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LOVE YOUR LIFE
Meet 5 who love theirs, even though they had to make some big changes
by Alina Larson
 Magaret Cumings
Families walk out of the hardware store in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, with a lot more than duct tape. Thanks to Margaret Cumings, aka The Butterfly Lady, they leave with life lessons in a jar. Margaret raises caterpillars and brings them to her job in the store’s garden department, where she gives them away to kids. “By the time they get to the cash register, the caterpillars have names,” she says.
Margaret talks to her young customers about the dangers posed to butterflies by pesticides and habitat loss. She also teaches them about the care and metamorphosis of their new pets from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. The kids must promise to set their butterflies free. “I ask them, ‘If you woke up from a long nap and you had wings, wouldn’t you want to fly?”
Margaret has released thousands of butterflies, including more than 3,000 Monarchs, known for their long-distance migration. Her own journey has taken her far. Raised in rural Florida, she moved clear across the country to San Francisco during its hippie heyday. She returned to Florida in 1976, married and worked a variety of jobs. It wasn’t until four years ago, at age 54, that Margaret found her first caterpillar—and her purpose in life. She was out in her backyard garden one day when she noticed the caterpillar. “He had these bands of black and yellow and wasn’t trying to hide,” she recalls. Curious, she hit the local library. “I didn’t realize how intricate their lives are. The more I read, the more fascinated I got.”
Then she learned butterfly populations were dropping because of human encroachment on their habitat. To reverse that trend, Margaret filled her garden with plants and flowers favored by the insects, like milkweed, the only thing Monarch caterpillars munch on. She set up aquariums and heat lamps in a spare room to raise caterpillars. Now her efforts have really taken wing with her caterpillar giveaways and her presentations at schools and nursing homes. Her favorite thing about butterflies? They show people “that change—a beautiful one—is possible.”
—photo by Kelly LaDuke
 John DiScala
Ever feel like a few weeks’ vacation time isn’t enough? Or thought as you lay on the beach, one day left till the flight back to Boise, Wouldn’t it be great to travel for a living?
Well, meet someone who does. His name is John DiScala, but he goes by Johnny Jet, a fitting appellation for a guy who flies to a different destination each week. In 2006 alone he visited 22 countries he’d never been to before. Would you believe this travelin’ man was once afraid to fly?
At age 16, John was supposed to go on a trip to Australia but he became so paralyzed by fear, he was unable to board the flight. Five years later, a homeopathic healer cured him of his phobia, and his career literally took off.
He became a college recruiter, a job that had him flying all over the country. On a very limited budget, though. John quickly picked up tricks for cheap travel. His friends and family clamored for his help, so he sent them emails with information on good deals, frequent-flier miles, travel websites and webcams, adding stories from his own trips for fun. His emails got forwarded…and forwarded. In 1999 John set up a rudimentary website featuring his tips. Within six months, USA Today named it the best travel site on the web. He quit his job to be Johnny Jet full-time.
His favorite destinations? “Fiji has the nicest people in the world,” he says. “You’ll cry when you leave.” Denmark also ranks high on John’s list because it’s his mom’s ancestral homeland. He cashed in his frequent-flier miles and took her there shortly before she died of cancer. A dream trip for both of them. For being able to do that for his mother and to travel for a living, John says, “I thank God every night. I feel like the luckiest man in the world.”
—photo by Doug Plummer
 Geri Larkin
“I live in two little rooms and work at the low end of the income spectrum, and it’s amazing!” exclaims Geri Larkin. “Every day I’m thrilled!” Not what you’d expect to hear from the daughter of a wealthy IBM executive who once offered to take her to the 10 best restaurants in the world as a birthday gift.
Geri herself never would have guessed that she would become who she is today—a Buddhist priest, an author and a big believer in savoring the simple joys of life. Like chocolate cake, her breakfast of choice for the past 20 years and the inspiration behind her latest book, The Chocolate Cake Sutra, which gives “ingredients for a sweet life.”
Geri initially followed in her father’s footsteps. She went to business school and by age 35, she had it all—a huge house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a fancy car and a lucrative job as a management consultant. “I was a spoiled brat,” she recalls with a laugh. Spoiled and stressed. One day she developed an eye twitch. Her doctor declared it stress-related and prescribed…meditation. Geri was surprised, and even more so when she started practicing meditation and the twitch disappeared.
