I’m at a kind of magical junction in my life where I get to witness the grand orchestra at work behind the scenes again. When you let a desire flow through you and follow its consequences, it is astounding how narrow the path is and how many things line up to make the way simple and clear.

I did not work for most of the past 4 months, determined to not make the same mistakes again. After a hell of a last year, I realized that I badly needed a good mentor in my life again. I have had the good fortune of learning under the most amazing (mostly male) mentors along the way, in high school, college, internships, and through my first career, and beyond. I love being taken in under the wing of someone who has achieved something I have not, and learning as much as I can from them, even if I don’t end up following their path.

So it had been a couple years since I lost my last mentor, the person I used to be a personal/admin assistant for. Before him, it was the beloved Doc Harmon Brown who I credit for any success I achieved as a track and field coach. I only got to study under him for one year before he passed away, but he taught me the most important things I needed to know about coaching during that one short year.

So I waited and waited and waited all summer for the right opportunity to “work with someone awesome” again. And the stars aligned at the very last possible minute. I had taken the leaps of faith of leaving my apartment and its grievances, leaving my boyfriend with his complexities and energy sinks, and not taking on work that would pay the bills but make me unavailable for a greater opportunity. And my availability and flexibility got me the position I wanted in the end.

It’s interesting to look with hindsight and see how, if just one factor was different over this summer, how everything would have changed. If I had moved to East Oakland, for example. Or if I had started working as a valet again.

So now it’s go time, and I get to start a whole new chapter of my life. Things change a lot when you move to a new community, change your forms of transportation and place of residence and work schedule. Everything is changing.

No, I don’t have a 5-year plan. Forget a 10-year plan. I’ve never found them to be much useful. My plan is and has always been simple: Find excellent people. Help them do excellent things. Hope excellent rubs off on you.