“A long time ago in a galaxy, far, far away…

Comes May. I knew it was coming, it happens every year around this time.

The world begins to morph, and so do our bodies.

It is a month that brings a rumble of energy and tasks to keep us occupied while we await the arrival of summer proper. It’s a ‘Hurry Up and Wait’ month. Our crocus allies begin to bloom, the lawn sprouts random sprigs of green, we shake out the wrinkles of the summer duvet, set out our patio furniture – and then we wait. But we’re READY!

The Star Wars story is another version of The Only Story – the struggle between light and dark. Rich in archetypes and the ever present Joseph Campbell hero arc, it is a story that speaks of self-discipline, as well as reminding us that not everything is as it seems. It teaches us that we need to be “soul – y” responsible for ourselves, to “grow up”, and to continue to better ourselves, not making assumptions about how the world works.

But how life plays out depends on how you set the stage – on this side of the galaxy. Paradoxically we can and can’t, force it.

Ahh, hard to see, the Dark Side is. – Yoda

But may I dispense with the pleasantries, I am here to put you back on schedule. – Darth Vader

FORCES OF KINDNESS

There are forces, one of which is kindness, that requires finding out if we can be strong and smart and still be kind, as well as being profoundly kind to ourselves. It helps us to genuinely care for each another and ourselves. There is immense grace in kindness, and the kind of confidence that transcends in mutually inclusive, so we aren’t looking for love in Alderaan places.

Kindness is the force that truly has us ‘walking our talk’, not so easy to do. Sometimes it’s as difficult as navigating an asteroid field, which incidentally is approximately 3,720 to 1. And you think your commute is tough.

Don’t ask me why I felt like that needed so much explanation.

You aren’t gonna say you have a bad feeling about this, are you? – Hans Solo

So how do we start? By making your bed. Every. Day.

Studies show that people who make their bed every morning are happier. I don’t know where those studies are, but I’m sure they’re right.

Now, Naval Adm. William H. McRaven, B.J. ’77, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, Texas says,

“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day, that one task completed, will have turned many tasks into completed.

Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you can’t do the big things right.”

Do or do not…there is no try. – Yoda

As for me, I’ve pretty well aced The Making of The Bed Every Day. Except for this morning, and maybe two days ago. And I have also vowed to drink a glass of lemon water first thing every morning. And to go to a yoga class between one and thirty-seven times a week for the rest of my life.

So far, I seem to be erring on the lower end of the math, but I’m going, and have almost mastered Child’s Resting Pose.
But the ultimate challenge I have just dreamed up is to Do One New Thing (preferably outside my comfort zone) Every Week. For example, watching Star Wars Episode V111 without popcorn.

Doing something new and/or outside your comfort zone, means forcing yourself to ‘Cross the Road.’

I can hear it now – “Now, why would you do that?”

Buddha might have replied: “If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.”

Anyways, I loved and bought this piece of art last weekend, hung it on a wall close to my freshly made bed, reminding me to Do It Every Week.

Yes siree, I am definitely a force to be reckoned with.

You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. – Obi-Wan Kenobi

I was also reminded of my favorite Irish poet, David Whyte, who probably makes his bed every day, who explained how he came to make the tough decision to become a full time poet.

“Firstly, I was going to do at least one thing every day toward my future life as a poet. I calculated that no matter how small a step I took each day, over a year that would come to a grand total of 365 actions . . . one thing a day is a powerful multiplier.”

It’s not rocket science.

Just like our disciplined bed-maker, Naval Admiral William H. McRaven, B.J. ’77, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, Texas, Whyte likens the gradually accumulating power of small actions—sending an email, making a phone call, taking a half hour walk—to the acceleration generated by a space probe under ion propulsion.

The other thing Whyte did to transform his life and career, was to initiate what he calls “courageous conversations” with the world around him.

“I told everyone I knew that I was moving toward becoming a full-time poet. I wanted them to hear it and to hold me to what they had heard. Disbelief, silence, scorn, I didn’t care,” he recalls. “I was doing my damnedest to create a kind of gravitational field that would have me drawn increasingly into its center.”

O.K., you now have free reign to ask me what I invented for myself that week.

