guidance

When my sister completed our family genealogy some years ago, there were not too many surprises.

Okay, well, maybe one.

I’m a combination of German, Italian, Irish…and MacGuyver.
Not Scottish.
MacGuyver.

That do anything, make everything possible and figureoutable guy from the 90’s TV drama of the same name.

I make the joke that my husband is part MacGuyver with his survival training and uncanny ability to fix anything, and he is, don’t get me wrong.

But so am I, and I’m guessing you are too.

I have MacGuyver’d the shit out of my life.
At times, all I had was my ingenuity. A paperclip, a credit card, and a prayer. But I suppose, with so much MacGuyver in me, my prayer aways ended up being, “Anything Is Possible’.

Darling reader, you’ve read endless stories of my misadventures, and I’m sure it explains a lot, now that you know my MacGuyver lineage, but think back on some of the seemingly insurmountable challenges you’ve encountered.

All the jams you’ve gotten out of.

All the hats you’ve pulled rabbits out of.

The late nights with no sleep.

Driving eighteen hours straight to get where you needed to be.

All the times you never gave up, you made shit happen. With your paperclip and your tenacity.

You’re a fucking Mac Guyver too.

I knew it.

Carry on,
xox

“Writers are cannibals. They really are. They are predators, and if you are friends with them, and if you say anything funny at dinner, or if anything good happens to you, you are in big trouble.”
― Nora Ephron

Morning Peeps,
This is from last year but it’s something that happens on a regular basis and it makes me howl with laugher…on the inside…while I dictate notes into my phone.
Carry on,
xox

“I never said most of the things I said.”
-Yogi Berra

Having written this blog pretty much every day for almost three four years now, an interesting phenomenon has started to show up in casual conversation with family and friends.

I’m being quoted back to myself.
“You know that thing you wrote Tuesday about the forgiveness?”  Then they recite it back to me—verbatim.

I just nod, because sadly, my memory has taken a menopause vacation. These days I can barely remember to wear pants.

Other times it isn’t even remotely something I wrote. It has the innate wisdom of a Rumi quote or something Oprah said—same thing.

Anyhow, it still boggles my mind that anyone reads this blog, let alone remembers what I wrote—and I feel immense unending gratitude for all of you.

So there’s that.

Here’s the other thing that takes me aback every time it happens—which is actually growing in frequency.

“This is off the record—I don’t want to see this in the blog”, my friends will whisper to me with pleading eyes.
Even in the car.
Like I’m wearing a wire!

Like I’m a fucking investigative reporter doing important journalistic work for The Huffington Post, The Washington Post or something. Like I’m going to publish an essay about their shitty boss, how much they hate their boobs or describe what their husband’s sex face looks like. And funnier still, that their boss, boobs, or husband would ever get wind of it.

It’s all I can do not to snort laugh when that happens.

The funny part is that when I do mention a “friend” in the blog—everyone thinks it’s them.

“That was cool, that thing you wrote about me yesterday” they’ll chirp with pride, and I don’t have the heart to tell them that most of the friends I mention are compilations, you know, to keep me from getting my ass kicked in line at Joan’s.

So here’s the official disclaimer: If I say “a girlfriend”— it’s not you. Even if I mention your name—it’s probably not you.

Truth be told, the person I out the most—is myself. I gave myself permission to do that—to tell the uncensored truth in the very beginning because what’s the use of writing a blog about your life when you don’t disclose anything intimate about yourself? Besides, the real rewards for doing that have been enormous personal insights on my part—and this response from readers: ‘I’m so glad you wrote about that—I thought it was just me.’

Well, it’s not just you Sheila, I fart in Yoga class too.

Like I said, uncensored.

The second person who has endured being fodder for the blog is my hubby who seems to take it all in stride. It’s like he’s reading about a fictional character called “husband”. He’ll even refer to himself in the third person “I felt bad for her husband today”, he’ll remark after reading the blog.

Other days he’ll walk into the room with tears in his eyes.
That guts me every time.
Here he is, living my life with me—day in and day out—yet, even after all these years of late night pillow talks, patio talks and kitchen talks (If you haven’t guessed, I’m a talker), he’s surprised to read how I felt about something he did or said.

Or the backstage antics of the three ring circus that is disguised as my life.

“I had no idea all that was happening,” he’ll say, marveling at the fact that I can recount all the actual dialogue. “How in the hell do you DO that?”

