Hotness Prevails
I’m just going to list all the details of my terriblehorriblenogoodverybad day and then let you remind me how much worse the rest of the world has it because I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW you’re right. A. I landed on a grand jury for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. B. My car trunk will no longer open and the replacement part will be unavailable until AFTER the holidays. C. My Winter Solstice cold is overstaying its welcome like a bad SNL skit. D. When, in my feverish state, I flung open the window to yell at a person incessantly and needlessly buzzing my apartment, I somehow flung it onto my face instead, leaving me with a bruised, bloodied lip that looks like an HPV outbreak (not there’s anything wrong with that). E. My house is super super messy and since I live alone i have no one to blame but MYSELF and certainly not an innocent and very lazy permakitten. P.S. You know things are loathsome when you wear workout clothes all day but never get a chance to actually work out. Ok, love you madly…
Schlemiel, Schlimazel: Penny Lost
Penny Marshall’s death hits so close to home. Born the same year as my mother, she offered a different model of adult femalehood–screwball funny, radically unpretentious, and trailblazing. A director, a comedian, a Bronx-born broad with gorgeous legs and unfailing creative vision: I still wear an L on my sweater in homage to her Laverne. She was one of my chosen god-mommies though I met her only once, and I’m bereft to learn she’s no longer on our plane. Gen X ladies: We’re really the grownups now.
Vicks and Kicks: Doing the Winter Solstice Rag
Today I drank one gallon of water, four large pots of ginger and lemon tea, and a liter of orange seltzer. I ate two kale salads, a vat of ginger-chicken-garlic soup, and tons of Vitamin C. I slathered a jar of Vicks Vaporub on my chest, nostrils, and feet, which I encased in cozy fleece though I normally don’t wear socks even in the dead of winter. Also I took two salt-lavender-eucalyptus baths. Which is to say: I am so sick of being sick that I am admitting I am sick. I stayed home all day, treating my symptoms–napped, lit candles, meditated, shuffled my butt to James Brown (yep). Generally heeded what my higher self was telling me.
Body as alarm clock, ain’t it always the way.
Let’s call this malingering cold the Winter Solstice Detox, because it’s coaxing me into shedding 2018 toxins along with December 21’s tremendous energy release. Don’t get me wrong. The origins of the illness are hardly high-falutin’: late nights, too many cocktails, general dissociation. But they’ve been fueled by resignation, 
romantic rejection, false bravado, and I’m letting all that go–everything blocking my voice and heart from a bigger home in the world.
So how can you ready yourself to shine as the days lengthen again? What can you release? Friday is the darkest day of the year, and during that long, long night, bid farewell to everything keeping you in the dark. Then light a candle for everything you wish to make brighter.
Painting: Mickalene Thomas.