Hello, Florence!

I want everything in my life to be as easy as getting my new car.

Meet Florence.

Florence is the unicorn of Mini convertibles. She’s everything I wanted and what I didn’t think was possible.

Perfect condition, a price I could manage (not a guarantee with Minis, even a little), and drives beautifully. Apparently, the people who make cars keep improving their products. So if you’re used to driving a 2005 and are suddenly behind the wheel of a 2012, it’s like your entire vehicular world has just been blown.

And everything about the process was easy. None of it should have been.

The very nice car dude who was consistent about handing me snacks, something I deeply appreciate in a person, kept saying, “I’m not really sure how this is happening, but it seems to be working, so let’s just go with it.”

He said it when he showed me the car, which had just been traded in a few days ago by a couple who just used it to drive to the beach. (Hi, Marin County. You’re hilarious.)

He said it when they offered me more for Penelope (my 2005 Mini) than anyone could have anticipated.

He said it when we sent in the financing and it was approved in record time with a super low APR. (I work for myself and that is what it is, but can make financing things weird.)

Here’s how it unfolded, and I’m saying this mainly to remind myself how easy creating the things I want can be, if I just let the process happen:

Know I’m going to need a new car at some point, so keep feeling into what I want (Mini convertible) and being open to something else (any other car in the world).

When the time came and I knew I had to get a new car - not just for my vehicular safety and that of everyone around me, but because my heart couldn’t take the stress any more - I didn’t think too much about it, just decided to visit the Mini dealership as a first step and see what the possibilities were.

Got the strong hit to go Saturday morning, as early as possible. So I did, where “early as possible” = “almost 11 in the morning” and was the first to look at the Unicorn of Mini Convertibles.

As I drove away in my New To Me car, bonus Toad the Wet Sprocket CD I found in the player blasting, another couple was looking at convertibles too, about an hour behind me in the process. Had I been any later that day, they might have scooped up Florence.

But as Nice Car Dude With Snacks said, “Sometimes the person chooses the Mini, sometimes the Mini chooses the person.” And Florence chose me.

I want everything in life to be as easy as getting Florence. I want to let events unfold, follow the intuitive nudges, and know that everything will happen perfectly, however that looks.

Because, voila! That’s how Florence appeared out of nowhere, in the easiest and most joyful manner possible.

Thank you and more of that please.

This is how I want my next relationship to show up. This how I want my next work project to unfold. How I want my new white winter jacket to show up, the one I saw last week and absolutely loved but didn’t buy because it was full price and my frugal little soul sometimes struggles with full price. (Please note, new-winter-jacket-that-will-be-mine-soon matches Florence. Not really on purpose but also not not on purpose.)

When Sally and I had our first adventure with Florence, we fell in love. She drives like a race car (I say, having never been in a race car) and I couldn’t stop smiling as we hurtled around the bends and loops of the California coast. Neither could Sally. Though, admittedly, it can be hard to tell with her.

Welcome to this weird little family, Florence. Thank you for showing me how easy this life thing can be when we allow it.

Farewell, Penelope

You know how sometimes you make a grave tactical error and then have no choice but to soldier valiantly on and pray you don’t die?

Yup, me too. More often than I’d like to admit.

My intuition is bang on target about many things.

Just a few days ago, I was walking toward the town square and thought “Maggie’s here.” Maggie is a lovely woman I have met maybe twice at a friend’s house and know very little about except that she has cute kids and does not live in Marin County. So there was absolutely no reason to think she would be sitting in the square I was about to pass. But, sure enough, 15 seconds later, there she was. It was a random and very efficient intuition barometer.

Just a few hours ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop reading Harry Potter - my favorite autumnal activity - and drinking a pumpkin spice latte - my favorite autumnal guilty pleasure - when I looked up and smiled at a woman walking past. As I did, I felt her energetically hook into me and thought, “Whoops. This is about to get interesting.” Sure enough, a few minutes later she initiated a rather bizarre interaction that showed me my energetic boundaries are doing better than I generally give myself credit for, because I was able to be kind without allowing her to pull me into the fear she was swimming in.

