purpose

Four Questions That Will Help Bob Take The Wheel

I found this tucked into an old journal the other day.
At the time these questions intrigued me and I remember cutting this out and doing what you do when you are lost and completely directionless—I journaled the shit out of it.

It’s from a magazine dated way back in 2010.

2010 was the year I started asking questions of life. Big ones. I had the universe on speed dial.

On the surface mine sucked.

I had lost my business just the year before, I was 52,  and I had no idea what the hell I was going to do next.
I don’t know about you but when the chips are down I’m not very nice to myself. All of that “buck up” and “stiff upper lip” shit kicks in and I’m not even British!

I really could not risk making any more “mistakes” so I went right back into the profession I had left in 2007.

Stripper.

Kidding.

Anyway, I went back to selling jewelry. I know, it’s not the gulag—but it was not the answer to my inquiries either.
The voice that was speaking, the one I was ignoring, it was telling me to write.

You guys, it may as well have yelled “strip” and waved fistfuls of dollar bills at me because I wasn’t gonna do it.

Then, slowly, methodically, and thankfully just in time, the universe, God, Bob or whoever you want to believe controls these things took the wheel.

Starting in 2012, through a series of coincidences and synchronicities, the most improbable people, writers, started showing up in my life.

These new women caused my life to change dramatically. Especially the one that died that very year.

She arrived on a white horse (or cloud) just when I was begging for a mentor.

Once she showed up crazy, mystical, weird-but-true experiences became a daily occurrence. So much so the I (we) wrote an entire screenplay about it.

And within three years my life changed forever. Bye, bye jewelry, hello writer.

All this to say, I believe that answering these questions is freaking magic, you guys. They unleash some kind of supernatural voodoo, woo-woo, vibe that unclogs the pipes and gets things moving in the right direction. I invite you to study them, answer them and then stand back, grab a cocktail, put your feet up, and let Bob steer the bus.

I promise you will love the results.

Carry on,
xox

My Own Personal “Field of Dreams”

Ray: I’m thirty-six years old, I love my family, I love baseball, and I’m about to become a farmer. And until I heard the Voice, I’d never done a crazy thing in my whole life.

Voice: If you build it, he will come.
~from the movie Field of Dreams


I’m baaaackkkkk! And I missed YOU!

I went away to devote a block of time to the screenplay I’ve been enlisted to write.
The one about death and life thereafter.

The comedy —the buddy picture—my own person Field of Dreams complete with a cryptic voice and characters who are invited to participate in this magical fairy tale I’ve been fortunate enough to be gifted with writing.

I haven’t always felt that way.

At first, it was so (insert baseball pun here), out of left field, that my inner skeptic was pooping her pants. I have a nose finely tuned for bullshit and this entire endeavor reeked of it.

But after a while, after a ton of questioning and “prove it to me’s” I plowed under my corn and built my field just as I’d been directed. I started writing a screenplay (which I had no interest in doing and absolutely NO experience at), that was dictated to me by my pal, the dead screenwriter.

And you know what happened? The more I got out of the way—the better it got. So much so that now, when I read it to people, ( even people I’ve just met  like the women at the retreat last week), THEY SEE THE PLAYERS ON THE FIELD. In other words, they believe in the magic and that never ceases to amaze me.

I remember loving Field of Dreams when it came out. Who doesn’t want to believe that there’s more to life than the mundane and ordinary? What Ray did seemed crazy but his courage (disguised as wavering conviction), wins everyone over in the end—even me.

I know. It’s a movie. But crazy as it sounds it’s also become a template for my life.

All ideas start as crazy fantasies. They do. Every. Single. One. of  Them.

They come out of nowhere, bite you on the ass, and invite you to come along for the ride.
What do YOU do when that happens? Do you up the volume on the radio (get caught up in life), to drown out the voices (ideas), or do you plow under the corn (take some risks), and build the field for the players to come and play (give your ideas life)?

I used to ignore the Voice. For years, I turned my back to the players on the field. But what kind of life is that?

