guidance

STORY OF THE TAOIST FARMER

“There was once a farmer in ancient China who owned a horse. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors told him, “to have a horse to pull the cart for you.” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

One day he didn’t latch the gate properly and the horse ran away. “Oh no! That is terrible news!” his neighbors cried. “Such bad luck!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

A few days later the horse returned, bringing with it six wild horses. “How fantastic! You are so lucky,” his neighbors told him. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The following week the farmer’s son was breaking-in one of the wild horses when it threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. “Oh no!” the neighbors cried. “Such bad luck, all over again!” “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next day soldiers came and took away all the young men to fight in the army. The farmer’s son was left behind. “You are so lucky!” his neighbors cried. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

When we interpret a situation as an ‘opportunity’ or a ‘disaster’ it shapes the way that we respond.

But the Taoist Farmer shows that we can never truly know how a situation is going to turn out. There are no intrinsic ‘opportunities’ or ‘threats’ — there is only what happens and how we choose to respond.

In which case, doesn’t it make sense to look for the opportunities in every situation?

Are you facing a crisis at the moment? How might you turn it into an opportunity?

SO much has happened in the past year.

Some good, some just so-so, and a lot of it bad. Life had been a veritable roller coaster of disappointments.

“So much fuckery!” I am fond of saying. But,(and I’m asking you to bear with me here) what if there’s magic in the mess?

Inspirational speaker Rob Bell cautions us against judging a situation before we let it “play out”.
“Disappointment is taking score too soon,” he warns.

THAT has become my North Star and THAT is what has been playing out around me over and over and over again recently, so much so that I just had to write about it!

Imagine if you will, a non-believer in all of this hooey. We will call him, Husband.

A lovely curmudgeon of a man who, when confronted, refers to himself as a “realist”. Now imagine that as a cosmic joke perpetrated by the universe’s wicked sense of irony, this man lives with yours truly!

Now, take another leap and imagine that some of my woo, through acts of osmosis over twenty years together, has rubbed off on him.

Case in point: In the middle of the 2020 lockdown, he got kicked out of his “man cave” a place that smells of gasoline and beer, where he and his friends have hung out, tinkering with their various internal combustion gizmos while scratching their balls and watching car porn for over seven years.

“It’s the end of the world!” he howled into the wind.
“Maybe,” I responded from a safe distance away.

“I guess I could call my friend and see if he wants to split a place,” he posed one day after the crying had ceased.
“Sounds good,” I said, exercising a surprising economy with words.

“OMG! We found the PERFECT place but the landlord is a dick!” Husband complained one morning. “He wants to see every bank statement, five years of tax returns, social security, baptismal, confirmation, divorce and marriage certificates, AND a fifty-bajillion dollar deposit!”

“Feels to me like there might be a better place. I’d keep looking.”

“Noooooooooooo!!!!”

But there was. A better place.
The perfect place. Closer, cheaper, with a terrific landlord who basically agreed to the deal the day he met them—with a handshake.

And this has led to the man cave of all man caves and a side business that puts a sustained smile on that curmudgeon’s face the likes of which I’ve rarely (if ever) seen.

“What we need is an orange, rolling metal ladder!” Husband announced one day after breaking and building shit at the new lair.

And that is why god in her infinite wisdom invented the internet.

A couple of days later he received an email alerting him of the delivery time. You must be there tomorrow at 9am to unlock the gate to the parking lot and take delivery, it read.
“Yippee!” Husband exclaimed because this new 2.0 version of the curmudgeon is given to sudden outbursts of joy (but that’s a story for another day). He was about to receive the ladder of his dreams—only it wasn’t orange. “No worries, that’s just paint,” he assured me when I asked. This new guy was starting to freak me out 

Later the next day he returned home deflated, pissed, and ready to rumble—in other words, his old self.

As he tells it, he arrived for the delivery fifteen minutes early only to find the giant metal ladder crumpled into an origami swan inside the locked gate. Not only that, their brand new fence had been damaged in the process. Later, according to the footage from their security cameras, he watched the two delivery guys arrive really early, back their truck up to the fence, and after several failed attempts (and lots of fence bashing) they chucked the ladder in its box (which exploded) up over their heads and into the parking lot.

