I really want to write about love. This post comes after the longest hiatus between posts in the history of this blog, and somehow I got into my crazy head I was going to write about love, but somehow it’s been more challenging than expected. Go figure.

It’s not from lack of experience or motivation, but I guess lack of direction. I kept having false starts, then realizing that a blog post is not a journal entry, and really…what exactly was I trying to say?

I want to write about how love hurts but how it also heals. I want to write about how sometimes when I’m involved with matters of the heart I feel like I’m operating without a learner’s permit, but other times I feel I’ve already earned my doctorate in all things hopeful and heartbreak as well as the line that’s sometimes fine between the two. Kind of like “been there, done that” in the worst possible way.

Although this post isn’t exactly the one intended, it’s the one I’m capable of writing right now. Today. Today I’m writing not exactly about love, but if you believe—as I do—that love is a part of everything, then I’m absolutely writing about love. Love has everything to do with it.

Today was one of those days that’s precious because I worked through a wide range of emotions. I started with feeling both tired and grateful for the four nights I spent sleeping with my bedroom doors open to a two thousand year old cobbled alley just off the port, at the tip of the island. The sea breezes were great, but the street noise that goes until dawn was not so great, making that landing spot both a blessing and a curse.

The fact that I got to stay in an apartment in a fantastic location for 40 Euros/night more than made up for any and all downsides, and it was thrilling simply to sleep in a town that existed several hundred years B.C. The old town section of Eivissa Town is downright magical.

Joy and love are the predominant emotions running wild, and people feel really free here to just be who they are. Judgment (of self and others) seems neither invited nor tolerated here. There’s inevitable heartbreak too, and the irrefutable signs of post-party depression, but for the most part love is the winner around here.

There’s going to have to be another post about how there’s so much more to Ibiza than clubbing, but for now a few photos of the magic that is old town where abandoned buildings mingle with carefree people (of all ages) doing whatever blows their hair back. Where overloaded clotheslines dangle a few feet from some of the world’s priciest yachts. Anything and everything goes here.

The biggest downside of the airbnb apartment that I stayed at was that it was only available until today, the 9th of September, and my flight to Rome isn’t until the 16th. Astrid, my incredible hostess who felt like an angel on earth, said, “Problem? No problem.”

When I landed at Astrid’s place last Friday I was slightly in tatters, which she could tell from my somewhat frenzied booking, but within moments we were chit chatting and she invited me to join her and a friend for a night on the town. I considered going, but when I saw the stilettos come out I said, “It’s going to be a stretch for me to even get out of my leggings, so I think I’ll just wander around the neighborhood a bit and make it an early night.”

Astrid got it. She got me. She understood my need to be independent after seven weeks living with and waiting on others. She totally got it. She really got it, and man did we laugh when we both got home around 3:00am.

I had wrestled myself out of my leggings (granted just to get into a skirt made of the same material as leggings) and I wore a non-jogging bra, some jewelry and cute—albeit non-stiletto— shoes not dusted with sand or encrusted with dirt. I walked out the door and up the alley, the one in the fourth picture with the girls on the balcony, and although every spot looked appealing I felt I needed to walk a bit more before I settled on a place for what I knew would be an extraordinary evening of people watching.

I would’ve walked further, but as I was passing by the cutest, sweetest man stopped me (it’s his job) and asked me to have a drink. Granted, it was a good spot—just on the edge of the really busy section, but not quite in it—that would only be enhanced by this adorable man who bears an uncanny resemblance to Pitbull, the rapper, who also happens to be one of my all-time faves.

Within minutes Mario and I were giggling together and teasing each other in that bizarre way that forces me think, “Who were we to each other in our past lives?” Sometimes we encounter people and it feels likes axes are grinding from injuries incurred several millennia ago, and other times it’s different, even with faces we’ve never seen before, our souls say, “Oh there you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

That’s how it was with Mario. I sat there through his entire shift, and at the end he walked me home with a promise to bring me coffee in the morning and make us a picnic for the beach. “Sure,” I said without expectation, because in this land of pleasure and fun, things don’t always go as planned, which is, of course, part of the fun. You can’t have expectations and you have to embrace the unexpected, those doors swinging, as doors, do in both directions.

I woke up the next morning for a jog, and realized partway through that I didn’t have my phone’s cellular feature turned on, so I did that and saw that I’d missed a call from Mario. I called him back (huffing up a hill) and it turned out he was having coffee just a couple of blocks away. He’d already bought the picnic stuff, and because it was already lunchtime we had a coffee and then he made me a sandwich right there on the street. {delish}

He sent me home to hustle into a bathing suit while he patiently waited while I tore through my hastily packed suitcase for the few bits I needed. We weaved our way through the streets to the beach, where we set up our camp like we’d done it a million times before, but the part that nailed me in the gut was when we got in the water together and played like two kids. We played, splashed and wrestled exactly the way I play in the water with my first love, a man I’m lucky enough to have on my team as a friend until the end.

Huh.

For three nights I’ve sat at least part of the night while Mario works and confused some people who think I might be on the payroll. I’ve met some amazing people sitting there, most of them gay men, many of them crushing on adorable Mario, so it was natural that conversations swayed to everyone’s favorite topic: boys.

Keith and Steve are an adorable couple, married eleven years, which, then tell me in gay marriage years is at least fifty. They’re awesome and honest. They told me their coming out stories, some family stories and told me I’m not nearly as saccharine as they find most Americans to be. I responded with an enthusiastic, “thanks!!!!” that nearly made them recall their assessment. Keith told me that the first time he went to America it was to New York and he was scared that everyone was going to be too eager to wish him a “have a great day” and “thank for stopping by!” for his liking, but he rode the subway in NYC and was delighted to find some really grumpy people.

Despite our shared love for boys, Keith told me he thinks a tragedy that women are still fighting for equality with men because that’s like shooting for the bottom rung when you know you deserve to be swinging from the rafters. “You’re superior in every way, my dear,” he told me, but he also said that it’s important for us first-class creatures to give the downmarket blokes a few breaks. “Embrace a few flaws,” Keith advised, “Flaws are a good thing.

I thought about it all night.

It made me think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, which makes it more beautiful than it would be had it never been broken. “As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.” (Wikipedia)

Here’s a beautiful example from Lakeside Pottery in Connecticut, my home state, and a pinterest link to dozens of examples, some professional some amateur.

Leonard Cohen says it best, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” I feel like I’ve already forced enough metaphors in this post, but I’m telling you, this old town is full of cracks.

Mario sounds (and looks) Spanish, but he’s Romanian and his real name is Marius. His English is great, though not perfect, but we communicate fairly well considering, and share the common language of belly laughing. Since the beginning Mario and I have been trying to figure out why we met, beyond the fact that he’s reminded me a few times of the obvious, that I’m forty and haven’t had a baby yet, and (I simply cannot believe this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this in the past year) that he’d “like to mix genes with me.”

So anyway. Mario is a web designer and club promoter, but he’d also like to write a book about his life. “Really?” I said, “Tell me more. Tell me everything.”

Mario wasn’t blessed in the parents department, and this fact shocked me enough that I asked ask him again, just to be sure I’d heard him right the first time, “You left home when you were nine? To live on the streets with your eleven year old brother?” It’s true. His parents were alcoholics and physically abusive. Mario’s father punched him in the nose so hard that he still has a bit of nerve damage in his head, neck, and shoulder. He’s planning to have surgery soon because he doesn’t need the constant physical pain to remind him of the emotional pain he escaped, though we both know that healing fully from what he’s been through, he’s giving it his best shot. Despite it all he believes in his core something he told me the first night I met him: everything is possible. not anything. EVERYTHING.

