That's a tomorrow solution

Rather than saying “that’s a problem for tomorrow,” or “that’s a tomorrow problem,” I’ve started instead to say, “that’s a solution for tomorrow,” or, “that’s a tomorrow solution,” and it’s such as silly and simple change-up, that it always makes me smile.

And like my manicurist in San Juan said after noticing how anxiousness had affected my nails, lo que no se resuelve hoy, se resuelve mañana. Or, what isn’t solved today, is solved tomorrow.”

I’ve also heard this mental trick of, when being faced with a problem solution opportunity, saying “I’m so grateful this has already been resolved,” (and saying it with your chest, or saying it with heart! So it’s felt.) Then you get to wait for it to unfold, now in a more easeful place of knowing—feeling—that it will happen. It’s something of a fun little future trust fall.

Also, a reminder to self that the simplest solution is is usually the best solution.

Everything I've ever wanted

Today, a friend messaged me that she had the thought, the realization, that she has everything she’s ever wanted. It’s maybe not been in the moment she thought it would be, or the manner she expected. Still, she’s gotten it, and she still has it. Everything she’s ever wanted.

It’s a thought I’ve had before, and one I was meant to hear again, right then. A reoriented perspective on what is here right now, and a reminder. Reminders to release the timeline, release the constraints, and let be as big and beautiful as it is. Everything I’ve ever wanted. That, and more.

She ended it, too, with “How lucky am I,” and I loved reading it as a statement. How lucky is she, and how lucky am I, and how important that we see that—that we are lucky, and also that we choose to see—that we have everything we’ve ever wanted.

"There is no best in music"

Harry Styles was just awarded Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, and I was disappointed. I wanted Bad Bunny, “Benito,” to win; I wanted it to be the “we’ve made it” moment of Latin music that I feel like it deserves to be, that the impact Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” album has had on me and so many others around the world, an impact shown in numbers, in streams, and felt deep and in the heart, in the way I know so many people feel about musicians and music they love. It’s just that it was this album; it was this moment.

In Styles’ acceptance speech (and I do adore and appreciate him as an artist, I will say!) he said, “We all know there is no best in music.” And that is so beautiful, so important to note, and so true. All art that is meaningful, beautiful, created out of love, in passion, out of necessity, for contribution, as a gift. I texted it to a friend, and she responded, “No favorites.” Because I’ve had this thing for some time now of saying I don’t believe in a “favorite,” a “best”; when everything fulfills, fills and inspires me in such different and special ways. I’ll often get asked what my “favorite” travel destination is/was when people find out I was a travel journalist. How to answer that? There are places I’ve met in different states and ways; places that have met me, suprised me, challenged me, changed me. So much of it was about who I was at that moment, too.

There is no best (a supremacist concept), and I choose not to play favorites. We do our best, which is always changing, to be our best, which is always changing, in every moment. I choose not to play favorites, and instead appreciate each moment for what it gives, for what it is.

Dedicated to Bad Bunny and “Un Verano Sin Ti,” my Album of the Year

"Live the questions"

I’ve loved this concept of “live the questions,” thanks to the beautiful words of Rilke, since first hearing it in a Marginalian newsletter. It feels more playful, even more empowering, to hold the concept of, “live the questions” than to just “release the ‘how’,” (and trust).

“…Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer," - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet.

“Live the questions now… live your way into the answer.” And answers, plural, I would say. Because the way of life is many ways.

And, sometimes, the answers come without the questions.

Everything is special

It’s an oxymoron, and it’s also true.

Ready to let this go

I returned home to my apartment in Venice last week with the urge to go through all of my belongings and minimize, minimize, scale back and lighten, the way that living out of a suitcase for 1.5 months in Puerto Rico and feeling like I had more than enough can do to a person.

I spent a lot of my time in Puerto Rico going on long, present walks around my aunt’s neighborhood in Guaynabo. I was fully immersed in those walk, feeling what was ready to be let go falling off me and what I needed to take in as nourishment from the tropical climate, with all my senses, in every sense, finding its way to me, seeping into me.

Finding myself ready, wanting to let go of physical things coincided with deciding I was ready to let go of certain stories, ideas and perceptions that I realized were starting to feel clunky, heavy or unnecessary. The most recent time someone asked me, meaning it as a compliment, “Why aren’t you married?” I didn’t feel the need, desire or defense to respond. Just a shrug and smile.

And then, as if my body was responding and saying it was on board with all of this letting go, I got super sick, an intense 24-hour stomach bug that humbles and comes as quickly as it goes and leaves me remembering, once again, how very lucky I am to have my every day health.

I don’t really know how else to end this, or what the ending is of continuing to let go, but I know I’m ready.

The most relevant response

I had the idea that tonight I was going to write here something related to a postcard a friend sent me from Japan, something I’ve had written in my head for a while. That, and maybe watch the new Love Island UK season premiere. Then, I got back from yoga, had dinner and have had a heavy headache since. I don’t get headaches often at all anymore, which is nice. (I think since I started meditating—and overall developed more practices and space to listen and respond to my body and its signals in a more supportive way.) It also feels like a lot, I think because I’m no longer used to it. I’m reminding myself I just got back from traveling, was at altitude and in freezing temperatures skiing in Colorado, and looking at a screen most of the day, so my body and brain are probably responding to all that.

In the Vedic meditation community we talk a lot about “relevant responses,” which I think requires 1) present moment awareness and 2) the ability, and choice, to align, which may mean surrendering an expectation or prior idea. And in any event, meaning this event, it didn’t feel right to force write what feels like a special story post, because that’s something I want to enjoy. It did feel right to take an ibuprofen, which I also don’t do often, and also to write this post on relevance. And somehow writing it has not worsened my headache, and actually felt good.

What is mine

I wrote before about the importance, freedom and benevolence I’ve found in understanding what isn’t mine—to take on, carry, understand, process, etc. (A therapist would probably call these boundaries from codependence or enmeshment? I’m currently reading Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab.) At the same time, that clarity also makes it more obvious to me what is mine, and, as a result, makes it ever more important that I take responsibility for that. And something we’re always responsible for, I continue to remind myself, is how we react, or, more ideally, *respond* to any situation. (A “response” factors in an extra bit of time for conscious choice, and I’ve found meditation so very helpful in moving me from reactions to responses.)

I think we’re each given a little packet of things in this world that are our LEGOs of life to build with, play with, work through, create with and understand; challenges and inclinations and interests and such. Sometimes we may build with others using our own set, but we still need to take responsibility for our pieces. And even if we don’t particularly like all of our pieces, well, that’s our set, that’s set, and maybe what we can do is use them to make something we love.