awareness

“You’ve picked a hell of a time to get a life!”

~ Me, in a text to my friend

My world has been turned upside down this past week—just not in the way you’d think.

It is not Trump or world events that have me feeling like I’ve been thrust into an alternate reality (Okay well, maybe they started it) it is the fact that my “accountability” friend has decided to get all “human” on me.

Sally, I will call her Sally because that’s her name, has been my friend for well over twenty years.
We served side by side in the jewelry trenches. Even then I counted on her to get me off my ass and outside in the fresh air. Spurred on by her desire to lose some actual baby weight she convinced me to run three miles with her every day after work. Since I had put on ten pounds of imaginary baby weight, and given the fact that I’m just a damn nice friend, I acquiesced.

But not without protest.

Since I’d never so much as picked up my pace to catch a cab or board a plane, actual running by choice was as farfetched of an idea to me as having a baby. And what do I do when I’m talked into to doing something I don’t like? The mature thing. I bitch and moan every step of the way.

Sally didn’t give a shit. She is the honey badger of accountability friends. 

She was always several paces ahead of me talking away, paying absolutely NO attention to my protests.
“Oh my gawd, I’m gonna die!”
“This is so hard. Isn’t this hard?”
“It’s so hot today, can’t we stop at the corner and go get ice cream?”
“I can’t do the hill. You do the hill. I’ll wait here and jog in place.”

Deaf ears don’t hear complaints.

These very valid reasons for quitting always fell on Sally’s deaf ears, and let me tell you—I can be persuasive. I could argue the collar right off of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

IF Sally  replied, which was about as infrequent as the sex I was having in those days, her response was always the same “Come on, you can do this.”

Rain or shine we ran. Pouring rain in the winter and in temperatures well over one hundred degrees in the summer. I cried. I begged random gardeners on their rounds through those manicured Beverly Hills neighborhoods to spray me with cold water from their hoses for relief from the heat. Honey badger wasn’t having any of it. She just shook her head in disbelief and ran on. After a couple of years, she even convinced me to bump our daily mileage up to five.

‘Fuck me running”, as my friend Sandra would say.

Fast forward two decades and she has maintained her role as my Chief Exercise Accountability Expert—only now we hike.

Every Sunday and Tuesday. Those are the days we hike together. Sally hikes seven days a week. But since she has to be at work by ten, she starts most days when the sun comes up. I cannot subject myself to that kind of torture before I’ve had my coffee and pooped, so most days I get there by 8:30 and by that time Sally is long gone.

She still starts by seven on Sundays and Tuesdays, but since those are her days off she does the hike TWICE and I catch her at a civilized hour on her second go around. You heard me. She does a brutal, mostly uphill, three-mile hike TWICE on Sundays and Tuesdays.

Sally is a beast, a stone cold half-way bitch—and a soul sister.

When she swings past the stairs where we meet, (she doesn’t stop), she is barely out of breath. Her arm and ankle weights in place, she sets a pace that would challenge an Olympic athlete. Does she slow down at all? Nope. But I know the routine. I just try my damnedest to fall in line. It’s a lot like jumping into a round of Double Dutch. You get up to pace and jump in—or you fumble and fall out. As per our routine for the past two decades, I fall in step several paces behind her while she chats away—and then I commence the whining.

I love her for that. I love that she cannot be bothered with me and my resistance to exercise. I love that she talks over my complaints and that her only answer if she acknowledges me at all is “Come on, you can do this.”  I love her persistence and reliability. I know with the same certainty that I know that the sun will come up, that Sally will be on that mountain when I text her.

Except for this past Sunday.

I was actually looking forward to the hike since I’d been away for a week and we had a lot to catch up on. I geared up and enjoyed my prerequisite cup of coffee waiting for her text from the hill. That time came and went. Finally, around eight thirty (which is noon in Sally time), I texted her to make sure she hadn’t been bitten by a snake to eaten by a hungry bobcat because those are the only two reasons I could think of for her silence.

What she texted back was even more horrifying.

“Believe it or not I just woke up.”

Wait. What? Had the earth stopped spinning? Did pigs have wings? Was my exercise-nazi friend in trouble?