I just smile.

Then he envelopes me in one of those big bear hugs that I love so much.
And I worry…Shit, I hope he can’t feel the wire.

Be cool you guys, have a great weekend and carry on,
xox

I love giving things away.
It makes me feel good.

But…has someone ever given something to someone you know—and they don’t want it—and they try to give it to you—but you’re too polite to say no?
Yeah, me neither.
OR, have you ever given someone something and they were completely ungrateful?

I could say I’m not attached to the reaction of the recipient because we all know that’s a trap and we don’t give only to receive—but if I said that I’d be lying.

Case in point.
I cleaned out my refrigerator the other day. And “cleaned out” might not be exactly the right term. I reached for a bag of apple slices (I buy them already sliced in a convenient reusable bag because I CANNOT be bothered to cut my own apples), and when they looked less than appetizing, kind of brown and mushy, instead of putting them back in the drawer and looking for some other snack, I took them out to throw them away.

I think we can all agree, “cleaned out” does work here.

Anyhow, as I made my way to the trash I had an idea.
This was not a fresh, shiny, new idea. It was actually the same reoccurring idea I get when I have fruit that has turned unfit for human consumption. I will put it out front for the squirrels!
Just two weeks ago I gave them a couple of apricots that had turned to jam all by themselves in the bottom of the fruit bowl—and they loved ‘em! Gone in five minutes!

I love that! It’s such win, win situation. They eat my perfectly squirrel-edible fruit and I don’t have to feel guilty about the fact that eighty-five percent of the fruit I buy spoils before I can eat it.

So…let me just tell you about these squirrels.

We have an entire community of extremely boisterous, horney and hungry squirrels that came part and parcel with the house, which came part and parcel with the giant Ash tree out front.

Someone in the neighborhood feeds them peanuts, the shells which I find in all of my planters…and my dogs’ poop. They have also been key players in The Mystery of The Steak Bones From Nowhere.
A reoccurring drama where we find beef and steak bones (is that redundant?), randomly on our property more than I’m guessing you do.

They appear out of nowhere and find their way into our house, I suspect via my dog’s mouth. I have felt suspicious of their appearance from the start but that’s just me. I have a suspicious nature.

On the other hand, my delightful husband with not a suspicious bone in his body, suggested that the squirrels were bringing them over. This is exactly what he said, “I think someone is giving the bones to the squirrels and they’re bringing them to the dog”.

Of course, I immediately balked at the idea of that.

Most of the bones are bigger than a squirrel’s head, some larger than their entire body I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the aerodynamics of it. Still, they kept showing up. Then the other day, when I was pruning the Bougainvillea, a perfectly round beef bone the size of my fist, fell out of the air and onto my head. It must have fallen into the boug from the canopy of the Ash tree that covers our patio. Otherwise known as the squirrel Trump Tower.

My husband was as vindicated as you can be without saying “I told you so”, the dog was as grateful as a dog can possibly be without exploding. Me—I was neither.

All this to say, our squirrels pretty much accept any and all hand-outs.

Except apparently, brown apple slices. They lay there for three days covered with snail slime until the ants finally unionized enough to carry them away.

Oh sure, bones the size of a grapefruit are fine, but apples that have oxidized a little are unacceptable?! What happened to gratitude?

Which reminds me. They also hate grapefruit. But only the white ones. Pink they love.

Carry on,
xox

P.S. Once, when I was leaving a cafe in Venice, I offered a homeless man sitting nearby the rest of my perfectly yummy, warm and untouched dinner. He accepted and I felt terrific. As we drove away my heart swelled as I watched him open the container…and throw the contents against a wall.
I’m not sure which felt worse. That or the squirrel snub.

Two very rare tree bones

Baba Rajneesh.words for the wise the word FUCK by Mazanga_Von_Badman

My friend Steph sent this to me the other day.
Her husband thinks we need to start following this guru. It could be that he thinks we would appreciate his blissed out nature or his silvery spacesuit, but I’m guessing it’s because of his deep and profound UNDERSTANDING of the word, fuck.

I love this Baba, I really do, and I’m sure you can guess why.

If you gave me a dime for all of the fucks I’ve said OUTLOUD, I’d be richer than that idiot, bigot, candidate with the orange face and horrible comb-over.

If you laid the fucks I’ve written end to end, well, we could all walk a road of fucks to Mars and colonize it this weekend.

