awakening

Ho’oponopono — A prayer of radical forgiveness.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you.

My friend Diana talked about this prayer of forgiveness at her recent solstice gathering. About its ability to “clean the slate”.
I’ve used this at the end of the year for as long as I can remember. For the exact same reason.
An energetic re-set. A reboot. The only New Year’s cleanse I can tolerate.

And let me just reiterate. It’s freakin’ radical. And here’s why: You’re the one asking for forgiveness. You’re the one saying you’re sorry.

Okay, so, if you think this might be something you’d like to try…close your eyes. Let a person, situation, or circumstance parade before you. Say the prayer. The order will change and that doesn’t matter. Your ego will even change it to “I forgive you”. Trust me on that. Even after all these years it still happens to me! Just take a breath, try not to laugh, tell your ego to take a seat, and change it back to “please, forgive ME“.

Some people or situations will linger. They’ll get back in line for a second helping of forgiving. Just keep saying it.

Most importantly, don’t forget to include yourself. When you tell yourself you’re sorry something magical happens. You feel seen; understood. You begin to feel…lighter.

I know this isn’t for everyone, but if you can get past the initial discomfort——this can work miracles!

Situations unknot themselves. You’ll get an email informing you that that sticky issue that’s been languishing in limbo for years has been resolved. People will text “I love you” for no apparent reason.

And who doesn’t want an energetic clean slate for 2023?

Lemme know how it goes!

Happy New Year, carry on,
xox JB

My loves,

“Be present.

Make love. Make tea. Avoid small talk. Embrace conversation.
Buy a plant, water it.
Make your bed.
Make someone else’s bed.
Have a smart mouth and a quick wit.
Run.

Make art. Create.
Swim in the ocean. Swim in the rain.
Take chances. Ask questions. Make mistakes.

Learn.
Know your worth.
Love fiercely. Forgive quickly.
Let go of what doesn’t make you happy.
Grow.”

~Paulo Coelho

Enjoy your holidays with wild abandon. Why not?

xox

“I have a real conundrum”, was how he answered my standard nightly inquiry which goes something like this:

Me: “How was your day?”
Husband: “It was (fill in the blank).”

Usually, he says “good.” Other times I can tell by his face that I shouldn’t ask. More often than not there’s a story or a funny anecdote that starts a conversation that carries us through dinner.

But never, in the almost seventeen years I’ve asked the question has it been answered this way.

“Wow, really? A conundrum. What happened?”
He hedged.
I don’t like hedging. Hedging makes me anxious.

“I’ll feed the dog,” he volunteered.

When it comes to eating our dog is probably a lot like yours. Since she comprehends any sentence that has the word food or feed or treat in it — the “spinning around the kitchen” phase of the evening begins as she excitedly waits for her dish to be prepared.

“Come on! Tell me what’s up!” I urged as he shoveled kibble into warm water.
When he bent down to give our whirling dervish her dinner, I spotted some residual unsteadiness left over from the bout of vertigo he’s been battling for the past couple of weeks.
Slowly, he came back to standing, leaning on the kitchen counter directly across from me.

Those corners in the kitchen, those are sacred. Over the years they have become our preferred conversation spots.

If I think about it, almost every conversation, big or small, has a least started in those corners.
We may shift back and forth while we prepare dinner but it all begins in those corners.
If things get tense, we maintain our distance, like fighters in the ring.
But I have laughed my ass off and been flooded with tears (often at the same time) in the corners of our kitchen.

We hug a lot there too.I don’t know why, but kitchen corners are conducive to hugging.

Anyway, it took a while for him to explain.

“I wanted to get you a tree,” he said looking at me sheepishly.
“I wanted to surprise you…with a Christmas tree.”

“What?”

You see, since we met, Christmastime at our house can be…complicated.

For me, it is the BEST time of year. You can find me Ho, Ho, Ho-ing my way through December.

For my husband—not so much. No, No, No-ing is more like it for him.

It could be due to his horrible, Jesuit boarding school, Oliver Twisted childhood—no one knows for sure.

All I DO know is that Christmas can be a minefield, a subject we have litigated into the ground only to come away without any reasonable solution as to how we can navigate without blowing somebody up.
If you read my last blog post you know that I’ve decided to go treeless this year. It was a compromise I’ve never been willing to make—until no——made easy by some brilliantly timed post-holiday travel.

