Dear Athena,

It’s been a tremendous year. As an old version of yourself is dying, falling away to be replaced by a newer iteration, it’s time to check in.

I was born as the sweet corn was coming on and the first harvest wheat was making its way to silo. Many summer birthdays were spent first in the Rocky Mountains regions of roadside farm stands, fresh produce and corn shucking contests. One birthday I even spent with the fire department in Hyrum, Utah as they fought to extinguish my sister’s house fire despite the exploding ammo storage. (The firefighters kindly shared my birthday pizza and cake after the house was saved. Well, mostly saved.)

Then in later years in Alaska, my birthdays were spent standing hip-deep in Prince William Sound, catching my salmon limit in six casts followed by hikes into the wild where I pondered never returning to civilization.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I ventured into alcohol and thus spent the next decade of birthdays swigging fine Scotches, sampling new whiskies, and making the exotic dessert birthday rounds. Some of those desserts were even food, or at the least they were usually wearing something edible….

​Nowadays, it seems birthdays slip right on by. I’m only reminded by whichever social media platform I actually used my real birthdate to register, that I am in fact getting older. As if my drooping jawline and plumper corners, even the anti-gravity super lift on my over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder were not reminder enough. 

I don’t mind the crows’ feet. Truly. I wouldn’t trade my smile lines in for all the money in the world. I don’t even mind the strip of white hair that’s filling my right temple when I’m too busy to dye. I do however, take deep offense to the random long black chin hair that wasn’t there the night before but upon waking realize it has sprouted like a fucking Gorgon scalp and overtaken my face. I guess I should be grateful, it’s trying to hide my growing double-chin.

Time gets us all, right? So, when the reminder pops up on Facebook, or my Google account, it gives me a chance to ask myself if I’m happy where I am or if I need to make changes.

Did I improve upon myself this year?

Did I improve upon my world?

It’s a simple test, really. Two questions to gauge my annual metric.   

I still crave August shooting stars, fresh corn in salty garlic butter, handmade ice cream and the county fair. I still look for new imports to tempt my palate; whiskey, that is—not men…mostly. I still hunger for fresh salmon baked on alder planks and Alaskan summer evenings of the midnight sun. All these are the joys of being a late summer birthday baby. When the lavender is cropped, and the communities gather for festivals and harvest. There is a sense that we are united, that bounty is plentiful and connections are rich—all before the winter drives us inside to our deeper thoughts and silent insecurities. Nine dark months of winter ruminations.

Did I improve myself?

Did I improve my world?

My metric has never been about justifying my right to be, or validating a sense of purpose. It’s never been about whether I am deserving of space or love. To be fair, when I was younger, I often confused the exercise with worthiness before I learned what worthiness really meant.

Therefore, the two questions were always about—movement. 

Movement forward, sideways, up or down, round about or zigzag… but always shifting point of view, location (both inner and outer) relative to what I think I know or understand. Movement is growth.

​My mentor once said, “A stagnant character is a dead character.”

I’ve always wanted to be a dynamic character. Not because I’m afraid of dying—but because I’ve always feared not living all the life I could get my hands, mouth, mind, and spirit upon. Hells bells, I want a life I can throw my body at that swoons my brainpan with all the infinite potential of creative delights. Hedonist. Sybarite. Explorer. Chaser of kites and kittens, fairytale lore and frenetic squirrels. Builder. Creator. Grand duchess of the what-if.

All the makings of movement, creativity, and discovery.

But movement, progress, shift in perspective and point of view… the ever-reaching stretch for vision, understanding, and scope comes with a cost. That cost is only now becoming something I can consciously, in my 43rd Note to Self, quantify and thusly - willingly choose.

Before the cost seemed happenstance. It felt like a lateral, outside my periphery, odd confluence of bad luck. The cost, because I didn’t know what it was at the time, seemed arbitrary, and as though I were a casual victim of the price of something I didn’t quite recognize as a product of my will. I chalked it up to Universal commerce, the unseen feather on Maat’s balancing scale.

Did I improve myself?

​Did I improve my world?

The price is the willingness to die, to let death, to invite ending. The cost of movement, transition… of living a fully enriched experience, is the consensual unbecoming of one state in order to embody the richness and comprehension of another.

This is not a suicide pact. It’s not a bargain to do violence or harm—it’s an understanding that polarities are poles…and that life happens between. We die a thousand deaths a day; shedding cells, rebuilding muscle and tissue… ideas and concepts, habits and paradigms, and relationships (inner and outer). We la petite mort three times a night, if we’re lucky….

I could wax on all inebriated and poetical, but I think you get the point, Athena.