I’m telling you. This guy gets it. He really does.

But be warned: watching this is a little like watching Mother Theresa being interviewed by Howard Stern.

It’s so wrong it’s right.

Carry on,
xox

I don’t normally make it a habit of being one of the last guests to leave a party. I also don’t arrive first and I don’t leave straight after dessert—I’m not an asshole.

But this was an exceptionally fun party with a LIVE Karaoke band who stayed later than planned because when my friend Orna’s posse (who are SO game with the LIVE karaoke), aren’t finished singing—THEY DON’T LEAVE.

It was after midnight when they pried the microphone out of my hot little hand and I wedged my swollen feet back into my heels. After a few goodnight hugs, I made my way to the parking lot which was nearly deserted.

There was the valet, a lovely man around thirty (that is a man, right?), sitting alone on a black wooden stool, almost hidden by a fog that had come in on its little cat’s feet (a bow to Carl Sandburg), while we wailed away the hours like a bunch of wannabe rock stars. I can only imagine what he was thinking right around hour three when a bunch of us got up to murder “Summer Nights”, which was followed immediately by a drunken but rocking’ version of a Doors song by an accountant livin’ his dream.

Of the three sets of keys still left hanging on the board next to the stool, mine were the easiest to pick out. The brightly striped KCRW mini-membership card made them easy to distinguish from the other Benz keys hanging there, (a little aside, here in LA the joke is to go up to a valet and say “the black Mercedes” and watch his head spin around. It’s like describing your black canvas wheelie bag to the angry dude behind the desk at airport baggage claims).

Anyway…

As he went around and opened my door for me, I asked him how much I owed him.
“Five dollars”, he replied with a smile.

That seemed like bargain considering how late it was and the torture that poor man had endured for hours on end…sitting on a stool…in a damp fog…listening to us—sing.
I was going to give him ten bucks. Just because.

That’s when I reached into the cute little clutch I had strategically jammed full of everything I would need for the evening right before I left the house.
Altoids, lip gloss, drivers license, insurance card, phone, one migraine pill (because nobody wants to get hit with a migraine at a LIVE karaoke party), and a tiny tin of customized “Orna’s Big 5-0” M & M’s that were given out as party favors.

Everything it seems except money.

Even in the dark I’m certain he could see how crimson my face was becoming. I was mortified.
He held my keys out to me as I stammered and sputtered and continued looking in vain through my now useless little bag for something valuable to give the man.

Without making eye contact—I handed him the candy.

“I. Am. So. Sorry”, I said as I finally looked up at him with those huge cat eyes from the cartoons. One giant cat eye stayed glued to his face, which was smiling broadly, while the other was looking around to see if someone else would come walking out so I could bum some money.

“I don’t have any cash”, I could hear the words coming out but I felt so awful and the sudden let-down from my LIVE karaoke buzz was so excruciating that I wanted to slide under the car and die.

“It’s no problem, it’s just money”, he said in a soft, sweet, heavily accented voice.

“I knooooow, but I feel like a…”, was what my mouth was saying. My head, on the other hand, was screaming, ‘Just get in the car! Drive! Get outa here! NOW!’

“It’s okay lady”, he said, interrupting my argument. “You should go. It’s very late. Don’t worry, it’s just money. Please”.
He put my keys in the ignition and gently guided me into the driver’s seat as I babbled on, pleading with him to forgive me.

After he shut the door I sat there for a second like a cash-less idiot. Before I pulled out onto a foggy Pacific Coast Highway, I rolled down my window for one last heartfelt apology as I folded the tin of Altoids into his hand.

“Here take these, I feel awful. But be careful. They’re curiously strong”.

“Please don’t worry”, he said with that huge smile beaming at me like a lighthouse. “I want you to forget, so you can drive safe. It’s just money. Drive safe. Please.”

I got all misty-eyed as I drove away. Sometimes just a random act of kindness can do that to you. It can remind you of what is important in life. Like friends, love, LIVE karaoke and the gentle, wise and forgiving kindness of strangers.

Not money.

And that worrying while driving in dense fog is not advisable.

P.S. I found my wad of folded up cash on the floor in the dining room just where it had fallen during the great purse switch.

Carry on,
xox

This guy’s no slouch…and I think he may be onto something…something I agree with this one-hundred-thousand percent!

Carry on with your Sunday,
xox

FOCUS.

