The Ultimate Trickster

Time and other mysteries.

I haven’t woken to an alarm in years. No, this is not some freelancer brag about rising with my circadian rhythm only to putter about in my silken robe, pontificating over coffee. (Once upon a time, that’s what I envisioned the life of a writer to look like, but only the presence of coffee rings true.)

My dog is my alarm, and her methods are not subtle.  

She begins somewhere circa 6 A.M., often while it’s still dark. For round one, she stands next to the bed and grumbles — a low, cute grrr, like an affable little troll. As this typically fails to wake me — my body incorporates these sounds into dreams about affable little trolls — she moves on to stage two.

This part of the wake-up game finds her moving to points around the room, varying the volume and intensity of her barks. A yip from the foot of the bed. A yap from the doorway. A shriek from the far corner. It’s kind of like a demon from a horror movie, where every time you blink, they’ve somehow changed location.

If I am still horizontal, this brings us to stage three. She jumps onto the bed, ascends to the top of my pillow, and lords over me, grumbling into my face.

This is wildly effective. I am up in a matter of moments.

She gets away with all this because she is my favorite being. (A point that is known to all, including and especially her.) Were a human to do half the things she does, I would react quite differently, forcibly removing them from my home. But she looks like an enchanted Disney creature and has more attitude than Mariah Carey. So she generally gets whatever she wants.

The other reason I welcome every second of her lunacy is that, as I type this, she is fifteen and change — 105 in dog years — and I must begrudgingly acknowledge the fact that our time together is limited.

Whenever she walks into a room, I react like a tiny miracle just happened. (Hasn’t it?) Pee on the floor? Thank goodness you’re here. Shouting for food? Thank goodness you’re here. A tongue in my ear while I’m asleep? WTF — but also, thank goodness.

This fact of limited time has always been somewhere on my mind, even in the years where she seemed made of boundless energy. I have never not been happy to see her.

It is a fact of existence that everything is limited. Nothing is guaranteed. But because I do not feel it as acutely, I do not greet the world with the same level of reverence. Is every meeting a tiny miracle? Is every season? If I could bring this awareness to every experience, the world would look a lot different.

She who cannot be resisted.

I’m on the subway, heading nowhere fast. We are being held in the station… the conductor begins, the rest of the message lost in static.

To my right, a teenager bops his head to music blaring from giant headphones. Across the car, a man cuddles a tiny baby in a front facing carrier. Next to them, a very tall man with a mop of white hair reads The New Yorker beneath a furrowed brow.

I look from the baby to the tall man and back again. To think that he was once a tiny baby. That this baby will grow to inhabit form after form. We’re like f*cking X-Men, I think. Shape shifters whose incredible power is lost on us, buried in the mundanity of days.   

The train lurches forward, bound for many places. And so do we.

I have a birthday on the horizon. It’s a nine. That year before the dawn of a new decade.

The nines, I find, are sort of scary. Not inherently (age is but a number, blah blah) but because of the bizarre cultural pressure baked into them. Close out the decade. Savor whatever society would have me believe is about to change once I cross over into new numeric territory.

Age is one more way we are branded and marketed back to ourselves. Fifty is the new forty is the new thirty is the new twenty. What if we don’t want something new, but would much prefer something timeless? Why can’t we always live to the nines? Good ‘til the last drop.

Like many recreational runners, I tend to obsess over my paces. Once I’ve hit one milestone, I find myself looking toward the next one. Can I shave off five seconds? Fifteen? Thirty? A minute? Like chasing the White Rabbit.  

On the surface, it’s about speed, but I swear that’s not it. It’s about time.

Time is the ultimate trickster. Passing fast, slow, imperceptibly. Measurable yet incomprehensible. As Dave Barry wrote, “Aside from Velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe.”

Days crawl while years fly. Deadlines expand and contract. Two weeks? Two days? It will take exactly as long as you have to give it.

So I run against the clock, as though I might outsmart it. If I can hurtle through space faster, the world around me seems slower. Maybe, if only for an instant, I’ll become so lost inside time itself that I might begin to understand it.