Mario is deep and insightful, but, despite his rough start to life, he’s something else: he’s HAPPY. He’s an absolute pleasure to be around, and in the beginning I fought it—fought getting to know him, spending time with him, risking a heartbreak—because I’m leaving, but Astrid the airbnb angel gave me a few pieces of advice that she repeated until she was satisfied they were sinking in:

Get out of your head.
Follow your heart.
Don’t worry so much.
Let things unfold naturally.
Have fun.
Enjoy.

She had to repeat “get out of your head” quite a few times. Thank god for Astrid. Thank god for Mario. Thank god for this summer and everything I’m learning about myself, the world, and my place in it.

Astrid was right—finding another place wasn’t a problem—and I moved today into the lovely home of her friend Fabienne. The house is in an area of town I was unfamiliar with, and I literally got in a taxi, handed over and address and hoped. I knew Astrid wouldn’t lead me astray (see above), but still… {sigh}

The house is amazing. It’s spare and simple, Zen and clean. My room is basic, but perfect. It has an armoire and a writing desk (WRITING DESK!), but even more exciting is that it contains two other things I haven’t had in two months: a fan and blinds. Darkness and cool. At one time. Amen. OMG I’m absolutely dying with excitement over this.

It also has a clean floor, abundant outlets, a nightstand, and more than one source of light that doesn’t include a headlamp. The house has a well-stocked kitchen, a great bathroom with killer water pressure, and an outdoor area with several gorgeous lounging places. Let’s just say that all things considered it’s a good thing I’ve already booked that ticket to Rome…

Fabienne is French, but lived in Bali for years and she’s a jewelry designer. Let’s just say that girlfriend has it going on.

I moved this morning, and then met Mario at the beach, as planned, which is very close to my new place. I found the stairs that allow a bypass of the serpentine streets, and within a couple of blocks I was nearly in front of the hotel I stayed at back in the beginning of May, my first time to Ibiza, before I went as a guest to the yoga retreat where I’d spend the last week of my thirties. Of course I didn’t know then and could never have predicted that I’d be spending my forty-first summer working at the same yoga retreat, and that after that was finished I’d be—woah—back where I started.

I mean, we never go back exactly where we started and I feel a world away from the woman I was in May, but I find it curious that the last place I’m staying this time is basically the first place I stayed and it happened unintentionally. That’s the kicker. We can plan for things to be a certain way, and we can hope to revisit something with a new perspective, but when the opportunity just happens it’s a whole new league of awesome.

Today was our third beach day together, and Mario consistently shows up with a bag of sandwich fixins, bottles of water, and the outstanding offer to get me an ice cream whenever I want one, so I left the beach well-watered and full, but in the mood for a late afternoon coffee. When Mario and I parted ways so he could head back toward work I told him that it was unlikely I’d be posting up in my usual spot tonight—I have a writing desk!—but that I’d look forward to seeing him tomorrow.
And I am. This sweet man with a tough exterior makes me smile, laugh and check my assumptions at the door.

He likes my silly faces too. He’s gotten to where he’ll say something just to see if my face reacts the way he thinks it will, and when it does he throws his head back and laughs. Which leads to another “face” on me.

It’s also a testament to Mario’s awesome character and resilience that because his suitcase was stolen almost immediately after he arrived on the island last month (from his current permanent post in Barcelona), he bought most of the clothes he’s been wearing from second hand shops in town. He even got those designer glasses (that make him look even more like Pitbull) from a second hand shop for one euro.

On my way back to my new landing pad I decided to stop for coffee at this little bar (that I visited twice because I couldn’t not go back) and which I said on Facebook back in May, “I’ve not been to Cuba, but the feel of this little bar, where I just had one of the best cafe con leches I’ve ever had, is what I imagine it would feel like.”

I walked the street, observing all the things I saw four months ago with a very different perspective. I walked further than I had before, and wondered, “Was it really this far? All the way around that bend?” I checked my memory. It was on the water side of the street, it was east of both minisupers, but where was it? Eventually I realized I had to turn around, and then I saw the thing that made my previously sailing heart sink: SE ALQUILA. For rent.

Yes, there’s a rainbow in the reflection, making the whole thing even more bittersweet, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the old man at the end of the bar and the woman who’d made my amazing coffees. Where were they? What happens to old men at the end of the bar when the bar closes?

Maybe it’s okay. Maybe they retired. I was glad the place wasn’t for sale, because my family has a building in New York where my grandfather worked behind the bar until he was into his seventies, and it’s not necessarily a sad thing when a business is passed on to be managed by a new family, but still my heart ached to peek inside and see only the espresso machine and a few bar stools in the place.

To steal Joan Didion’s sentiment, I don’t think I’ve stayed too long at the fair, but it’s always shocking to stay long enough enough in a place—especially when it’s a relatively short time—to miss something that used to be. The exact line from Didion, in her essay “Goodbye to All That,” is “I… began to understand the lesson in that story, which was that it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the Fair.”

Of course it’s possible; everything is possible. We can only hope to nail it (and by it I mean life) by leaving any of the proverbial fairs in that luscious, elusive grey area of “perfect timing.” The thing is, if we’re thinking positively and in the right direction, is that even when we blow it we’re still nailing it. Everything is perfect timing. And if a man who was a boy on the streets in Bucharest believes that everything is possible then you can to.

{good luck to us all. this isn’t easy.}

At the end I think this post is about love, perhaps even more so than the post I originally intended which is saved and bookmarked for some later time. It’s about love of a place, and the loss that is inevitable when a place has razor-sharp teeth into your heart.

It’s also about being open to love in all its forms, and to doing some things that are necessary, to me anyway, in order to be happy: trust, accept, and my new favorite: to embrace a few flaws. What it really comes down to is choice. Everything is a choice. We can love or we can hide. We can camouflage our imperfections or we can flaunt them proudly, inviting others to do the same.

Glennon Doyle Melton, one of my new favorite heros, says this:

Love is just something to do. It’s a choice. We can choose love. Love has absolutely everything to do with it.

I often say I feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and it’s true: I have much to be grateful for. I say this about the small, simple things: witnessing a spectacular sunset, the perfect poached egg, a serendipitous meeting. Now that I think of it, most of the things that prompt me to refer to myself as the luckiest girl in the world probably cost less than fifty cents. In fact, the majority of them are gratis which is precisely what elevates their values to priceless.

One of the many things I’m grateful for is simply that one of my favorite people on the planet, Miss Emily Ann Walter, has nearly the same birthday as I do, and we were even born in the same year. As far as the world goes, we were even born fairly close to each other—just five hundred miles apart—which, as the world’s circumference would have it, is technically within hand-holding distance. {My next blog post will be a collaborative effort with Emily, about an epic hand holding…}

Emily and I have actually been friends for less than three years, which blows my mind with all we’ve done, said, conquered, planned together—but it’s as if we were destined to find each other. This year we turned forty together, in Portugal. It wasn’t so much my birthday or her birthday, but rather it was our birthWEEK; it was a celebration of us. It was amazing.

We were more or less lost the entire time, and on my birthday eve in Lisbon we humped our asses uphill only to find the restaurant we sought was closed, and we were in a peculiar residential area for a restaurant to have ever been. On our way home, nearly all the way, we happened upon a place where I sat with a tremendous snarl of exposed wiring over my head but where we had the best octopus salad of the trip.

