Why didn't anyone ever tell me?

Well, even if anyone had, I'm not sure I would have paid much attention.  Scent is such a personal experience, highly subjective.  If you were to ask me just what is so wonderful about the smell of wisteria, I would be at a loss.  Maybe perfume makers would have the words; I don't.

Most of my favorite fragrances are of the sweet and spicy variety: vanilla, cinnamon, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  Now I must add wisteria to the list.

How about you?  What are some of your best-loved scents? Let's have an olfactory feast!

Oh, this past month!  Oh, this past week!

I am ready for it to be over. And guess what? It is!

"For lo, the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone..."

Well, that might be overstating things a bit.

Still -- new week, new month, new moon, all converging. Close enough for jazz. Close enough for comfort.  Close enough for me.

I am ready for spring. I am ready for renewal. I am here.

I am here.

When I was eighteen and going off to college,  my kid sister said to me,  "Just promise me you'll never grow up."

And I promised.

About eighteen years after that, while in the midst of juggling graduate studies, clinical work, family and creative projects, I gave my sister a call. I told her,  "I think I need you to release me from that promise. "

And she did.

Even so, there are times when I don't quite believe that I know how to be a grownup.  There are even times when just trying to be one feels scary.

Everyone else knows how to...Everyone else knows all about...Everyone else understands...

Deep down, though, I know I'm not the only one who feels like a little kid in grownup clothing.

What are we afraid of?  Failure?  Success?  Becoming a stranger to ourselves?  Being forced to abandon the secret,  semi-conscious wish for someone, someday, to rescue us and take care of us forever?

A few years ago, I was teaching a group of college students who were on the brink of completing their training and earning their degrees. I told them,  gently, that they might find that the time had come to grow up.

They winced.

And I heard myself saying, "It's okay. You can be a cool grownup. The world needs cool grownups."

The world does need cool grownups.

They exist. I know lots of them. Uncles, aunts, teachers,  friends.

I probably even am one.  Sometimes, at least. When I remember.

What's a little harder to remember, at least for me, is that I can feel confused and incompetent and still be a cool grownup.  Furthermore, I can feel independent and competent and still be a cool grownup.

The world needs cool grownups. The world needs us.

A dear friend of mine was telling me recently about his desire to try a (completely legal) hallucinogenic substance. He was hoping,  among other things, that it might give him inspiration and insight.

I felt,  and still feel,  absolutely no desire to try this particular substance. Even so, our conversation left me with the feeling that I would like to be given some guidance for the year ahead.

So, that night,  I asked to receive guidance in my dreams.  And then, sometime in the middle of the night, I received it.  I drifted into consciousness, and as I was waking,  these two directives came to me:

1. Don't overeat, so you won't have to get the sick feeling that comes from overeating.

2. Wear your hair any way you want,  and don't worry about what anyone else thinks.

That's it.  And yet,  that's a lot.

It's moving week!  This is a time of craziness, when everything is being thrown into boxes and bags, and then into trucks and cars.

I've never moved before during the turning of the year.  It's a bit uncomfortable, but also seems oddly right.  New year, new home.

In fact, this year, there will be a new moon on New Year's Day.  I like that.

I am ready for new beginnings.  At least, I hope I am.  Ready or not, here they come...

Every year, the time between November 1 and January 1 feels to me like time apart.  The old year is receding;  the new year is emerging, and this is the between time.  Liminal time.

This year everything feels especially liminal, because we're moving in a month or so.  It doesn't feel entirely real. It's hard to know what lies ahead.
There's a lot of work to be done to get ready for all this. One way or another, I'm sure I'll do what's necessary.

And yet, for the most part, most astonishingly, the feelings I have are not urgent or particularly anxious.   Instead, there is this remarkable stillness and peace.   Mystery, but a quiet mystery. Liminality.

I hope I can continue to enjoy this.  That would be wonderful.

Last Saturday, I got to be part of Max Daniels' fabulous teleclass, Into the Closet.  I'm still feeling marvelous little ripples from that experience.  I love the notion that life shifts can happen, not only through making changes from the inside out, but from the outside in as well -- or, perhaps best of all, through movement in both directions.  Change my clothes, change my life.

