Exclamatory Notes From a Panda

Pole dancing is actually the most fun ever! Hooray for getting to swing wildly around a giant pole without enraging firemen or accidentally breaking a stop sign!

Where does one find a wealthy patron for ridiculous ideas? I have a cuddle zoo that needs funding,* a hot air balloon that needs buying, and a lollipop forest that needs building. Have pen! Will fill out application!

* Hi, Brandy! Our dreams of llama-snuggling are close.

I've been adventuring! Two weekends ago was Point Dume and last weekend was biking through Venice Beach, past the television ninjas and acrobats in tutus and 60-something men poling their skateboards down the boardwalk like Huckleberry Finn down the Mississippi river.

Point Dume. Not Mount Doom, though I would completely understand your confusion. I was a little disappointed myself.

March is officially the month with all the productivity and all the endorphins, two things which equal all the happy. That also deserves an exclamation point.

Pandafesto

Have late night dance parties, iPod in pocket and dog under foot. Send love notes. Wear panda ears for the hell of it. Cultivate joy, the way you’d cultivate a tomato plant or a caffeine habit.

People are doing amazing things in the world, but no good comes from comparing yourself. They have their contribution, you have yours. Focus on yours. Allow yourself to do that thing however you feel it needs to be done. Trust yourself to know the right way.

Love yourself. Every last piece of yourself, even the bits you desperately want to lock away or hurl into the nearest smoking volcano.

Loving yourself doesn’t have to be the warm, fuzzy glow of some mysterious and elusive feeling. It can be as simple as doing the things you know make you healthy - mentally, emotionally, physically. Even if you don’t want to. Especially if you don’t want to. Because caring for yourself in a deep, true way can open up the world in a way you never imagined.

Take care of yourself the way you would a toddler. With naps, fresh fruit, an hour with a purple crayon, and time in the trees to marvel at their height. Marveling at the trees reminds you that the world is magic. It’s your attention that makes it so. Your focus is valuable and downright spellbinding. Send it where you want it.

See other parts of the world. See other parts of your world - a corner store you’ve never stepped into or a small street you've never visited.

See the best in people. This brings out their best. Believe someone is amazing and they become amazing.

If that amazing eludes you, no matter how hard you try, remember that life always works out. With enough time, even the most devastating event can become the best thing that ever happened to you. If you keep moving, things get better.

But it's okay to be lost.

Whirling with the grief and anger for awhile paves the way for peace. Holding love in the midst of pain gives you just enough space to breathe again. When you crawl through the layers of hurt, that’s when you find the sweet stuff.

Do what you love, every day.

Here’s What I Believe, Deep In The Depths of My Panda-Affiliated Soul

I believe that we are all bright pieces of a big, bright whole. We are all connected in some inexplicable but crucial way. I believe that when we start to feel connected, like our own bright piece of that glowing whole, that’s when we can love the best and do our best work.

I believe that I sound like a glitter-dust-sprinkling, tofu-chomping flower child when I say that, but I also know that I am the most responsible adult and best human I can be when I’m thinking that way. Feet on the ground, meet airy-fucking-fairy.

I believe that music sinks deep down into my gut and transports me somewhere better, happier, somewhere my brain can unhook from reality and fly.

I believe life really is a playground.

I believe in looking stupid, especially when it comes to laying your feelings on the table or jumping up and down like cocaine-addled kangaroo on the dance floor.

I believe we have all the answers we need inside of us, we just have to learn how to hear them.

I believe, finally, that it’s okay if I’m not funny every single minute of every single day. Relax. It’s okay to sit back and enjoy everyone else’s funny.

I believe, finally, that I am enough.

I believe in leprechauns and lap giraffes and that one day a unicorn really will pull me around in a red Radio Flyer wagon.

I believe we all have an astonishing capacity for love and joy and greatness.

I believe that if you can be the person who reaches out with love, even when it’s hard, even when you don’t know if it will be reciprocated, you have succeeded. Always. And that love will flow back to you in ways you never could have imagined.

I believe that love is everywhere. You just have to tilt yourself toward it.

I believe that the best is yet to come.