We agreed to meet and I actually got there before her! When I stopped checking the weather on my phone to see if hell had frozen over, I saw her pull up next to me. She didn’t even notice my car. When I went and stood next to her driver’s side window she jumped. She was slow, she had a cold and felt…wait for it…tired.

Oh, the humanity! Here was the proof that we had actually fallen through a portal into an alternate reality. This is not a woman who lets a cold or lack of sleep sidestep her! That is MY gig!

This is a woman who hikes when she has the flu. Or an injury. She limp/hikes. She would commando crawl if she had to. With a dog on her back. I swear to God.

Sunday she hiked one round. One lousy round. I was concerned but tried not to show it. I just shamed instead her because that’s what old friends do.

We still had Tuesday. Viruses don’t survive long on Sally. Tuesday she would be back to her old self and all would be right with the world. I would be the sick and tired one and SHE would go back to her role as the none-shit-giving honey badger.

Here is how yesterday, Tuesday, went.

8:22 am — I texted her the eyeballs which is our symbol for “Where are you?”

She texted back: I’m planting. Driving there soon.

My response: Wtf? Who are you and what have you done with Sally!

Sally: It’s just 8:22.

Me: Exactly! I was worried. You’re usually on round two!

Sally: I was amending soil and planting.

Me: You’ve picked a hell of a time to get a life!

Truth be told I’ve always wanted Sally to slow down and smell the flowers. Just not on Sundays or Tuesdays. I always figured she was immune to the seasons just as long as she could hike—so I’ll be happy for her when the shock wears off.

What happens if she decides to live life so fully that she becomes completely unaccountable?

It’s too much for me to think about today. I’m going to eat some pie for breakfast.

Carry on,
xox

Bal·ance: noun

1. An even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.
“I tripped and lost my balance” (This is a very relatable example for me.)

2. A condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.
“Overseas investments can add balance to an investment portfolio” (Um…This example? Not so much. We have no money invested offshore AND —my right boobie is bigger than my left. Just sayin’.)

3. An apparatus for weighing, especially one with a central pivot, beam, and a pair of scales.
(Any allusion to weight or scales and I get squirrely and stop reading.)

So, 4. and 5. and blah, blah, blah… There are three more definitions for balance but I think we all get the picture.

The only reason I put this up was because of my meditation today. You see, while my mind went searching in its own kind of scavenger hunt sort of cleverly disorganized way for my newest mantra, which is SURRENDER, it came back to me with the word BALANCE.

That was not what I sent it out to find!

So, I fought it. You know, like you do during meditation.

I fought like a crazed spider monkey looking for a hidden peanut in a rainforest in Madagascar.
I wanted my word!
I wanted SURRENDER!
Not that it was working all that well for me, which seems fairly obvious as I type this. But damn it! I find myself lately in dire need of some surrendering, so I figure that if I repeat it enough times in that far away place that meditation can drop you into, all of my synapses will re-wire themselves and I will open my eyes and suddenly be…tranquil…Accepting…Surrendery.

Except look who showed up instead. Fucking BALANCE.

Okay, show of hands, who here has achieved balance in their life? Uh huh. Uh, huh. Just as I suspected. Billy…put your hand down. Don’t make me come over there…

We all have moments of balance. Maybe even a day here or a month there and then that pesky thing called life gets in that way and fucks everything up.

Regardless of how convinced I am that my shit is together, there’s always a stray hair, right? Or a loose thread that’s threatening to unravel my delicate sweater of a life. Or a sudden wind set to blow down my house of cards.

If you’re anything like me (and I know you are), I always think I need to chill out more. Things are too hectic. Running, running, running. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Oh, my! Then, after I have relaxed for, I don’t know, three days, I get the itch to un-wedge my ass from the beach chair, grab a scooter and rob a bank because I’m SO FUCKING BORED!

Who’s with me?

BALANCE, HA! That means things are humming along nicely, right?  T’s crossed and I’s dotted. Duckies all in a row.

Very rarely (never) are my duckies in a row. My duckies are scattered to the wind, skittering across the pavement. My duckies are distacted by shiney objects and since they all wear tin-foil hats—it’s a mess. I’m under the impression that you need perfectly lined up duckies to achieve balance.