FAILURE TO LAUNCH

It’s easy to retreat into whatever one’s favourite iDistraction happens to be – like watching Return of the Jedi for the twenty-seventh time in your unmade bed.

Our hook-up technology culture celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat. It can obliterate thinking for yourself – revering to God Goggle. Or really seeing what is around you – the Downward Facing Eyes. Arrows pointing anywhere but inside ourselves.

Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them. – Obi-Wan Kenobi

You can always choose to wait for a door to close and another one to open – but you can always just open the door. That’s what doors are for.

Han: How we doing?

Luke: Same as always…

Han: That bad, huh?

You have only one decision to make every day: how will you use your time?

Hopefully, Obi-Wan has taught you well.

But if you had one of these beautifully styled beds below, I wouldn’t blame you a bit for not leaving.

Already know you that which you need. – Yoda

Throw on a knitted chunky wool, or any throw, on top of a down comforter, adding texture, warmth, interest, and maybe some colour. A look that’s truly out of this world.

When your bed fails to launch because you don’t have a headboard, add pillows. Lots of them.

When you can’t read in bed, it’s probably because you don’t have a fabulous swing-arm lamp.

If you find you have things scattered all over the universe, treat yourself to a night table with lots of storage.

The Wide Blue Yonder. Fall asleep with a love poem or and crash under a vintage car the next. The interchangeable headboard covers are artful imagery that will inspire all kinds of exotic dreams. Complete with a handmade cedar frame and pad, the digitally printed piece quickly slides into place and can be swapped with a different cover whenever you please.

Reflect your larger than life personality, and place a oversize mirror behind your bed. Send up clouds of rapture with billowing drifts of muslin floating overhead.

GO OUTSIDE – YOURSELF

And when the world seems to be driving you crazy, there may be a solution. Build yourself a ‘She-Shed’ or ‘He-Shed’. There are no rules or strict guidelines that come with making your own, except that pretty much nobody else is allowed in there except you. And the best part is, you can do it pretty cheaply. Simply convert a garden shed, and buy furniture and accessories from secondhand stores, garage sales and the like.

Notwithstanding,

Remember…the Force will be with you, always. – Wan Kenobi

Shutting up, Sir.

How wonderful to receive a card, a poem, a paragraph, a letter (or your hammer back) on Valentine’s Day. Each offering tells a little story. A story; a story of how this special person came to be in our lives and why we love them.

Throughout our lives, we tell many stories. We tell them every day. We tell our stories by what we wear, by the places we travel, what we do, what we create, and within the four walls of our home.

What if you were President of your own Personal Academy of Domestic Desire?

“Houses are cluttered with wishes, the invisible furniture on which we keep bruising our shins.” – Rebecca Solnit

A Home for our HEART.

Most of us have dwellings—apartments, houses, condos, lofts, dorm rooms—but often we do not seek to make a Love-ly space where we have a sense of sanctuary, a refuge, or a harbor for our wandering and wondering souls, where life is preserved, protected, and cultivated so that the daily needs of our hearts, bodies, and souls are sanctioned with attentive care.

Going Nowhere

It is only by stepping out of your life and the world, if only for a little while, that you can see what you most care about. Only by stopping movement, can you see where to go. At heart, a simple thing.

Home, after all, is not only the place where you keep your best china, it’s the place where you stand.

How is your heart doing?

Caring for your heart and soul requires a place of refuge and solitude. Where is it in our home or life that we can be in solitude?

Now why would I talk about solitude on a day that celebrates amorous connection?

Because solitude is a way to self-love.

Most of us grew up and live in a culture with an inculcated terror of solitude that instead, has an immensely strong focus on stimulation, engagement, and interaction.

We live in a world that never stops talking, a world where the enemy is silence. A world where busyness is hailed, but it’s really the distraction from living. Aloneness is seldom allowed, condoned, nor given safe practice. The person who chooses aloneness is labeled either mad, bad or sad; feigned as hollow as the hole in the center of a doughnut.

I find it disconcerting that one dare not say, “I want to holiday alone this year”, but that it’s perfectly acceptable to announce, whilst being clapped on the back resoundingly, that you have chosen to solo climb Mount Kilimanjaro, unicycle backwards to Istanbul, or trek the Pacific Coast Trail without a tent. Now, because you are “doing” something alone you are neither sad, mad, or bad, just admired and greatly envied for your boldness, imagination and determination; and at the end, as Henry David Thoreau writes, to “brag as lustily as a chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost.”