Our way home was no easier, and although we were a stone’s throw from it, we found our way back to the apartment via a serpentine, circuitous route on the Alfama district’s unmarked paths and alleyways. We eventually identified our apartment because of my ten days worth of laundry squeezed onto the wire line, which we spotted at the same time, pointing “there!” like a modern, feminine version of Lewis and Clark. We laughed so hard, and in that glowing light I instructed Em to have a seat so I could take her picture. Like her, it’s a keeper.

Post Portugal people asked me what I saw there, and as they rattle off their lists of sights and not-to-be-misseds, I hesitate to tell them that I saw exactly what I wanted to see: my friend with an incredible backdrop. Yep, laundry can make a hulluva a view.

Sure, I talk about the colored tiles against that impossible blue sky. I talk about the light, because you can’t begin to discuss Portugal without considering how the place is illuminated, even at night. I talk about how the most destroyed looking paintjobs and bricked over windows are somehow spectacular in Portugal.

I talk about the streets that are cracked deeper than even the deepest heart break, but how sometimes the streets break clean into the shape of a heart. It’s safe to say this one appeared when we were temporarily off-track, because that was our usual state, but if two people are laughing, smiling, telling stories and living in the present I beg to state with complete confidence that that is about as ON track as a people might ever be.

I talk about the eleven-foot waves we watched from a safe distance in Lagos, and how we wondered why most everyone else had their backs clear against the rock wall, as far from the sea as possible. A couple of wet books later we realized that the sea rises fast out there on the former edge of the earth.

I talk about the many ways we ate octopus. The olives, the wine, the cheese, and the fact that they only mediocre meal we had was around the corner from the bus stop so it’s hard to tell if it wasn’t good, or if it just tasted a slightly sour due to the fact that we’d just purchased our bus tickets, and when we returned to the station we’d be going in different directions.

If people still care at that point, I continue via a backtrack about how the bus ride that Emily and I took together, between Lisbon and Sagos, was not only an all-time bus ride, but also an all-time journey. It occurred in the days between our birthdays, that bridge period of time where there was no more attention on either of us, though truth be told, the line was always slim. It wasn’t me or she: it was us; it is always us.

Our departure from Lisbon was sweaty. I had to get up early after a late-ish night (#thisis40) to run a load of tile and other extras to the post office (an elusive bugger in Lisbon, let me tell you), while Emily tidied the apartment for checkout. The gal we rented from was long-winded (yes, that speaks volumes coming from me…), and told us about her cousin’s place in Sagres after we had to explain how and why and for what we’d spent my birthday afternoon in the decidedly non-touristic village where she grew up. (I’ll get back to that in a moment…)

Once extracted from our enthusiastic host, we took the metro to the bus station that would take us out of town, but they seemed to hide the thing and we walked several hot circles until a sweet University student guided us there. We thought he was the highlight of our day, but we really had no clue.

We went from being in old, craggy, beaten-down-and-built-back-up Lisbon to a smooth, paved highway with few cars. The bus had wifi and a sweet woman bringing miniature cups of Nescafe for a single euro. Emily and I chose the front seats, right behind the driver, and had a fabulous panoramic view through that enormous windshield. We spent that time having a fairly serious talk, but the kind that’s pivotal and transportive. The kind that, despite its seriousness, invites giggles.

Nearly everything in Portugal made us giggle and smile, so I guess it’s safe to say that in Portugal I saw Emily giggling. I saw her smiling. I saw myself reflected in her, and she reflected in me. If I was given the opportunity to change anything about the trip I might say, “Sure, I suppose it would’ve been nice to have a convertible to drive around in,” but then we would have missed the loveliest bus ride or all bus rides. I guess it would have been nice to get daily massages, or to have found fabulous pairs of boots or hand-woven cashmere shawls with reasonable price points, but maybe those “luxuries” would have taken away from our simple joys. Maybe we had everything we needed. Maybe definitely this luckiest gal wouldn’t have changed a thing. Not. A. Thing.

On my birthday morning Emily came upstairs to my roost in our awesome, wee apartment and we opened the cards my mother and Lucky had sent, listened to some of my favorite songs, even on repeat…Em’s that kind of trouper…

We lounged in jammies and drank an iffy pot of coffee without milk until we were so hungry we absolutely had to move on to the next location, which included some of Portugal’s knock-your-socks-off pastries and a walk to a flea market.

The flea market was a bit of a bust, though I Emily and I both bought tiles to do something not yet determined with. We’d been hunting for days, and it was one of our missions for the market, so when I spied thirteen of one type I knew, what with my May 13th birthday and all, that those were the ones with my name on them. I even got one for free, and only two broke enroute to NYC.

Em and I had nine days together, which is a fair amount of time, but it went lightening fast, and before we knew it we were ejected out of a wonderful passage to live out forty separately, though we’re in constant contact, so separate is relative. If I had to describe the sensation it was like taking when the training wheels come off and having your parent (in my case one who can’t ride a bike herself, which was awfully brave of her) let go of the back of your banana seat. That first, free glide down the street left me so excited at what I was doing that I nearly forgot how to operate the brakes.

The more things change the more they stay they same…

Friendships, like life, aren’t perfect, and Emily and I had a short lapse in communication shortly after my return from Spain, where I’d spent another ten days on my own before heading home to New York. It was a stressful time for both of us, with things happening (and not happening) that were difficult (god, that’s an understatement) to process.

We rode without our training wheels.

And we survived.

As we hashed it all out in real-time it felt like we might never get caught up on al the bits, and then Emily brilliantly described this time in our lives: we’re in the first trimester of forty. First trimesters of anything are tough, and I should know because my college operated on a trimester system, and it seriously took the rest of my four years at William Smith for my GPA to recover from my first trimester. I learned time management the hard way.

I believe the first trimester can be summed up to growing pains.

Perhaps because I hated the way math seemed to work against me in my efforts to become an honors student, I was pushed to work that much harder which had a lovely side effect of learning more and getting a better education as a result. Hard is hard, but it isn’t always bad. In fact, it can sometimes serve us well. I wrote about it at a time where life seemed very, very hard.

I haven’t been pregnant, but the first trimester of a pregnancy brings growing pains: morning sickness, bloating, back pain, feeling fat without looking pregnant, though what happens next, and I’ve witnessed this in my friends, is a terrific glow, amazing hair, and strangers smiling at you because even in an outfit that tests spandex’s resiliency pregnant women are simply adorable.

My very first best friend, Debbie, has four kids, and she has not so subtly suggested over the years that I become a mother. She thinks I’d be a good one and she doesn’t want me to miss out. I love her for her faith in me. Five years ago Deb suggested I freeze some eggs, but I 1) didn’t want to pay for that, and 2) have always felt like if it’s meant to happen it will. Deb and I have known each other for thirty six years, hers was one of the first hands I held outside of my family, and her encouragement doesn’t feel like pressure so much as a stamp of approval: you’d be a great mom.

Right before I left for this run through Spain Deb sent me a text that said:

I have an assignment for you. Go out and buy the July issue of Real Simple magazine and read the article that starts on page 47. Ever since I read your last blog post I have been thinking that you really should get pregnant this year. What do you think? (Here’s a link to that p.47 article.)

I loved this for a number of reasons. I loved Debbie’s honesty and willingness to tell me this. I loved her belief in my potential. I loved how sometimes often our friends can see things in us that we can’t see in ourselves.