You’re finally understanding how to calculate the price of walking away, leaving, starting over, speaking truth, hearing truth, making a stand, owning your space, valuing yourself, your voice, your process. You understand the power of naming your own price, and holding out for it. The fee for changing your mind, your will, your ownership of self from day to day may very well be the loss of relationships, trust, face, money, respect, image, and imagined power or purpose.

The choice of one thing, of the new point of view, risk, adventure, personal growth is the END of what was in its place before.

Athena, you get it now. Sometimes the toll of improving yourself is the agreement to accept the end of all you were, even all that you thought you’d become. It’s the return on personal investment tax.

A remaking fine. You’ve had a dozen of these transitions already, but never with the ability to consciously sit and sort the probable fallouts in relation to the goal. You’ve never put it in mercenary calculations before or counted your match sticks and measured the distance to the horizon line so thoroughly. You were always a gut-creature. You moved by instinct and a hungry bid for breath of life. There was so much world to fit on one tiny plate. I don’t know what’s more terrifying from the outside; she who breathes feral-like into the fire of personal transformation—or she who strategizes, and organizes. She who holds the scalpel to her life with determined focus.

In survival mode it’s nearly impossible to think in terms of:

Did I improve myself?

​Did I improve my world?

For sure, there were birthdays when you asked the questions and were met with the dissatisfying realization that all you managed to do for a whole year was keep your head above the waterline, treading as fast and hard as you could and you still couldn’t do more than just break even on your own scale.

Other birthday years as you stood in line at the county fair or dined with friends, you were overjoyed knowing that you had passed the bar for the year, and that a new bar had been set for your own internal challenge twelve months hence. How fun!

But every time you already knew, you could not remain the same woman from one year to the next. You could not repeat cycles that weren’t working, maintain relationships that held you back, or accept habits within yourself once you’d identified them as detriments.

Sure, you had to identify them first… then be willing to murder them gently and put to rest an old version of yourself—there to zigzag, remake, remold and become new. Sure, you’ll look indecisive, transitory, scattered, and overwhelmed—but that will pass as the trimming begins and the dead parts of your old self fall away for fresh growth to emerge.

So here you are at 43 and the questions have to be asked.

Did you improve yourself? Yes. Yes, you did—and you will continue to do your best to improve upon the bar every yearly return.

​Did you improve your world? Some, but not as much as I would have liked. Still, you’ll continue to do more every yearly return. 

That’s it. You do what you can. You improve when you can. Your bar is yours alone. Your judgment of that scale is between us. The tally of costs, the prices accumulated for loss of old will never compare to the tremendous value you will add to your life and to the world by investing in the renovation to let go, free up… to welcome change.

You created movement in your life. You walked away when it was needed. You held your ground when you had to. You used your voice without regret, and made your positions known; not just once or even twice, but on many fronts and for many ventures. You spoke truth. You accepted the truths that were spoken to you. And you put the scalpel to everything that is no longer supporting your growth and movement forward. Mercilessly, I might add, and without hesitation. I am proud to say… I didn’t recognize you in those moments, which goes to show how far you’ve come from the dithering wobbler waiting for permission to command her own journey. Like, who the fuck are you? I dig it, sister!

This meant the transition of your dream, the transition of your writing career, the transformation of creativity, the shifting of your physical shape, the rethinking of your property and even your finances. Closing down shop, shuttering boxes of books and preparing to find alternative paths to answer the questions next year with even better results.

Just in time for your annual birthday return, when the sweet corn comes on, and the grain harvests are prepped for silo. This year as you broke Lammas bread you gave thanks to the newfound determination you’ve discovered to dance with more personal integrity, to show more grace of spirit, and claim the things you truly want —even if that means sacrificing some comforts, or letting some treasures go. The results will be worth it, Athena. I promise.

Happy 43rd birthday!! Many happy returns.
Love,
Athena

​P.S. Just be prepared that when you wake up on the morning of the 6th, that fucking chin hair will need to be plucked again. WTF? Oh, the indignities. 

42nd Note to Self

Dear Athena,

It would take a dozen pages to catch up the events of the year. Instead, I’ll just get to the good stuff. The priceless gem of learning for last year was this: you can’t plan for shit.

Don’t feel too bad, though. You were caught in the COVID19 roller-coaster loopy-loop along with seven billion other folks who all got motion sickness from the about-face, “pivot”, plot-twisting pretzel that has been the last six months. Good times. Pass the yammy bucket, will ya?

Add to that a much-needed, long overdue governmental uprising against injustices for POC and voila…powder keg meets long banked embers brought to life by months (generations, actually) of failed leadership and strained collapsing global paradigms.

The word for this year is “Woosh”. That is the sound of the old world dying in a blaze of innovative transformation and the necessary release of everything that’s no longer working.