“This really sucks!” Husband hollered as he navigated the Amazon third-party refund labyrinth.
“Maybe,” I texted from the bedroom.

It turns out that damning security footage is just the evidence you need to get a full refund AND money for gate repair.
And in the meantime, he found an even more perfect ladder (if you can imagine that).

Taller, wheelier, cheaper…and orange.

“Wow! You’re so lucky!” I exclaimed.
“Maybe,” he replied with a wink.

If Husband can change his tune—we all can. Who’s still taking score? Not me!

Carry on,
xoxJ

Hello friends,

Pardon the interruption, but I couldn’t help but share this. If you’re one of my tens of Instagram followers you can go make yourself a sandwich because this is a repost from today, but if you don’t social media (good for you by-the-way) and you want to feel lucky take a look at this!

In the midst of this pandemic, I realize it’s easy to be infected with fear & fuckery.

But one thing I know for sure is that it’s just as easy to catch the good stuff and I truly believe magic is contagious. I believe that sharing it, talking and writing about it transmits it like a goddamn super-spreader!

So consider yourselves infected! Happy Friday you beautiful humans.

Sent with an embarrassing amount of giddy love,
Carry on,
xox

“0h look, a dollar!”

I shrieked inside my head so as not to scare the dog. 

I’d gotten the “hit” to walk an hour earlier than normal. And since it had been drizzling all night I also received the idea to take the road less traveled. 

A paved path with only a slight chance of mud, it was a bit more out of our way, but I listened just the same. 

Let me admit this right upfront—I’m someone who LOVES to find money. In coat pockets, crumpled up inside the car, but most especially—out in the wild. 

That’s why I’ve maintained the practice of leaving wads of dollar bills on neighborhood sidewalks, next to the trash can at my local car wash, and on the floor of the produce department at Trader Joe’s. 

I do it when I’m feeling “broke”. 

It may not make sense to you but it shifts my perspective. 

A lot. 

I mean, you must have an unending supply of money if you can just throw it away like that! Right?

Besides that, I love how it feels to find money. It makes me feel lucky, like someone’s looking out for me. 

Like I’m a magnet for blessings. 

So you can imagine my glee when, after I took this picture, I realized it wasn’t a dollar bill after all, but a FIFTY!!

Y’all, all I can say is Follow your “hits”.

No matter how counterintuitive. 

No matter how out of the way they seem to be taking you. 

And feel lucky as often as you can. I swear this shit is magic. 💫✨💫✨💫

Carry on,
xox Janet

“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
~Mark Twain

Bad Decision Insurance was a bright idea I had recently while:
(1) daydreaming instead of writing,
(2) eating a giant mound of whipped cream with a slab of pumpkin pie under it for breakfast,
(3) While wearing camo leggings, no bra, and a bold, Amy Winehouse level swoop of black eyeliner over each eye—in broad daylight.

And while I have to admit that these harmless bad-decision-misdemeanors would have spun my head around ten years ago, these days, I’m like, “Who am I killing?” and mostly the answer is, just your imaginary reputation as a fashion icon, so…

Don’t get me wrong, I KNOW that even though they make the best stories—if my life were a movie every bad decision would end up on the cutting room floor. I also KNOW that no matter how carefully I craft a persona to present to the world—who I really am  bleeds through.

And I would never be who I am without my horrible, awful, really bad decisions.

Nevertheless, the thought of being able to file a claim after making the shitiest calls in life, well, that gave this wicked heart of mine some rest.

Back in daydream mode, strolling around the virtual airplane-hanger-sized-warehouse where my bad decisions are stored, a couple of doozies came to mind:

I once jumped out of a second-story window, running barefoot after a lover’s car when I was old enough to know better. Any way you look at that decision—it sucked. And what I’ve come to know is true for split-second decisions like that — We only know it’s bad the minute we know it—and not one second sooner.