Many of us dream of doing this something, but can’t find anyone else to do it with. The solution is simple, really: do it by yourself, taking a piece of soft cheese wrapped in brown paper as your sole companion.

Solitude is an achievement.

“It is sweet to be silly at the right moment.” – Horace, 65-8 B.C.

So there is solitude, and there is community. Each meet a different need of the heart and soul.

As we get older, we realize it becomes less important to have more friends, and more important to have Real Ones. And I’m not talking about Facebook. Oh, I guess I am.

Life is like a party. You invite a lot of people, some leave early, some stay all night, some laugh with you, some laugh at you, some show up really late, some don’t bother even showing up, and some don’t even let you know they are not showing up.

In the end after the fun, there are a few who stay to help clean up the mess. And most of the time, they aren’t even the ones who made the mess. These people are your real friends in life – your tribe. They are the ones who matter most.

So stay in better touch with people who matter to you. Relationships aren’t necessarily measured in miles, but in affection and attention. Two people can be right next to each other, yet miles apart. Don’t ignore someone you care about, because lack of concern hurts more than angry words. Stay in touch with those who matter to you; not because it’s convenient, but because they’re worth the extra effort.

You don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of.

By the way, I’m available anytime if you would like to talk – but not now, I want to be alone. I’m going to put on my pyjamas now because I’ve been out of them for over ten hours, and I’m getting nervous about it.
Be present, pay attention,

and send more Love Letters.

This Valentine’s Day, write a letter of love, desire, gratitude, or friendship.
Write a letter to a friend that is traveling and may be homesick.
Compose an apology that will mend the heart.

Write down your best life lessons and leave it in a coffee shop for someone to find.
Script a proposal – a dinner, movie, or a coffee date to someone you haven’t seen in a long while.
Spread some sibling love today. Recall a funny story or a memory from childhood.
Be bold and hand off a love letter to someone you meet in public today; a barista, policeman, waitress, teacher – thanking them for a job well done.
Create closure by scripting a letter to a heartbreak of the past. If you are brave, send it. If not, burn it.
Leave a letter for that special someone to find later in the day.
Dedicate a love letter to yourself, reflecting on your year’s success.
Pen a letter to your parents to let them know of the ways they have shaped you.
Design a romantic bucket list for your partner to keep you two close, even when you are miles apart.
Make a gratitude list for your best friend.
Write a love letter reserved for that one-day, someday someone.

If you feel inclined to send more love letters, you may think about joining up with Hannah Brencher, whose mission is simple – make love famous.

“Self-control is not a problem in the future. It’s only a problem now, when the chocolate is next to us.'”– Shlomo Benartzi

So today and everyday – eat your favorite foods, dance to your favorite music, walk your favorite paths, talk with your favorite person, have coffee in your favorite shop, wear your favorite clothes, read your favorite books.

Work, date, live, create, sing, dream, rest, indulge, and adventure in ways that feel good to you.

deep and meaningful decorating advice

Do you have the simple wisdom of Pooh?

”Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”
“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best — ”, and then he had to stop and think.

I think.
I know…
that there’s Always Something To Do in a house. And sometimes There is A Lot To Do. Ask any of my true clients, a SOS text flying in, code for – “I have absolutely no idea what to do here!”
Are you full of Cleverness like Rabbit?

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?”

Nevertheless, the propensity to puerile or overcome little bits of soul suffering akrasia, which is the perplexing tendency to to know what we should do combined with a persistent reluctance to not do it.

Which brings me to procrastination, which is what I just said.

Are you as glum and cautious as Eeyore?

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

No one said it would be easy. But you may have to get out your own way or comfort zone, and it can feel scary. It is very easy to get lost in, “Perfectionism is procrastination with better marketing and PR.” Thanks for noticing.

Are you an intellectual like Owl?

“You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”

Yes, but it’s Wednesday…oh, never mind. Getting bogged down in details, focusing on the small things sometimes can have it’s advantages. But it can also make you forget what you have set out to do – creatively decorating your house for the least amount of money and work.