Just like that—whoosh—the new stage is being set. Change is coming in whether you or the generations before you are ready for it or not. All you could say was, “It’s about goddamn time.”

Change--the only constant. The only truly reliable element of story, of life, and of this world.

Change is the only measure of how far we’ve come, and what we’ve made of ourselves.

You can plan for change, or change can be thrust upon you, but change will happen. A stagnant character is a dead character. A stagnant infrastructure is an outdated infrastructure. A stagnant government is a relic that only realizes its antiquated worn-out relevance at the pace of revolution. History is a jagged path of this very truth—evolve or perish. Change with the need and times or become a passing footnote.

Athena, you don’t really fear change. Change usually brings with it a flush of excitement, a burst of new inspiration, a glimpse of glimmering possibilities that will push a vision one step closer to reality. Sure, it took a while to get to this level of comfort with change, but now you can see it for what it is.

Change is the life breath of story, and love is the impetus of that change.

(Fear is the antithesis of change; fear of discomfort, fear of evolution, fear of losing privilege/power/wealth/or standing. Fear breeds stagnation. Fear emboldens the grip, energizes the hold and forces ego to dig deep and put up the dukes to fight for the status quo.)

Aside from status quo being woefully overrated, you already know that love is the key to long, healthy, vibrant social collaboration and meaningful evolution.

So while all this is going on in the outer world beyond your bubble—you’ve had to rethink, re-wonder, re-balance, re-work, and re-imagine what you can bring to this newly shifting world on the other side of your forested tree line.

What can you contribute? What can you bring to the new table? What can you offer to the cause of change? What do you have in you to give?

But it doesn’t stop there—what have you been reluctant to change in your internal world as well? What have you hung your heart/ego/identity on? What have you clung to out of fear?

You sat with these questions for a month before writing the 42nd Note to Self, and the answers surprised you; because all change begins from within.

To bring in the love, the change, the evolution—you must first allow it in. You must first cultivate it within you.

But the global COVID health crisis, a massive movement to support a change in leadership, support people of color and end police brutality, the supply chain food imbalances, education malfunctions, wealth imbalances in times of extreme hardship, attacks on the most vulnerable citizens of your extended community, and even the fucking toilet paper shortage were like…OVERLOAD.

You’re not alone. Overload has hit millions of people, and the election is just a few months away. People, including yourself, are buried by all the feels and distress of 2020 blowing up like a campground outhouse.

And what did you do during this time of empathic, emotional, mental overload—you decided to start dating. Woman, what the hell is wrong with you? People are dying. People are being hit with gas canisters for chanting peacefully against the Gestapo—and you decide it’s time for some romance?

Maybe you decided romance is the best way to balance out all the ick, the hate, the raw disgust bubbling up for the human race? Maybe it’s that you need a bright point in your life to outshine and guide through this sense of impending darkness and an overload that is threatening to pull you under. I don’t know, Athena, your love life timing has always been a tragic comedy, even in the best of times. So, I’ve stopped asking about your reasons when matters of the heart and romance pop up for evaluation. It’s always as if the Universe lobs a Valentine’s box of chocolates in your general, but not specific direction at the most inappropriate moments. The joke always seems to be on you, Lady.

Anywhoo, whether your romance clock is related to this farcical shit-show or you’re desperately trying to find some part of the human story to relate to, connect with, and hold on to—something worth saving—you’re suddenly finding yourself in a discombobulated dreamy adoration of the concept of love while the city you adore is under government siege just over the mountain.

I’ll say it again, your timing is a goddamn mystery.

You’ve started doing weird shit, like, buying yourself bouquets, clearing out a space in your closet for “his” clothes (whoever the hell he is AND whenever the hell he is), practicing your favorite recipes to share, and planning a set of exploratory adventures…sure, you’ll do all those adventures alone if you must, you’ve done it happily solo for more than a decade. But this feels different. You’re consciously making space. Actively preparing room. You can feel him coming toward you, like the advanced wake from a boat in the lake. It feels like you don’t have much time left, right?

From the outside it seems like you’re bound and determined to find something, someone worth adoring when you’re losing faith in humanity by the second. What is that about? Is this some Jungian transference? Also—it’s not fair to put that kind of pressure on another human being—the—show me people are worth saving pressure. Remind me that we can be amazing together when we choose to do things consciously, fairly, and in partnership.

Who’s fucking got time to be your reminder, your spark, Athena? Every person on this rock is carrying their own overload. If you haven’t noticed, the world is breaking.

This is your 42nd Note to Self, your annual birthday letter.

Athena, do it yourself. BE THE SPARK YOU’RE LOOKING FOR.