That being said, I would have totally filed a claim to soothe that walk of shame home. “Hello, Bad Decision Insurance Hotline? This is Janet, and oh, man, you’re never gonna believe what I did this time!”

And who can forget that time I re-signed a lease on a struggling business during the financial crisis instead of just calling it quits and closing?

                                                                                    Big mistake, HUGE.

Even the Bad Decision Insurance adjuster would have judged me on that one and everybody knows they are as neutral as Switzerland. “Are you sure?” the kind woman on the other end of the phone would have asked after a long and awkward silence. “Yep!” I would have replied with conviction (because wildly expensive bad decisions like that one come with a great legal team who argue their case for them).

They convince you up is down, day is night, and to turn left when every sign is pointing right.

What the fuck is up with that?

As I write this, two things come to mind. First, a company that insures against bad decisions would be a terrible idea. I mean, they would go broke in minutes.

And second, there would be no accountability. No consequences. Would I have learned as much if I knew I could get immediate compensation on the other side of dumb? If the blow had been softened would I have adjusted my behavior after both of those mistakes, vowing never to let them happen again?

Would you?

Just some of the things I’m wondering about these days.

Carry on,
Oh, and pass the pie.
xoxJB

I did the unimaginable this week. I went back to calling friends and opening with a greeting that in 2020 has become fraught with peril. ”How are you?” 

Back in the early days of the pandemic, when we were all struggling with securing Clorox wipes, toilet paper, and a bag big enough to scream our dread into; I was warned off inquiring how someone was by a friend who went nutballs when I asked her.

“Hey, how are you?” I asked her on a call in April. I think it was April. It may have been May since many months this year were seven hundred days long and seem like another century ago to me now so I’ll have to ask you to cut me some slack on the timeline.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that!” She clapped back. 

“Mmmmmmkay… what should I have said?” I wasn’t being cheeky, I really wanted to know. 

“Unless you want people to unleash the Kraken of Doom on you, you really shouldn’t ask that. Besides, it’s just a line, nobody, in the history of humanity has ever wanted a real, honest answer to that question!” She paused long to chew out her cat for being an asshole. I waited. “Where were we? Oh yeah, Covid has given us all permission to ditch being polite and you know, vomit our insecurities all over the place.”

“Got it,” I answered, considering myself lucky for her tutelage on such a delicate topic. “So… what do you say?” 

“I dunno, when I ask, which I don’t because my heart can’t take it, I say something like, Still holding up okay? Which is code for, I’m barely hanging on so let’s cry together.”

Duly. Noted.

Another acquaintance of mine started a call with, “What am I interrupting?” Which in the early days felt mildly confrontational. Like she assumed I was being so productive with my new surplus of unscheduled time (along with everyone on Instagram) that I could be so busy as to be interrupted. 

“Just another puzzle,” or, “Not much, just my second batch of chocolate chip cookies, because I ate the first one myself,” never seemed like pursuits that were interruptible. Also, and this still applies, don’t ask moms that question. They. Will. Hurt. You.

Anyway, I admit, I was so afraid of making a mistake and saying something wrong that I avoided calling at all. I resorted to texting which is dry and impersonal as hell in a year when all we need is real connection.

Gahhhhhhhhh……..

In retrospect, here’s a real nugget of wisdom I gained in this year of valuable lessons learned on Earth 2.0. 

The question How are you? Is no longer perfunctory and the answer “Fine” is neither expected nor accepted. 

We used to be able to say it and get on to the next thing but nobody is fine after this year. At least not in the old sense of the word. Fine had become an unconscious, gross oversimplification and if 2020 has taught us anything it’s that we are waaaaay too complicated for such an inadequate word. 

We are nine months into this pandemic/financial whatthefuckery y’all, and I for one have gestated out of being afraid of feelings—whether they’re pouring out of the other end of the phone or I’m having them face-to-face on a Zoom call. I’m tired of avoiding the obvious. “We can do the hard things,” the wise words of Glennon Doyle keep reminding me.   

I am one of the fortunate. I have survived pretty good so far. 