Her meditation teacher talked about Buddhism. What he said clicked with Geri. Inspired, she quit her job in 1992 and entered a Buddhist seminary. Three years later, she was ordained and left the seminary with a new mission: to create a haven where she would share wisdom and serenity with the residents of inner-city Detroit.
Geri sold everything she owned and bought a run-down brick duplex downtown. Locals helped her clear out drug paraphernalia and turn the place into Still Point, a Zen Buddhist meditation center. Visitors came, drawn to the teachings. Most could only afford to donate dimes and nickels, and they did, to support the center. “It was a great reminder of how good people are innately,” Geri says.
With Still Point firmly established and a new leader in place, she followed a yearning “to take care of the earth” and got a job at an organic nursery in Seattle. Her simple life of gardening and writing is “the opposite of what my generation was taught would make us happy,” Geri says, but for her, it’s sweet as chocolate cake.
—photo by Doug Plummer
 David Adamovich
There are some people who know their calling almost from birth. Then there are others, whose paths take a more circuitous route. David Adamovich’s path was as full of twists and turns as it gets, bringing him from exercise physiology to the unlikely destination of knife throwing. Oh, and did we mention his stops at church, the kitchen and a pool hall in between?
The Long Island, New York, native started out on what looked like a straight road. He got a doctorate in exercise physiology and followed up with good jobs within the field. David had been working in emergency medicine management for four years when the business was bought out and he found himself, at age 50, scrambling to outshine younger and cheaper competition.
Then he heard about a struggling pool hall that was going up for sale. A pool player since his teens, David jumped at the opportunity and bought. He retired from exercise physiology and emergency medicine and re-immersed himself in the game, playing while he worked.
One night a customer came in with a set of throwing knives. Intrigued, David went out back with the man and picked up a knife. He aimed at a tree and threw. The blade hit the trunk and stuck. Perfect! He was a natural.
“The rest is history,” he says, chuckling. He practiced feverishly for nine months to compete in the Knife Throwing World Championship, placing fourth. Today, David has not only several national and world championship titles to his name, but also six Guinness world records. Plus, there’s his cabaret act—as The Great Throwdini—that’s taken him all over the world. David got the showbiz bug and realized throwing knives at a human target makes things a lot more interesting.
What will he do when he’s ready to retire from knife throwing? Not to worry, David’s got plenty of options. He’s an ordained minister and a professional chef too! It might have taken him till later in life, but David knows his calling—every one of them.
—photo by Darryl Estrine
 Birdie Jaworski
Single mom Birdie Jaworski was in a tight spot three years ago. She had already made a huge money-saving move from Southern California to the little ranching town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Still, she needed income to support her family: three young boys at home, and two girls in college. And she also needed flexibility so she’d have time to walk her sons to and from school, bake cookies and do science projects with them, and stay home if they got sick.
She noticed Avon was a frequent sponsor of events for breast cancer research, a cause she had long supported. Although she rarely wore makeup and had never done sales, Birdie signed on as an Avon representative.
One major problem: She was terrified of talking to strangers. She began by making feeble pitches to friends, who placed sympathy orders. But she soon realized that to make ends meet, she’d have to start knocking on doors.
What she discovered about people—and herself—went more than skin-deep. Her neighbors weren’t folks to fear. Like her, they were on a tight budget and had to save up for a few weeks to buy a new lipstick. “When you have to save up for something, the decision is bigger,” she says. It takes more time and thought.
So Birdie lingered when she dropped by and really got to know her neighbors. Since the town is 80 percent Latino, she learned Spanish. Customers taught her how to make tortillas and tamales.
These new experiences spurred Birdie to start a blog of her Avon adventures. She named it Beauty Dish. At first, she used it mainly to keep track of customers and sales. Then she added product reviews and stories about her quirkier customers, like the woman who buys anti-wrinkle cream for her pet monkey. Birdie had never really written before, but figured, Well, I learned how to sell Avon products to strangers, so why not?
Emails came in thanking her for her honesty and humor. Moms from all over said she had given them the courage to try something new. Her readers grew to several thousand each day.
Major newspapers ran features on her blog. Then Birdie wrote her memoirs and got an agent to sell them. Now movie studios are asking about putting her life on film. Guess that’s what happens when opportunity—or the Avon lady—knocks!
—photo by Eric Swanson 
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