Stop waiting to be stirred into the memory of humanity’s greatest capacity to love—and BE the one who gives it. Share it. Put it out there. Be the light.

Don’t wait around for someone else to re-kindle your faith in people—go be the fucking ignition point for others.

You don’t actually need to be reminded. If you think about it, you already know that humanity is amazing, and has the capacity for the most incredible feats of valor. One of those super-human abilities is to LOVE IN A TIME OF CRISIS, to bond in a time of emergency, to build in a time of collapse, to unite in a time of disparity.

This mystery timing of your heart awakening, trying to build a space for romance is really just your humanity TRYING TO COME FORWARD. You’re acting out a space, making room and reaching because you deeply desire to be your best self, to be the best capacity of human you can be—and it’s manifesting in this romantic hunger to connect in order to bring you proof not of your faith in humanity being justified but FAITH IN YOURSELF, in your own magical frail vulnerability.

Facepalm. Woman, you always seem to go about it all backward….

You want someone to give all this to, someone you can pour the last best pieces of yourself into before you disappear, washed away by the change in tides.

Well, now I see the timing thing. It’s primal. The timing is terribly inconvenient. The urge to make tribe, summon your pack, build unity, encapsulate the elevated and beautiful parts of relationship before you feel like it can all be buried by the darker aspects of the human race’s egregious, active examples of their worst traits---those are not good enough reasons to suggest a romantic entanglement, are they?

To build a pocket of something charmed and wondrous? To tuck into another human with the same sense of justice, the same sense of responsibility to do better, be more, create with more compassion, awareness, and courage. Is it wrong to want to weave your strengths to someone else’s strengths to make something even more powerful?

No, it’s not wrong. It’s human. You’re realizing that you’ve been an island for years; many many years. This turmoil in the world is reminding you of your breakability—and you want to use your humanness to its designated best capacity…loving another human being.

You want to release your fear, and embrace change. This willingness to find true partnership is where you’ve held back, resisted, found excuses, skirted the possibilities or flat out run away from connections. Nearly every Note to Self for the last fifteen years has begged you to take this risk…and you’ve kept dodging it. You’ve kept finding reasons to delay.

Now, when the chips are down, you are realizing that your strongest human trait is the very thing you’ve avoided for years. Ah, shitballs, of course it had to be the one thing you’ve been stepping over to get to your goals for the last fifteen years.  

So, forty-two, huh? I guess now is as good a time as any…world on fire and all that….

Athena, you fundamentally understand that love needs to be cultivated within in order for it to be expressed. So, do some of that. You understand that choosing a single human to shower your love upon is wonderful, yes, but love can also be showered upon a cause, a people, a community, a craft, and a tree.

Bring the romance, sure. But give it away…all of it. If he’s not stepping forward to match you in the dance, your true match—put all that energy into the space you have been preparing for him. Put all that energy into your community, your family, friends, readers, and so on and so forth. If he’s not showing up—radiate what you’re building within, because there are people out there who need it as badly as you do. Go ahead and summon your pack, build your tribe, unite your like minds and create together.

Who knows, he might just be caught in traffic. He could be held up in a line at the flower shop. Maybe he doesn’t know you’re talking TO him, FOR him, ABOUT him. Don’t sweat it. He’ll figure it out or he won’t. Your mission goes on whether he’s in step with you or not.

Keep to the mission.

And the mission is to be the light, give the light, share everything with the world as if your world is your lover, partner, best friend and dearest collaborator.

Only when we treat each other with the passionate acceptance and loving care we’d give our other half, ourselves, and our family are we going to see the shift in global community that is so long overdue. Only then will faith in humanity be restored.

People can be magical. Be magical. Humans can be courageous. Be courageous. Humanity can be noble, kind, loving. Be everything you want to see, feel, know about the species that you are.

You are a born lover, Athena. Stop running from it, and put your heart into it. I suspect even you, a highly imaginative writer, will be surprised by the outcome—even you won’t be able to make that kind of enchanting story up.

WOOSH!
You’re welcome.

Love,
Athena
 
P.S. That feeling of the wake coming toward you, ripples in the ether of a boat on the lake…maybe that’s just your ship finally coming in. Maybe it’s not about another human being at all, but about you reaching another elevation in your self-expression, your work, and your connection to the world. Maybe that ship has been headed your way for decades and you’re just now sensing that you need to be able to take your learnings and prepare to board for a new journey. It’s easy to mistake that for feelings of love and romance—but who’s not to say they aren’t one and the same? You’re coming to harbor within yourself—which transforms you into an anchorage for others. It’s been a long time coming so, enjoy it.

​P.P.S Hey, just an idea, but maybe next year we can work on having a shorter learning curve, and a more concise letter? Food for thought.