So, I will ask you how you are because I can. And you can bite my head off and tell me how completely miserable you feel— and I will still listen. And then we’ll laugh at the unending absurdities of life and cry at the injustices. And before I hang up I’ll remind you — just like I do myself at least a thousand times a day— that there will be happier times ahead.  

At the beginning of World War II Emily Post, the woman American’s looked to for how to behave, advised her predominately female readers NOT to write frivolous letters to their boyfriends who were away fighting the war. “You shouldn’t bother them with the trivial,” she admonished. But as the war dragged on she changed her directive, telling the young women that hearing their name called at ‘mail call’ and reading the loving words from home was the morale booster these young men needed. 

Which got me to thinking, maybe the kindest gesture is that we reached out at all. So, as scary as it may be, call anyway. 

Carry on,

xox JB

“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.

                 “You get to choose what you focus on, so choose wisely because what you focus on gets stronger.”

The above is a quote I have hanging in my office. Since it’s located right in front of my face, I read it every day. I’m not sure of the origin except to say it was probably said by someone who had regular, heated debates with God.

Ruby and I were both in good spirits yesterday morning, which I must mention here is an anomaly (one of us named Ruby is frequently foul, full of unspecific discontent and pandemic-driven angst) as we set off on our daily walk. The pace was just this side of a trot, much brisker than normal since she had a hard deadline—if she wanted to go to work with her dad (and who doesn’t?) she had to be back at the house by 8:30 SHARP.

It was gonna be tight.

If you can imagine dogs and sixty-plus-year-old women skipping, then imagine us smiling broadly as we skipped away. Buoyed by all of the morning cheer, I decided to forgo my recent commitment to listen to only uplifting podcasts in the morning, one I’d made to myself in the past several weeks in order to save my sanity. The polarization, civil unrest and police shootings had me on edge.

But yesterday I felt strong, like my psyche could handle it. I was sure nothing could rattle me. 

I was well-rested, fully oxygenated by the cardio, and what the hell, one little podcast on the imminent fall of our democracy wasn’t going to kill me. So I hit ‘play’ on something political.

The thing is, in all of my giddiness I forgot about my energy. About attraction. I forgot about all of that and…the full moon.

A large section of one of the towering eucalyptus trees that line the dirt path we walk everyday, broke free last week, thundering to the ground and partially blocking all of us dog parents and our canine kids who are happily running around off-leash. With just a hint of dew and a tinge of early-fall chilliness in the air, the smell of eucalyptus (which I LOVE) was particularly intoxicating. Inhaling deeply, I was filled with gratitude. An elusive emotion as of late, deep gratitude has been playing hide-n-seek with me for months.

I’m sure you can relate. 

These early morning walks in nature with Ruby have always been one of the bright spots of my day, but now, more than ever, I make an effort to really sink into appreciating every little thing. Every smell, every random heart-shaped stone that appears, the graceful way the white egrets saunter like runway models at the water’s edge, and the ever-present wooden wishbones the universe leaves scattered in the dirt for me as a sign to believe that—although it seems like proof to the contrary abounds—all is well. 

For some unknown reason the path, which is usually packed with Ruby’s friends, was uncharacteristically dog-free yesterday. Alone on the fallen eucalyptus section and lost in my podcast, I was startled to come upon a young woman nearly hidden by the fallen leaves and branches. Ruby hadn’t paid her one iota of attention, running past her, squeaking her ball the entire time, and I would have missed her too, except for the fact that she was wearing a stunning red dress and holding an enormous mirror just inches from her face, staring intently at her own reflection. 

“Good morning!” I chirped cheerily, stepping over the eucalyptus debris, trying to act like it was the most natural thing in the world to happen upon a woman in the wild with a mirror.  

She was oblivious. I moved on. 

Sometimes, the homeless spend the night surrounded by soft dirt, wild flowers and eucalyptus giants, but they don’t tend to appreciate nosey, free-range pooches getting into their business (and who can blame them) so they’re usually gone by the time the sun comes up. Besides, she looked to me to be more like a full-moon-inspired performance artist than a homeless woman. 