Whatever you put your attention on….grows. It starts to breathe. It Flourishes.

That was proven to me by its opposite.
It has always astounded me how fast something I turn my attention away from will wither and fade suffering a slow death due to neglect. Living things like plants and relationships are obvious examples, but what about inanimate objects?

We have a little shed in the backyard just outside our bedroom that in its early years was a workshop/store-all for my husband’s tools. Once he consolidated his immense collection of everything that grows hair on his chest, is toolish and fixyish elsewhere, he generously, as a surprise, turned the shed into an office for me with walls painted a gray/blue, a faux wood floor and an old-fashioned little door with a vintage crystal doorknob, painted in my favorite shade of Chinese red (for good luck).

At first, I was ecstatic! Then, for whatever reason; be it the fact that the commute is too arduous, or that I prefer to write in the patio living space outside, I’m ashamed to report that I seldom, if ever, set foot inside of that sweet little office. When I do venture in, the cobwebs hang like sheer gauze drapes from all four corners and as I flail around in the confusion I usually break up a very well attended poker game made up almost exclusively of spiders, where the various body parts of more unfortunate bugs are used as currency.

The walls have numerous cracks and the paint is peeling at an alarming rate.
Much faster than the rest of our house which has close to a decade’s head start. Seldom used light bulbs are blown, the floor is lifting in the corners and the dust is so thick it looks like the backroom of an antiquities museum where five mummies have slowly decomposed into piles of particles the consistency of powdered sugar.

Every piece of paper looks like an entire ocean of coffee washed over it, curling the corners and turning it the most delicious shade of yellowish/brown. A three-month-old invoice looks like it could give the Dead Sea Scrolls a run for their money.

Have you ever noticed that? What you neglect—decays—due to lack of interest.
It’s all energy.
I find that amazing.

Here’s something else that baffles me.
I save bugs. I just do. I pick them up by a leg or if they’re too squirmy or disgusting, with a Kleenex, and I take them outside. Most of the time I’m careful, making sure to aim for a soft surface like grass or a plant, but sometimes they won’t let go when I shake out the tissue—so I just shake harder until all bets are off. I’ve watched them bounce off a wall or the deck—even my leg.

That’s gotta hurt. Right? Or at least leave a mark. I mean, why isn’t that like me being dropped from a 5000 story building? Naked?
How is it they just get up, brush themselves off and without so much as a “by your leave” continue on with their bug’s life?

I’m sure it has to do with wearing the right hat, having an exoskeleton, or no skeleton at all, but I gotta tell ya…this inquiring mind wants to know.

That’s all.  No message really, just some things to think about on a Saturday.

Carry on,
xox

“What is with all those people who are shouting their shitty statistics at us? Stop it! Stop trying to convince me that the world is a horribly dangerous and massively disappointing and unfulfilling shit-show!”
~Me

The doctor stands there with his hands together, fingers interlaced, the corners of his mouth downturned into a solemn expression.
“I’m afraid your prognosis is grim”, he delivers the news in an equally grim monotone.

Then it starts.

“The odds are against you. Only sixteen percent of people with this thing you have live past a year. Eighty-five percent survive the chemo and radiation only to expire after ninety days.”

Blah, blah, yadda, yadda.

I know you’re just doing your job but I can assure you, nobody heard a thing after the word grim.

I know some really amazing doctors who have saved a ton of lives but why do they insist on immediately covering us with a sauce that smells like death?

Because they don’t want to give anyone FALSE HOPE.

False Hope
To look forward to something that has a strong chance of not happening and you may or may not know it.

Yeah, that would be awful. By all means don’t look forward to anything that might not happen.

Wait. Most things in life have a strong chance of going down the drain. We have no idea how they will play out. That’s why it’s called hope. We hope for the best. Otherwise, it would be called certainty, or ForSuresville.

I remember being forty-years-old and single and being told that I was more likely to die at the hands of a terrorist than to get married.

What?

A very successful and famous writer, who an entire room of us not so famous and successful writers had gathered in order to hang on her every word, ended a really sweet and uplifting day with this nugget.
“You can’t call yourself a writer unless you’ve been rejected many, many times.”
That was the “let’s get real” portion of her talk. It was supposed to be motivating but for me, it was mildly nauseating because if you know her story that was not necessarily the case for her and I think, like the gloomy-Gus guy in the white coat—she doesn’t want to prescribe any FALSE HOPE.