In an act of holiday self-care (which,I highly recommend for everyone) I decorated my sister’s tree on Tuesday which was a fix for this Christmas Junkie.

So, I’m good with it. Really.

And that’s the part that confused him.

He continued, “On Monday, I finally felt up to driving to that awesome nursery where we saw those live trees,” he said.
“The ones with the silver needles you like?

He could see the bewildered expression on my face but he kept going.

“So I had it in the back of my van and I was going to set it up this morning…until I read your blog.”

I still wasn’t following so he continued.

“You said you were happy that you didn’t have a tree. That you liked the ease and simplicity…”

“Well, yeah…but…”

“So I drove back there to return it, but they don’t take back Christmas trees.” I could see a look of chagrin trying to hide behind his sexy, white beard.

I started to laugh. “What? No you didn’t!”

“Yep,” he said, starting to see the humor. “You are the proud owner of a living, silver pine tree which has been driven all over hell and back the past two days and is now lurking in the back of my van trying not to feel rejected.”

“Awwwwww, come on! You did not!” My eyes filled with tears as I launched myself into his arms. I told you those corners were for hugging.

“Lemme see him!” I squealed.

“I’m sorry.” He nuzzled his face in my neck. “I just can’t seem to get it right.”

“Don’t be sorry. Ya did good.”

Sometimes when you let something go. Like really let it go with no residual bullshit–it hunts you down and lurks in a van in your driveway.

Bible.

Carry on,
xox

Friends, 
Angels? Do you believe they walk among us? I sure do!
Read this and see what you think.
xox

As we rushed out through the smokey maze of the Casino at the old Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, it suddenly hit me that he had once again forgotten to give me my show bonus. The monetary incentive he used to physically wring me dry.  

The realization stopped me in my tracks.
F*#&!

We had just finished a week-long, Estate Jewelry Show.
I was bone tired from being on my feet for over twelve hours a day—in heels, and to add insult to injury, our plane reservation left us no time to eat before the flight home, so to top it all off—I was hangry.
In other words—I was in NO mood for any fuckery!

We had grossed over one million dollars—in a week. The two of us. And I was about to fly home empty-handed, once again.

You see, I had a boss who hated to pay me. He just did.
And no carefully scripted notes or heartfelt talks, or angry outbursts on my part had done anything to change that.

I had coached him repeatedly on the merits of showing respect. It wasn’t difficult, all he had to do was pay me. And not make me ask for my money, which I HATED.

What would this be, the third time that day I’d had to ask him for my money? I was quite familiar with this humiliating power play, and I was sick of it! Listen, I had done everything I could think of to sidestep this idiocy! Even after years of his bonus structure consisting of whatever loose cash he had in his pocket, not his fat, overstuffed money clip mind you—but his pocket change, I had won one hard-fought battle by finally getting him to agree to a pre-set bonus amount.

“Why are you stopping?” he bellowed back at me impatiently. His aluminum wheelie suitcase, a rectangular R2D2, skipped from wheel to wheel, trying to keep its balance. I could’ve sworn it looked in my direction with a help me face.

He continued his frantic march through the casino toward the door.

“I’d love to get my bonus before we leave?” I asked for the third time, running to keep up. I knew that if I let it slide, even for a day or two, the odds of getting it would become so slim even a Vegas bookie would pass on that bet.

I wasn’t sure he’d heard me until in one fluid motion, he swung to the right, deftly executing a wide, sweeping, u-turn back in my direction. Still in motion, he reached into his murse (man purse) and dumped a handful of gambling chips in my direction. Surprised, I reached out with both hands in time to catch most of them. Several of them did make a break for it, the slippery little buggers rolling on their sides underneath the dollar slots nearby.

“That should cover it,” He insisted. “Now hurry up, we don’t want to miss our plane.”

I stood there red-faced and flabbergasted, knowing that he’d left me no time to cash them in. Quickly, I shoved the chips in my purse and proceeded to get down on my hands and knees to see if I could retrieve the ones that had made their escape.

A pot-bellied, middle-aged woman, with a cigarette with two inches of ash precariously dangling from her lipstick-stained lips, was straddling two stools in front of three slot machines. Without ever looking away from the rapidly rotating numbers she was counting on to change her life, her foot kicked the chips my way, like a bedroom-slippered hockey stick.
“Uh, thanks” I mumbled, crawling around on the ground in my skirt and heels, totally in awe of her unbroken focus.

