LIVING UNSCRIPTED

My acupuncturist is a bit of a nut. I used to find her way over the top, with her pseudo-British accent and bizarre commentary on which flavor cupcake she thought I had most in common with (she said red velvet, I suggested strawberry shortcake), while she stuck tiny needles into my flesh or suctioned glass cups along my spine. But yesterday was different. Yesterday, she actually got me thinking more openly about few things. No surprise this change in my perspective is due to being way more into the "woo woo" stuff than I was before, when she'd chat me up about energy flow, Chinese medicine and the personification of baked goods. She said she thinks my shoulders have been sore because my b

On my current quest for self compassion and spiritual enlightenment (she says with a shy smile), there is a lot going on for me right now in both heart and mind. It's dizzying, really, but in a butterflies-in-the-tummy kind of way. Like the feeling you get waiting in line for a rollercoaster, or before stepping on stage in front of a live audience. The reading, researching, writing, workshopping, self reflection, meditation, networking, web browsing, podcasting. It is limitless. Most times I am in love with the whole experience; the unknowns and the pending discoveries. The excitement wakes me up at 5am and pulls me to my journal. It helps set my intention each day. It's the driver for

I've been writing a lot more lately - beyond the journal, I mean - although I'm still loyal to that routine. There's a piece that may (or may not) turn into a coming of age fiction novel (or short story); a series of prompted vignettes (or Flash Fiction work) from a Facebook writers' group I'm a part of; the (slow) start of a children's book based on true childhood experience; an outline for a story I want to tell at an open mic event next week in the city (oh wait, I haven't started that one.) So you can see, with all of my parenthetical and heavily caveated assurances, I am indeed on my way to becoming the next Stephen King. (Although I'd call myself something more edgy as a woman - like

In my improv class a a little while ago, I fumbled. Hard. My scene partner and I had two choices: request characters/relationship/our objectives from my teacher OR ask for a suggestion from our audience of fellow classmates. We chose the former and our teacher set us in a future-set, science fiction genre. The Commanding Officer (me) and Eager Scientist (my partner) had just disembarked from our ship and were off to uncover a thrilling discovery that could, as it turns out, save the world. Putting aside, for a moment, how little I know about science fiction - beyond from what I've seen in Aliens (age 10), Mel Brooks' Spaceballs and the two episodes of Star Trek (remember this one?!) - I

I wake up each morning at 5:45am to write in my journal - or my Morning Pages, as Julia Cameron calls them. At first, I was setting my alarm, much to my husband's chagrin. ("Alexa. Alexa, cancel alarm... Alexa!") Now it is a delightful routine I treasure and look forward to. I love the solitude and the quiet time. No kids, dogs, morning breakfast and lunch-making routine for another hour. It's just me and my thoughts, made beautiful with their pre-dawn, unfiltered truth. Raw and edgy, but also filled with excitement and optimism to do and become. Admittedly, once the coffee wears off and the day kicks in, I struggle a bit with the earliness of this practice. And I find sometimes too

"Too tired to care" "#PowerMama" The two women at the nail salon I visited Friday wore these slogan t-shirts with pride. And why not? Tell 'em sisters! If we can't yell it from the rooftop with a damn megaphone, may as well shout it with a tagline. For some reason, I've been thinking about these women and their t-shirts for a few days now, and I can't shake it. Why? Because they're ironic and quasi-humorous? Yep. But also because, for some reason there was so much humanism in those two ladies at the same time. I loved it. They spoke volumes about...all of us. Working. Tired. Patient. Smiling. And funny. Most of us, really funny. So here's to you, sweet ladies at Serenity Spa.