If you beat the odds you’re lucky. I suppose I agree. Or tenacious, delusional, persistent and optimist.

Here’s the thing, this is not a one size fits all world. If it were we would all be the same color, height, and weight. We would all look like Cindy Crawford or Bradley Cooper. Then and only then could anyone tell you EXACTLY how something was going to go down.

There are as many different possible scenarios as there are individual souls in this world. So, at last count just over seven billion.

I don’t care how many people survived six months. If you tell me that, I just may believe you because you’re a doctor—and then I’m fucked. I can’t have my own journey. I won’t make my own miracles.

I don’t care how hard it is to get a movie made in Hollywood. Four or five come out every week, so I know some bozo beat the odds.

I don’t care if ninety percent of writers fail at the premise. Ninety percent of screenplays and eighty percent of novels are rejected because of poor structure.

Dan Brown’s three novels before The Da Vinci Code all had printings of less than 10,000 copies.
Other rejection counts: Gone With the Wind, 38 times; Dune, 20 times; A Wrinkle in Time, 29 times; Lord of the Flies, 20 times; Kon Tiki, 20 times; Watership Down, 17 times; Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, 18 times; Chicken Soup for the Soul, 33 times; James Joyce’s The Dubliners, 22 times; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, more than 100 times; MASH, 21 times.

I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!

I believe in FALSE HOPE. I love FALSE HOPE. I spread FALSE HOPE on crackers and eat it.

All of those people had hope, false or not, that they would succeed—or they would have given up. The same goes for those who survive past their expiration date. They didn’t listen to the statistics and I can guarantee you they mainlined FALSE HOPE.

I for one, think we all should all believe in FALSE HOPE. About everything. All of the time.

I shudder at the alternative.

Carry on,
xox

This seems like another lifetime ago. And it was in so many ways. I think I still had good tits.
Anyhow, this is a post that many of you haven’t read since it was so long ago you probably weren’t born yet, and it will give you a teeny glimpse into both passions I adore—writing—and riding.
Carry on,
xox

“I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back
I play for keeps, ‘cause I might not make it back
I been everywhere, and I’m standing tall
I’ve seen a million faces an I’ve rocked them all

I’m a cowboy on a steel horse I ride
I’m wanted dead or alive
I’m a cowboy, I got the night on my side
I’m wanted dead or alive

And I ride, dead or alive
I still drive, dead or alive

Dead or alive

Dead or alive”

(From the song Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi /Songwriters Jon Bon Jovi, Richard Sambora. Published by Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC)

“Call me crazy, but it seldom, if ever, occurs to me that I could die on the back of our motorcycle.”
~Dumb Blonde Janet

Jon Bon Jovi wailed into my ears while the sexy, steel string guitar licks washed over me as I hunkered down into my husband’s back, attempting to escape the fire hose strength deluge that had just broken loose from the sky.

That song is always in heavy rotation on the endless loop of music that occupies my mind on these long rides. It’s our anthem. A clarion call from the open road.

I usually murder it, loudly sharing the harmonies with Richie Sambora. “Waaaahhhh teddddd” …but not that day.

The rain came at us in sheets, slicing sharp and gray from every direction.
Somehow, it was even finding its way UNDER my helmet, making it nearly impossible for me to see a thing. Racing down the two-lane highway in northern Montana at 60 plus miles an hour wasn’t helping.

The storm had left us no choice.
We were half way through another three hundred mile day of a 4500-mile loop.

LA to Glacier Park and back.

That day we were trying to make it through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to St Mary’s at the base of Glacier Park. About as far north you can go and still remain inside the US.

The rain had stayed away… so far, which is why we take our longer rides in September; the weather tends to be reliable. Little did we know that this was an early start to one of the wettest, snowiest, coldest winters on record. The “Polar Vortex” winter of 2013.

I heard the weather warnings on my way back to the bathroom at the rickety little joint where we had stopped for lunch. They crackled from the ancient portable radio that wore a coat hanger as a hat as it sat on a chair in the bar. That sinister weather alert tone followed by the robotic voice that droned on and on, full of dire predictions.

Our guys got out the maps and basically informed us that we had no choice but we still took a vote—we’re democratic that way.

The vote said GO but go NOW!