                                                                                     Oh, right, it’s a full moon…

“Trump is inciting violence. He wants a civil war!” the voice in my ear warned. The thought of that made me shiver. How had things gotten so bad? Everyone’s chosen a side and is dug in so deep it’s hard for me to imagine a way out. I felt my jaw tighten and I should have taken that as a sign to switch to music—but I didn’t. I inhaled more of the eucalyptus and went on my way. Ruby, now a good thirty feet ahead of me, was taking time to investigate particularly interesting scents left by the wild animals who traverse this dirt freeway every night. Since we didn’t have a lot of time I let her run farther ahead than usual. Besides, with the exception of red-dress-mirror-lady and one lone figure walking toward us—we were alone. The figure was too far in the distance to see their face so I looked for their dog. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know many of the owners by name—but I can recognize Elvis, Cowboy, Paco, Trudie, Ollie, and Hank a mile away. 

Not a dog in sight.

The man, middle-aged, in shorts and a black t-shirt, looked to be hugging the chain-link fence that runs from east to west above the water. I’ve seen that body language before. It’s never a good sign. It means they’re scared of dogs.

“Ruby!” I yelled. She stopped and turned around, her jaw locking down on the ball, causing it to scream bloody murder. I was determined to get the leash on her before the man got any closer but I was too late. He reached her first. Bending down he picked up a large stick. Instantly delighted and figuring he was up for a game of fetch, she dropped her ball and trotted toward him. Not sure if fetch was his intention, I picked up my pace, just shy of a run.

“Ruby, come!” I called. That’s when I got a clear glimpse of him. If fear had a face it was his. And I’ve witnessed that when some men feel fear it shows up disguised as rage. He doesn’t want to play fetch, I thought, nearly peeing my pants. 

“They want to divide us! Make Americans who disagree with them the enemy!” I yanked the single earbud spewing the hateful rhetoric out of my ear and smiled at the man, only I was wearing a mask so he couldn’t read my face. I would like to complain about, this but now is not the time.

He lunged at Ruby with the stick. “Keep your fucking dog away from me!” he screamed. “I’ll beat her in the head with this if she gets any closer!” He was militant, enraged. I believed him.

“No worries,” I said, summoning every ounce of calm I had in reserve. “She won’t hurt you, she’s just curious.” Clumsily, with shaking hands, I clipped on her leash and pulled her close. While I was bent down, he took that opportunity to hit me on the arm with his stick. Not hard. Just enough to get my attention.

“Hey!” I shouted reflexively, my own rage bubbling just below the surface. But I knew better than to escalate things with a crazed man holding a weapon so I backed away. 

                                                                                    What you focus on gets stronger.

“No one wants to hurt you,” I said, attempting to move slowly in the opposite direction. 

“I’m gonna hurt YOU!” he screamed, suddenly inches from my face. “Get your fucking dog away from me!” Before I could blink he raised the stick over his head and brought it down to hit me, stopping just short of making contact. I stood still, shooting daggers at him from behind my mirrored sunglasses. My feet grew roots. I knew what to do in the presence of a wild animal, especially one you’ve inadvertently pissed off by breathing the same air. You defuse the threat. You play dead.

Ruby just sat there squeaking her damn ball, she was reading MY energy so I stayed calm because I’ve seen her when she thinks I’m being threatened—it’s all bark but not a lot of bite. And this guy wasn’t above hurting her. As a matter of fact, he was angling for it. 

I counted in my head, One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three Mississippi.  

“Sorry about that,” I said and took off toward the silhouettes of three dogs and their owners in the distance.

Yelling a string of obscenities, he walked away, still hugging the fence. Right about the time my pulse was returning to something survivable we passed the woman with the mirror. Figuring she must have witnessed the tirade I decided to make light of it.

“Crazy full moon energy,” I said to her as we passed.

She was oblivious. Lost in her own reflection. So…far…through…the looking glass.

And for a quick second, I envied her. What a luxury that must be.

Stay safe out there & Carry on,

xox

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool”.
~Lester Bangs, Almost Famous

I am as about as uncool of a person as they come. Seriously. And so I’m sharing some of the ‘currency of the uncool’ with y’all, my fellow passengers on this E-ticket ride called life. And here’s what I’ve noticed lately:

Every damn person, myself included, thinks they’re doing this pandemic thing wrong.

