Coconut and Coffee and Cats and a Kick Ass Day

There are two things besides love and all that big stuff that will ALWAYS make me happy: coffee and drinking coconut water from a straw in a coconut. Today was a both-of-those day.

How I spent this morning, same as I do most mornings like when I took this photo a few days ago, sitting with my cat in bed drinking coffee and writing.

Being a healer means you have to show up for your healing. It’s like being a personal trainer, but for energy. A personal trainer has to keep in good form to be able to help those that come to him for direction, and a healer has to make sure they deal with their own shit on a daily basis to keep in good energetic form for those that come to them for direction and healing. It has been a huge healing week for me, so big I had to actually spend some days in bed, and I was sick for a week and a half before that so I’ve not been able to be up and out and having fun much. I’m a big introvert, but not that big. Today I felt well and ready to get out and play and it felt great.

I drove across town and picked up my friend Bailey and we went to the Spice Market. It was really nice and also unexpected. It seemed like a one-stop-shop if you want to make homemade vanilla, mole sauce like your abuela used to with 100000 chilies and spices, and to get your Reiki stuff and also your Hoodo and Brujeria supplies. Not exactly what I was expecting, but I’m totally into it. If you need a grim reaper statue, hickory smoked salt, a brass resin burner, and dried roses, this is your place.

The selections of soaps they had at the spice market. I was amused that you can use it to remove devils and attract love and just about everything else. The one that had the most sold was the one that translates as something like always love me and never forget me.

We stayed for a while and talked and looked at everything. His hip was bothering him because he’s in the middle of moving and has a lot going on, so I took him home and got a tour of his new place that is actually the home of a mutual friend, so I’d been to a party there before. He showed me his collection of cut glass dishes and the things that he’s putting around the place to make it a home. I love when people show me where they live and the things that are meaningful to them.

After that I drove back to where the spice market was because across the street is the farmer’s market. It’s a HUGE covered open-air warehouse. It’s 18 acres and 40,000 square feet, one of the largest farmer’s markets Texas, and that’s saying a lot—and I almost never go there. Why? I don’t know. I’m glad I went today, though. When I got there, I knew that was what I needed, all those colors and beautiful produce and herbs and spices and kitchen things and toys and clothes and foods and plants and everything. I locked eyes with a tub of ice filled with fresh young coconuts with the shells off and covered in plastic bags. I knew I needed one of those. If could afford it, I’d eat one of those everyday. I walked around and looked at everything, then I turned around and went through the whole place again, then did it again.

While I was there the heavens opened and we had one of those random, out of the blue Texas deluges that I love so much. Summer in Texas is hell as far as temperature, but I will always love those random pop-up storms with all my soul. It sounded neat on the metal roof in that space with thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of neat things to look at.

The clouds over the market were epic today

I found out that most of the stalls had those tubs of ice with the peeled coconuts so when I was all filled up with the sights and sounds and smells and atmosphere of it all, I bought one. I didn’t know they were going to do this, but they put a hole in it and put a straw in the hole and I got to drink it right there. I am not sure if they put lime juice in it or if it was a young green coconut and maybe they are naturally tart, but either way it had a delicious tart flavor in addition to the coconut water flavor which is already my favorite.

Me and my beloved coconut at the Farmer's Market

Then I bought a bag of those durito wheel things that I love and went on my way. A friend texted me that he is bored and said he was laying on the couch watching anime and eating whipped cream and I couldn’t stop laughing. Then I drove across town with a coconut in a bag with a straw sticking out of it sitting in my drink holder and an open bag of duritos so I could eat them as I drove across town. Nothing is close in Houston, so you might as well bring snacks.

Driving home from the famers market with the coconut in the drink holder and duritos in the passenger seat.

When I got home, I finished drinking the coconut water, then I cut up the coconut and salted it and roasted it. It’s one of my very favorite snacks. My sister-in-law texted me photos of she and my brother on vacation in Mexico and I’m so freaking happy for them. They have never done anything like this before, and they so deserve it. Then I made plans to work at a friend’s house tomorrow and we will take her new puppy to Starbucks and see how he does on the patio. He’ll probably do better than me because it’s so hot, unless we are having those pop-up storms it’s hard for me to be outside in Houston in the summer.