I’m currently working as the chef at a yoga retreat that I attended in May, the last week of my last decade, which was right before I met Emily in Portugal. A few of the girls I befriended back in May had a little chat behind my back and on the last night, as we ate heart-shaped, rocket-topped pizzas, one told me: we think you’d be an amazing mom.

{If anyone is either worried or excited that I might be pregnant, I’ll spoil it and let you know right now that I am not. I mean, not yet. I never, never ever say never. Sometimes I even say yes.}

Emily had this reoccurring thought while we were in Portugal that, despite my lack of partner, I’d be pregnant next May. When she spoke of it I watched her face and imagined that in her mind’s eye she saw me in a bikini with a big, round belly. We already decided that a holiday with your bestie in the middle of one of the years’ finest traveling months does not have to be “just for turning forty.” Who knows where it will be (Em has her eye on Turkey…), or if it will ever live up to the ease and bliss of Portugal, but next year we’ll be giving it another go. But we’re not going to compare it, because it will be different. It will be new, we’ll be different, our lenses will have altered in a year’s time so that nothing will ever look quite the same.

Sunday morning I wandered a fabulous market in the small town of San Joan on the north side of Ibiza with my new mate Trevor (he’s British) when he suggested tarot card readings. He said, “You know…just for fun…” and I said, “Yeah…” because we both knew that while it surely had the potential for fun, we’d known each other long enough (a week is sometimes enough) to know that we both had a few truckloads of burning questions.

Like any memorable time, the birthday-week trip to Portugal had a few catch phrases that stuck. When Emily and I got caught in a rainstorm it was “We love getting soaked to our skin! We love wind!” Getting lost led to “We love walking!” and “We love hills!”

Basically, in short, we loved. As Em says, “Choose love.”

Another one was, “Remember the time Aunt Jaime/Emily….blah-blah-blah…” It was a way of both capturing the moment in the present and also preserving it for the future. We did this with the confidence that, despite being already over-ripe, we believe that we’ll have families and play Auntie to each other’s children. We imagine in another decade or so we’ll tell our travel stories until the kids can mime the words behind our backs.

Em’s recent one was, “Remember the time Aunt Jaime went to Spain for a month that turned into a decade?”

So. About the tarot card reader…

…to be continued…

Until then, here are a few pictures that tell a bit of the story, though the truth is I won’t know it until it plays out. I just have a few clues. It’s all we ever really have.

Huh. I added these images in the opposite order than how they appear, but as it turns out the story is nearly the same forward or reverse. Huh.

A couple of weeks ago I turned forty, and the word on the street is that I made it look good. I made it look painless, easy, and maybe even enjoyable. At the very least I guess I made it look fine and not some terrible thing to be feared or lied about.

Friends tell me they want me to join them on their trips when they turn forty. They say they’re going to call me for advice and that maybe I should write a guidebook about how to turn forty.

But friends, I have a confession: I don’t know what I’m doing.

True story. I don’t. I make a few plans and then I leap. I like to have a skeleton of an outline but not so much of a plan that there’s no room for spontaneity. Sometimes I mess up and have to reconsider; sometimes I mess up and keep going. It’s a mater of perspective; is it an ordeal or an adventure?

Sometimes I even nail it, and that’s where the grit of this is…even when I mess up I believe I’ve nailed it in some way, and will convince myself that what I got was exactly what I needed. Taking the long way, getting lost, eating something iffy, overpaying for something….these are the lessons we need. These are the stories that we tell forever.

I definitely kicked off on the right foot, which was not by chance or coincidence. I spent a few days alone in Barcelona completely in awe of it and taking deep breaths after a long year, then I met up with a terrific group for a week of yoga at Benirras Beach on the island of Ibiza. It coudn’t have been more perfect. Hot days and cool nights. Yoga and beach by day,and pizza, rose and laughing by night.

I witnessed extraordinary beauty and kindness, but more than that I closed the door on a decade. I stood on my head without a wall for backup; I stood on my hands with a friend standing by for backup. That was just for starters; I had a couple days left.

I flew to Portugal and met up with a true friend of the heart so we could celebrate our fortieth birthdays together, just four days apart. It wasn’t my birthday or her birthday; it was our birthday-week. It was the first time we did it like this, but we’re smelling a hot tradition. Every year is special. Every day. Not just 40.

Emily and I celebrated my birthday in Lisbon, then after a glorious bus ride (yes, a glorious BUS ride) south to the Algarve where we celebrated her birthday. Ahem, our birthday…

From the crooked, cragged streets of Lisbon to the wind-blasted Atlantic coast we talked, walked and laughed nearly nonstop. We drank coffee in bed, giggling as if we had nowhere to be and, well, we didn’t. Sure we could be taking in these new cities and beaches, but why rush? Where’s the fun in rushing?

In the Algarve we huddled on the beach and watched twelve foot waves. We laughed when all of our stuff got soaked (two? three? times), and finally moved our camp above the seaweed line.

We watched a lone surfer attempt getting on top of one of those beats, and we held our breath when a tourist built like a beach-ball bobbed around and got a proper beating. It’s different on the Europe side of the Atlantic where the waves crash rough like they do on the opposite side of my home.

I asked Emily for a poetry lesson, and she gave me one right on the beach. I took notes in my little notebook, then she went for a walk and I wrote a poem. I scanned the waterline for her, but she wasn’t in sight so I wrote another. And then half of another. I’m letting them sit for a minute, but then lookout: I’m going to start posting poems, yo. I might even start a new tab on this blog for my “experimental poetry.”

Eating is also fun, and Emily and I ate incredible morsels. I had great meals on my own, and although I enjoy traveling alone (and generally don’t mind being alone), meals are significantly better when shared. Em and I exchanged wide open eyes and “wows” and “wait until you taste this” and “I want to cry this is so delicious” over and over and over again.

One olive was better than the last. Each octopus salad more tear-inducing than the next. Sardines, mussels, and bacalhau…oh my. These meals were both foreign and familiar, but probably the most impressive thing was the freshness.

The whole time we were together, Emily and I had two mediocre meals: one on the beach (though the setting was top-notch), and the other saying goodbye (because our options were limited near the bus station). Our last meal wasn’t actually bad, it was just that the quiche was cold and to call the lemonade tart is a pretty dramatic understatement. I’m surprised either of us has any enamel on our teeth, and I’m pretty sure we drank warm lemon juice with a splash of water and no evidence of sweetener. Luckily the drink portions are small in Portugal.

Emily and I didn’t plan the end of our time together, but because she had a plane ticket home we knew eventually we’d board buses in different directions. I didn’t think I was at risk for crying when we said goodbye, but as my bus pulled away I steamed the window with both my face and palms. I even considered being the person who asks the bus driver to stop, please, I have to do something. (I’m still trying to figure out how forty-year olds are supposed to act…)

Life is fucking fragile. We all know this, but the older we get the more apparent it becomes. Things happen on buses and planes. Things happen in cars, on subways, at work, at home. Things happen. You never know. It’s nothing to be afraid of, just good to know, that at any moment this could be it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that because the future is uncertain it’s probably best to be prudent and choose happiness. Right. Choose. See holes or see hearts? Choose.

Emily and I said goodbye to a lot of things in Portugal, but to each other we really just said what my grandfather always said because he hated goodbyes: we said, “See you later.”

