CHAPTER 27:

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I’m possible.”

—Audrey Hepburn; actress, icon, fabulist

My grandmother on my mother’s side lived to be one hundred years old. Nana

was as WASPy as they make ’em: prissy, reserved, able to avoid confrontation

with the skilled precision of an F-16 pilot. For as long as I can remember, she

always looked exactly the same. She was eternally adorned in a cardigan, pinned

together at the top by an antique broach, her pink lipstick and sparkly brown

eyes shining through a face-full of wrinkles that erupted in a series of “oh dears”

every time she laughed.

CHAPTER 26:

DOING VS. SPEWING

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson; fearless writer/poet, highly-skilled

spewer and doer

I have a friend who had the word “Duh” tattooed on the inside of her upper arm

in homage to the fact that all of our big ah-ha moments are no-brainers; “Fear is

a choice!” “I am lovable!” “Don’t worry, be happy!” Every time she high-fives,

or lifts her arm to see if she needs a shave, she gets reminded of how often the

sublime lies waiting in the obvious.

You know countless of these truisms of which I speak, you’ve heard them or

thought them a million times, but when they finally sink in and you “get it,” they

suddenly become earth-shattering news.

CHAPTER 25:

REMEMBER TO SURRENDER

Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life and see how life suddenly starts

working for you, rather than against you.

—Eckhart Tolle; author, channeler, high priest of being present

Imagine yourself sitting by a window, looking out at a garden on a lovely spring

day. You see birds and bees and butterflies merrily flitting about, when all of a

sudden, the most beautiful butterfly in the world catches your eye. Its stunning

turquoise wings make your heart explode, its joyful flight makes your soul sing,

its metamorphosis from wet wormy thing to creature of soaring beauty fills you

with inspiration. Suddenly you leap up, overcome and crazed with a fierce

desire; it must be mine mine mine!