When magic presents itself—I say, make the leap.
Not everyone will see the players on the field but that’s okay, those that do far outweigh the ones who cannot.

Plus, Magic can’t be contained. It bleeds into all other aspects of your life and that does NOT suck. I promise.

I’ve gotta go now, it’s the second inning and I’m up at bat.

Play ball!
xox


John Kinsella: Is this heaven?

Ray Kinsella: It’s Iowa.

John Kinsella: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.
[starts to walk away]

Ray Kinsella: Is there a heaven?

John Kinsella: Oh yeah. It’s the place where dreams come true.

[Ray looks around, seeing his wife playing with their daughter on the porch] Ray Kinsella: Maybe this is heaven.

~Dialogue from the movie FIELD OF DREAMS

Pssst…You Wanna Know How To Find Your Path?

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A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
-Chinese Proverb

Darling peeps,

Your path lights up before you. It’s right under your feet, not out there somewhere.
I’m just getting this! Can you believe it?

You don’t have to go find it, so unpack those bags.

Just pay attention.
To the inspiration,
to the ideas,
to the song on the radio when you get into the car,
to the graffiti that inspired you,
the book that fell off the shelf as you walked by,
the rejection letter that sent you in a different direction entirely,
to your dreams,
to your intuition,
to your aspirations,
the call that never came,
and the one that did.

You guys, That’s your path calling you forward. It’s right under your feet. Would I lie to ya?

Carry on,
xox

“Do It Yourself” Shit Storms


“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may, in fact, be the first steps of a journey.”

― Lemony Snicket

I have a guilty pleasure. Well, I have many, but this is one I feel okay mentioning in public.

I love HG (Home and Garden) TV. There I said it.

Watching these shows borders on an obsession. What I love is the fact that they depict complete remodels in under and hour. You know, the ones with the unrealistic timelines and the implausible budgets to match.

“Hi, Um, I’m Tiffany and I’m a barista and my boyfriend Todd sells seashells by the seashore. We have a budget of 1.3 million…”

This makes my contractor husband’s head spin around like the Exorcist. Most likely because it continues to feed my instant gratification fixation, and now I too have come to believe that you can get a complete kitchen gut and renovation in under four weeks. And a gorgeous home in a good part of town for no money.

That’s bullshit!” he yells indignantly at the TV to the good looking brother team who are right out of central casting. “Not if you want it done right!”

Calm down, big guy. It’s TV.

Regardless, I get lost in the marathons they string together on Sundays. I DVR them and sit like a drooling fool for hours.
The other night I watched seven. In a row. Without peeing. I’m not proud of it. I may need help.

Hey, here’s an observation: there’s definitely a good cop and a bad cop in every relationship.

Most often the men in these remodeling scenarios are pretty accommodating and easy going unless the budget blows up. Then their voices raise an octave, their eyes bulge and their heads explode. Still, even then they’re pretty quiet about it, suffering silently, with some stiff upper lip flop sweat, looking into the camera for a little viewer pity—or spare couch cushion change.

The women, I’m afraid to say, and I’m generalizing here, are bitches.
Barbazillas. Plain and simple. Bad cops on steroids. Changing things and then yelling about the timeline, popping in unannounced and then second guessing the process.

They hate how the marble looks.
Why is the white paint so white?” they wonder loudly, hands on hips.
Who the hell picked out THAT floor tile?” they huff.
I said FRENCH DOORS!” they scream.
They are belligerent, pouty, whiny and just plain awful.

Then, as a frontal assault on my sense of truth and decency, they cry big, sloppy, Tammy Faye, fake television tears of joy at the reveal.

Bitches, please.

But I must say – It’s some God-damn GREAT TV.

Anywho…

One kitchen I watched being demo’d last night was indicative of what’s been happening to most of us lately.
I even wrote a post about how to handle it…yesterday.
So it’s kind of out of order, but that’s the way life works sometimes, I hope you’ll forgive me.