Am I wrong?

When I’m home I feel wanderlust. I want to be traveling the world and when I’m traveling I want to get home. When I’m eating kale I want it to be pizza. If I’m writing I want to be playing. I ask you, is that balance?

My girls and I went to Nashville to work. To hunker down and finish stuff. All of that unfinished stuff that tortures us at 3 am. To write our asses off. To brainstorm, and make calls, and answer emails and…“Can we go out? Can we go back to that hipster bar tonight so I can flirt with that bartender Kenneth again?”  I started whining at 5 pm.

I was done. Cooked. The unfinished stuff would have to wait for another day.

BALANCE!

I have none.

None!

So, I guess the voice in my head knows me better than I know myself.
SURRENDER will have to wait…or will it?

Carry on,
xox

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” – Chuck Palahniuk

“Tread lightly and do no harm. Approach the problem from a passive direction and everything will simply come together.”-Skunk

“Oh, F*uck, Ruby!!!”

Our boxer-pup Ruby has been skunked three times in past nine months, the last time being Saturday night. I know what you’re thinking: What a glamourous life you lead!

Everything we own has the lingering aroma of skunk woven into its cellular structure. I say aroma instead of odor because the inhabitants of my home react to it like it’s a new scented spray from GLADE, or a particularly cloying potpourri because well—we’ve all gone nose-blind.

We don’t smell the residual skunk in our shower, on our blankets, or in our clothing until we leave the house and come back.
And you know what? I have to say, it’s really not that bad!

Human beings are mysterious creatures. We are so incredibly adaptable and as if to prove that fact my entire family has adapted to the stench.

The first time, it caused my eyes to water profusely and I drooled like a cartoon wolf eyeing a pork chop.

The second time I gagged. Loudly.

This time the smell barely made me flinch.

Even the little brown dog seemed unfazed and her sense of smell is ten hundred billion times more sensitive than mine.

Here’s the thing, if you visit me three times…you’re a totem. I don’t care what you are. Grasshopper. Praying mantis. A Girl Scout selling Thin Mints. And since I am not one to miss an opportunity to ask “why?” I looked up “skunk totem.”

“If Skunk is your Animal Totem;
You are the ultimate pacifist, always preferring to avoid conflict and turmoil. You walk a very fine line between being a people “pleaser” and balancing your own self-respect and always maintain a “do no harm” attitude. You know how to be assertive without ego. You know how to attract others and are very charismatic. You have a good understanding of energy and how to use energy flows to get what you want.”

This makes no sense. It fits absolutely NO ONE in my house! Not one word of it. The three of us bicker like a angry pack of honey badgers. Ego is our middle name, and if charisma smells like skunk, well then okay. Otherwise…

My husband insists that this only goes to show that sometimes a “cigar is just a cigar, Janet—and a skunk is just a nuisance.” This all makes me mad because it proves that he is right yet again. 

And so…this bleeding heart has agreed to catch and release—the trap has been set and the skunk-scented potpourri is about to leave the building.

Geesh.

Happy weekend y’all!

Carry on,
xox

“Never trust any who treats a waiter badly.”

~ Anyone with a soul

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life. I worked my way through my twenties as a cashier in a supermarket while many of my friends waited tables, catered and tended bar. Based on our nightly bitch sessions, I can tell you without hesitation that selling people food and serving it to them are two completely different experiences.

Food service is grueling work. And absolutely soul-sucking if people aren’t nice. Nobody has to lick your face or nibble your neck—just your standard issue basic human decency nice would suffice.

I’ve sat at tables with snippy divas. Women who are prickly, easily annoyed—on the lookout for trouble. It has always been my belief that if you’re lookin’ for trouble, trouble will not only find you, it will pull up a chair, order a drink, charge it to your tab, and over-stay its welcome.

We all know these women. They huff and puff and send stuff back. They act indignant, dis-respected. Like me when I get carded.

They don’t like the look of the lettuce, the ice is too cold or the coffee tastes burnt—so they shame the staff. Seriously? The only time I ever sent something back was when my wine glass had a lipstick stain on the rim and I hadn’t sipped from it yet. And I apologized so profusely my husband had to shoot me some stink-eye to shut me up.