I had ten unplanned days to myself, and I knew I wanted more time in Barcelona, but beyond that I didn’t know what I wanted. Uh, oh. Had forty (and fear) snuck up on me? Sort of yes, but I also sort of invited it. I’d planned the end of one decade, but not the beginning of the next. There was a clutch moment when I thought I might stall, but as a friend in California said of New Yorkers, “Out here people slow down when they don’t know where they’re going, but where you’re from that’s when folks floor it.”

Ain’t that the truth.

Sevilla felt disorienting, and after Lisbon that’s saying a lot because walking Lisbon is challenging. Not because of the seven hills or the holes in the sidewalk (some of which go to god knows where) but because many of the neighborhoods (including the one we stayed in) don’t even have marked maps.

It could have something to do with the fact that Emily and I talked so much we didn’t pay close attention. It’s hard to say, but I do know this…other than to/from the airport or bus we didn’t take a single metro, trolley, or famous outdoor escalator. We walked everywhere, and yes I’m bragging a little bit, but the truth is: we love walking.

To be fair, I don’t actually think it was Sevilla; I think it was me. I decided to set a simple goal for my time there: walk around and see the city without an agenda beyond finding a book (that I actually wanted to read) in English. As it turns out this is actually an enormous agenda. The most popular book in English that I found on the share shelves around Spain and Portugal was…Fifty Shades of Motherfucking Grey. No thank you; I’ll pass. I can hardly stand that this book is all over the place and to simplify things I’m blaming the British. {wink} I finally found a book called Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?

I was ready to leave Sevilla after two nights. It felt unfriendly. Maybe even a little hostile. I wasready to go when the time came, and I flew to Barcelona not to stay there but to head to I was ready to leave Sevilla after one full day. It felt unfriendly. Maybe even a little hostile. I enjoyed a few things (definitely the flamenco show), but overall I was ready to go when the time came. I was even early for my flight to Barcelona, not to stay there but to head to Cadaqués, a place I knew little about.

I knew that Salvador Dali had lived and painted there for fifty years. I knew that other artists (Matisse, Picasso, Magritte) had also worked in town and that Mick Jagger occasionally hid out in the hills. I heard that the light was something special.

I knew Cadaqués had a rugged coastline and that it was hard, but not impossible to get to, which keeps out a lot of the riffraff. I was all in, but I really had no idea what for. I trusted a hunch.

It was an achingly long day, almost ten hours in total, between Sevilla and Cadaques and included a plane, an aerobus, two metros, a train, and a bus. I almost wanted to hire a boat to round it out.

Cadaqués had me by the jugular upon arrival, and reminded me of the last place I fell hard for, Stonington, Maine. It didn’t occur to me until just now as I was writing this to check the coordinates:

Cadaqués: 42.2833° N
Stonington: 41.3650° N

Maybe there’s something to that. I seriously don’t know, but I do know that the coastline feels similar and so does the air. I know that it’s damn special when a place can be simultaneously stormy and bright.

What I know for sure is that upon arrival in Cadaques I felt like I was taking the biggest, deepest breath of my life but at the same time on the verge of suffocating. It felt a lot like falling in love, which I seem to do with places more often than people these days. And the parting. Oh, the parting. Heartbreak.

If my love affair with Cadaqués had been a relationship with an actual person we wouldn’t even have had to break up and could’ve just let the fling fizzle out. If we’d left anything behind (a hat, a pair of earrings, spare change) we’d just sacrifice it to the hook-up gods and call it good.

But instead I find myself wanting to sing it a Rolling Stones song.

Emily told me over email probably the best thing I’ve heard in a long time: we all need a place we’re so in love with that we’d be willing to go there to sell candles. Or yarn. Or bracelets. Anything, really, because being there and doing something silly would be better than not being there at all

I found myself sick in my blood and holding my camera flat against the bus window to take photos from the mountains that protect Cadaqués from the back. It’s a safe place. The whole town feels like sitting at the table in the back of the restaurant with a view of the door and everything inside. The town is like having a solid oak tree at your back. Or a dear friend. Or a bottomless cup of a future.

The road is precarious, and the curves so round that the bus takes up both lanes on certain corners. I thought of my mother, and bringing her there, and I wasn’t sure she could handle either being on the bus or having me behind the wheel of a car. The bus driver seemed less capable than the one who brought me in….. Or he stopped so I could capture the place that had captured me.

But that assumes so much. Of course he didn’t slow the bus so the girl with her camera flat against the glass like the town was giving her life could get her pictures; he slowed the bus because it was the only way to get around the corners.

I kept thinking I’d seen Cadaqués for the last time, but then the driver pulled us around another corner and I’d get a higher, more distant vantage point. Both more and less at the same time, and finally there was nothing besides an empty place in my gut and a fast beating heart.

My thoughts went wild on that bus. It was complicated. I’d left Cadaques as planned, after five nights, but it wasn’t an easy decision. Did I need four nights in Barcelona? I’d made new friends who offered me not only a place to stay but a ride back to Barcelona. But not when I’d planned, so I’d have to change my plans.

Honestly, if Lucky wasn’t waiting on the other side of my trans-Atlantic flight I’d have been looking for summer work in Cadaqués. Like, theres’s no question I’d be doing that. It’s not big-city like Barcelona, but it’s also not teeny-tiny like Stonington. You could say it’s just right, and I bet a person gets used to the road in and out. But for now that’s neither here nor there, which is not a coordinate I tend to enjoy.

But like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing, but this is how we do it.

This blog post is an updated and edited post from a few months ago. I decided to participate in the Messy, Beautiful Warriors Project, which I wouldn’t have heard about if I hadn’t helped my friend Bridges launch her messy, beautiful blog Shitshow Bridges. I’m constantly reminded that giving and receiving are the same. Constantly. 

Bridges told me about the project, and despite the fact that I have a todo list with umpteen items on it, I said, “Yeah, me too,” which are also (thanks to Brene Brown for pointing this out) among the most powerful words we can say to each other. It’s so simple: me too.

It’s funny, because although I’ve read a few Momastery blog posts and though they were clever and sharp, I didn’t really think it was “for me” for one single, stupid, myopic reason: I’m not a mother. I was wrong, and not just because I’m a mother to Luckydog or a nurturer by nature; Glennon and her mission are so for me. As she said, “the most revolutionary thing you can do is introduce people to each other.” I love this. And now: my messy, beautiful life of taking care of my grandmother….

 ACCEPTANCE: REMOVING CHOICE FROM THE EQUATION

The last place I ever expected to rediscover my grace was living under one roof with my mother and grandmother. My grandmother, Mimi, is physically fit but lost her mind to dementia, leaving her with is a dicey skillset. On top of that she has a hoarding problem that made her home unfit for habitation. My mother and I are both only children, and it doesn’t require complicated math to see where the responsibility card falls.

When Mimi’s memory deteriorated and the situation escalated I knew that despite what other plans I had for myself—writing my memoir, living on the remote coast of Maine, following the breeze—I was going to have to change those plans. It also became clear I was probably going to have to change myself—or at least make a few modifications—in order to fit into the lives of my family, a family I’d intentionally moved away from.

My mother and I love each other, but for over twenty years we’ve been unable to spend more than a few days together without one of us triggering some sort of eruption. Then, suddenly, we were sharing toothpaste, stocking the kitchen, and formulating a plan for our family’s future. I moved into my mother’s tidy upstairs apartment, while Mimi lived in the downstairs apartment that even she admitted looked like a cyclone had hit it.