“Janet, let’s go!” He chided from inside the automatic revolving glass exit doors before turning right to join the cab line.

I could hear the damn plastic chip clattering together in my bag as I ran to catch my flight back to LA.

In the hour it took to get from Vegas to Los Angeles, I began to seethe with rage.
Not only had he made me repeatedly beg him for money he had literally thrown poker chips at me in lieu of my bonus! I had never felt so disrespected. In. My. Life.

I don’t know about you, but when I get in touch with that level of anger, I have a tendency to burst into flames tears.
Hunched down in my middle seat toward the back of the plane, I cried and cried and cried. Big, wet, sloppy tears.

I decided I would rather die, covered in honey and tied on an anthill than take the prearranged ride home to Park La Brea with him and his wife. What I knew for sure was that someone was going to die if I got in that car with him. And I was way too overdressed to spend a night in jail.

As we exited the terminal, the crowd spitting us out onto the curb, I spotted his wife’s car to the left. Without making a sound, (or so much as an indecent hand gesture) I made a beeline to the right, jumping into a single cab that just happened to be waiting there for me.

The moment the door shut and we pulled away—I freaking lost it.

I began to ugly cry, complete with gasping for breath and rivers of snot running down my face.
There I was, trapped in a horrible working situation with no solution in sight. What do you do when you ask someone repeatedly to treat you with respect and they blatantly disregard that request?

I know what you’re thinking, quit! But I couldn’t. I had the kind of career everyone wanted. Travel, great pay, jewelry, prestige. Which led to a lot of financial obligations, AND I was thirty-seven and single. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh. That sad truth made me cry even harder.

As we wound our way through the late-night traffic on LaCienega, I spotted the dark, soulful eyes of the cab driver, staring at me in the rearview mirror. His deep brown skin, white turban, and singsongy accent gave away his country of origin. India.

“Beautiful lady, why you cry?” He cooed.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, I’m just feeling so sad,” I boo-hooed. “I don’t know what to do.”

I watched his eyes search my face in the mirror as I inadvertently wiped snot into my hair with the back of my hand.
“Beautiful lady, don’t be sad, it can’t be that bad,” he murmured in his soothing, heavily accented voice.

“Ohhhhhhh it is, I think I hate my boss…he doesn’t show me any respect…he paid me with…”

I started to wail. Loudly. “With, with, poker chiiiiiiiiiiiiips!”

I grabbed a couple out of my bag and tossed them onto the front seat for dramatic effect.

“Beautiful lady, you have God’s respect and that’s all that matters.”
“Really? I  mean, I guess…”

At that moment, the cab came to a slow, rolling stop in front of my high-rise apartment building.

Since I had cried the entire ride home, he had to wait as I scavenged around in my bag for cab fare. In the meantime, the lovely man retrieved my suitcase from where I had launched it, the driver’s side backseat, opened my door, and wheeled my bag inside the lobby, depositing it in front of the elevator doors. When he returned to the cab, I had composed myself enough to hand him his fare, including a generous tip for being such a good listener.

“Here you go, thank you for being so kind to me,” I said sheepishly through the tissue that was attempting to wrangle my false eyelashes back into place.

“Oh no beautiful lady, you keep that. This ride is on me.”
And before I could even argue with him, he pulled away into the dark Los Angeles night. As I watched his tail lights fade into the distance, I realized a couple of things that were not normal. And they gave me goosebumps.
They still do.

Number one: I never told him where I lived!

I just got in the cab and fell apart while he drove me home — to Park La Brea, a literal labyrinth of apartments, turnabouts, and one-way streets. My friends refuse to pick me up lest they never find their way out. Even with my best directions, many a cab driver has made a wrong turn and been spit back out onto Wilshire Boulevard.

Number two: There are ten high rises inside that complex. How is it that he had managed to navigate all the twists and turns and one-way streets and deposit me right at my door?
I’ll answer that. He was an angel. My angel. Plain and simple.

When I finally managed to come out of my stupor, slowly walking inside the lobby, I noticed he had propped the elevator doors open with my bag. Getting inside I was stunned to discover he’d also pushed the button to the ninth floor!

My floor! How did he know?

I really, truly believe that angels are everywhere and only show themselves when we need them.

THAT is the story of my Angel in a Turban.

