Birthday Angels

Who doesn’t want an angelic transition team?

Or maybe a squad of woodland squirrels to help you clean and offer squirrel-y life coaching.

I got angels for my birthday this year. No gift wrapping or angelic chorus from the heavens, but I did start seeing 7:11. A lot. Every time I looked at the clock it was somehow exactly 7:11. Since my birthday is July 11, I figured this was my own personal angel number. Like, my angels saying hi. Not a generic message from the universe, but a YO, HUMAN. HELLO. Just for me.

Which is a good gift, especially when there’s a lot going on. As there is for basically everyone on the planet.

I’m not even especially attached to angel numbers. Sure, I love a good 11:11 (WHO DOESN’T? I ASK YOU), but angel numbers have always been spiritual background noise as I rocket around my life trying not to forget things.

But 7:11 kept showing up and I enjoyed it and didn’t anything of it until my magical acupuncturist told me my birthday angels were in the room with us while I was on the table getting needles stuck in me.

She said it was a new set of angels, here to help me through this transition.

My first thought was “What transition?”

AND THEN I REMEMBERED THAT EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE IS IN TRANSITION. Kind of like most of the world.

My home is in flux, my work is in flux, my finances are a big fat question mark. My health has been rapidly improving since last year when I could barely get out of bed, but new layers and new identities show up every month or so. It’s a lot.

This month’s layer is “Hey, maybe my brain really doesn’t work like other people’s and maybe I should look into that so I know how to support it without beating myself up over not being able to do things the way other people do them.”

To be fair, I’ve gotten much better in recent years about not beating myself up, but I’ve been noticing the huge pile of shame that follows me everywhere I go, like PigPen with luggage and a few pets.

My brain definitely tends to work a lot of unpaid overtime.

It feels like a transition to stability within myself. Something that doesn’t rely on another person, or where I live, or what my finances are doing, or what my work looks like.

My foundation is strong, my stability is internally resourced, and that’s what this new crew of angels is here to help me with.

Which is great, because I just found out that my health insurance doesn’t offer therapy or psychiatric services.

SO ANGELS IT IS.

(Angels are free. You have some. You don’t even have to unpack your childhood for them because they already know, but not like in a creepy way.)

Happiness Asks, Joy Gives

Yesterday, I went to a birthday party. There was a pool, there was a barbecue, there were palm trees and cacti, and children running amok.

While you can’t accurately judge a person’s happiness based on observing them at a party, a lot of them looked happy. There was talk of the next baby, the next home, the next job. Which I think adds to happiness, because it isn’t necessarily a measure of not being where you want to be, but a measure of your expansion.

Humans live to evolve and expand and get excited about what’s next.

Because I like to sit alone on sunny outdoor couches at parties, I spent some time watching other people’s (perceived) happiness and thinking about what would make me happy. Getting a dog, my pilot’s license, getting out amongst humans more - something I’ve always been a bit tentative about, a tendency that tripled during the pandemic and my own health challenges. Shoes may have entered the thought process. My first word was shoes and nothing makes me happier than putting on brand new pink flats, don’t judge me. But I know these things in and of themselves won’t make me happy.

Happiness lies in my response to these things. Happiness lies in my attention to these things and my enjoyment of them.

Happiness isn’t a destination, happiness is a series of joyful moments that we string together over a lifetime, no matter what else is going on in our lives.

Joy is always available.

Even if you have two dollars in the bank, even if dreams don’t come true, even if people are being deeply annoying.

Joy is always an option. But it requires attention. Awareness. An ability to be in a moment, really in it, not thinking about the next thing or whatever’s on your plate at the moment.

When I stopped being alone in the sun because other people began to realize that I am the best at choosing spots to be and came to join me, we started talking about happiness - what it means, what it looks like.

Honestly, happiness feels like a loaded word to me. Possibly because I’m American and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has been etched on my brain. Like happiness is something to be chased down, lassoed, and dragged back to your lair on the end of a rope.