Listen, I’m not particularly judgy. But be forewarned. I WILL judge you harshly for treating people in the service industry rudely.

That includes being a cheap tipper.

Lots of folks supplement a lousy salary with commission or tips. It can be the difference between making ends meet and having to pick up a second job. Please, think of that the next time you’re tempted to hand the young guy who ran three blocks, in the rain, to fetch your car—a lousy buck.

I’ve seen that.

One measly dollar. You know what one dollar buys these days? Uh…nothing.

Same with the young man or woman who spends twenty minutes hand drying your car at the car wash. I saw a lady hand the guy next to me ONE dollar after he not only hand dried, but at her insistence spent extra time cleaning and shining up the chrome rims on her giant SUV—in ninety-degree weather.

You could smell the stingy. Don’t be that lady.
Get change if you have to, but please be a decent tipper. Trust me, that person needs the cash a lot more than you do.

At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m tempted to be cheap. I’m not immune to feeling broke but if I have the good fortune to spring for a mani-pedi, or get my car washed, park valet or go out to lunch—I’m better off than most.

This seems to be a time of me or them. I might suggest that we find some common ground. Like hard work, industriousness, and hustle—and the fact that we’ve all been there. Then it’s just us.

Right?

Carry on,
xox

Dearest brave ones,
All I can say is that after the past six months—for almost everyone—including me—and tens of my friends—this could not feel more relevant.

Carry on,
xox

I found this a while ago…somewhere…I can’t remember.
I’m sure I was bleary eyed, in need of sleep, and I only had the presence of mind to copy/paste.

I wanted to show this to you guys. It’s by Katy Bourne and it’s so good I can’t even…there are no words.

This is for the ones going through hell right now. You know who you are. And for those of us that have been there and back. Katy obviously has, and her words are here to soothe all of our souls.
Enjoy your weekend,
xox

“You’re dangling precariously.
You’re frozen and trembling. You’re gripped with uncertainty and the ominous unknown. The wolf is at the door.

The bills are piling up, but no money is coming in. Or maybe your baby left you, walked right out. Perhaps you’ve made an epic mistake, with disastrous and irrevocable consequences. You can barely breathe, suffocated by the unwieldy weight of your own broken heart.

You frantically scan the landscape, looking for clues or any kind of lifeline. But the vista is barren. You’re shredded into a million bewildering pieces. You’re hanging on for sweet life. Or maybe you don’t know what you’re hanging on to anymore, or if you even can.

This is survival mode. And it will be okay.

Raw vulnerability is the midwife to grace.
Stripped of your old safety nets and certainties, you have nothing but openness and new eyes. There is a pouring in of all the things you never noticed before. Even a dew-soaked leaf takes on a fresh poignancy and buys you a nanosecond of peace and beauty.

The very light of day changes. It softens and clarifies. Your pain is not here to batter you. It’s just making passage for perspective, transcendence, and rebirth.

No matter the mayhem of the present moment, your heart is still steadily pounding. Your lungs are still expanding and contracting. Oxygen is still coursing through your body. And as you flail around in your anguish, your inner warrior is hard at work behind the scenes: rendering first-aid, holding your broken soul and keeping you alive.

He or she is fighting for you, more ferociously and diligently than you can imagine.

Your mind is your best weapon and your biggest obstacle.
It can spin you into infinite madness or ground you in brave resolve. Panic can make it chatter relentlessly, but you can bring it back to earth again.

Step outside. Turn your precious face upward. Breathe. The air and the sky and the sun will calm the clamor. You don’t have to figure it all out right now.

Grief is the natural and real response to loss and hardship.

Despair, however, is grief on steroids. Grief holds its own gentle resolution. Despair is resignation, a long-term forecast for gloom. Fear has an ugly snarl but limited power. Still, it rages like a lunatic, leaving you disoriented.

Courage moves through the chaos, one steady step at a time. Your heartache is like a free fall. You can scramble to fill the void, grabbing for whatever fix you can to numb the jagged edges. You can also persevere with quiet dignity. In every moment there are choices, even in survival mode.