Not that there’s a “Living Your Best Life During A Global Catastrofuck” handbook, which I personally view as a terrible oversight on God’s part and I will have words with her about it when this thing is over;  but, you can get goaded by social media (which tragically, has been our only glimpse into the void) into thinking there’s a right way to be living your life right now and when I say ‘you’——I mean me.

In the beginning I pretty much winged it since it was my first pandemic and just like the rest of the world I was making shit up as I went along. I baked an embarrassing tonnage of chocolate chip cookies and distributed them to my neighbors— like life jackets on the Titanic. I mean, who doesn’t want to be discovered ten thousand years from now with the fossilized remnants of chocolate chip cookies as proof of their last meal?

It all felt very dystopian future meets apocalyptic end-of-times——if you’re living inside of a Nora Ephron movie.

Once my sweat pants got tight, I looked at Instagram and switched to gardening, and home improvement (you guys, my thumb has never been greener, my silverware shinier, or my back sorer) in-between Zoom calls.
Zoom.
Don’t get me started.
I could write an entire book on the way Zoom has simultaneously saved and ruined my life.
It has kept me connected in the weirdest way imaginable by lulling me into a false, Jetsonian sense of intimacy with one-dimensional images of people I used to be able to hug, smell and taste (don’t ask). It has introduced me, or rather my head from the neck up, to people I’ve never met; revealed my questionable taste in home decor to strangers I would never invite inside my house——and saved my ass as far as work is concerned.

Have you noticed? Some people are Zoom naturals. It’s a thing. 

They glow and effuse with breathtaking ease. Their ideas flow with an effortless acuity, in long, erudite monologues that sound like they were written by Aaaron Sorkin.
Not me.
I show up more times than I care to admit, tragically unprepared, mumbling and laughing inappropriately, with my hair styled by a helicopter, whitening strips on my teeth and an adult beverage in my coffee cup.

So yeah, Zoom.

And as grateful as I practice being for my health and life in general, I have to admit to a certain sense of Ground Hog’s Day claustrophobia. Every day has begun to bleed into the next. There’s not much to look forward to. There are no weekends anymore. Don’t ask me what day it is or the month, I do not know. It’s warm, there are flowers, and if I owned a bikini I could wear it—so I’m guessing summer.

 All I know for sure is that today ends in a Y.

Another thing I’ve noticed lately that I’m sure is probably true for you too— All I do is work.

I write, Zoom, shovel shit, paint shit, stain shit, clean shit, wash shit, cook shit, fix shit, edit shit, watch shit——lather, rinse, repeat. And if you’re someone who is home schooling kids, well, we are not in the same league, let alone the same zip code! And I thank you for your service and will insist you go straight to the head of the line at the Pearly Gates.

And all of this—since March!

My sister and I, agreed yesterday in one of our epic Karen bitch-seshes, not on the way California is handling Covid (because, oh bloody hell, we’re all gonna die!) but on the fact that we’ve forgotten how to have fun.
Fun. You know, that thing you do in-between work and more work and twice as much in the summer.
Fun. We’re not even doing THAT right!

But I am not alone. WE are not alone in our Narnia of despair. If you haven’t seen this already, it from Saint Glennon 0f Doyle, author of Untamed and patron saint of all women embracing their inner cheetah while confined to house arrest.

She gets it.

I think—somewhere in the middle of last week—I hit a wall.

I am sad. I feel lost and aimless in my home most of the day. I am cranky with my people. Even though we’re together all day—I’m somehow gone. I’m claustrophobic in this covid world. The news makes me terrified and so full of rage I want to scream. I wander around all day with this nagging feeling that I’m not doing enough writing enough helping enough creating enough parenting enough wifeing enough BEING enough—that I’m wasting my time, my hours, my days, my life.

Is it just me? And if so I was just joking I’m fine, totally carpeing the hell outta these diems and all that shit.