Carry on,
Xox

“Miracles can happen, even to those who are small, flammable, and dressed all in black.”
― Lemony Snicket

Friends, I just found out like, last week, that my life fits into a literary genre — Magical Realism.

And being someone who never wants to fit into anything, ever—as it turns out, I may have to admit that the writing world may have figured me out. You see, within a work of magical realism, life is still grounded in the real world, but fantastical elements are considered normal in this world. Magical realism blurs the line between fantasy and reality (with a straight face—my words).

See what I mean? Then when you add some snark and a bit of humor you have…well…me.

Most of the writers I know write memoir. When I thought about my memoir, I was immediately reminded of this blog and all of the posts about the crazy shit that has happened, and continues to happen to me. And you know what? Those damn genre mavens were right!  My memoir would actually sit comfortably on the shelf next to any work of magical realism!

I’ve been working on two magical realism novels, and much to my own amazement, all I’ve had to do is draw on my own experiences to give them the magic. 

Looking back has given me the opportunity to recall all the events, places, people, and thousands of essays from my past. And when I sat down to remember, this was just one of many wild stories culled from my own life of mystical realism that came to mind.

Stay tuned, I’ll post more…

If you recall, I was having a hard time of it back in the early nineties.
I had a good life. Great job, money, travel, the whole shebang, but I had opened myself up to a very life-altering spiritual experience – awakening is a better word, and it had knocked me on my ass in every way imaginable.

With one foot on terra firma and the other one in god-knows-where, I was having a hell of a time staying grounded. Which has its own set of problems. Lost and alone in a world of my own making, I was completely void of humor, whimsy, or any other emotions besides fear and loathing. In other words, I found NO joy in life.

“If this is enlightenment, you can have it!” I’d yell to anyone who would listen. 

It is my belief, garnered from the very extensive and exhaustive study of ME and my years of data; that in the midst of an up-leveling (as I like to call it) the Universe, in order to keep you in the game, lays a red carpet studded with mystical miracles at your feet. And in a blatant display of showoffery, these mystical experiences are so IN YOUR FACE that as whacked out and pissed off as you’ve become – you can’t miss them.

So, here’s how this one went down: I was a wacko with a big job, on my way to work a weekend jewelry show. Seeking joy in whatever way I could,  I stopped at a drugstore along my route to get some Carefree peppermint gum, my favorite at the time,  It came in a hurt-your-eyes, bright yellow package, with twenty-four sticks of minty yumminess. It was one of the few things that made me happy, so of course, the drugstore was out of it. Deciding nothing else could assuage my surly disposition, I left, gum-less and grumpy.

I pulled onto LaCienega Blvd. and waited at the light directly across from the Beverly Center. As I sat there, stewing in my own misery, I heard the radio blaring in the car to the left of me. Even with my windows up, it was unmistakable. Rod Stewart’s song Have I Told You Lately That I Love You. Annoyed, I shot the two young men with questionable musical taste, my best exasperated, too cool for school, are you fucking kidding me, stink eye. In response, the one sitting in the passenger seat motioned for me to roll down my window.

Did I mention they looked like a couple of angels who’d walked straight out of the pages of GQ?
It was West Hollywood in the nineties. All the men who looked like that batted for the other team, so, I just assumed they were going to ask me for directions.

Deciding to comply, I rolled down my window at the longest red light in history, and the beautiful GQ model/angel reached out to hand me something. I know I was wearing my resting-bitch-face as I pulled my whole body halfway out the window to be able to reach my arm far enough to take what he was so intent on giving me.

And there it was. Wrapped in a bright yellow wrapper. A stick of my favorite Carefree Peppermint Gum!
I kid you not.

I sat there slackjawed, holding the gum, while the drivers behind me began to honk. Apparently, in magical realism, life goes on. The light had been green for a second already. These real people were very important. And my magic was making them late.

The two smiley guys pulled ahead, the Rod Stewart song still hanging in the air like cheap perfume.

If you know that section of LaCienega heading south, you know there are several lights in quick secession that are synced up in such a way that they are perpetually red. It’s a sadistic joke, and if I hadn’t been on my quest for joy via some gum —I would have avoided it at all costs.

So, in less than a minute, I find myself stopped next to my new best friends. I glance over to find them still smiling so broadly, the whiteness of their teeth hurt my eyes. Meanwhile, Rod was still singing about how much he wanted me to know he loved me, and the entire scene was so ridiculous I’m surprised I was composed enough to remember my manners and mouth a quick Thank You while holding up the gum.

