10x10 Pearlescent copper, deep turquoise, with slate green and white accents make up the first initial dawn of my spirit through this place. Resin coated. 

In 2010 I moved to Las Vegas from Chicago. I didn't know anybody. I thought I'd wear a pink sequin bikini every day under the palm trees and it would always be sunny. While that was all possible the reality was much different. The spectacular inground pool was steps away from my living room, but I didn't know what way was up I was so depressed. All I wanted was to go out there and look like the ideal I thought I would effortlessly be capable of, but I couldn't get off the couch.  (I will literally be bitching that it's always fucking sunny in a few months.) 

I had 4 months clean in recovery. In a meeting, this woman I didn't know invited me to her house on Grace Street for a bbq. I freaked out for a week about how I would afford to bring the food I had promised, had a panic attack in the chip section of the grocery store because there were too many choices, and after all that ended up not bringing anything at all because I spent my last roll of quarters at in & out. 

I showed up at her house wearing a floor-length black skirt and a black sweater with ten necklaces, twenty bracelets, and three scarves. In Las Vegas, In July. For a pool party. Nobody batted an eye. 

Sometimes when I look back on that day I know in the really deep parts of my spirit, in the stillness where the chaos doesn't live, that showing up despite having no idea why I was invited was one of the most important steps I have ever taken. That courage drastically altered the course of my life.  

I lived on the East side then and so did she. When I left her house that evening I drove straight to red rock, taking Desert Inn almost the whole day because I didn't understand the freeways yet. (That's like 30 unnecessary stop lights:)

I parked my car at the Heli Pad and sat on the ledge. That was the day I started going to Red Rock to talk to those rocks. They made me feel like somebody was listening, and no matter what I felt if I went there the rocks would take that energy, filter it, and return it to me with love. I will sit with those rocks on that helipad hundreds of times from 2010-2014. 

The woman whose house it was and all of the women that were there will become my sponsor and support group. They will teach me what way up is and how to be a part of.  She will guide me through the steps, give me a home, teach me where utensils go in a kitchen and how to make pasta.