An Open Letter To My Future Husband

Dear Future Husband:* I will love you a lot and I will love you well, but there's something you should know:

I'm way too weird for most people. People who will probably include your parents and at least some of your friends.

A Limited and Highly Incomplete List of My Weirdness

I drink green juice in the morning. It's noisy to make and full of kale and spinach and other things that have no earthly business in juice. It's also a little alarming how deeply I enjoy mutilating perfectly innocent produce with a loudly-whirring motor.

I had hippie parents and the hippie does not skip a generation. I will talk a lot about meditation and life purpose and love for all things and will probably be really damn annoying about it.

Alcohol and sugar and dairy and meat are slowly making their way out of my life. Apparently, being the high-maintenance vegan girl who asks about almond milk makes me feel better. My days as a ravening sugar beast are winding to a close. This doesn't mean I won't turn around and demand bacon and coffee and blueberry pancakes on a sunny Sunday morning. You've been warned.

I can be a lot of fun. I can be very quiet. You'll never know which it's going to be, but if we're together we'll probably be having lots of fun.

You're the one I want to tell things when they happen, the big things and the little ones. You probably have smart, kind, insightful things to say on most topics and I will really appreciate that about you.

I laugh a little too loudly sometimes and get really excited about things that confuse people, like random architectural details or leaves in heart shapes or monsters in kilts or the fact that I just saw a frog face in a grate. You will have to stop and wait as I take pictures of all these things and you'll have to keep waiting as I post them on Twitter, because that's what I do.

You don't have to be on Twitter.

We will have conversations where I claim I'm a superhero. When you ask what my superpowers are, I'll reply, "I'm armed with the power of whimsy, yo." You need to find this endearing or it'll be a really long life.

My quirks make you happy. Your quirks make me happy.

I'm very sensitive. This is now officially your problem. I'm pretty good at managing it on my own, but help is almost always appreciated. I accept help in the forms of listening, dinner made, dishes done, hugs given, back rubs offered, and sex-based distraction.

I reciprocate. When your things crop up, I will be the most supportive ever. Dinners made, back rubs given, sex-based distraction offered. You're welcome.

I will love you a lot, but sometimes my head gets muddled by life or emotions and I forget how to show it. Or you might think that I don't for a few days because forgetting happens. But I do. Always.

I love best when I feel safe. I feel safe with you.

Love,

Me

* Note: We don't have to get married. But I'm way past wanting more boyfriends and whenever I say partner, people think I'm gay. I guess I'll just go ahead and keep calling you My Person. We will be best friends and lovers and companions in whacked-out adventure and all of the words, but none of them capture exactly what I want that relationship to be. Because I want it to be everything. But in a healthy, independent, happy-as-long-as-you're-happy, content-to-wander-off-and-do-our-own-thing-when-occasion calls sort of way. Yeah. That.

Modern Love. Or, What Happens When You've Been Dating For a Really Long Time.

Modern love is tricky, yo. You want to find your person. The one who will see the best of you and adore it, and the worst of you and love that too. The one you can't wait to pick up at the airport because you missed them while they were gone. The one you'd follow across the country if they got a new job, because your home is where they are. The one you want to sit in traffic with, buy bell peppers with, the first person you want to tell when you see a fire hydrant that looks like a drunk leprechaun. But at some point, you look around and realize you're 33 and, nope, your person is still nowhere in sight.

So now what?

In constantly beating the one-note bongo drum of Finding My Person, I've been missing a lot of awesome things right under my nose.

Maybe it's okay to enjoy someone and go on adventures with them and love them for a time. Maybe not everything has to be in pursuit of this one, exhausting goal.

1) Wanting to find your person puts a whole lot of pressure on things that are probably just supposed to be fun.

2) Forever is kind of a fucked up concept anyway. You can love the same person until the day you die, but you're still going to die. Love does not equal immortality unless you're Bella Swan.

3) For those of us who have had, um, a lot of loves, we start to feel like we're doing it wrong because our person still eludes us.

Oh, The Sticky Question Of That Dreaded Word

...Soulmate (Blech)

I believe a soulmate is anyone who gets you to a better place. Even if your entire experience with that person was a no good, horrible, very bad day. (And it rarely is, there are always incredible things - otherwise, why are you there?) If you're better for having been with them, they're a soulmate.