For three lights we stopped next to each other and they smiled and Rod sang. Until they finally turned left. Either the song had finished or they were embarrassed that they had given me their last piece of gum.

Okay, so, I added that to my growing list of things too weird to mention—and told no one. Which was no big hairy deal seeing that I had turned so dark and flammable at that point, dressing all in black with pennies in my shoes to ground me, that I don’t think anyone was taking me or anything I had to say very seriously anyway.

And here comes the plot twist.
After doing the show in Santa Monica for three days, when I got back to the shop I went about my usual mindless tasks, one of them being to check the answer machine. It was the early nineties, remember? Cell phones were the size and weight of bricks. We all had answer machines and the one that day at work told me it was full.

Machine Full—73 messages, it read for the first time ever.

Jeez. Okay. Must be some kind of jewelry emergency!

Press Play.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
Fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles that’s what you do

Yep. Rod Stewart, THAT song. Every message. All 73. Until the tape ran out.

Explain that away. You can’t because it’s magical realism! Boom!

Xox Carry on

Tell me about your miracles!

Loves,

I came across this post today while searching for…don’t ask…and it’s become more relevant than ever as I traverse aging and what that even means for women over fifty in a program I co-lead with the intrepid Geraldine called Croneology. http://croneology.net

Middle age is a crossroads y’all.
You’ve either laid the track for where you’re headed in advance, or you’re about to——and there’s no alternative, because, as Brene Brown so eloquently puts it, “Midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. All of this pretending and performing—these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt—has to go.”

So, what tracks are you laying right this minute for that thing you know will show up one day?

xox

“Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. … They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew someday, the train would come.”

When you read that story, about the train and the Alps, how does it make you feel?

Are you thinking, Why do I care about a train in Europe? I have three job interviews this week!

Or, are you more practical, like, How fiscally irresponsible is that to build something that no one can use?

Or… are you more like me?

As you’ve probably already guessed, that little anecdote gives ME goosebumps the size of Montana hail, a lump in my throat, and every time I read it my boobies tingle a little—because that’s just the kind of inspiring, real-life, stranger-than-fiction, magical nonsense that makes me excited to get up in the morning.

That passage is from a favorite movie of mine, Under the Tuscan Sun, which if you haven’t seen it or have read the book (which is marvelous) is about a woman going through a profound life change whose purpose, timeframe, and final destination are completely unknown to her. And yet, day after day, terrified and miserable as fuck, she just keeps putting one foot in front of the other.

Like we all do.
Even people who aren’t steeped in faith find a way to carry on.
Maybe they get it from stories about trains? Dunno.

Anyway, if you think about it from my very Pollyanna Perspective, every great work of art, creative endeavor, and scientific accomplishment started with some track building. I’ll take it a step further and insist that we all lay down tracks we can’t use until we flesh out our ideas from start to finish.

I do it every freaking day and so do you!

A dear friend of mine has gone back to school to get her degree. There’s no job lined up yet, no clientele or guarantee of employment waiting for her at the finish line. Nevertheless, I see her working her tail off—laying the tracks.

From the age of thirteen, Misty Copeland would practice up to eight hours a day, barely listening to the naysayers who insisted that her skin was too dark, her body too curvy, and she’d started dancing too late to have a real career in ballet. But Misty wasn’t screwing around, she was too busy laying tracks for a position that did not exist before her—the first African-American principal ballerina for the American Ballet Theatre.

She gave us something we never knew we needed—that now we can never imagine living without.

Like a train across the Alps.

What tracks are you laying right this minute for that thing you know will show up one day?

Carry on,
xox JB

A bit of Wednesday Wisdom from me—via the School of Hard Knocks.

When Having Something Is Better Than Nothing

A number on a scoreboard.
Dust at the bottom of a bag of potato chips.
Flip flops on hot sand.
A single match.
A piece of shit car.

Tits.

A thimble-full of milk for a bowl of cereal.
Crooked teeth.
Cankles.
A light sweater in a blizzard.
An ancient, stretched-out bikini in a hot tub full of strangers.

Common sense.

A hand towel after a shower.
Somebody’s toothbrush.
Map folding skills.
A bottle of Vodka in the freezer.

Talent.

