Bedaub Your Life

Today I finished the final entry of the final page of the five year journal, Q&A a Day. The future suddenly feels quite unscripted. What will I ask myself at the end of each day to randomly sum up how I feel about life? In the space of this journal, I have moved twice around the same town, changed jobs, enrolled in grad school, dropped out of grad school, recommitted myself to the pursuit of a writing career, and I got married. So now what? When I think about the person I want to become, I wonder how I can help others along, to strengthen, sharpen, comfort, inspire, challenge you, along with myself, to live a better, healthier, more meaningful life?

I want to be a fairy godmother of sorts, but not like the Disney version where the magic wand does all the work. In Charles Perrault's classic version of the fairy tale, the godmother requires Cinderella's participation, instructing her to "run into the garden and bring me a pumpkin" before she can transform it into "an equipage fit to go to the ball with." Even after Cinderella procures the pumpkin, her godmother rolls up her own sleeves and de-seeds it before performing any magic. The most ordinary articles of one's surroundings may become the vehicle through which she is conveyed to the next scene of life. I invite you to join me in an expedition of finding ordinary means of extraordinary transportation.

We started today with a pumpkin. We cut it open, de-seeded it, then roasted both the flesh and the seeds. I had a jar I wanted to re-purpose for my new hobby of candle making, so I dumped its contents (garam masala) over the seeds. We are pretty pleased with how they came out. Happy New Year, everyone!