This is the story of Marie Blazek, a woman raised in small town Texas under tough circumstances who survived the gender wars of marriage and motherhood to find her own narrative in the mountains of Mexico. There she learns and writes that each of our lives can be embraced and nurtured, no matter how prickly, to provide adventure, insight, and spiritual awareness with each day. From the oyster-shelled streets of an East Texas town to the cobblestone streets of a Mexican village, she delivers one entertaining challenge after another placing the reader right beside her as she finds the wisdom and courage to "Let Go of the Rope." It's a book for yogis, working moms, Buddhists, travelers, star-crossed lovers, losers, and everyone else. The almost incredible tales of births, deaths, divorces, and lost careers are sad and inspiring. If events and experiences are the bricks of the structure of a life, what we learn from them is the mortar. This book is as much about the mortar as the bricks. Anyone who reads it will identify with and learn from the insights and new awareness. The earliest years develop as a tepid stew of middle-American mores, natural wonders, and a personal determination to escape to ANYTHING ELSE, anything but the drainage ditches, Friday-night football, and green jello pudding of a small Texas town. "Motherhood is never easy, but it should never have been on my curriculum vitae. As a youngster, I had little interest in my original family home, let alone homemaking. I actually never played with dolls. Nonetheless, at the age of twenty-seven, I undertook all the appropriate life lessons in Marriage 101 and Motherhood P/F (pass or fail.) My previous, personal dreams were mostly forgotten upon waking to the light of day, and they soon morphed into the exigencies of caretaking and bread-winning. This was another quasi-pathetic phase of my life, chocked full of moments of sheer joy, deadly lessons, and nuggets of wisdom which slowly accumulated...My new husband and I moved into an old 'shotgun' house located in Washington-on-the Brazos, Texas...which became the home of the new baby, John Brazos. It was a tiny, batten-and-board house with a million cracks in the walls. Although living in a shack may seem pathetic, this one was located in one of the lovelier places in Texas. It was surrounded by an enormous field that had produced cotton at one time and had begun to grow acres of bluebonnets and then goldenrod as spring became summer. Shading the tiny house was a walnut tree the size of Walmart. Directly across from the house was the original 'company-store' building from the early part of the century. The final glory surrounding us was the rugged and proud Brazos River that lay a hundred yards from the steps of the store. We could actually hear it. I used to say that we lived in the worst house in the best place on Earth." Eventually after two marriages, motherhood, and the tragic death of a son, Blazek begins a spiritual search for meaning and begins to meditate, experiencing a gradual change in circumstance and mindset. Then in a moment of do or die, she lets go of the rope and escapes to Tepoztlan, Mexico. There, two years of exciting and potentially dangerous living while climbing pyramids, dancing at festivals, and shooting pool in cantinas become the fuel for the book. It is a romp, full of fun and heart. The final part of the book deals with Blazek's past, present, and future as she straddles two very different worlds: the vibrant, Tantric, in-your-face reality of Tepoztlan and the fascinating and quirky facts of Marfa, Texas, a lovely, social anomaly in the Davis Mountains of Far-west Texas. She continues her search for higher meaning...and fun.