All it needs is some TLC

About a year ago I burned myself on my neck with a curling iron rushing to get ready in a beautiful bathroom at The Wynn in Las Vegas. (No more rush!) It was nothing serious, fortunately, but it was in a visible spot and I was super hard on myself for hurting myself and making such a silly mistake, and I also was superficially concerned about it leaving a scar, and having to be a reminder that I’d look at every day of how careless I’d been. (Something, of course, I could choose to not add meaning to, but found incredibly hard to do in the moment[s] of emotion.)

My friend Divya, who happens to be a doctor and therapist (a psychiatrist, specifically) and therefore a great listener and the perfect person to soothe my concerns, happened to visit not long after. “Let me look,” she said. “No, it’ll be OK. All it needs is some TLC.” It was so sweet, and so simple, and she was so right. I took care to cover it, to apply nourishing creams, to protect it with SPF. These days it’s a barely visible, and when I notice it, it instead reminds me of my friend, her care, and that all things can heal with time, gentleness and love.

For Dr. Divy, with gratitude for the forever reminder of the power of TLC

Let it all fall away

I’ve realized recently that I don’t care about a lot of things. Like things I know don’t matter, but I was still giving thought, energy and attention to. (All of which would be much better invested elsewhere, or even nowhere, in nothing). Things like ruminating on whether xyz was the right choice when I know it makes no difference now because we’re in the now. Or things that don’t really matter much because they actually don’t align with my values or interests or what I want I want to be part of or have be part of me.

I was on the East Coast recently and the leaves were “peaking;” a beautiful decay and array of falling colors, and that felt like a symbolic little invitation to just let things fall that I don’t need, that I don’t care about much, after all. Let them fall away and be absorbed into the earth and make way for new growth. And letting them go may make me feel bare for a little bit, but that’s the only way to make space for what’s coming next. And it’s kind of nice to just be out there in this new way, anyway, feeling it all, open, ready for whatever.

Miracles happen all the time

When I was sick in January, I started watching episodes of the well-being and sustainable living docuseries “Down to Earth with Zac Efron,” (super recommend it). The second episode centers on water. In it, they travel to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, which is believed to have healing waters. They meet the resident doctor, who is on staff to verify pilgrims’ claims of miracle healings. It’s really incredible to see the exchange and explanations, to see the medical doctor show X-ray, scans, documented evidence of healings that occurred after people visited the site, inexplicable by scientific medical knowledge. Since 1862, the Church has recognized 70 cases as “miraculous.”

Last week I reached out to a close friend when I was needing to process in relation to someone who knows me well, and she also happens to know a particular area of medicine well in which I was seeking solace. (A miracle.) She said many beautiful, helpful, truthful things to me in that conversation. She said, “Miracles happen all the time.” She’s right. They do. They really do.

A couple days later I was walking along the Venice Beach boardwalk with another friend, and we shared a moment of appreciation for the ocean, just over there, shimmering in the late afternoon sun. “The ocean is such a miracle,” she said, apropos of nothing but being in that moment. And in that, I was in awe.

Miracles happen all the time.

For Micha, a miracle of a friend with whom 16 years has been full of miracles, from a sorority to a move to Buenos Aires, a Sullivan Street psychic and everything in between, including (soon!) Ibiza

Never turn your back on the waves

I started the day in the ocean. Fully submerged, a baptism of a new week, an appreciation for the nearby beach that I consider to be my front yard, and a cold, salty (in the best way) full-body refreshing reminder that I feel very lucky to live where I do and how I do, that this could be every day and any day for me.

When I plunged underwater the first time I had the gleeful feeling of being a teenager again, down at Belmar, the Jersey Shore, with high school friends, bobbing in the waves, diving directly into the biggest of them, and on those very-big-wave days, letting them throw us where they wanted to, wherever they would, when the next one came too soon. We always came up laughing, swimsuits twisted, always better, happier and more hopped up on life for having taken the ride.

The second time I went under I remembered my dad laughing, and telling me how, when I was younger and we were at the beach (I’d probably just learned how to swim), I told him I was going to teach him how to swim in the ocean. He grew up in Acapulco, Mexico, and spent more days than not in the ocean. It was, of course, actually him who taught me to swim in the ocean, and he always, always told me: “Never turn your back on the waves.” Face them, see them, be with them. Dive into them or ride them, but never turn your back on the waves.