Don’t make the classic mistakes of staying emotionally attached to your stuff, nitpicking, or making mountains out of molehills. Focus on the the end goal.

Keep your attention on that.

Are you a timid and loyal like Piglet?

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

It’s easy to get locked into a reactive mindset. You follow along with what others are advising and react, listening to your mother-in-law, the guy at the water cooler, your second cousin’s aunt twice removed, or something you heard on the last episode of “Love it or List it” – instead of the experts, your decorator and her crew.

Do you have Tigger’s unstoppable Bounce?

“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.”

A few red balloons tied to a chair may help, or maybe just enlist a few simple styling tricks – easy ideas to help tie your heart to your home.

Good styling is to a large part about changing out the small things.

• some or many vases of flowers in one or many places
• fresh aromatic soaps in a dish on the bathroom counter
• hats hanging on a bakers rack in the entry
• a throw casually draped on the sofa or ottoman
• books piled in a basket by your reading chair
• your collection of dolls displayed in the guest room
• a luscious palm tree in a ceramic pot
• new throw pillows
• herbs growing in a kitchen bay window
• an antique or hand-made quilt gifted to you hanging on the wall
• a family photo gallery installed in a hallway
• organized bookcases
• an inherited chair reupholstered

Are you so deeply occupied to say …

you are truly present in the moment, really living?

The most beautiful life is the one that does not go unnoticed. Real life moments.

…chasing a butterfly on the way to buy groceries…a child burrowing in the “castle” pile of laundry just folded…a baby amazed by the feel of new grass…icicles dripping off a roof…the sunset reflecting off a high-rise…juice dripping down your hand from a tomato fresh from the garden…church bells ringing in the silence of the morning…tulips unfurling, planted to honor a loved one, the feel of cool mountain air, dents on the wall where the boys played floor hockey, laughing so hard with a friend that your eyelashes hurt.

that you notice of the details of your day.

with no other reason except to pursue being grateful? Because those days become years; and before you know it, you’ve missed it. They are worth remembering.

you relish stillness?

Stop for a moment. Listen. Really listen. The season that is un-rushed has the most beautiful harvest, deep and profound moments. Busy is a decision.

…you focus on what you think is beautiful, but not on what really is beautiful.

Hold close the beauty of brokenness…day in and day out, even hearts.

Sometimes we need stitches to sew up the spaces where the stuffing is falling to the sidewalk as we walk away. Don’t hide the sadness. There is sacredness in being real, raw, and honest. Do not wipe up your tears of sadness – or joy. Later you may come to see the messiness as holy.
…you can stay simple.

Challenge the culture of perfection, or to someone else’s idea of perfection. What matters is what you will remember.

…you follow your dreams.

Even if you don’t know where they are taking you. Listen to what your soul is whispering to you. It doesn’t shout to get your attention.

…who has earned the right to share a piece within your heart.
He who dies with the most toys is still dead. If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?

Do The Next Right Thing. Every day. Then you will end up with a beautiful life. A life worth remembering. A life to share.

I just feel disconnected!

Heads vs.Tails

A respectable room is not frightened by its duality. It can be a living contradiction of the sacred and the scandalous, the sagacious and the mischievous, the domesticated and the worldly, the angelic and the devilish, the dark and the light.  The tug between the two dualities is at the heart of all truth, so decorate with your own inner paradox. Pull out your paint chips and misbehave with dignity.

I haven’t felt this alive in years!

Be a hero or heroine.

We dream to be fully immersed in a room of one’s own, leaving behind a sink of unwashed dishes. To be in the world of our spirit’s true home, our playful natures sweeping us into the air, refreshed, re-membering, finding our own way.

Perhaps you long to leap out of your bed of familiarity into the colorful unknown. Do you dream of the delight of doing up your room NOW, not waiting for a more ‘appropriate’ time?

Well, let your hair down, and slip into something comfortable  – or outrageous.

Although this traditionally is the time of year to pretend to be someone other than what you are, this feeling should only last for a day or two. The worst form of pretending is is when you pretend to yourself. The only way is to be true to yourself and your rooms, which means you’ve got to dare.

I curse everything!

The great gathering.