Crawling along.
Gonna keep going.
Love you madly.

“No feeling is final.” -the magical Rainer Maria Rilke.

~Glennon

In closing, I know this:
Stillness brings up so much shit!
Perfectionism kills.
Don’t watch the news.
You must march to your own damn drum.
Nap if you’re tired.
Try to belly laugh once a day.
And cookies and pie are essential to our mental health (which is the reason I’m telling myself I couldn’t find flour in a store until June).

And when I get twitchy and snarly, I will report myself to whoever is in charge of me (besides my husband who has been my quarantine roommate and is struggling with combat fatigue) which is usually my sister or my BFF—for an attitude adjustment and yet another virtual hug.

Find your people and report in as much as needed.

I love you. Carry on. Crawling is fine.

xoxJB

Okay…so…

Since my nature is one of impulsiveness, learning discernment did not come easy for me nor did it happen overnight.  

Decades.. It took me decades to learn.

And since discernment can look like hesitancy, indecisiveness, and, on its best day a bad case of whishy-washy — well, those are words NO ONE would EVER use to describe me, and yet…

These days, when I read something, see something, hear something, or enter a room—I seldom get carried away by the “consensus” otherwise known as “the peanut gallery”.

This tends to frustrate people because people like you more when you get carried away by their enthusiasm, whether it be about a book, a person, a trend, a great idea…or perhaps a cure. But I don’t. I check in with myself. I get still, wait for the noise to subside a bit, and see how this particular thing feels to me.

If my ass does a Kegel—it’s a hell no for me—even if everyone loves it!

I’ve been speaking to lots of women these days and I adore the conversations. And maybe that’s the key-word here. Conversation. We have conversations. Not monologues. Not lectures.

I’m usually brought into these conversations by another woman with waaaayyyy more street cred than I could ever hope to accumulate in this beautiful life of mine and her generosity makes me feel honored. Humbled.

But I’m always clear about one thing: I was vetted and that got my foot in the door.
The rest is up to me.
And you.  
I’m gonna talk, with absolute candor, about the stuff I love. Magic, energy, self-empowerment, and the cheat codes I use to make my life easier. If it resonates with you, that’s great! If not, that’s great too. Seriously. Because another thing I’ve learned is—concentrate on the people who like what you’re saying not the ones who are looking at their phones.

To me, its kinda like a dinner party at a friend’s house.
I love my friends and I trust their judgment in food, wine, and the people they surround themselves with, so if I meet you there, I’m prone to love you at first sight. But, and this has happened on rare occasions—even if you’re renowned in your field, a massive celebrity or someone everyone wants to be seen with—if I find you acting like a bitch faced howler monkey or everything coming out of your mouth makes me feel like I want to stick a fork in my eye—I will, in the most polite way possible, distance myself from you.

And the next day when I talk to my friend we’ll both have a good laugh because you got your foot in the door (you were her sister’s last-minute date) but you most certainly were not a match to the delicious energy going on at that party.

One last tidbit. What’s the difference between skepticism and discernment you might ask? Good question, because I confused these two for years.

Skepticism is me walking into the party with my mind made up that I’m not going to like you.

Discernment is meeting you with an open mind and a giant helping of “benefit of the doubt” and coming to my own conclusions about how I feel about you after we’ve met.

With all of the madness, the endless Facebook and Instagram Live’s that stream constantly, we’re being bombarded with confusing and conflicting information that’s being fed to us by “experts” and people with “credibility” these days more than any I’ve witnessed in my entire life. We’re being asked to make life and death decisions for chrissakes, which is turning discernment into a fulltime job!

So, when somebody speaks I do a “butt check” which is just like a “gut check” only lower. Anyway, I invite you to do the same.

Even here. Even with me.

Stay well my friends & carry on,
xox

I’m sitting in my den watching the news when the phone rings. Someone I love wants to be soothed. By me. I feel ill-prepared which always leads to me shoveling raw cookie dough. 

By far the question most asked of me on week one of the pandemic was was :
“Are we going to be okay?”

The uncomplicated answer was…

“Yes. But, I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, and I don’t know what that’s gonna look like.” 