Then, under one roof, my mother and I did something I had no confidence we were capable of doing: we cooperated. It could be said that we didn’t have a choice, but we did. There’s always a choice; you either show up or you don’t. My mother and I showed up for my grandmother and we showed up for each other.

My mother and I have lived together in the same apartment for seven months and counting. I wouldn’t say we’re thriving under the circumstances, but we’re certainly surviving. Thus far no blood has been shed. Five percent of the time we’re yelling, slamming things and one of us is storming out of the house, but ninety-five percent of that time we’re doing a bang-up coordinating our efforts.

Caring for someone with dementia is challenging under any conditions, but my mother and I had the added attraction of cleaning up the consequences of Mimi’s hoarding, the tangible, labor-intensive evidence of what happens when issues are repressed. Putting on a face while refusing to talk about what’s underneath is not a mask that can be worn forever. It’s messy. It’s beautiful. It’s life.

My mother’s shame over her mother’s hoarding was pervasive and paralyzing, but together we did what we’d been dreading for years but what was an inevitable reality: we cleaned out the house. We pulled up floors and tore down walls. We dug deep into the recesses of cupboards and cabinets. We shined a light in the dark corners and we unearthed the remnants of several long lives. We found things we wished we hadn’t. We opened the curtains. We did it together.

At one point, a couple of months before I moved into my family’s house, my mother erupted and her lava flowed directly toward me. She needed my help but didn’t know how to ask for it. She’d been trying to protect me from the gravity of my grandmother’s disease, but couldn’t find the gumption to ask me to come and stay because neither one of us would’ve entertained that as a viable option. We didn’t say it but we both thought the same thing, “No way. We’d kill each other.”

I’d been popping in and out all summer, helping with some long overlooked tasks around the house but sticking to my timeline and my intentionally fortified boundaries. I had a wonderful summer, and the friends who hosted me around New England offered me so much more than respite, fresh flowers, and a pillow for my head: they offered connection; they offered themselves. But as the season turned to autumn I knew what I had to do: I had to go home.

For most of my life Mimi has always been on the verge of “getting the house together,” because she didn’t want me to visit and have to figure out a place to sit or have to hunt for something clean to drink out of. She’d hear I was coming for a visit and promise that in the coming weeks she’d get things squared away. “It’s good motivation,” she’d tell me, but I’d be disappointed when I arrived to discover that the most she’d done was move some things from one side of the room to the other or stacked a few pieces to make it easier to turn a circle.

As I got older I turned my disappointment into a stimulus and I offered to help. I told her I was strong to move anything, but if I tried to move so much as a shopping bag of VHS tapes Mimi grew fierce and protective despite the lack of a working player for those videos. Mimi told me she didn’t want me to louse up my vacation on account of her and that she “could handle it.” But she couldn’t.

When I moved into the upstairs apartment with my mother I told her I’d stay as long as we were being productive but I wasn’t going to be an enabler. I knew that the way of thinking that got us into this mess wouldn’t get us out, and refused to be part of the problem. Mimi’s splintered short-term memory enabled us to make progress cleaning out, but as we removed the rubble—dozens of blown-out light bulbs; a plastic whiskey barrel full of mop handles and curtain rods; boxes of small, useless, metal parts—we revealed deeper layers and the truth became clear: the emotional and physical burden of my grandmother’s disease was bringing down the house and it was taking her with it. My mother and I were next on the list.

There were two broken televisions, furniture you couldn’t give away and orphaned lampshades stacked like miniature versions of Pisa. The first month I was there we filled two dump trucks and dropped off twenty carloads of stuff to the thrift store. My mother and I shredded a dozen thirty-gallon bags worth of decades-old bank statements, and recycled just as many bags of long-expired coupons, discount-store circulars and random scraps of paper. There were enough envelopes, blank greeting cards and paper clips to open an office supply store. My proposed departure date came and went; I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Several defunct light switches were taped over, and most of the outlets were inaccessible. Those that could be reached were overloaded with tangles of outdated extension cords that snarled in corners and ran like track marks across the parquet floors. Before we started emptying the apartment, a person had to shimmy sideways to get from one end to the other. We threatened to call the fire department or insurance company, and Mimi’s response was to slam a door in my mother’s face or tell me to pack my bags. She lost her ability to reason, but one truth was as clear as ever: she didn’t want anyone going inside her house.

 With the courage my mother lacks, I matched my grandmother’s fierceness and told her, “I’m making the decisions around here, and I will not letting you die in that filthy apartment.” What started as a threat escalated into me in a mask and rubber gloves, stuffing two black contractor bags full of moldy clothes from her bathtub. I choked on fumes and tears and worked for four hours in that bathroom. Mimi wasn’t mad for long, but she also didn’t notice that I’d done anything.

Another day I removed fifty percent of the living room’s contents, and when Mimi returned from an outing with my mother she stood and moved her eyes from one side of the room to the other as if watching a tennis match. My mother and I held our breath waiting for Mimi’s reaction, and then finally she said, “It looks good. Did you dust?”

One Sunday my mother took Mimi out and I stayed behind to tackle her bedroom, a hideaway tucked in the back. I started by bagging up and dragging out everything belonging to those we’ve waked and buried. It felt callous, but we can’t keep it all. I reminded myself that what got us into this mess won’t get us out, and that’s the mantra I repeat.

After my grandfather died, Mimi starting sleeping under a throw blanket in his broken-down recliner—getting a new one would’ve meant allowing someone inside the house—although she had two beds and a cedar hope chest full of enough bed linens to outfit most of the block. I bagged most of the bedding for Goodwill, but kept a few sets, and erring toward hope, I decided to freshen up the bed I’d only recently cleared of debris.

I pulled back the musty comforter and discovered that my grandmother had made art on her bedsheet with a ballpoint pen. I crawled up there and kneeled over the hand-drawn faces for more intimate inspection. Some sported sideways smiles while other had simple, straight lines where mouths should be. Some had bold eyelashes, others slits. She signed her autograph a few times, and penned a note to me, “Hi Jaime, Hope all is well with you, Love ya.” Swallowing around the impossible lump in my throat, I reversed my crawl and stripped that bed.

I’ve always loved that verb for changing a bed: strip. I made it naked. I left nothing to the imagination. The bare mattress’ satin cover looked like it had been sliced with a mandoline, and a ruptured side seam revealed compressed innards. Even without a body sleeping on it the mattress had come undone from the weight of what was piled on it. I located a mattress cover, a set of soft sheets and a wool, brocade coverlet my parents brought back from their honeymoon in Greece.

I pulled sheets taut, tucked tight hospital corners and jammed stained, clumpy pillows into cases and decorative shams. I made that bed as if it mattered, and then I stood back, admired my work, and burst into tears. The day we moved Mimi into a secure, dementia unit in an assisted living I unmade that bed she’d appreciated but not slept in. Once again I stripped it of its clothes.

When I’m with my mother I keep it together, but alone I let it rip. My cleaning wasn’t going to mend my grandmother’s brain or heart, but yet I continued. I dug through rubble, scrubbed surfaces and humped bags to the curb in part because it needed to get done, but also because I hoped that an organized exterior might calm some of the interior agitation not only for Mimi, but for all three of us. I had faith in that possibility, but that’s not why I did it: I did it for love.