But never, ever, under any circumstances do these apply:

Any man/woman/dog who you no longer care for—in your bed.
A crap-ass, dead-end, bridge-job.
A rat-infested, rent-controlled apartment.
An abusive partner.
A cubic zirconia.
Mean friends.
Moldy cheese.
A Toupee.

Are we clear?

Carry on,
xox

“Our rituals demand that we give what we hope to receive.” ~ Oprah

Here we are, the day before the BIG DAY.

I’ve been wanting to write to you guys for days. Every morning I’d wake up and take the emotional temperature of the world, and every morning the answer was, not today.  But me being me, I’d still sit down and start a draft, you know, for later, and when the words wouldn’t come I’d finally give up, only to start another day.

I wanted to make you laugh, but nothing seemed funny.

I wanted to make you think, but then I remembered that your brain is probably as exhausted as mine so…no.

I wanted to vent, and rail, and do all of the things but we have cable news and the Twitter for that.

Most of all I wanted to give you some comfort because lord knows that’s what I need.

The list is short of the people I trust to have the steadiness and personal integrity for me to just hand over my anxiety-ridden self over to them for comfort. Oprah has proven herself to be one of those people. We are about the same age and I feel like we kinda grew up together. We read all the same books, loved all the same movies, and started talking about our spirituality at about the same time.

Oprah is my boo, she just doesn’t know it. 

That being said, of course she’s doing the exact thing I need her to do to comfort me (second only to a foot massage) a FREE prayer/meditation call later today for the soul of our country. It starts at 8PM Eastern — 5PM Pacific, and I knew right when I saw the invite on Instagram that THIS was exactly what I was waiting to send out today. Hope. 

The link to register is here:

zoomwithoprah.com

A short conversation with her good friend Glennon about her objectives for the call is here:

Glennon Doyle on Instagram: “Tomorrow is one of the most important days in our nation’s history. Anxiety and tension are at an all-time high.   People of conscience,…”

You guys, all weekend I participated in global meditations and when I went to bed last night the one thing I knew for sure was that LOVE conquers fear—and that the entire world has our back. YOU are rooting for us to not only succeed, but to triumph. 

And so I’m asking you, my readers from all over the globe, in the most humbled and grateful way I know how, to hold us in your hearts tomorrow. We need you.

Thank you and carry on,

xoxJB

“How we go into that day (election day) will determine how we come out of that day.” ~Glennon Doyle

Good Morning!

• Bronwyn’s Bio: For over fifteen years, Bronwyn has helped high-profile clients prepare for big moments on camera (American Idol, Real Time with Bill Maher, Bloomberg TV, CNBC’s Power Lunch, The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Home Shopping Network), and has midwifed over 120 TEDx, TED Global, and TED talks. Bronwyn’s superpower is helping people communicate in a way that breaks through the static of our everyday lives. In 20 Minutes with Bronwyn, you will get a steady dose of high voltage, practical (and highly irreverent) advice to help you dismantle the communication habits that are holding you back while giving you the skills you need to shine.

This is from back in 2015 when all we had to worry about was the threat of a nuclear holocaust. Awwwww…the good old days! But it’s still really good advice.
Stay well my dear friends.
xox

It never occurred to me that I might die in a thermal-nuclear holocaust. 

A motorcycle accident, sure. Choking on my gum or a large mouthful of  Raisinettes, huge possibility. But turned into toast at the hands of two man-babies with weird hair? Not so much.

I grew up during the Cuban missile crisis, we had “duck and cover”  drills twice a week in an effort to convince us we’d be safe under our desks. Like radiation and fire would skip over our grade school. Or Catholic kids dressed in their Gawd-awful uniforms with their hands clasped tightly together in prayer wouldn’t die. I knew even then that the whole thing was bullshit. I also knew that if the bomb dropped I’d die without ever kissing a boy, getting boobs or being allowed to order Coca Cola at a restaurant. 

You wanna know what really scared me as a kid? Nuns, clowns and math tests. The end.

So, now what? What if Kim Jong What-the Fuck picks California to nuke? Will the world even care? Will it miss Kombucha, man buns, and hot yoga? I tend to think not. My guess is that us whiny, liberal, coastal elites will not be missed.
At first.
I can only imagine how the political pundits will spin it once the radioactive dust has settled. “Good riddance giant blue state.” the headlines will read.  “One less thing to worry about in the 2020 election.” 

