1994 Ends With a Leap of Faith - #22

And I greet 1995 in Hawaiʻi

Apr 09, 2023

If you are reading this as the first episode of They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir - or if you have skipped a few - it might make sense to go back at least to the start of 1994 which set all of this in motion. I called that post Sete Ondas (Seven Waves). The easiest way to see a list of past episodes in order is to “subscribe” - which is free. You get a welcome email with links to all the previous posts. And if I keep writing, you will get future ones by email. Just click this button.

By the time of the twin 50^th birthdays at the end of October 1994, I was alone in my apartment at 16 Saint Lukes Place, floating lazily in a sea of ease but looking out to the horizon and contemplating whether to paddle towards yet another wave of change as the new year approached.

Reclaiming my space felt good. Life in general felt good, as though the wild adventures and changes of the past three years were starting to integrate in me. I was meditating in the morning before turning to whichever work I had on my agenda that day, watching the last colored leaves fall in Central Park on walks with Carman and crew, and maybe holding the frequency by phone with Velvalee in the evening. On my business suit days, the strategic planning and restructuring assignment with the Private Banking Division proved to be productive and rewarding intellectually but felt increasingly like solving a Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle: an engaging and challenging diversion from what I was supposed to be doing.

The new projects, practices, and people in my life pointed to a compelling purpose, but it would be up to me to shape it into a “career move” and the design for that still eluded me. By year-end I would have to decide whether to lean into my relationship with the Bank and take another full time position - or step out into the unknown, which was not easy for a born planner to do. I was watching for clear omens, but there were none. I felt at times like the Universe was holding its breath. This decision was mine to make and at some level I knew I had to make it before the plan would make itself known.

In the end, there was no single huge “light bulb going off” moment. No one conversation or over-the-top coincidence that sealed the decision for me. It was simply a growing sense of certainty that there was nothing left for me at JP Morgan. Although we never spoke of it explicitly, I sensed my mentor John Olds was also observing the end of an era approaching and would leap at an opportunity to employ his talents in an organization where he could again lead with his values. That being said, John and the rest of the senior management team were suprised when I declared my decision to leave. “Blindsided.” Based upon the quality of work I was doing, they had expected me to say I wanted to stay.

I will never know what position they had in mind for me. I never asked. I probably should have promised them my undying loyalty and collected a big year-end bonus before resigning. But that wouldnʻt be me. I would wrap up my project and say my goodbyes at the end of 1994. It was a total leap of faith. Occasionally, in those last weeks, the elevator door would shut and another bank executive would turn to me in our temporary private space and ask in a whisper, eyes pleading, “How are you doing it? I wish I had your courage to just go.”

Velvalee already knew that would be my decision and was just waiting for me to get there on my own. Once I did, she invited me to greet the New Year in Hawaiʻi, where she was in residence after celebrating her big birthday with family in Oklahoma. And so, for the third year in a row, I found myself celebrating the New Year on the beach in a tropical setting.

In front of Shayla’s place at Lanikai, wearing another borrowed outfit on a return visit a few years after these events

Velvalee was staying in an ʻohana unit attached to the beachfront home of friends in Waimanalo on the windward side of Oʻahu. The small cottage actually was rented to another friend of hers, but for all practical purposes he was living with his girlfriend next door, so the bed was available for Velvalee. During my stay, her plan was to give up her own bed, as I had for her during her stay in New York, and spend the week with Shayla, another close friend who had a house on the beach at Lanikai.

I flew out of JFK after Christmas, traveling for twelve hours into a five-hour time zone difference. Arriving at the cottage after dark, I fell exhausted into the cozy bed, and slept soundly until I woke to the unexpected sound – not of waves crashing on the beach nor of chattering birds greeting the dawn - but the whine of a blender whirring.

I opened the bedroom door and peeked out. A tall tanned young man with blond curls turned with his smoothie in hand and introduced himself. “Hi, Iʻm Scott. You must be Beth. Make yourself at home, Iʻm off to work.”