Never lose track of your plan – your instinctive home. Losing sight of this handcuffs you to routine and dispiritedness. A smart pumpkin knows her or his needs. Try to remember when you had a really good wall color or a room of harmony and beauty. This is allure for sure. Celebrate your inner and outer beauty, and share it with all your resident goblins and ghosts.

I feel hollow inside!

No dreading shedding.

Many long for gusts of great intention.You gaze up to the full moon and it seems your goal is just as far away and shadowy. There you are, dressed, land-locked, and left bereft, sighing…Hmmm. Maybe it’s time to get your shimmer back by starting from within – treating those rooms with some decorations.

I’m not the man I used to be!

Accessorize,
Accessorize,
Accessorize.

It’s the small things that give way to the big things. The immense pleasure of dressing up your rooms to express your essence, excites others to join you in the act of being original. By revealing who you are and what pillows you throw on your couch, you dust off the cobwebs of dismal and boring.

No matter where you are and what macabre state your rooms you are in, it’s important to add shapes, colors, textures and all sorts of things, making your spaces shockingly stylish for the sharing.

An accessorized room is seldom gloomy. Let the fun begin!

My love life bites!

The Keeper.

There is nothing like love – at first sight. But one must be discerning and discriminating. Impatience can lead to a mistake, and remember that many characters lack character. You must bravely choose with your senses alert. So beware, beware. Some can be a grim sight in the light of day. A well chosen item is worth all the ghoulish decision-making, as well as the giddiness of scoring that great find. Commitment is the knot that binds.

Learn to Yearn

An pathological obsession with transforming pumpkins into carriages.

We all filled with longings. We yearn for the part of us that we had to leave behind and for all that we might become. We yearn for beauty, freedom and love. We yearn to know and be known. No man or woman can live a full life without being known by a least one person, bearing witness to our life. Perhaps we cannot even speak properly until there is someone who understands us, we cannot exist until someone sees us exist, and we are not wholly alive until we are truly loved. We need people, some of which know us better than we do ourselves – and is all the better, if we have a decorator that can magically transform your rooms to match your yearnings.

I’m yours, hook, line and sinker.

Around the world, row after row of wooden barrels holding distilled spirits slumber away until the day the distiller finally calls out their name. Meanwhile, while we patiently wait for this illustrious day, 2% simply evaporates from these oaken casks per year.

This is called the Angels’ Share.

This is truly a delightful notion: that this precious percent that drifts off by itself escapes both homo sapiens and the tax man. One may note that it is not uncommon for a cask that is fifteen years old to be half empty by the time it is bottled.

Hence, the longer the slumber, the more the angels get.

It would no doubt be possible to make a container the angels couldn’t get into, but we wouldn’t likely get the same result. And shouldn’t the angels get their just and pleasurable reward; this small amount that escapes all earthly claims, destined to benefit the unseen and unknown?

We are taught in our early years, that it is the angel’s job to look after us. In today’s perilous world, that must be hauntingly demanding work, work which should certainly merit a few perks.

Metaphorically, as much of life should be looked at metaphorically, the Angels’ Share reminds us of the small percentage of evaporation that may have disappeared from our lives and our home if we haven’t been paying attention. Is it lost forever? Can we regain some of it? Do we even want to? Has it evaporated from our thinking as a society, I wonder?

Can we retrieve the sublime to meet the divine?

Flowers do nothing, practically speaking, in daily life, yet they give you a moment or two of something most valuable and precious – that of a moment of beauty.

You can transform a space with flowers that cost so very little, yet add such a massive impact? THE 2%.

Five stems of violet delphiniums arranged in disparaging different vessels.

Climbing under fresh white, crisp sheets, pulling the down duvet up to your chin. An open window and the night breeze. Thinking about every possible thing. THE 2%.

This month, let’s grab a good book. I mean a real book. One you can heft up, to hear the sound of pages turning, to smell the paper, to underline words or passages.

It doesn’t have to be one that will impress everyone in the airport lounge. Sometimes, one just longs and needs or requires, a really good piece of escapism. It keeps the imagination and purports the fun of life. THE 2%.

Make a place for yourself to live and work to have a higher dimension. Put out statues, paintings, prints, quotations, mementos – anything for more joy and inspiration – THE 2%.