I have trained my ChatGPT to help me as a life coach, and this morning before I went out for fun stuff, I stayed home, drank coffee, and had it help me out with my own Big Life. I’ve been on a healing journey for so many years that the healing has been centered in my life. Now that I’m in my own Big Life, I want that centered instead. I will still have to heal, we all do, that is part of being human. We all need coaching. We all need therapy. We all need loving, supportive community and friends to walk with us. It is just what being a grown-ass human requires at different times and seasons. That said, some healing times are all-encompassing like a faith shift, a divorce, being widowed, a major illness, etc. but other times it is safe and good to have it be on the backburner to live. Because of how my life has been, this is really the first time I’ve been able to fully be in a Big Life and to put my healing second. I asked ChatGPT to help me with a daily routine to show up for my healing, but to center my living instead.

My cat hanging out in the window next to my little daily invocation.

First, I had it create a personalized morning invocation so I can start the day on a positive note. It says, “Good morning, magnificent beast of stardust and nerve endings. Today we begin in wonder. I don’t have to tend to the whole galaxy before breakfast. I just have to take one enchanted breath, wiggle my toes, pour my coffee and remember that there is beauty hiding in ridiculous places. Let’s go find it—preferably with snacks. In the name of the mother gods, my patron saint Wavy Gravy, divine nonsense, and the baddest bitch of all Persephone Justice Amen.” It gave me a giggle and is perfect. I printed it out and framed it so I could read it as soon as I wake up in the morning.

To center living and put healing second, it made a plan for me where I can have a cocoon time everyday where I work on my healing stuff, but then it’s done. I can keep a list of what I want to do during that time, but if it can wait, I can do it during the cocoon time only. It also created a mediation for me to retrain my body to stay more in the rest and digest nervous system state. It also reminded me that yes, we need rest to be well, but we also need beauty, novelty and pleasure. At least I know I do. I will always feel happiest when I have a mix of both. I have been resting a LOT this week and it has been necessary, but I was so pleased I felt good enough today to go have a little adventure.

In many ways, even though I have done a lot of Big Life stuff over the past few years, and I mean a LOT, I feel like my healing has finally caught up with my life and I feel like I am where I want to be for a Big Life, learning to live with a regulated nervous system so that I can make the most of all the adventures and the rest that life will offer me so I can have a good balance and make the most of my time in this life.

Although I have been working on this Big Life stuff for you for months now, at the time of writing this, I am a week or so away from launching it, and I feel like I’ve only been birthed into this Big Life of mine all the way for a week or so. I should have known that as soon as I started developing this, I would have to heal up to it. As far as my Big Life, I have stood under the hand of God in the Sistine chapel, hiked down Kyoto mountain sides to sacred shrines, went to many parties, had fois gras and wine, pork cheek and pears with honeycomb and the most delicious foods of my life over the last couple of years, got tattoos in the basement of a Shinjuku strip club in Tokyo, and a 1920s tattoo parlor across the road from the Tiber in Rome, run up the road that leads to the Hollywood sign, had a panic attack at the Beverly Hills Whole Foods, the lotion I just put on my hands I bought in Iceland. I also enjoy my weekly coffee date with friends, having a Netflix and chill night, snuggling in bed with a good book and my cat, taking long walks, and quiet niceness. My Big Life needs both.

But I feel like this week I really hit my actual Big Life because I was able to find my core wounding and regulate my nervous system in a way I have never had access to before. A Big Life, in the context of what I want to help you achieve, is not just about doing all the fun things. It’s about nervous system regulation, self-examination to learn what needs healing and adjusting, and to learn what actually makes you happy, not what you were told would make you happy. It’s about leaning that you are the main character, and learning to be well enough to live and love that role in your life.

My room is a mess because I'm clearing out my closet and drawers and all the things. I found this little tableau that made me laugh. It's a bag from the Vatican where I got a little Virgin Mary change purse with rosary beads in it and some post cards, a little Melody doll I bought in Tokyo, a Hello Kitty my daughter bough me in Kyoto when she was there years before I was, a Virgin Mary I got in Utah at a catholic supply store, and some pink rolling papers I got at the dispensary near my house. All together it feels sort of alpha and omega about my life.

Now to get off the computer, eat some roasted salted coconut and get on with the business of living my big beautiful life, which tonight is going to be cleaning my room. It’s all part of the beauty of a Big Beautiful life. Have a great night, all!