When my mother and I drifted out of our depths, I hired two geriatric care consultants to guide us back, assess the situation and help formulate a strategy. My lathered up grandmother was furious that I invited strangers into our private business though I assured her I’d made the choice out of love. “If this is the way you show love I’d rather you hate me,” she hissed, then asked with a straight face who died and left me boss. She told me I should be ashamed of myself and ordered me to leave her alone, but minutes later she forgot she was mad and agreed with the consultants who told her she’s lucky to have a granddaughter who cares so much. At the end of my rope I asked my grandmother, “Which is it?”

“I love you when you’re not giving me a hard time,” she said with a snicker, attempting to neutralize the tension with humor. My mother held her breath and I shocked even myself when I replied, “Are you telling me that your love is conditional?” Among the underlying causes of OCD and compulsive hoarding are fears of not being loved and a desire to receive love through control. My grandmother has always diffused complicated situations by saying, “Everything is under control, baby,” but I realize now that when she’s said that it’s a sign that things are wildly out of control. It’s an outdated dogma that repetition validates myth, and I no longer buy into my grandmother’s pithy expressions. The woman I’d always viewed as rock solid became transparent to me

I showed up to help my mother and to provide my grandmother with some of the tenderness my mother is unable to show, but on some level I did that physically and emotionally challenging work for myself. Loving someone when it’s difficult is one of life’s greatest challenges and rewards.

It’s amazing what we’re capable of when choice is removed from the equation.

We have a responsibility to care for our young and our old, though often the work is terrible. I had to remind my grandmother to shower and eat, and when she soiled her pants I was the default bearer of bad news. My mother said, “I don’t know how you do it,” and the truth was: I didn’t either.

When I did Mimi’s laundry I discretely discarded what wasn’t salvageable, and I handled those delicate scenarios with as much compassion and grace as possible. Mimi told me she admires my candor. She tells me I’m strong and we both know I get it from her.

Every day Mimi held my hands and begged me to never leave her because she doesn’t know how she ever managed without me. She assured me that someday I’ll leave and have a life of my own, and I tried to explain that I’d already been doing that for fifteen years but to her I’m always going to be nineteen and a college sophomore. Which isn’t the worst place to be as I creep up on forty. 

Mimi’s pleas felt viselike to a tumbleweed like myself, though occasionally my old grandmother showed up and reminded me that I shouldn’t change my life on account of her. Together we cried, and she’d beg me, “Don’t tell Mommy.” I was encouraged when my grandmother cried because she was expressing her emotions without resorting to rage or compulsion. She was that much closer to acceptance. Every day new truths manifest from the dregs and sometimes they are messy and beautiful but that’s okay.  It’s the truth that will get us through this.

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

It’s been almost a month since I had a snake in my garage. I spent two weeks in Florida and saw five different groups of friends (incredible), and near the end I had a couple of days to myself. Of course it was on one of my solo days that a sixish-foot long snake slithered into my garage.

The garage door was open because I was bringing the garbage bins inside. As I rolled up from the curb I saw the big, black snake enter the garage. That would have been bad enough, but then a scarier thing: he disappeared. I mean I know he was in there—I saw him—but then he was gone. If I hadn’t seen him enter I wouldn’t have known he was there. It’s tricky to wrap a head around.

If I didn’t know he was there I wouldn’t have had anything to fear, except we all seem hard-wired to fear what we don’t know, so does that mean fear is our default setting? It wrinkles my face to think about it, and I’m almost forty now so I’ll pass on unnecessary wrinkling, thank you very much. {It reminds me of this post I wrote a few months about the magic show that blew my mind.}

Snakes are not my favorite. I’ll gladly take a rodent or spider over a snake. I get that prickly-all-over feeling when even a small, non-poisonous snake crosses my path. My breath hushes for things that might be snakes, things like sticks, dried roots or palm fronds. Hell, I’ve leaped for objects slightly more nefarious than a straw wrapper. (Ok. I’ve jumped over a straw wrapper.)

In college I dated a guy who had a pet Python. I didn’t believe him at first, and the first time I went to his room (at approximately four in the morning) “to see his snake” I jumped on the radiator and split my jeans when his laundry bag bucked. The following summer I shared a house with that snake, and in lieu of passing by the snake’s area of the house (behind a glassed in fireplace, but still….) in the middle of the night to reach the bathroom I opted to go out the back door and pee in the yard.

When Lucky and I lived in Marin County we stayed in the Terra Linda section of San Rafael, which is a dead-end neighborhood with trails on three sides. Steep switchbacks from just behind my house lead to a ridgeline fire-road, and from there we could connect to the rest of the county on a pretty elaborate trail system.

I moved into my Terra Linda apartment in January, and I was thrilled to discover that in the rainy months I had the local trails to myself. Up there Lucky could go off leash. Up there I could sing, scream, cry. If it was sunny I journaled; if it was raining I let the rain wash my face. Up there on that ridge I experienced all of the elements and with them a broad range of emotion. It was a good year, but not an easy year. Hell: it was a damn tough year. It was one of those years I’m glad I had because I’m better/stronger/wiser for it, but I’d pull the comforter over my head if I had to do it again.

Winter ended and the weather (and my mood) improved. I was able to ditch the rain boots that went up to my knee and the raincoat that went down to my knees. I no longer had to wrap my iPod in a Ziploc. I graduated from the sad songs I’d listened to all winter to my go-to spring soundtrack: reggae. {Amen.}

I showed some skin, earned sunburned shoulders and a few freckles. I packed water for the dog and myself. It shocked me that even in the nice weather people weren’t showing up on “my trail.” I supposed they were sticking to the well-worn trails around Mount Tamalpais, to trails with reviews in guidebooks and maps both to and of the trail.

It was true: with the sun and light came the tall grass, and the trail behind my house became overgrown and hard to see. It’s not exactly a destination hike. It’s not in the guidebooks, but some of the best things aren’t. There’s a single (4-star) yelp review for the area, and a few listings on various websites, but none list the trail I started on as a launching point which little more than a game-trail. I get it. It makes sense to favor instead the wider trails with gates, trash cans, posted rules and parking areas. This was fine by me; I knew “my” trail’s bends by heart and didn’t need to a map to find my way to the ridge. I liked the fact that 90% of the time I was the only one there.

One day some non-English speaking Japanese folks were leaving the trailhead as I arrived, saying things I couldn’t understand. They made zigzagging motions with their hands and I though they meant the switchbacks so I gave them thumbs up and nodded like a lunatic. They were dressed in loafers and church clothes and eventually they walked away. I figured they’d decided their footwear wasn’t going to cut it on the steep trail.

A couple of days later I was heading up the hill and a woman above me on the train waved her wide-brimmed hat and walking stick in the air. I paused the Madonna song I’d just queued up for the uphill grind and removed my headphones from my ears. “Are you okay?” I asked, “Do you need water?”

“There are SNAKES up here! So many snakes! Snakes everywhere! Do you live here? Hold your dog!” She was frantic. I found out she was visiting the area, and had taken it upon herself to go up the ridge without asking her hosts, who were at work. I realized that the Japanese folks’ had probably been warning me about snakes they’d just seen on the trail, and I enthusiastically kept going because I had an imaginary music video to shoot.

The woman with the hat and the stick made her way down to me with reluctant, leery steps. She parted the grass as she went and let me know when she found holes. “For rodents?” I suggested, but she was unwavering, “Snake dens,” she said, “Snakes.”

I know a gopher hole when I see one, but was polite and didn’t say anything.

She looked at me as if I smelled bad.