The storm had used the morning to turn into a motherfucker.
Barreling across the plains, the ominous, dark, ground level clouds and distant thunder felt like a herd of stampeding black horses rolling in behind us, giving chase.

“It’s all the same, only the names have changed…”

In my imagination, as we rode the eight to twelve hours each day, WE were part of that wild herd.

A couple straddling the back of a wild stallion.

Cherokee, Apache, Navaho, Sioux, it didn’t matter. We were feral; mad with love and wanderlust, wildly riding the Great Plains bareback, looking for the next great adventure. Our deep brown skin glistening in the sun, our long black hair whipping in the hot Montana wind. That was the spirit of who we were then….and who we are now.

“I’m a cowboy on a steel horse I ride.”

The four of us were determined to outrun it. We were convinced we could.

I’m tellin’ ya, we’re badass.

Have I mentioned yet that I’m riding on the back of my husbands BMW 1200GS Adventurer, and we are accompanied by our trusty fellow riding couple, JT and Ginger? After meeting them in Spain in 2005, we have ridden the world with them.

I’ve been writing this blog since November 2012. Almost two years.
Up until this past September, it was NOT in my own voice.
I was too timid to come out of the shadows. A spiritual coward (my own label).
It was your run of the mill, generic, spiritual wisdom.
No humor. No personal stories and definitely NO F-bombs.

I know VERY few of you were readers back then. I know that because I had 23 followers, all friends, and family who were kind enough to hit follow after I sent them the I have a blog email.

Back to Montana and that freaking storm.

I wrote what happened next in Total Loss of Control (it’s in the archives).
We narrowly escaped being killed by a passing truck.

“Dead or alive”

But this post isn’t about that, it’s about what happened afterward.

Something did die that day. The part of me that wanted to remain in hiding.

When I checked in with the Muse that night to write the blog, I suggested like an idiot, that she might want to write about the harrowing experience of earlier that day.
You know, find the message in the mess. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Hey, you should really write about me almost dying today, that was pretty intense.

Muse: You write about it.

Me: Well, I don’t really write this stuff in my own voice. I just kind of download the wisdom and give it my best shot…but I think there could be some really good shit in that story.

Muse: It didn’t happen to me. I happened to YOU. YOU write about it.
How you felt, your thought process…

Me: Uh…yeah, here’s the thing..I don’t write.

Muse: Don’t interrupt me.

Me: Sorry.

And that’s when I started writing in my own voice, with my own personal stories and my “take” on things.
I even apologized in the first few posts.
“Oh hi, sorry, it’s just me here again”

Lame.
Timid.
Living small.
As far from courageous as you can get.
Shirking all responsibility.
Impersonal.
Total lack of vulnerability.

“I play for keeps, ‘cause I might not make it back
I been everywhere, and I’m standing tall
I’ve seen a million faces an I’ve rocked them all”

I can’t see your faces….but I know you’re there. I can feel you.
There’s so many of you now, and if I look at the analytics, you all started to read from September to today. When I started to write.

Changed my life.

Thank you. You keep me pure and true and courageous.

Much love and appreciation,
Xox

*To be read aloud by James Earl Jones

I am a firm believer in the goodness of people.
In kindness,
and hugs and the power of love.

I am a firm believer in friendship.
In tribes, and surrounding yourself with the people who “get” you.

I am a firm believer in magic.
Yesterday my magic told me that believing in it was just like sex.
Everyone tells you not to do it and when you finally do, the first time might not be so good, but every time after that feels better and better. (And eventually you get good at it).

I’m a firm believer in the healing properties of DARK chocolate,
black licorice,
thunderstorms,
dog kisses,
Fritos,
bouquets of flowers,
peanut butter,
sex,
red toenails,
laughter (blooper reels)
long walks,
karaoke,
candles,
warm salt water,
stories with happy endings,
books with the word Journey in the title,
foreign travel,
gelato,
fireworks,
babies laughing,
red wine,
diamonds,
handwritten notes,
freckles,
badly told jokes where the punchline is given away right at the top,
coffee,
loud burps,
emojis,
holding hands,
and a good night’s sleep.

I’m a firm believer in the FACT that if you leap the net will catch you.
You may bounce first. And your skirt may go up over your head.
But here’s the deal. If you are reading this, you have survived whatever godawful things have befallen you.

You’re okay.
You’re breathing,
It’s all working out.

I firmly believe that ALL IS WELL.

What do you believe?
Carry on,
xox