But sometimes - usually when I’m thinking too much - my intuition fails me quite spectacularly.

My initial hit was to rent a car for my jaunt from Mill Valley to Half Moon Bay, a journey that’s about an hour too long for the current health of my 13-year-old Mini Cooper.

But trying to wrangle a rental car would have meant driving 25 minutes in the wrong direction and ultimately became annoying enough a process that I just didn’t want to deal with it. So I thought, “Eh, it’ll be fine. Penelope will make it.”

To be fair, Penelope did make it. Both of us are still alive.

But about twenty minutes into what turned into a deeply harrowing day, I realized I had allowed my optimism to get the better of me.

A few hours later, I was flat-out praying. To god, the angels, the flying spaghetti monster, anyone who would help me get home in one piece.

Again, to be fair to my intuition, I did get a very strong “We will get you home safe.” But, as my car made grinding noises on mountains and dials flailed wildly in the ominous red zone, I wondered if perhaps I was confusing intuition with optimism again.

I wasn’t. I got home. It was fine.

But deciding not to pay attention to the “let’s make life easier and rent a car” intuitive hit bought me one rather terrifying day.

However, it did convince me that it’s time for a new car, something I had been steadfast in avoiding because I love Penelope and don’t want to give her up.

But our heart-pounding, hair-raising journey across bridge, through city, and over mountain is not something I’m ready to repeat. And there’s no point in paying California rent if you’re not going to go gallivanting through all the abundant beauty she’s got on tap.

So, after five years, Penelope and I have had our last long adventure together.

I’m sad to say goodbye. She was the car I wanted forever - and finally got after my dad passed away and buried a lot of money in the ground. Buried treasure which helped me snag Penelope when my old car died so soon after my dad. So she feels like the last thing my dad ever bought me. In a piratical sort of way.

May my next car bring me as much joy as Penelope did.

(And may I never experience a drive like that again. It was the vehicular equivalent of spending an afternoon with the albino in Princess Bride. It didn’t actually kill me but it definitely shaved a few years off my life.)

Operation Be Less Grumpy

This morning, I woke up super grumpy.

It probably has a lot to do with waking up at one in the morning several nights in a row and not going back to sleep until around 5:30 and being woken up 90 minutes later by obnoxious noises. (I felt bad for momentarily hating people who were just doing their job, but power saws before 8 a.m. inspire deep hostility in the under-slept and under-caffeinated.)

As I walked downtown to get some coffee and a waffle with more sugar than is good for me, I decided to revel in the grumpy. Resisting the grumpy tends to make me even crankier, but sinking into it like a warm bath helps. Exaggerating the grump always makes me feel like the curmudgeonly old muppet hecklers, and that’s just funny.

But when your baseline for the day is set at Cranky Jerk, it takes a bit more effort to keep yourself from creating more Grump-tastic situations. (I already failed at the coffee shop by taking someone else’s drink which made the drink maker person cranky which - curse of the empath - made me have to fight off their cranky along with my own.)

My best tactic for shifting into a higher state - whether it’s up a few notches from cranky or fear or whatever human experience I’m swimming in - is looking around and noticing the small, lovely details around me.

Steam rising off my chamomile citrus tea. A gnarled old tree reaching its branches toward the sky. The silky black and white puppy straining against its leash on the sidewalk outside. My pink jeans. A striking girl in an outfit I’m certain she just threw on, but still looks like she stepped out of a magazine that sells beard oil and single source coffee beans. Sun glinting through the redwood trees. The clock on the square that’s been there since 1926. The preponderance of pumpkin coffee now that the calendar says autumn. Giraffes on my phone case.

It really helps, whether I’m trying to feel happier or more abundant or more taken care of or just less grumpy.

If that doesn’t work, I walk to this:

Being as cranky when you walk away from this as when you walked toward it is statistically impossible. That’s just science.

Sunflowers and Social Media Fasts

On Monday, the little voice in my head - the one I trust, not the one with brain hamsters that shoot spit balls at unsuspecting parties - told me to get the hell off social media.