WARNING: Put the sandwich down. Don’t eat anything while you read this.

Okay, so, as the contractor, with his perfect, white teeth, helped the homeowners demo the shit out of dated, drab green, 1970’s kitchen, (they are always enlisted, supposedly to keep the costs down, but again, it’s good TV to watch an accountant swing a forty pound sledgehammer while his wife looks on, a teeny bit turned on), the upper cabinets collapsed and the ceiling caved in.

What ensued next was a shit storm – literally.

Feces rained down from inside the ceiling, obscuring their vision, getting in their hair and covering their clothes. Apparently sometime in the not too distant past, the house had a cockroach AND mouse infestation. Even the macho contractor screamed like a little girl. The wife ran into a wall trying to escape the shit as it rained down on all three of them. I think she may have broken a nail…like I said GREAT TV.

But honest to God, there it was, right in front of me, three people’s reaction to a shit storm, on TV, and I have to say – it looked pretty familiar, and it made me laugh my ass off.

The screaming and the running and the general disgust. They acted surprised even though mice had been alluded to in the inspection.

We all do the same thing.

We get plenty of warning that the ceiling of our lives is about to collapse and that the feces of poor decisions, bad relationships, and lousy judgment, may rain down; then we run around screaming, crying and acting surprised when it does – WTF?

Hey, I’ve done it.

Was I surprised that I got fired last year? Hell to the no!
I could smell it coming. I was just shocked he had the balls to do it on Christmas Eve. (Best thing that ever happened to me BTW, BECAUSE…another observation of mine is this: there is always a silver lining inside a shit storm.)

Was I surprised my store was flooded? Well, yes, yes I was. But only because the method was so…so biblical.
Listen, deep down I knew the end was near one way or another—so not really. I had called it in. I had prayed for it. Yet when it happened, I screamed and ran into walls; the shame of it getting into my hair and covering my clothes.

We’ve got to cut that shit out, that wide-eyed-acting-surprised-shit. It’s starting to feel as staged and fakity-fake as it looks on TV.

Let’s get real here. There is always warning prior to a shitstorm – always. It’s an argument or an email, a bad job review – a stain on the ceiling or an inspection report.

If we pay attention and read all the signs they’ll be no shock and awe. We’ll know what’s coming. We’ll have choices. We can go clean up the attic before the demo, put a tarp down, or wear a hat and step aside.

All that collapsed ceiling, screaming and running into walls – that’s all for TV.

This is real life.

Sending Big Love,
xox

The Crossroads Of Should And Must by Elle Luna

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Hi Loves,
I hope this finds you well. Warm, full, fat and happy.
I’m going to partake of some holiday cheer with friends and family, so this will be my last post until after the New Year…unless I miss you, or get a bug up my ass to write something; both which could easily happen.

My wish for you in the upcoming year is the same as for myself. Health, happiness and an abundance of love, laughter, family, friends, and hundred dollar bills.

xoxJanet

Check this out – It’s genius!

https://medium.com/@elleluna/the-crossroads-of-should-and-must-90c75eb7c5b0

In case you miss me in the meantime, here are the five most popular posts of 2014 – Thanks to you!

1) http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2014/09/his-wife-saved-me-from-becoming-the-other-woman-a-cautionary-tale/

2) http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2014/08/throwback-thursday-angel-in-a-turban/

3) http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2014/07/eggs-toast-bikinis-and-helen-mirren/

4) http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2014/10/the-dao-of-debbie-harry-reprise/

5) http://www.theobserversvoice.com/2014/05/are-you-paying-attention/

“LIFE IS PURPOSEFUL – DEATH IS OPTIONAL” ANOTHER JASON SILVA SUNDAY

Happy Sunday!
Before you go to yoga, before you have your coffee, let Jason Silva Streeeeeeeetch your mind first. It’ll feel good, I promise.

You’re welcome.
xox

Hi, I’m Janet

Mentor. Pirate. Dropper of F-bombs.

This is where I write about my version of life. My stories. Told in my own words.

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