Or -- and this is fascinating to me -- I don't necessarily have to change my clothes much at all, at least not if I don't want to.  Even just noticing what I'm wearing, just being more mindful about those choices, makes a tremendous difference.

The version of myself who has been wanting to come out (of the closet, sure) and play is, in a word, confident.  She wears what she wants to wear, and she makes it work.  She understands the difference between effortless and just not making an effort.  I'm not sure that I can explain it, but she probably could.  She gets it.

(Confidence, she whispers.  That's the core of it.  That's most of it, really.)

Back to those ripples, though.  This week, while falling through Google rabbit holes, I found my way to Eccentric Glamour, a tasty little book by Simon Doonan.  I found a copy in my local library, and I've been reading it, and I can feel it doing me good.  I'm inclined to agree with the New York Times' assessment:  "[Doonan is] a postfeminist writer cloaked in the drag of a sly fashion insider."  Just what the doctor ordered.

Another ripple:  Halloween.  I have a couple of go-to costumes that have been in my closet for years:  a green and gold medieval gown, and a jagged black witchy outfit.  The yoke has a silver bat accent; the hat is bedecked with spiders.  This year, I topped off my witch's garb with an edgy blazer, with lace cuffs and lots of silver buttons.

I felt...confident.  Yes.  Halloween is a good season for confidence, for me at least, and it's also a good time to let hidden versions of myself come out and play.

It'll be midnight soon, and tomorrow will be another day.  I'm not finished yet, though.  I intend to keep right on playing.

I am filling cardboard boxes.  I am shaping them, reinforcing the corners with tape, and filling them -- with books, with linens, with fragile treasures wrapped in plastic bubbles.

Meanwhile, I am slowly emptying a bigger box:  the home that we have lived in for the past seven years.

Seven.

I remember, shortly after we moved in, pulling into the driveway one late afternoon and seeing my seven-year-old daughter playing in her bedroom window, in the big house, on the big land, under the big sky...

It hurts to think of leaving.

I don't know where we're going yet.  I mean, geographically, roughly, yes, I do know.  Specifically, I do not.

I don't even know how to end this post.

To be continued, I suppose...

I seem to be deep in the heart of a time of transition.  The Wizard has been working at his new job in South Carolina for the past four months, while the rest of us are still in West Virginia.  There are complications, financial and logistical, which are making Operation Relocation a challenge.

Things seem to be stagnating, and changing rapidly, at the same time.  I'm not sure how this is even possible, but nevertheless, it is true.

There are, however, two things that I can count on, even in these strange times.  They are my daily bookends:  the morning pages and the bedtime story.

If you're at all familiar with Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way, you know what the morning pages are.  I certainly don't do them perfectly -- is there even such a thing? -- but I have been doing them every day, with very few exceptions, since July of 1994.  That is nineteen years, and that is something.

The bedtime story...well.

You might think that my fourteen year old daughter is too old for this ritual, but you would be wrong.

You might think this tradition began when she was a little bitty girl, but you'd be wrong about that as well.  It goes back much further than that.

I've been reading aloud to people, and with people, for as long as I've been able to find people willing to play with me in that way.  Many of my romantic relationships and other friendships have grown deeper and richer through the sharing of stories -- fictional and non-fictional, it doesn't matter.  It's all stories.  It's all words.  It's all...human.

Mostly, though, I am just so grateful that people I care about give me the opportunity to perform for them, and sometimes with them.  In many respects, I believe that I could be quite happy living alone, someday, except that I'd still want to read to someone.  Maybe I could volunteer at a local library, or create audiobooks.  I don't know.  If it ever becomes necessary, I'll figure it out.

Morning pages and bedtime stories.  When it comes to my daily creative practice, they are purely and simply foundational.

Here I am, waving to you, and re-affirming my intent to post here daily, at least for a while!  The adjustment period may be...interesting.  Or it may be incredibly boring.  Or both.  Anyway, here I am!