Tomorrow is technically my birthday but astrologically today is my solar return. I always tell my clients: What you do on your birthday sets the tone for your year so only do what feels really really right. On this, my 47th return, I knew, I just knew, that I had to be back in the mermaid woods since I want to be here as much as possible in the upcoming year and all the years after that. So I drove all day to arrive at Provincetown’s Lands End Inn, all soaring ceilings and bold pastel stained glass and Mucha and Erté reproductions and busts of beautiful ladies, with decks and porches overlooking seemingly the whole mermaid world. The building is at the very edge of the continent (hence the name), and I’m wearing one of those lush hotel robes with all the windows open, smelling the salt and wind and wood-burning stoves of the area. I ate very fresh oysters a few hours ago with new friends and now am drinking champagne in a red velvet chair listening to the fire crackle and the wind rustle and the waves crash and am writing to you before I open my book back up. Because that’s how I want my next year to be. The sweet semisolitude of my adulthood, garnished by Venus and the words that somehow always pour through me even when I’m tired, even when I’m sad, even when I’m not sure anyone is there to receive them. Sending my birthday light to each of you because I’m glad we’re all still here.