“He did each single thing, as if he did nothing else.” – Charles Dickens

We live in an age of distraction. Life isn’t 10 open screens, beeping texts, and one flickering attention span. Live life as if it were dessert — it’s too brief and too delectable to be distracted through. You don’t wolf it down.

Well, maybe some things.

The biggest design project anyone can have is their own life. Dance in your office, in your living room, down the street.

Above all, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

Only the angels know…

To style, or not to style, that is the question—
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Disorder and Congestion of outrageous Bedroom,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of clothes,
And by opposing end them? To finally sleep—
So much better; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand pair of socks
That Floor is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To finally sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of beauty, what dreams may come.

Telling your story

Styling your rooms should look like you just stepped out for Mexican food and will be back to your lovely, organized life momentarily. Okay, I can hear the chortling now…you don’t like Mexican food, so that’s not gonna happen.

It’s important that the rooms don’t look too perfect (no need to comment)—and stylists are pros at striking the balance. For example, a stack of books arranged slightly haphazardly on the bookshelf, a chair a little askew or a throw “thrown’.

Interior designers are pros at choosing the perfect fabric, furnishings, colors and patterns, but the finishing touch is the styling, kicking it up a notch by layering in key accessories that enrich the story already told.

It’s amazing how just the right flowers, pillows, vases, art pieces…can take a beautiful room and make it the most interesting and compelling space in the house – one that makes you just want to sink down and finish off your Mexican food.

A good stylist can look at a completed space and assess exactly what it needs to tell the design story in a single image. By bringing in extra accessories that might not have been in the client’s budget or overall design plan, the room gets a “collected over a period of time” look that really warms up a room, engaging all who see and live in it.

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”― Woody Allen

Valentines’ isn’t just a day, it’s an attitude.

Whether you’re blissfully over the moon or steaming about love gone way (way) wrong, own your Valentine’s Day!

I know. Valentine’s Day isn’t all about long stems and glittering bits in little boxes for everyone. Weighing in on both sides of the love divide, the sappy and the cynical—and all the gray area in-between—and in honor of that, I pulled together this something-for-everyone (non)amour post.

Today is a day for being.  Be with those you love and be kind to yourself.

Do something out of the ordinary that you normally wouldn’t do that will lift your spirits.

Buy a beautiful flower for your desk.  Just a single pink flower in a quiet interior can have the impact of a sudden kiss.

Indulge in a strawberry macaroon.

Spend an hour or two browsing in an interesting bookstore  – a bookstore for avid readers, for the unusually bookish, for browsers, for meanderers, for independent minds, and for romantic spirits.

Without reds and pinks, life somehow would be sad.

Red is the colour of passion and romance: Red hearts for Valentines, The Queen of Hearts, red checked gingham, a pricked finger in the snow.

If a kiss is just a kiss, then…there’s nothing more romantic than Love Letters….cause if you ever leave me, I’m going with you.

It’s all about the little things. Romance is about making the most of every moment and surrounding yourself with your version of beauty.

You don’t have to be with another person to be romantic.

Choose this day to get up and fix yourself breakfast, then take it back to bed on a beautiful tray laid with a white napkin.

Light a candle, fix yourself a pot of tea, read a really good book, buy yourself the best chocolates or a bunch of flowers, write a love letter, take a bubble bath…dance.  Dance.  Turn the music up loud.  Don’t die with the music in you.

Valentine’s Day is about love — and loving yourself.
The happier you are, the happier the world is going to be.

PART ONE

Two weeks meandering along the bewitchingly beautiful highway 3 and then the peripatetic courtship of vibrant Vancouver and back again.

It had occurred to me to go to a psycho-therapeutic travel agency that may have been able to align my mental disorder with the parts of the planet that would best alleviate them. Which is why I decided on British Columbia. My ambition knows no bounds.

But this time I have a NAV system and an I-phone map app that actually tells me in broken English that I am lost AGAIN.

So I surrender to getting lost and then found (I hope) as a voyage should take you further than your destination.  

It is only in the age of the seduction of Smart Phones that large numbers of people can finally figure out why monasteries were originally invented – as in a mesmerizing and libidinous escape from reality, culminating in involuntary twitches and an inordinate amount of time spent not sleeping.

