Category Archives: Life

Mailing Label Magic (3)

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I had a funny thing happen with mailing labels, and I want to let it change my life. I wished for more—you know, the free ones wildlife organizations send out, pictures of polar bears and eagles. I was almost out, and I was thinking about that one afternoon walking back from the mailbox, hoping more would come. Within two weeks I must have had eight or nine sheets, more than I’ve ever had at one time. I’ve always had a funny thing about visualizing, too. It isn’t easy for me, unless I’m imagining the things I don’t want to happen. Those spring to life with gruesome ease and require regular banishment. I’ve never been sure, but I suspect I try too hard when I’m asked to visualize something, or maybe I’m afraid I won’t be able to picture it, so I block the image from forming. But these mailing labels were easy, quick, almost unintentional. And not only was picturing them arriving in the mail effortless, but I was not attached to receiving them. I’m certain that was key here, the secret to my largesse. I have tried to visualize winning writing contests, but I don’t know how to be matter of fact about them. I don’t know how to not be attached to my hope of winning. But these mailing labels have inspired me to work in this direction. I am picturing more house finch in our yard, maybe twenty or thirty at the small tray feeder. I am seeing myself thinner and stronger and thriving. And while I was grading a discussion task the other day I went looking for my own “aha” to share with my students and read we should think about how we will feel when we get to have what we want. I like this idea. I think it may help me find a way to “enter in,” that focusing on the feelings may let the pictures arrive unforced. So I am thinking now about how it will feel to have that happy chatter in the mornings from the house finch, joyful and thankful for their company. I am thinking now about how it will feel to have lost more weight, to be healthy and vigorous again, the sheer pleasure and the ease of it, that vibrancy of life. And I am thinking now about how I will feel when I hold a copy of my first book. I can see myself sitting on the patio, eyes closed, stroking the cover. I feel childlike awe, an Easter egg between my open palms, thrilled disbelief, deep gratitude. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

Go with the Gut (56)

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One of those recent horoscopes in my daily paper was about trusting my gut. Donna, the clairaudient, told me the same thing. “Trust yourself,” she said. “Don’t second guess yourself.” I thought I did trust myself. But when I read it in the newspaper, it seemed so direct, so simple. The first reaction, the one I feel in my body, that’s what’s true. Go with that. I knew that. But it reinforced what Donna told me, made me think about it again. And when I was floating on my back in the hot mineral water, the wind fierce outside the sheltered pool, it came to me that I wasn’t trusting myself. I had no idea. I’m not sure how this pattern evolved. But I will often have a gut reaction, and the next thing out of my mouth is something like, “Of course, I could be wrong.” I think it may be because often the toughest tests for trusting my instincts involve other people, and I want to be fair. I don’t want to be attached to being right. So I say what I believe, and then I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But I think what gets put in play is I am doubting myself. And I don’t want to do that anymore.

Run Toward It (55)

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For weeks now many of my horoscopes in the L.A. Times have seemed especially apt, like the one or two lines were written just for me. One of my favorite ones said, “If it makes you want to run away and hide, you should run toward it and wave your arms as the bigger-than-life force you really are.” I love this. I put it into practice right away. Now whenever I see one of the two work colleagues online who make my belly sink, I flap my arms at my laptop screen. It leaves me grinning. And speaking of things that make you want to run away and hide, it came to me the other day that some of the (endless?) fear images my mind seems determined to present to me might not be just autopilot fears but bits of precognition. Sometimes when they arise might I be getting a glimpse of possible futures? And can my prayers or my banishing of them help to manifest a different future?

Bird Voices (53)

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At odd moments, I find myself missing bird sounds. Have I just become greedy? This time of year when I wake up they are not nearby. I hear bird voices, but they are coming from a distance. Right now, though, someone chirps from the Palo Verde, the high note coming through the open kitchen window and then gone. I miss the goldfinch who used to chatter in my neighbor’s yard. Once in a while a house finch comes to sing in our tree. I stop to savor it, as though I can pull those liquid notes through my skin, his song alive in me beside my beating heart. And sometimes when I wake up now to muted sounds of life I remember that first spring when we lived on Avenida Ortega. Early every morning a cacophony of bird sounds grew and swelled, like nothing I have ever known before or since. I want that again, that unbelievable crescendo. But I will remember to relish what we have here and to never overlook the music, to cherish each voice always. And I’ll work to help build more of a community here, too. (I have secret hopes the hedges in the new development will come alive with birds.) Here’s to feeling once again at the center of that symphony.

Early Morning Softness (52)

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I have to pee at 5:30 in the morning. When I come back to bed, I reach for my big chunks of citrine and chrysocolla. I lie there, rocks held in my fists, body sprawled and comfortable, soft from sleep. I feel excited and happy. Even work thoughts don’t change that. I hear a raven calling nearby and the sound of morning traffic. I hear the pwitter of dove wings in the courtyard. The doves are polishing off what is left of yesterdays seeds. I feel reassured by dreams I don’t remember, my body fed by sleep, fortified, my heart soothed without knowing why. I prop myself up in bed to write and end up staring out the window. There is a small bird bouncing on the tip of a Palo Verde branch, a goldfinch maybe, or a verdin, lost amid the yellow blossoms. I am not yet wearing my glasses. Between that and the lingering softness of sleep, the world has no hard edges. I continue to drift on fuzzy thoughts, content. Later, fully immersed in the busyness of the day, I am stopped by the moon over my shoulder when I am coming in the gate. I pause, reminded, and pull that early morning softness to me, a shawl across my shoulders.

A New Moose (50)

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Sunday afternoon the sun comes out in the middle of a hard rain. I look for a rainbow. I think of my father. “Oh,” I tell the cats. “A new moose is born.” I am excited. My father taught me this when I was three or four, an old Native American legend. The rain falls even harder. I hear it on my neighbor’s awning, watch the slanting fall of it through the sliding glass door. The sun gets brighter. “Oh,” I say, enchanted. “Maybe it’s more than one moose.” Then I grin. “Or maybe it’s a really big moose.”

Grace (49)

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I wake up at 4:30 in the morning because Sofia is having trouble. I get up to give her more for her pain. On my way back to bed I see the almost full March moon hovering above our mountains on its way to the other side of the world. I stand by the sliding glass door and watch it, grateful to be awake to see it. After, I lie in bed awake, wrestling with my ongoing trouble with a colleague. These thoughts morph into worries about my job. What will happen if our nonprofit falters? Then I remember I don’t need to be afraid. I can trust the universe. Everything will be okay. I am curled up on my right side, Sable’s warm weight a comfort against my back. For a moment, I know I am held. Safe. Loved. It is like rolling onto my side on the yoga mat after Shavasana. I always lie there for a while, letting things sift through me, before I sit up and bow. “Namaste,” I whisper. The sky is beginning to lighten when I drift back to sleep.