I have a few people who would be considered massive relationship failures by any standard, much less Disney's or the wedding industry's. But I consider them soulmates because, damn, did I grow. Grew in ways that allow me to love better, to show up better, to be better for the next person. No matter how it felt at the time, they made my life more. I'm better for having been with them. That's amazing stuff, no matter what the happy ending is supposed to look like.

Convenient But Highly Affirming Conclusion:

It's better to love for awhile than not love at all. Definitely better than sitting around and fretting about white horses and whether or not I really need the unicorn horn. I absolutely want to find my person. And I will. But I'm giving up any illusions of having control of the timeline.

Just because you won't be with someone forever doesn't mean you're wasting your time with them. If you care about them and enjoy them, it's never wasted time. Sweet baby Buddha on a toast point, no.

In the end, everything is just a choice. I choose to love whoever I have for as long as I have them. Just because we won't be celebrating our 50-year anniversary together in some far-off park surrounded by dogs and grandchildren doesn't make it in any way less. You can only ever work from - and love from - where you are. And where I am is transient, work-focused, flawed, and pretty damn great.

He's coming. In the mean time, I'll love everyone in my path.

A Story For Tomorrow

Yesterday morning I watched a video of a couple venturing boldly into the wilds of Patagonia toting backpacks and trailed by the voice of Don Quixote. Because my wanderlust has been fiercely rattling its little cage, the brain hamsters decided this was a fine time to make me feel like a failure of a human for not owning a backpack or having a nice Spanish man to narrate my life. Long story short, I got really upset. Since I'm a thought-based life form, my usual plan is to stifle upset and mull fruitlessly. For some reason, fruitless mulling never does me much good. So, in what I've decided to call a major step forward in the world of feeling your feelings, I let myself get really upset. Sometimes crying on a Wednesday morning when you should be doing your work really is an improvement.

When I got to Nicole's, she inquired about the suspicious redness of my nose. I had to flail for a few minutes before I could get a handle on what the hell was going through my head. Because Nicole is a genius at sifting through the Flotsam of Crazy, she asked two very helpful questions: "What do you want your life to be? What would help you get there?"

Turns out, I already knew exactly what I needed. It had been floating around my head like wrackspurts for months. I need to have more fun. There are Fun Things I've been meaning to do, but haven't taken any steps toward because More Important Things kept taking precedence. Guess what? When you spend a morning crying about something, it officially becomes the Most Important Thing.

(I mean, yeah. I was crying about not having enough fun. I fully recognize and appreciate my very first-world problems. Thanks, first world! You're pretty swell.)

So I scheduled a Fun Thing for this weekend. I scheduled a more involved Fun Thing for March. I've committed to do a Big Fun Thing, a Fun Thing I Have Been Pondering For a Long Damn Time, in April. I spent half an hour emailing people to coerce them into my plans, and then I felt better. Peaceful. Calm. Like the brain hamsters were snoozing happily in the back seat and all was right with the world again.

Realization That I Should Have Had a Long Damn Time Ago

Feelings have a purpose.

Another Realization I Should Have Had a Long Damn Time Ago. Or Not. Because These Things Appear At Their Own Pace and Trying To Rush Them Never Works.

Action toward that purpose is very soothing.

Identify your feelings, figure out where they're pointing you, head in that direction - and you feel better. Almost immediately.

Motion is fun. I was concerned for a long time about taking the wrong motion, but there's no such thing. Sometimes you just have to get up and start swinging wildly at the first pinata you find. Maybe you'll bash at it for awhile until you decide this is someone else's pinata and move on or maybe you'll get lucky and score a few mini-Snickers bars and a turquoise plastic dinosaur.

The idea that all my feelings exist for a reason still feels revolutionary to me. I really thought their sole purpose in life was to make me miserable. But, no. They just want to help. They want to direct me toward the action I need to take to feel better.

So fun things are afoot. Now when I watch the video, I just feel really happy. Excited. Because my own journey has been set in motion again. I like my story a whole lot better when I'm moving with it.

a story for tomorrow. from gnarly bay productions, Inc. on Vimeo.