Stories About My Rocks (Mostly) - Lavender Amethyst and the Picasso Scarf

I bought it at a wholesale jewelry shop in Manhattan. After the most delightful lunch with a brilliant new friend from a group of women (who are responsible for changing my entire fucking life). You know when you meet a new friend and just CLICK? Magic. Fellow rock lovers, we were thrilled at the synchronicity of the store full of bins of crystals, a few steps from our lunch spot. It was the first day I felt capable of writing the way I’ve wanted to for decades - and later that same day, I fully knew that I would.

I wanted to be a writer in high school, and studied it in college, in fact. Briefly. It was the academic gift I liked most, but also, I just needed to choose a major - two of my friends were planning on English so that did the trick. I can’t remember ever living inside the identity of “writer” or “future writer”. Before I could try that out in college, I switched to pharmacy (because father wound).

I was good at pharmacy! I loved it (still do, mostly) – I had lots of success, an amazing network, growth opportunities, plenty of money. But also, my life back then always felt undone, messy and irritating in some underlying way. I was always focused on the things, titles, relationships and identities that I assumed would make happiness click.  On that late fall day in Manhattan, I had unlearned and healed significantly, over many years, and was positively LIT on the pull of unlimited possibility.

I came home that evening and was somehow dragging tired and jacked up on the energy of an afternoon with a like-minded spiritual, creative new friend who could speak my lanaguage. Like an overstimulated 6^th grader. I did Bedroom Yoga™. And I remembered/realized that was my truth, the essence of what I want to bring to the world. If I create my reality, then I want one in which taking good care of myself and showing others how to do the same is my actual job.  I decided to schedule an online session for Pluto moving into Aquarius the following week. Bedroom Yoga™ is  something that I think is sort of like “stop trying to make fetch happen” , by the way, but it doesn’t matter. I could FEEL THE TRUTH. And moves were made, ok? Moves I am still impacted by, 7 months later.

So -  I’m dancing around the room in my underwear (core Bedroom Yoga™ element) and I grab my Picasso scarf. It’s a favorite object – and I realized (as I was using it as a bra and checking myself out in the mirror) that I didn’t really know why. “Why do I keep it so close to me (generally lives on the lamp next to my bed)”? I thought back, remembering when I got it – a gift from my Dad after a visit to the Picasso exhibit. I reached back in memory to myself at that time. 2016. A very significant chapter, huge ego and identity shed.  I had been laid off from my big deal boss lady job and was struggling with the knowledge that I had made my whole life about my damn job. Weeks prior my stepdad died from alcoholism, and I had the chance to see him briefly prior to his death,  because I was on an unemployed road trip across the country. It had been a rough and beautiful summer. But I remember having so much hope and confidence - wearing that scarf to lunch ALONE a couple weeks later on my 39^th birthday. I looked so happy on Instagram, not knowing my whole life was about to explode, again, when my (second) husband, who I’d been married to for less than 3 years, asked for a divorce days later.

 “So yeah, I get it, why I love this scarf”. I think to myself on that day last November, remembering the fun with my Dad and sister in the museum, my unstoppable optimism for my future, getting to pick out a present from the gift shop like a little girl (really, father wound AGAIN?).

My husband (yes number three! I’m no quitter), came into our room and I shared my amazing day  – the feeling  just as beautiful and clear as that bright lavender crystal… “I really know that I am going to write my story, I can FEEL IT” and my insights on the Picasso scarf, which was still serving as my bra. He asked, “what’s written on it?”.  “Oh, there are words? I don’t know - I guess I have never really looked at it, it’s just always there… OH MY GOD if there is a synchronicity written on this scarf Adam, I will POOP MY PANTS on this day with so much gorgeous insanity in it - I can’t handle any more!!”  “Well don’t do that, cause you aren’t wearing any pants.” We unfolded the scarf. One word across the middle of it... JOURNAL. I did not poop my pants but I did fall down and cry with stunned gratitude joy.

And then, nothing. No writing happened not like this anyway. Instead I created a brand identity and personal transformation framework for tend. Somehow still knowing the writing would come. Watched one of those two best friends from college start sharing her writing online and felt jealous… Considered hiring someone to write my story for me. 

AND THEN… Earlier this week I placed the Picasso scarf on my newly designed jewelry box turned witchy altar (it holds many beautiful rocks!), not really knowing why. And right now, I am on a Zoom writing group. Yes. As we speak. Writing this. For the first time feeling the way I felt I would on that day in Manhattan last fall. The day I found the heart shaped amethyst, when there just happened to be a huge rock store next to our café in, after a conversation that made me feel VISIBLE inside my own dreams.  The day I read the message on the Picasso scarf I had loved for nine years without knowing that it said “tell your story” on it, and one day I would see it and know. Today I am reconnected to all the versions of myself that ever wanted to write. And it feels like heaven.

P.S. I was so freaked out to write I tricked myself the night before the Zoom. I was telling Adam the story of the Heart Amethyst, as well as showing off some other rocks, and I said, hey that’s what I’ll use as my topic tomorrow. So I don’t have to stress about “how do I start writing a book about my life that I really want to write but am scared to?” I will just write a story about one of my rocks. See, easy! And when the time came, I opened the altar, grabbed the amethyst (of course), and didn’t even realize I was taking myself to RIGHT HERE. Starting the book or maybe a series of essays or who the hell knows it’s day one draft one FOR GOD’S SAKE.

The End

Just LOOK at this gorgeous thing (and not my callused hand please)!