I’ve always figured the dog loves a routine. Wake at the same time, eat at the same time, sleep at the same time. But recently, I’ve realized that what she actually loves is a ritual. The wake-up dance. The cleverly concealed pill. Turkey. Everything about turkey.

If you look closely, living is a string of rituals. Some are more deliberate, more intentional than others.

Tea and coffee. Scrolling and reading. Bathing and teeth brushing. Talking and typing. Good morning and good night.

I am here, we say, with every action we take. I am here. And sometimes, if we are lucky, they help us remember. They help us see. If not the how or the why, then at least the time being.

Thank goodness. Thank goodness we are here.

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Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring the Spolia Tarot by Jen May and Jessa Crispin

How annoying is waiting?

Even for the most patient among us — the type of person who would never leave a store because they spy a long checkout line — waiting around is generally a drag.

Waiting for news. For results. For a train. For a date to arrive. For a response. For the next episode of Succession.

These moments of uncertainty are often framed as liminal in nature, a temporary space we must traverse until we get to the good stuff. Before we are sure, until we arrive, on the way to our destination.

But at any given moment, there’s a good chance each of us is waiting for something. Maybe waiting isn’t the in-between. Maybe it is life itself.

The Hanged Man (sometimes called the Hanged One or Hanged Being) understands feeling anticipatory anxiety. Not to mention delayed, detained, disappointed, or dismayed. This card often shows a person suspended upside down, one foot tied to a branch. This situation is likely not of their choosing, but like a lot of things in life, it happened anyway. So they’re doing what they can.

Because of their unique vantage point, this character sees the world in a different way. They understand that the more you examine your life — including and especially what you thought you already knew — the more wonder you will uncover.

Featuring the iconic Smith-Waite deck, with art by Pamela Colman Smith

Too often in life, we can find ourselves procrastinating living. But you don’t need to wait until you’re “better” to make a move. The Hanged Man sees that you’re already in the game, even if you think you’re not.

I recently heard advice from a running coach that applies to pretty much anything. “When you’re in a race, and you’re pushing it, there’s a good chance you’ll look down at your watch and see a number you’re not used to seeing in training,” she said. “When that happens, don’t doubt your ability to hold it. Everything feels unfamiliar if you’ve never done it before. But trust your preparation and know that’s why you’re here.”

When you do a thing you’ve never done before, it’s only logical that it will feel new. Strange. Surprising. Disorienting. Alarming. But if you anticipate that, and maybe even welcome it, it will help you reach the other side.

In life, there are some challenges we welcome and others that arrive without an invitation. This card reminds us that when we’re faced with conflicts outside of our control, there are a couple ways to proceed. We can rage and struggle and fight against them. Or we can do our best to acknowledge them, accepting what we cannot change and funneling our energy and actions where we can make a difference.

The Hanged One also encourages us to examine our current vantage point. We tend to go through life very concerned with moving forward. But there are infinite directions we can take. Somewhere to the east, west, north, and south there are different views, different options. Why not look at circumstances from multiple angles, including those you wouldn’t normally consider? Why not try the opposite of what we might typically do and see what happens?

The Hanged Man asks us to consider our proprioception — the awareness of our bodies in space. How are we moving? How does it feel?

While we’re at it, when is the last time you relaxed? When was the last time you dropped your shoulders away from your ears, closed your eyes, and took a full breath? When was the last time you slowed down for a moment and just let yourself be — without the urge for improvement? When’s the last time you sat with yourself, without checking your phone, or feeling preoccupied with an email or event or task?

It’s okay if you’re not sure of the answer. Now is as good a time as any.

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Recordings are back! The audio version of this week’s issue is here.

And speaking of recordings, I was honored to join the wonderful Nicole Christie on the Here For Me podcast. We talk about a strange experience I had in my twenties and how it became an unexpected gift. We also discuss intuition-as-compass, and how fear isn’t always a sign not to do something — sometimes it just means you care. If you’d like to give it a listen, you can find it on Apple, Spotify, Google, and Amazon Music. ❤️