But when you really want to disappear is when you really want to be found. When you really want to run away from everybody is when you really want to be found, by just somebody. The things that were. The things that could have been. The rips in my clothes. The holes in my heart.

Thus, being temperamentally disinclined to keep any of my adventures and observations quiet, I beg your polite or not so polite indulgence.

So with life voyages begun so late, I felt there was no time to lose. And then again, there were a bunch of things moving at a speed that would even make a snail say, “Move along, Francis.”

So I chose to put away the map to get wonderfully lost. (It wasn’t that hard)

And then sometimes, a woman decides to leave – not because she has given up, but because she refuses to give up. Who has decided that they will stay in the light no matter what it costs. They will stay in the damn light. Because they’ve fought their entire lives for that light, and they’re not about to give it up now.

Ah…the pleasure of searching. The luxury of finding. As the Mad Hatter said, “How you get there is where you’ll arrive. 

So it is. Dare to give up life road maps. Dare to live without answers. Dare to live by faith. Dare to quit when you’re done.

And when you finally recognize that you simply cannot get enough of what you don’t really need – this is the cathedral moment.  There is no point beseeching heaven for a miracle that you would not recognize if you met it at high noon. A mountain road may be steep but it is also a road up a mountain.

I succumb to the philosophy that adventure is one of the five necessities of the truly civilized, next after truth and beauty, ahead of art and peace.

I drove on to Naramata where I had spent 8 summers awakening.  A little more each time until it was safe to leave.  “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anais Nin.  The voices now soft as thunder.

The past only asks to be remembered.

And it isn’t always darkest just before dawn. It’s darkest in the middle of the night. It’s a light grey just before dawn.

Climbing back in my mobile hotel, I plugged my iPod in AUX, and pressed “Shuffle”to listen to whatever music came up.  And after a while I realized that I kept having to skip past all the Christmas songs. So many Christmas songs. Which is when I discovered I hadn’t actually put my iPod on Shuffle, but rather at the letter “C”.  And a LOT of Christmas songs start with the letter “C”, in case you didn’t know.The bigger question is why I haven’t taken the Christmas music off my iPod since it’s, you know, August.

Along the path were signs for my soul, guiding me forth to re-member.  (One may note that it is only been religions that have been able to turn the needs of the soul into large quantities of money.)  “You are never a great man when you have more mind than heart.”-Beaucher

I eventually reached Vancouver and ensconced myself in the physical and psychological sanctuary of being two blocks from the ocean, generously allowing space for restorative  thoughts to hatch (or so I hoped).  I set about to let everything happen. 

“Life was never meant to be safe.  It was meant to be lived right to the end.” -Caroline Myss

Appropriate while sitting in a Starbucks sipping a 195 degree extra hot short mocha with light whip in a real cup and downloading heart rock pictures that I hear Cat Stevens croon – “Look at me, I am old, but I’m happy….”  God, is that not depressing? I’m asking them to change the CD.  I declare, youth is wasted on the young.

And if you sit here long enough, all the lonely hearts hanging around like dim relatives, show up to talk and talk and talk and talk to you….and then talk about the Calgary Flames when you confess to your lineage.

He definitely picked the wrong person. I thought that the Flames had been extinguished by the Flood or bad trades or something. 

And then in comes an eightys-something couple arguing very loudly in Estonian or Macedonian, umbrellas flying at each other and we’re-glad-we-can’t-understand-what-they-are-saying. And then again, it might be marvelous.

Four hours, four miles and four dollars later in another Starbucks, I saw her again. Strange. But said personage bereft of husband/companion/paramour, or he of her.

If our goal is to be tolerant of people who are different than we are, then we really are aiming quite low. Traffic jams are to be tolerated. People are to be celebrated.

I have always longed to meet someone interesting while sipping java in some coffee shop in some part of the world, like a man who just stopped in town to visit his wife and children, but had a second family in Los Angeles who knew nothing about the first. He had five children in all and two mother-in-laws, and his face baring no strains of his situation.