The hardest part of survival mode is the ambiguity.

It will not budge. There is no clear pathway to relief or even a guarantee that you’ll find it. You are at the mercy of time and forces beyond your control. Such is the nature of ambiguity. Your present circumstances merely accentuate the point.

But even within the ambiguity there is possibility.

Although you’re shaking on the edge, there is a larger view available. This current difficulty, with all its sorrow, dread, and anger, is just a blip on a much greater narrative. There is spaciousness, wonder and the divine gift of impermanence.

All are there for you. There is elegant liberation in releasing your weary clutch. You have already traveled for eons. Grace is the tender seraph pulling you home, wherever that may be.
And you will be okay.”

Katy Bourne is a self-described ‘basic goober making her way in the world’. A child of the Southern plains, she spent her Oklahoma childhood throwing rocks, blowing saxophone in the school band and riding horses. The youngest of four, she was often left to her own devices and entertained herself by making faces in the bathroom mirror and dressing up the family pets. Having navigated numerous life challenges over the years — addiction & recovery, the death of a child, divorce, the ups & downs of parenthood, the music business — she is particularly interested in exploring themes of survival, grit and grace in the face of ambiguity. Katy makes her home in Seattle, WA. By day, she writes promotional copy for musicians and bands. By night, she sings jazz at nightspots, festivals and private events throughout the Northwest.
{You’ll Be Okay}

You could contact her via her website.http://katy-bourne.com

I am not proud of what I’m about to say next but I need to vent…so here goes.

I HATE to be carded.

Above is a picture of me with my beloved tribe taken on our trip to Nashy (Nashville) last week. That face is the default annoyance setting that my face naturally morphs into…when you card me…and then take my freaking picture.

My face can’t help it and neither can I.

This “carding everyone” has apparently become a “thing”; a regular practice in hipster bars across the country. Never one to pass on a ridiculous fad I expect as much in LA, but Nashville, you? You definitely surprised me.

Being carded at thirty, or even forty is squeal worthy. Trust me. Although it happened infrequently (which is just a kinder way of saying almost never), I’ve squealed the flattered squeal with the best of ‘um.

But now, three days shy of my fifty-ninth birthday I am by no means flattered by this charade.

I wear my gray hair with the purple fringe with pride.
I exercise and take pretty good care of myself.
Genetics, (for which I can take absolutely NO credit) has been kind to me.

But there are no circumstances, no amount of great lighting or make-up, of farsightedness under which I can be mistaken for under twenty-one. I know it. You know it. And if we stopped a random person on the street and asked them, they’d know it.

So cut the crap.

Here’s the thing, I’m totally okay with it. I earned this head of gray. Every. Single. One. So don’t condescend to me by telling me you’re “required to card everyone”, or smirk as I fumble for my license while you hold my overpriced artisan cocktail for ransom. Show me the respect I’ve earned.

I have handbags older than you. And books. And memories. In bars.

There. I said it. I’m finished. But be forewarned. I may slug the smug off of the next millennial who asks me for I.D.

Carry on,
xox

http://mb.ntd.tv/2017/03/04/3-year-old-taekwondo-devotee-recites-student-creed-slays-us-cuteness/

Throughout my life, I have switched up my spirit animals on a pretty regular basis.

I’m fickle that way.

Although, I have to admit that it’s not been as often as I’ve changed my hair color.

If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what a spirit animal is, here is the “real” meaning:

“A Power animal, a shamanic belief of a spirit which guides, helps or protects individuals, lineages, and nations. Spirit guide, a spiritualist entity that remains a spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnated human being. Totem animals, animals revered as sacred or possessing supernatural powers.”

In order to be chosen as my spirit animal you must:

Possess an inordinate amount of self-confidence, passion, concentration and focus,

Be a straight-up badass,

Set a good example for me,

Make me think I can be a better person by emulating everything you do,

Be excellent.

You know, a combination of qualities I just didn’t get or know were available to me when I was mindlessly standing in line getting a second helping of that wicked predisposition for belly fat—and frizzy hair.

Some of my previous spirit animals have been Madonna circa 1980’s, Lara Croft, Maya Angelou, and Dory.