Joy feels easier. Because moments of joy are always there for the taking: a daisy busting up through the concrete, a dog licking someone’s face, a skateboarder doing something crazy on a fast moving plank before wiping out at the stop sign.

Joy doesn’t depend on achieved dreams or overcome challenges, it’s there in every moment like a gift the world is trying to give you. You get to choose whether you accept it or not.

For some, happiness is having kids. For some, happiness is not having kids. For some, happiness is achieving the financial security necessary to live a simple life. For some, happiness requires certain substances.

Happiness asks, joy gives.

Happiness, at least the way I hear the word, requires that certain conditions be met. Joy appears unexpectedly, out of nowhere, like a cat jumping on the bed when you thought it was outside chasing humming birds or those humming birds buzzing by the window on their way to visit the roses.

I want to dedicate my life to joy, instead of happiness. Happiness just feels stressful. It requires a certain amount of money and has quite the list of conditions. Joy gets to happen right now because there’s bacon in the kitchen and it’s sunny outside. Technically, those are also conditions, but it’s a much lower bar. Happiness requires years of work for uncertain pay-off.

Joy will give you everything it has right now, just because you exist.

Yes

I just finished the first draft of a novel.

This is big for me - a major celebration, really - because I have about eleven false starts scattered over fifteen years.

I’m just going to sit with that for a minute. I’ve been trying to do this for fifteen years. I have a 70-page attempt circa 2006. Do you know how many things have happened to me and to the world since 2006? A LOT OF THINGS.

Turns out, all you need to do to finish is...keep going. Show up every(ish) day to have fun with the words and let the book show you what it wants to be. All while refusing to judge yourself or what lands on the page.

(Even if you have seven new and what-your-anxiety-brain-declares-to-be-better novel ideas along the way.)

I got off social media a few months ago, not totally sure why, but sure it needed to happen. I’m not a cyborg, so I peeked. But I did my best not to post and to give myself a break - at least until the first draft was finished.

Yesterday I wrote the last paragraph. Last night, we popped champagne and ate cheesy pasta.

(Turns out, all you need to do to make amazing pasta is drown the other ingredients in a sea of butter. To finish a novel, just refuse to quit. To make delicious pasta, just add a stick of butter. I’m learning all sorts of life lessons over here.)

It was really tempting to push past this milestone without recognizing it - a first draft isn’t a finished novel, after all. A finished novel isn’t an agent. An agent isn’t a publishing deal. A publishing deal isn’t a bestseller.

What? Settle down, brain.

Success is not the point. It would be a very welcome side effect, but the point is to write books. And when this one is done - really done, ready to be read by other humans done - there are seven more ideas waiting in the wings.

The process never ends. Which means we can’t ever fail - because we’re never done. There’s something extraordinary in that.

So here’s to stubbornly refusing to give up, long-awaited accomplishment, the utter impossibility of failure, and having fun every single day.

The Many and Varied Uses of Imaginary Jellybeans

I’m not sure how to tell this story without sounding crazy, but if I worried about sounding crazy I'd never open my mouth. So here we go.

On Sunday, I was hiking. It was a beautiful day, with a view of the ocean, verdant valleys, and happy cows (also peeing cows) dotting the hills beside the trail. I wasn’t having any of it. I was tired, I was cranky, and I wasn’t interested in anything related to living life at that time.

As I trudged up and down hike-related peaks and valleys, I finally got over myself enough to ask “How can I have a better time than I’m currently having?” Because I finally remembered that I do have some element of control over how I live my life. Maybe I can’t control the peeing cow, but I can certainly control how much I enjoy this actually very nice Sunday situation in which I find myself.

(Very nice Sunday situation.)

So I asked “How can this [general hand wave in the direction of life] feel better?”

Nothing happened. Because I was cranky, I didn’t really expect it to.

But as I focused on not thinking thoughts and instead on enjoying the view and the way the air felt on my skin, I started to shift out of crankiness and into neutrality and then some semblance of pleasure.