Dining in solitude…differs little as dining in restaurants, as these institutions are not adept at gathering people into the same space and encouraging them to make meaningful contact with one another once they are there.   Patrons leave restaurants much as they have entered them. After all, there are few more effective ways to promote tolerance than to force the bipolar with the balanced, the geologists with the gentry, the Mohawk with the matronly – to eat supper together.

By the way, if I had read the above on the inside jacket of a book, I might have searched for a lightly used copy on Amazon.

“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.”― Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

Although this may be at odds with the Jewish legal code, the Mishnah, which commands the following:  ‘For men of independent means, every day. For labourers, twice a week. For donkey drivers, once a week. For camel drivers, once in thirty days. For sailors, once every six months.’

One does not apologize for self discovery. Or overcoming little bits of soul suffering akrasia –  the perplexing tendency to to know what we should do combined with a persistent reluctance to not do it.

“It takes so much damn courage to be solely responsible for ourselves. And it is so often lonely.” James Hollis, The Eden Project

And then there is nothing I can do now about the fact that I sold an idealized life to myself, one indisputably at odds with reality. It did not show up.  Maybe it just got tired. Or considering its vast responsibilities in the Maldives, Argentina, Minnesota and Syracuse, it may also have seen something shiny on the road and got distracted.

I suck at enlightenment.

And yet wine barrels burst if from time to time we do not open them and let in some air. Thus a decent amount of debauchery ensued and was necessary. Seduce and destroy.

Truth Telling is good for nothing if we only tell the beautiful and leave out the brutal.  We must be bold or die inside. No one was ever bold without sometimes being wrong.  The truth is the only thing that really serves us, especially when it is difficult. I am not talking about what is true for you and what is true for me, I am talking about Truth.

(If you’re reading this and feel confused and have no idea what I’m talking about, then just skip ahead because it doesn’t pertain to you.)

So I discover and recover and uncover.

Not one for spending an inordinate amount of time perusing supermarket tabloids while waiting for my peaches to be weighed and accounted for, I nevertheless made an incalculable observation.   Many of the magazines have an inordinate amount of feature articles on how to look good after forty. Advice  predicated on the assumption that one’s appearance had been pleasing at thirty nine.

Walking miles and miles and miles most every day tripping the light, I-Pod in one ear, the ocean in another. “What a feeling.Took my passions and made it happen – dancing right through my life.”   “Bein’s’ beleivin’.” Laugh that you lived and dance that you dared, say I.

“I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want!
Lets do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me…”
– Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance

Your life doesn’t sing unless you play. And you can’t really play — unless you know how to play through the hard parts. And it’s only when you believe that you belong, that you believe you are  beautifu

They are under seven and over four and when they ask why you aren’t married and you explain, they said, “Huh. If I were grown up, I’d marry you.” A genius not understood by mere mortals.

Speaking of rings and baubles and clothes and furniture and lamps and shoes and shoes and accessories and shoes, there is no city ever entered where I did not lay siege to any and all of the above.  Beauty is my religion and it christens me with wonder. “The most beautiful clothes that can dress a woman are the arms of the man she loves. But for those who haven’t had the fortune of finding this happiness, I am there.” ― Yves Saint-Laurent

And wouldn’t it also be wonderful if one had feet that can wear a shoe without any problems instead of needing shoes made of dragonfly wings that have been hand-cobbled by elves?

“The present is all that can really be known, and though it is perceived in blocks of time, not moments, dragging around the future wears upon it as much as dragging around the past. Anybody with common sense looks a little to where he is going, but not so much as to mortgage the present to a dubious someday.” -Michael Drury, Advice to a Young Wife from an Old Mistress

Going home.

Kamloops will forever more be known to me as the City of Good-byes. And they are not Good. Painful.  Little pieces of my heart are being driven over daily by Mack trucks along Columbia Street. As I have had to say goodbye to two daughters when they left home for the first time, twice again when Tessa went traveling and twice again while visiting. But I recognize that moments like these may be some of the highlights of my life, as I have raised young woman to live their lives with passions – coincidentally some akin to mine.

“The greatest success an artist can achieve is the regular practice of his or her passion. If you can’t go after the very thing that you were born to do, you witness the withering of your private dreams, and you suffocate.”  -Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes

And yet it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and buy bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd to say, it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow.

Happy trails,
Karyn