Silence.

Some people who weren’t already crying started. The ones who were crying continued. That’s what happens when you ask a question you can’t imagine the answer to. You hear something you may not like, or even worse—be emotionally prepared for. 

I suggest not giving anyone, even me, that power. 

I believe in deferring to the experts. My gut and my heart. 

And I’m not gonna lie, even they had a hard time finding the truth inside all of the fear, adrenaline and cortisol coursing through me that first week. I mean, they told me I would be okay even if I got sick and died. But no matter how much you believe it in theory, that’s not something you want to put into practice— and it’s certainly not a truth you pass onto your friends when they text or call. 

So I didn’t. 

“Are we going to be okay?” They asked.

“Yes.” I simply said. “Yes, we will.” No further explanation offered. That’s when the crying stopped. 

Weeks two and three: Shit gets real.

I’m making cookies for the neighborhood. I’m answering the unasked request for cookies that came to me in a dream.

It’s barely 8 am.

A friend is talking to me on speaker-phone. “I had to delete some of my fears, she says. “I just don’t have the room for them in my head anymore!” She exclaims over the sound of my mixer. “They’ve been replaced by bigger, life or death ones now.”

Which got me to thinking; I’m sorry if I’m a bit indelicate here but don’t the things that triggered you previous to the pandemic (a sentence I never imagined writing) don’t they seem, well, ludicrous?

I mean, come on, hasn’t this put all of our pre-pandemic fears (which I won’t list here for fear of embarrassing us) into perspective?

Listen, I think we can all agree, global shaking of the Etch-A-Sketch on this level hopefully only happens once in a lifetime, and since no one can tell us for sure what the future will look like, our fears have an unbelievably limited job description these days:

Kill the virus. Do I have enough toilet paper?

And all the Karens of the world with their free-range outrage, doesn’t what you were on hold to complain to customer service about only one short month ago seem ridiculous?

People are scared, Karens.

People are dying. 

People are lonely.

People are worried and hungry and need more masks, and gowns and hand sanitizer! 

For the love of God, Karens, make yourselves useful, rage on that!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Week four: Adaptability.

I’m waking up…happy. What. The. Fuck. 

Who am I to be happy amid all of this death, uncertainty, and sorrow? I go immediately to the place in my brain to shut that shit down when I get stopped by curiosity. How did this happen? Three weeks ago I was waking up terrified. Am I suddenly brave? uh, no.

You know why? Because human beings are incredible creatures. 

First, we freak out, cry, hide, or run. Then we adapt. 

Eventually, we fall into a “new normal” because it’s how our brains are wired and seriously, what other choice do we have? 

Because I’ve never witnessed a “disturbance of the force” of this magnitude I’ve also never seen this level of adaptability.
It’s mind blowing. It takes my breath away. 

The creatives are back to creating.
The inventors are hard at work, as are the big thinkers and the innovators.
Zoom is connecting us in ways that were incomprehensible six months ago. 
Easter services were streamed online. Andrea Bocelli sang Amazing Grace in an empty cathedral in Milan and we all saw it. Same with the Pope holding mass in St. Peter’s. 

At seven PM every evening entire cities gather at their windows to cheer doctors as they change shifts. 

Food is still being delivered to school kids in need.
Classes continue for most students online.

My husband’s Dermo was able to diagnose his hives over the phone via a video chat. 
My doctor sent me a similar link.

People are holding happy hours on Zoom. There are video yoga classes, video meditation, video AA and mental health care. The list goes on and on and on. 

Ben Affleck held a video poker game for charity. 
Chris Martin and John Legend to name a few, have held video concerts.
Birthday caravans drive neighborhood streets with kids and balloons and singing.

The farmers market and local bakery in my sister’s neighborhood are offering $25 and $40 boxes of veggies and baked goods a couple of times a week and donating the rest. 

Adaptation—the ability to change with new conditions. To change you’re expectations and pivot. 

It looks to me like we’re all starting to get the hang of this. 

Who knows what the following weeks will bring?

Carry on and stay well my friends,
xox