Once I was up on the ridge, I saw in the distance two older men who’d accessed the fire-road from a neighborhood on the other side of the hill. Both looked like retired park rangers in monochromatic beige and heavy-duty, leather, hiking boots more suited for backpacking than a morning stroll. As we got closer to each other I stopped my singing-dancing-hiking routine, and tried to appear more like a normal person and less like a wannabe gospel-singing, backup dancer for Madonna.

I saw that the men had tucked their pants into their boots, most likely to protect from ticks, and I suddenly felt naked (and idiotic) in my miniature spandex shorts, tank top, running shoes and ankle socks. It was a hot, sunny morning, and truth be told: I was thinking about tan lines. But still.

The guys let me know that all winter the rattlesnakes had been denned up, but now that it was warm and dry they were out. “That hill you just came up is south facing and loaded with snake dens,” they told me, and then they said something else about wearing foot and ankle protection. Maybe something about wearing clothes. I dunno, it’s hard to say because I sort of blacked out for a minute.

Right. Gopher holes.

I don’t have an irrational fear of snakes, but they’re not my favorite. (See above: peeing in the yard.) I was concerned when the snake slithered into my garage in Florida, but I didn’t freak out. I really just wanted to know if the snake was in or out, and in order to know that I’d have to see it leave. I closed the garage door while I was at the pool, and when I got back the snake had looped itself around one of the garage door rails. That poor snake must have been terrified when the door came to life, and somehow it survived getting sliced by it.

I was just  running inside for a quick five-minute changeover, so decided to leave the door open. When I came out the snake was gone from its perch and on the driveway: success. I considered the possibility that snake #1 was hiding in a cardboard box, behind the recycling bin, or around my ski stuff (Everyone has skis and snowshoes in Florida garages, right?), and that the snake on the driveway was snake #2. The theory about two snakes was short-lived, and I quickly aborted any worrying about “maybes” because that’s pretty much the best way for a person to drive herself crazy.

The snake on the driveway had to be the snake that had been in my garage. Period.

During the time I was upstairs changing I posted a photo to Facebook. I guess I did this to garner some support (Facebook speak for sympathy), and also just in case the snake was poisonous and struck my ankle on the way out the door. If that happened I’d need to know what kind it was.

In short: just in case I didn’t answer the phone (ever) my demise could be tracked back to the snake. It seemed practical.

My mother skipped Facebook and sent me a direct text, “I would call 911!” I thought it was pretty crazy dramatic until I read the other Facebook posts and private messages:

Ewwwwww

Eeek! (x3)

That is a big fucking snake.

Run!

What the hell! Put the for sale sign up!!!! (My mother, again. She got six likes for this.)

I’d never sleep in that house again! (private)

The general consensus was “No bueno,” but I wasn’t surprised to see that my friend Karine Aigner went against the grain and said, “Snakes are misunderstood and quite fabulous creatures!” I wanted to talk to Karine about it. She was a Senior Photo Editor at National Geographic, and is now a freelance wildlife photographer. She spent a lot of her childhood overseas, but we had some years growing up together in Connecticut. She was one of my first Facebook friends, and her photos continue to be one of my favorite things in the newsfeed. They’re amazing. She gets up close to lions and tigers, but she also loves high heels and good wine and cheese (on which she could live). You should check out her portfolio HERE.

I asked Karine if she’d be willing to contribute a snake photo to this blog post (that I was supposed to intended to write on the plane ride home three weeks ago…), and she said yes and we decided that “glamour shots” would be better than eating or action shots. (You’re welcome.)The conversation sparked some ideas for future collaboration of my words and her images, and also sparked an interesting dialogue between us.

What does it mean to take chances? What does it mean to do what you love?

My heart definitely beat a little faster with that snake in the garage, but I knew I could handle it. My senses were heightened, but I wasn’t paralyzed. Most of my scariest life’s experiences have been alone, and I’ve learned to trust myself. I’ve learned that when I need to know what to do I should just ask myself; I actually have all of the answers I need. (You do too.)

People tell me I’m brave and adventurous. Some say I’m lucky, and I agree that I am, but most of the people who think I’m “lucky” are the ones who wouldn’t give up their comfortable houses with walk-in closets, commercial gas ranges, linen closets, built-in bookshelves, etc. So I guess I’m lucky that I’m okay being myself even if it’s not always the most comfortable. I much more at ease when I’m taking chances than when I’m not. {Yes, that is my final answer.}

I move about, I quit jobs, I say yes. I talk to strangers. I go places with strangers. I do things I might think better of doing if I thought for an extra minute, but I stop myself from over-thinking and just go. A lot of what I do I do simply for the experience. I don’t do it so I have something to write about, but I often end up with a lot to write about.

I thought about interviewing Karine about her life as a wildlife photographer, but then she told me she’s going to revive her blog so I figured she could tell you herself about her experiences shooting snakes or whatever it is she wants to share with you about her life as a professional photographer.

Here are a few of Karine’s photos of snakes. They are 1) an upright Eastern Diamondback 2) a Burmese Python crossing the road (this is the type I lived with!), 3) a Texas Rat Snake, and 4) a Copperhead in leaves.

Here’s a blog post of Karine’s from four years ago that’s terrific. It’s called “Far for a Week?” and I think it’s just as timely now as it was then. In fact: It’s timeless.

Karine told me that she hears variations on the things I hear, things like, “I wish I had your job” and “You have an amazing life.” She sure does, but I might add that there’s probably a direct correlation between having an amazing life and living a brave life despite fear. It’s about acknowledging and accepting what might get complicated, but trusting that in the end everything will be okay.

Because here’s the thing: we’re all afraid. If we say we’re not afraid then we’re lying. Fear is natural. It lets us know when we’ve reached our edge, and if we want to grow and expand we have to go to the edge and at least look over it. Maybe we leap, but maybe we don’t. We owe it to ourselves to at least take a peek at what might be out there.

Dr. Brené Brown (my fave) said, “I drive by big trucks sometimes in Texas and they have that sticker on the back that says, ‘Ain’t Scared’ or something, and I think, Love and light to you. You’re in so much fear. Because when you put ‘Ain’t Scared’ on your car, you’re scared.” She goes on to say, “”We’re all afraid. We just have to get to the point where we understand it doesn’t mean that we can’t also be brave.”

We all have doubts. Every single one of us doubts something. Sometimes it’s big: Should I stay in this relationship? Should I move? Should I find a new career? Sometimes it’s esoteric or abstract: What am I here for? Am I good enough? Do I matter?

It can be exhausting to doubt without an action plan, but without bravery an action plan can be hard to come by. Fear and doubt aren’t mutually exclusive, but they can be best friends.

Speaking of best friends:

Lucky turns twelve on Monday. When we first came to NYC I worried that he’d be freaked out by all the noise. He might’ve been (a little) but he didn’t show it, and he dove nose-first into life as a city dog. He started with the gateway foods: bagels, pizza, tacos and now he’s graduated to guacamole, cole slaw and egg rolls. He sometimes inhales a piece of paper or a bag that used to have food on/in it. His digestive system is ironclad.

Mimi moved into assisted living a week ago and is thriving. Within the first hour she got her nails done. She’s socializing and showering. She’s participating in activities, eating meals with new friends, and inviting people to see her room. It’s amazing. If you’ve followed Mimi’s story here or on Facebook you know that my mother and I’ve been struggling to keep her happy and safe despite worsening dementia. We’ve been struggling to keep ourselves sane in the process, but it’s not a two-person job. There will be more on Mimi to come, but for right now I wanted to let her fan club know that she’s doing great.