I bring all of this up because I read this recent Facebook post by one of my favs, Anne Lamott, who wrote about her concerns starting off with “We are so doomed.”

Are we?

My immediate thought: “Well, if that’s the case I’m done shaving my legs.” 

Then I remembered being a kid and watching all of the grown-ups wringing their hands with worry and how I knew, even five decades ago, that worrying wasn’t going to make anything better. So, instead of joining the hand wringing circle,  I grabbed my “bug jar”, ran outside to the field on the corner, and looked for more ladybugs. Because ladybugs are good luck (especially the rare ones without any spots) and being a kid gave me permission not to worry. To not know how to fix things. To just be in the moment, enjoying life.

That’s what Anne is saying below, and seriously, you guys, I know it sounds trite and you probably want to pummel my face—but that’s all we can do. 

Well, that and bury ourselves in a giant puppy pile while wearing that expensive dress we were saving for a special occasion and eating any carb that isn’t nailed down.

I give us all permission to be childlike.  Innocently oblivious. Also, it feels like the right time to tell anyone and everyone that you love them.

Now. Don’t wait. 

xox Love you guys. Who’s with me?

TAKE IT AWAY ANNE…

“We are so doomed. There is nothing we can do. We are at the mercy of two evil ignorant syphilitic madmen, the two worst people on earth. I mean that nicely.

Where do we even start?

We stop trying to figure things out. “Figure it out” is not a good slogan. We practice trust and surrender, and attention to what we know is beautiful: dogs, art, the Beatles, each other’s eyes. And we don’t give up hope. Emily Dickinson said that hope encourages the Good to reveal itself. We need all the Good we can summon in these Locked and Loaded days.

So what do we hope for?

Pivot! A perfect time for the Pivot.

Just kidding.

We hope and pray for the return of sanity, or even sanity-ish. I do not hope for a successful Trump presidency or failed Trump presidency. I hope that he does not blow up the whole world.

Is that so much to ask?

What if he accidentally blows up a little bit of the world?

Well, these things happen. We’ll stick together. What has always lifted my spirits is a promise that I made to myself, that if it looks like the end of the world, I get to eat every single thing on earth that can’t outrun me: the last few days, I will only eat nachos and creme brûlée and Safeway carrot cake. Oatbags of M&M’s. No vegetable matter!

That’s something to look forward to!

One more question: how do we get to hope in these dark ratty days?

We don’t think our way to hope. We take the actions, and then the insight follows. The insight is that hope springs from awareness of love, immersion in love, commitment to love. This begins with radical self love: to save the world, make yourself a lovely cup of tea. Put lotion on your jiggly thighs, clean sheets on the bed, the most forgiving pants you own. On the possibly last day on earth, you do not want to be wearing pants that pinch or tug, or ride up your crack.

Trust me on this.

Radical self-love means you treat yourself the same way you would treat your favorite cousin, or even cranky old mealy-mouthed me. Watch the self-talk. You would probably use a sweeter tone of voice with the cousin or me, that you would with yourself. This will change the world.

Get outside, even just to the front porch, and look up into the sky and into the tree tops, and say the great praise- prayer: WOW. Listen for the sound of birds–or bird. Surely there is one lousy bird somewhere in the vicinity. Close your eyes and really listen. If birdsong was the ONLY proof we have that there is a bigger deeper reality than what transcends what we are seeing on the news, it would be enough for me. Eyes closed, breathe, listen: secret of life.

And lastly, take care of the poor–right now. In Hallelujah Anyway, I wrote that when I got sober, I was taught that happiness lay in going from big shot, to servant. If you want to feel loving feelings, which is hope, do loving things. Send a donation to a group that feeds and shelters and clothes people, in your neighborhood, or Syria. Don’t tell yourself you have no money–pack up clothes and shoes to take to a shelter. Or cash in the money in your laundry room change cup, and give it to people on the street. Give away three dollars to moms on the street with kids, and give the kids colored pencils and journals, or index cards, and say,”It is good to see you,” even if you have tiny tiny judgment issues involving bootstraps and combed hair.

If you have time, register a few voters. Also, maybe a ten-minute nap–the writer Robyn Posin says rest is a spiritual act. Father Tom Weston urges, “Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe.” Ram Dass tells us that ultimately, we are all just walking each other home. Let’s get started.

Am sending you love, whoever you are, and as pastor Veronica says, God bless you good.”