Fat Tuesday Forty

In the last week, I accidentally hit a medicine man in the thigh with a lemon quarter.   I met erudite and hilarious writers who matter-of-factly accept the appearance of wolves as spiritual guides.  I walked on Red Rocks and sniffed the silver-berried air.  I got a facial from a lovely, Japanese-speaking woman who ministered to my shoulders with hot rocks she got from the sea in San Diego.  “They still have good energy!  You live in Sedona a while, you start talking like that!  Very different from East Coast!”   Since, after all, it was my birthday, I also got a pedicure and received kick-ass foot maintenance advice from another esthetician (Black & Decker Mouse hand sander with fine grit paper.  You’re welcome).  I learned a Sufi secret.  I met an old, dear friend and her jolly, impossibly dimpled baby in the Phoenix airport.  My friend was tired in such a familiar way.  I realized it's a life-changing exhaustion, even after the sleep deficit disappears.  I made a luminous, smart and kind new friend whose creativity, insight and logic were all reminders of how fabulous it is to get out of your comfort zone just so you can meet people like her.  The term “douchbagel” became, for better or worse, part of my lexicon.   I did not seek an encounter with an animal spiritual guide, but I read some psalms and came back to my old gurus (vintage U2) after a long time away.  I remembered the importance of tending to my own medicine.  I resolved to write non-precious things more often and to actually post them, too.  Let's hope I don't regret the last one.  Eeek!  Too late.