Since I make it a practice of following these little nudges - said little voice has magicked me up a garden cottage in Hobbiton (or Mill Valley, if you want to be strictly linear about it) and is good at reminding me to pay bills and go hang out with redwoods - I got the hell off social media.

I haven’t had such a nice time in ages.

Yesterday, I made myself some beef stew in the crockpot, stared happily at my sunflowers, napped with crystals (hippie healing tip! put crystals on or around your body in any way that feels right and close your eyes for a bit and you will feel splendid upon waking), and generally enjoyed the utter freedom that comes with not feeling compelled to check instagram and twitter every 33 seconds.

We’re in a major clearing phase right now.

In the past month, I’ve started eating vegetables, taken eight bags to Goodwill, made sure my storage closet can’t attack anyone ever again, started running, culled my lists, and am generally lining my ducks up in a neat little row.

I’m preparing for something, I just don’t know what.

We all are.

So if you’re feeling the limbo: fist bump, my friend.

Here’s what keeps coming through for me:

Trust that everything is happening perfectly.

Surrender to whatever the present experience is.

Feel deep gratitude for whatever lovely things happen to be in your life, like sunflowers and beef stew and tasty avocado. Even if it feels exasperating. Like feeling grateful that everything you need is within walking distance when your car decides to sputter and die on a road where lots of people are following you.

Accept it all, with a lot of love for your imperfect-yet-glorious self.

I’m doing my best to listen, even when I forget for awhile and go all triggered and weird. Because, human. Yes, we are divinity in human suits, but sometimes the human suit gets itchy and shit goes down. No worries. It’s fine. We’re clearing old wounds and old stories, and that is not the easiest proposition in an itchy human suit.

Anyway, because of my social media fast this week, I’m not posting a zillion things in a dozen places all over the internet, so I’m funneling it all to this here blog for awhile.

Writing here instead of elsewhere feels like part of this clearing process. If I post some rambling exposition on Facebook, I’m assured of at least a few thumbs up. Maybe even a heart or two, and who doesn’t want a heart? Posting here holds no such sweet ego assurance.

A big part of the last few years has been about incinerating my ego. Absolutely torching it. Burning it down to the ground. Blazing it into ash.

(And the phoenix chuckles. My higher self shakes its head and says “Ah, that feisty phoenix.” My human self says, “The phoenix is a major jerk.”)

Not letting myself have that pleasant hit of dopamine feels like a good practice for me. In the same way that not obsessing over the perfection of my writing has been useful. For the past few years, I’ve been doing my best to let things go out into the ether without obsessive rewrites, because sometimes it’s good to give a jaunty middle finger to perfectionism.

So here we are. If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll hang out with me this week on this random corner of the internet!

Riding Giraffes & Turning 40

On July 11, I turned 40. 

Over the last ten years, I wrangled a lot more grief than I expected - and learned how to drink that particular cocktail without choking.

I learned how to feel.

I adopted Sally, my stuffed therapy otter.

I learned that I was an empath - and how to take care of myself so that I wasn’t spending all my time trapped in other people’s emotions and completely drained of energy. 

Instead of doing what I expected to do - get married, have kids, maybe buy a house - I learned that riding the grief roller coaster clears space for joy. I learned that if a stuffed otter makes you happy, take her with you when you go. I learned that if there’s something you love to do...do it. 

It wasn’t how I expected my thirties to go, but it was exactly what it needed to be.

I learned who I am and how I operate and what I’m here on this spinning blue marble to do. I learned that I'm happier when I'm exercising and sporting colorful fingernails. I learned what love looks like and what joy feels like.

Not too shabby for a decade.

So for my next ten years, I’m surrendering all my ideas of how I think things should go and allowing things to happen as they do. I’m making joy and following my soul the priorities.

So this is what I want my forties to be:

Riding giraffes and writing love notes (and more books) and snuggling Sally and going on adventures and allowing the chips to fall where they may. Because that feels so much better than trying to wrestle the world into doing my bidding.

I'll keep asking for what I want, of course, and doing anything it occurs to me to do to help it happen - but I'm going to be so grateful for what I do have and so fueled up by random delight that whether or not I get it will be barely a blip on the radar. 

Because that's what freedom looks like to me.