You get the picture.

Take a look at this three-year-old. I adore everything about her, most especially her whale-spout pony tail, and I aspire to take her oath every morning for the rest of my life! Seriously.

Carry on,
xox

At breakfast this morning, my BFF Steph and I were marveling at how kind and thoughtful the folks are here in the south, specifically Nashville and Huntsville since that is where my butt has sat for the past few days. I’m sure the rest of the south is equally kind. For instance, I know for a fact that the folks in my brother’s home state of Arkansas are top-notch, slap your mama, over-the-top nice.

Especially Billy. Billy is in a league all his own—but that is a story for another day. Suffice it to say, Billy has gotten me out of so many jams—technologically speaking, (and let’s be honest, are there any jams that are worse than a computer staring back at you with the black screen of death?) that I bought Billy a pony—on Amazon.

Anyway…Steph was relaying the story of her seat mate on the flight into Huntsville yesterday.

He was your standard issue, middle-aged guy, who’s been commuting from the state where he’d been transferred, back and forth to Alabama where his wife and daughter have stayed put until she finishes her senior year of high school.

In my tribe, we’ve been talking a lot lately about mindfulness—conscious living.

Why we want the things we want.
What are our expectations?
What do we hope to gain?
Will this decision add to my quality of life—or detract from it?

You know, all of those questions that make us formerly impulsive Bohemian types cringy and squirmy.

We have entered the phase of life where the opening line when you talk to God has changed from “Dear Lord, please give me what I want—to, Dear Wise One, please show me what I need.”

The man on Steph’s flight was coming back to be present at his daughter’s senior prom. The decision was easy for him as he explained, “You know those dates on headstones and the top of obituaries? The date of birth, then a dash and the date they died?” Steph nodded.

“In my family, we’ve decided to ”live the dash. To figure out what makes us happy between those two dates—and just go for it!”

I sat back in my chair for a minute taking that all in.

Don’t you fucking love that?

I never thought about mindful living quite that way before, but he’s right! There are a finite amount of years that fit inside the dash. How we fill that space is our choice. We can live unconsciously, (which to most of us means fearfully, cautiously), reacting to circumstances that seem beyond our control.
OR
We can take the reins and live the dash. Filling the space between those dates with love and happiness.

I choose the latter, don’t you?

Carry on,
xox

Have you ever given that much thought? I have.

The fact that we’re trying to maintain our balance on a planet made mostly of liquid, that is spinning at 1000 mph?
Then imagining that big wet blue ball hurtling through the void of space at 67,000 mph.

No wonder I fall down so much. Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit.

I know science says it all has to do with centrifugal force, gravity nd blah, blah, blah…
But I think it’s a freaking miracle.

This rare jewel. This Goldilocks habitat, in the middle of a vacuum. How did I get so lucky?

When I contemplate all the places, all the gin joints in all the towns, in all the worlds, in all of the Universes, where I could have ended up, I must have drawn the long straw, because I could have been born as a gnat on the ass of a Wookie.

It is my belief that we volunteered to come here at this time in Earth’s history.
We waited in line.
We knew things wouldn’t be easy. But we knew they wouldn’t be boring either.
It would be a time of great change, and we knew we could make a difference. It would be a challenge to fit all of our magnificence into a body. It’s uncomfortably tight at times, like squeezing into size zero skinny jeans.

And those emotions! How the hell do they work?
They looked really fun from an outsider’s perspective.

But the beauty. My God, the beauty.
Trees of green and skies of blue. Purple mountains majesty.

I’m in awe whenever I see an elephant or a whale, or a wild wolf.
Watching hummingbirds in my backyard or starlings flying in formation.
The smell of cut grass, and orange blossoms and puppy breath.

Those are just a few of the things that help me maintain my balance here.

I KNOW we all came in with a purpose. God or whoever does not make extra people.
That’s not the way the Universe works.
No one and nothing is superfluous. And all life is connected.

Remember that the next time you’re feeling lonely, unsettled and out of balance.

Then open your eyes and look around. Take a deep breath and realize how freakin’ lucky you are. How lucky we ALL are.
Then get to work, you with your mad skills.

XoxJanet