Soon after I showered and dressed, Shayla came by in her vintage Mustang convertible to pick me up. We found Velvalee smoking a cigarette and laughing with another woman on the lanai. She greeted me with a big Blessed Mother hug, and introduced me to the friend who had flown in from California to join us. Her name was Joré, although her parents called her Shelly Jo, and later Joré would morph into Joié, so I will just stick with Joié in telling this story as Iʻm accustomed to it now. In the introductions I learned that Joié was a talented singer and, according to Velvalee, an equally talented “channel”. They explained Velvalee was helping Joié to refine her already advanced skills, staying tuned to “Channel One.” And Velvalee was relying on the information Joié received to complement her own Guidance. They had both “heard” that the three of us needed to be connected.

Until this point, I had managed to hold onto the illusion I was merely traveling for a little R&R, to relax and work on my tan before digging into my new career, whatever that was. It just had not completely registered - or maybe I just had not accepted - that the Plan was already unfolding and Velvalee was central to the next chapter in my story. Even more striking, with 20-20 hindsight, is that despite my family history with Hawaiʻi, I had no foresight that bringing me to the Islands at the end of 1994 would set a course for my future in other significant ways. I had arrived with little expectation for the week, but I had a lot of curiosity and trust, and so was willing to let each day be an adventure.

The house was quite a setting for our gathering, right on the ocean and decorated in New Age boho style. Shayla was an artist – and her particular spiritual gift was the ability to convince Nature Spirits to show themselves for her camera. Tree gnomes, water sprites, fairies. This was before digital photography and Adobe Photoshop. What emerged naturally in the darkroom was astonishing. Shayla also operated a bed-and-breakfast out of her home, and she was happy and well-prepared to play hostess for us. We “worked” and talked long into the night and Shayla insisted I stay over, providing an oversized t-shirt to sleep in and a one-piece bathing suit and pareo for a refreshing swim in the ocean. Grilled chicken with rosemary roasted potatoes appeared when it was time to eat dinner and then croissants and papaya when the sun rose.

After a couple of intense days with the ladies, I was glad to return to the little cottage in Waimanalo, sit on the beach, and try to digest all the information coming at me. One afternoon I remembered I had bought postcards as holiday cards to send to my parents and a few friends back in New York. Postage rates were scheduled to go up on the first business day of January, so I needed to drop them in the mail that weekend. It was a short walk to the Waimanalo post office and I felt like stretching my legs.

Taking a short cut through the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant, I thought I heard my name called. The second time I heard it I realized the voice was shouting Betchy with the Brazilian pronunciation, rather than Beth. I turned to see a man and woman jump out of a rental jeep and come jogging towards me. I started laughing, delighted that the insane coincidences that had characterized the previous three years were not over yet. A moment later I was embraced by a Brazilian sports journalist whom I had met exactly once before, in Pasadena, the day Brazil won the 1994 World Cup.

When the match ended that day, Nelson was unexpectedly required to appear on a television broadcast, and I was stranded at the Rose Bowl without a way to get back to the hotel where the press corps was housed in downtown Los Angeles. My savior was the man now hugging me in a parking lot in Waimanalo. He had offered me a ride since he was also heading there after a small detour to interview the Brazilian soccer champions at their hotel. On the way he had called home to talk with his girlfriend, the woman to whom he was now introducing me. Her brother was a big wave surfer living on O’ahu, and they’d come to visit him and watch the action on the North Shore. That morning they’d decided to take a drive to see more of the island and thought a Mexican restaurant would be a good spot to have lunch – turning in at the exact moment I was strolling through the parking lot.

After wishing each other much success, happiness, and love in the coming year, we hugged one more time and I continued back to the beach with every trace of anxiety erased from my mind. The omen seemed to say that somehow those seven waves I skipped in Rio de Janeiro on New Year’s Eve a year earlier had indeed brought me to this exact place at this exact moment in time. I could trust that things were unfolding just as they should. There was no need to write another Four Things to accomplish, let alone a business plan for the new year. There would be Guidance available, but I was to travel without a map from here.