car. I had palm trees on pillows and comforters.


What happened was (that’s a story in itself, and I didn’t even know it was happening), since the reality did not match my subconscious, my head and body began to steer me in directions that would eventually make the reality match the subconscious.


Looking back, I can see now how the opportunities I encountered began to point me south. At the time, some of those "opportunities" seemed like setbacks, but in retrospect, the apparently less than desirable events were steering me out of, perhaps, ruts, or at least comfort zones.


I now live, albeit modestly, two blocks from San Antonio Bay, and not only live near palm trees, I have two in my front yard.


Please enjoy the palm tree photos that I've taken in my lovely little town of Seadrift, Texas.