The past week, week+, has felt more emotionally intense for me. Because of things that unexpectedly arose, as (expectedly) so often happens, and because it’s just sometimes like that, full of feeling. It was a reminder, an opportunity, to me to just be with it. To not try to change it, to not force into a direction or a feeling or a time constraint, but to surrender it to fully feel it and let it go, to let it wash over me. It was a reminder of how so much comes in waves, even when part of the same experience. I’m proud of myself for facing it, for facing the waves, and so appreciative for close relations like friends who, with heart-centered kindness, openness and invitation, were there, encouraged me to share, went deep with me and, also, let me be.

For my dad, who showed me how to be with the waves and play through life at all ages, and always with joy

Let yourself receive

I visited my friend’s apartment this week for the first time, her first place on her own. I had accumulated these little gifts to give her, including an extra pair of shoes I’d been sent, for free, (Soul sisters and sole sisters; we’re the same size), and a Matisse cutout that had hung in my old apartment in Wiliamsburg, where we both lived prior, before she moved West and I realized, in a cold, hard NYC winter, that felt like a really good idea, too, to live in LA. I followed six months later.

When I saw the Matisse print in my closet it automatically felt like hers, and I remembered I hadn’t yet been to her place, so I invited myself over. She received the invite and was happy to have me and offered to cook dinner; it was salmon and Japanese sweet potatoes and salad and perfect, and I brought a bottle of wine to toast with because, while neither of us drink much (California sober. as they say), it felt right and special for that Tuesday night, like a ritual. She asked me about life and listened, and the way she listens feels like such a gift, to be received that way, she is always present and patient, sharing insight and responses in the right way at the right moments.). She shared that she’d received a raise, and she hadn’t even asked for it, and we celebrated that. Close friendship is like that, all of that.

When I was in Puerto Rico in December, I felt like I was grasping to try to understand what I was meant to do. Stay, and take more time off? Leave, as originally scheduled? I had an Akashic Records Reading + Healing with my incredible friend Roya Pourshalchi right before Christmas. I wanted big, clear answers; divine guidance. “It feels like you are meant to receive,” she shared. That was the overarching advice, the archangel message, of the session. Images of receiving at a feast, seated at the end of the table, abundant plates and joyous company.

The next morning, Elida, my aunt’s longtime house help, was there. When I walked into the kitchen she asked if I wanted coffee, and breakfast. Oatmeal? “Oh, it’s OK; I can do it…” and I stopped myself. Let yourself receive. I love the oatmeal and coffee she makes; she cooks the oatmeal slowly with the full cinnamon sticks, simmers the almond milk over the stove and then combines it with to the Puerto Rican coffee bubbled up to ready in the Moka Pot. I said yes, and it was a perfect breakfast. She beamed when I told her how much I liked it. In receiving, we also give. I stayed two more weeks.

My friend offered me tea after dinner, when we were watching Love Island. I paused initially, not wanting to create more work for her, to take more from her. That was silly, of course; she has a generous heart, and I know she was offering because she wanted to. “Oh, you’re going to like the message,” she said when she opened the teabag.

“Let the opportunities come to you,” the tab read.

Let yourself receive. A compliment, without feeling the need to return it right away. A new day for being there, predictably, and, also, differently. An opportunity, whether you take it or not. Giving and receiving, the same flow.

Later, when I pulled my bike out to leave, there was a spider weaving a web, against all odds, across the entryway. “She does this every night,” my friend said. Spinning a web; an existence of being through receiving.

For my LA Lolo: To giving and receiving in friendship, for forever!

Everyone else's is theirs

Everyone else’s—advice, experience, energy, emotions—is theirs. And it’s just that. Theirs. And it doesn’t have to be yours. It doesn’t have to be yours to take on, to do, to become. Everybody is different. Every body is different. Reflect on your boundary; set your boundary; be in your boundary. Exhale, gaze outside, meditate, take your space, put down your phone. Boundaries are a concentration of power.

And! Everyone else’s—beauty, intelligence, success, magnetism and magnificence is also theirs. And it shouldn’t be yours. Because you have yours. And them having theirs doesn’t diminish or detract from yours, doesn’t make it any less. In fact, it makes it more special. It guides you to lean more into yourself; the ways you, specifically, as yourself, are blessed.

This doesn’t have to be yours, either. You can read it; you can be with it; you can leave it. You don’t have to take anything with you except what’s yours. And even that, you can leave, too.

Written on the day of the Leo New Moon from 34-year-old me to 14 -year-old me, and for all the years in between, and probably for moments to come, too. Because it’s taken time with myself and with wonderful, strong, supportive and celebratory friends, and reading things like Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World for Men* that have helped me to open my eyes and arms to all that is mine.

(*So many years of following food, fitness, medical advice just for and by men, like all of “biohacking,” for example, that did not serve me at all and actually hurt me at points and that’s OK, because we’re here now and stronger, more self-assured and understood now.)