After a bit more plodding through the landscape, something opened up. Maybe I stumbled through a fairy glen or my whimsical brand of imagination fired up or guidance stepped in, I can’t say. And it doesn’t really matter. As I was walking, I got handed a silver basket full of jellybeans. Not the grocery store-corn syrup-red dye number death brand of jellybeans. These were fairy jellybeans. Some were midnight blue speckled with silver stars. Some were that particular turquoise of tropical island ocean. Some were peony pink. And I heard, “You can eat this one for calmness, this one for joy, this one to fall asleep, this one for more money, this one for creative inspiration, this one for delight,” and so on.

So I chose the imaginary jellybean that would help me get over myself and start enjoying my Sunday afternoon hike. I imagined eating it, and the fairy jellybean energy filling me up. It wasn’t like a miracle bean, where suddenly I was skipping through the hills and thrilled with life. But by the end of the hike, I was feeling much better. The day shifted into something absolutely lovely, including my favorite pizza and a really nice glass of wine that I got to drink in the sun. My week since has been significantly better than the week previous.

My point is, whether you believe in angelic support or guidance or your inner wisdom or the support of the universe or the power of your imagination, you always have access to a shift in perspective. You can always adjust how you view and experience things - all you have to do is ask, and trust that the answer will come. Whether that answer comes in the form of a silver basket filled with magic fairy jellybeans or something more prosaic doesn’t matter.

Your imagination is the portal to a better experience. So this is me reminding myself - and you, if that’s helpful - to use it wisely.

Nooses Beat Masks in Old Hang Town

If you’ve ever been to Gold Rush Country, you may have wandered through Placerville, a relic of the Wild West. If you’ve ever been to Placerville, you may have noticed the town seal as you drove in. On this town seal is a man mining for gold in front of a tree. Dangling from the tree is a noose. 

“Maybe it’s just a really short tire swing,” I said, ever full of optimism. 

“Nope. Look, the town’s nickname is Old Hang Town.” 

“So it’s definitely a noose?” 

“It’s definitely a noose.” 

People in Placerville are apparently super proud of the Old West justice they used to mete out from their historic hanging tree. At least according to the flier I saw hanging on the door of Bones Roadhouse when we stopped for lunch, declaring “It’s not racist, it’s historic.”

(Just as a general note, any time “it’s not racist” appears in a sentence and that sentence keeps going, whatever follows is definitely going to be racist.)

We happened to be in Placerville the day after the town council (or whoever is in charge of such things) voted to take the noose off the seal because it’s a little too reminiscent of lynchings, something I think we can all agree were never good. 

According to a cursory google search, the only people hanged in Placerville were two Frenchmen and one Chilean, so the townspeople up in arms over getting their seal changed might be technically correct in that the seal is less Strange Fruit and more We Don’t Have a Sheriff’s Department Yet. But why you’d want to fight for a noose is beyond me. Especially when you could be We’re An Adorable Relic of the Wild West and You Should Definitely Spend Money Here instead.

The other intriguing thing about Placerville - aside from the old west main street (I do love me a good old west main street) and the abundance of witch-y shopping options - was the attitude towards masks. 

The second thing I noticed about Bones Roadhouse, after my eyes adjusted to the dim light after being in the bright sun and my brain stopped processing the “it’s not racist” flier,  was that no one was wearing a mask. No one. People were just hanging out squashed together at the circular bar like it was 2019 and pandemics were as historic as the town.

After lunch, we went shopping, because that’s what you do in an adorable town. We went to the oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi and bought chocolate in the Toy and Candy store because I insisted. When we got a little further down the street, we were told in one of the stores that they actually prefer it if you don’t wear masks inside. 

Oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi.

Coming from the Bay Area, where people are meticulous about mask wearing, this was very strange - though maybe not as strange as the effigy hanging from the second story of one of the buildings on main street, neck encircled by - you guessed it - a noose.

If we’re speaking historically here, I would have expected masks to be more popular. Presumably bank robbers of the Wild West would have loved the current world-wide mask credo, as wearing a mask would no longer be a dead give away of your intent to rob an establishment. 

And let me tell you, there were some places worth robbing.