Thursday, March 10, 2011

Talking Back to Fortune



After nine weeks of 2011, I am inclined to think my New Year's fortune might have been a warning versus a suggestion. Sought-out or otherwise, changes have been coming at me nonstop since January 1st. I've been grateful for the positive, and have done what I can to manage the negative, but oy. At this point the Year of Change has me thinking less about changing and more about doing what I can do to make the next ten months a little less stressful.

Cave. Tibet. Paradise!

Kidding. In the meantime I've cracked open a few more cookies, and this is what else they had to say:



This one is probably a direct cosmic nudge for me. Outside immediate family, people who care about me are usually the last to know when something is going on in my life. I think it's because the words "support system" always instantly make me think of other phrases, like "misery loves company" and "share the depression."

I'd rather handle things on my own; in my experience self-reliance is more dependable than other people. Easier to deal with, too, as I never like to impose on those I trust. But as a very patient and understanding friend just reminded me, the people who do care about us often go through similar or even the same problems (and kept it quiet because they don't want to impose on us.)

I'm going to work on my trust issues, but I do wish my troubles would go on a diet and slim down to minor annoyances.



This is a perfect analogy for all those things in life that are much desired, often dreamed of, and rarely bestowed. I for one love cake, always have, always will. I never met a cake I didn't want. Okay, maybe not that one some women make with condensed tomato soup; as ingredients go that is just a wee bit too weird for me. But as for the rest of them, really, what's not to lust after?

These days, plenty. Once upon a time cake used to be simply cake. Much desired, often dreamed of, and rarely bestowed. Not anymore. Now folks are spreading around lots of pretty frosting on all manner of things and calling them cake (when a lot of them are actually more like what my grandmother used to call horsey pies.) We should be able to smell these fake cakes a mile away, but times are tough and everyone wants to believe there's a cheap and easy way to get all the cake they want.

I don't have a problem with this because I can't have cake anymore. I'm strictly a bran muffin girl these days. Not everyone is on the nuts-and-twigs diet, though, so you should be careful what you buy, and what you buy into. You've all heard the one about If it sounds too good to be true, etc. Here's an updated version: If someone tells you that for a couple hundred bucks you can have a million cakes, they aren't selling you cake.

So what has fortune been telling you these last nine weeks? Any significant messages from the cosmos land in your lap? Let us know in comments.

10 comments:

  1. I'm SO with you on the nine weeks. A cave or Tibet sound very good. Paradise? Not so much. I was raised Irish Roman Catholic and Paradise seems a little too mellow for me :). Give me Purgatorio any day, but then I am an amateur philosopher.

    This year so far has been a nightmare, mostly on the health side but some other hiccups and just big efforts as well (nearing college time for the boys and it's scary :)).

    However, each of these events have taught me something, whether understanding my limitations or just what is possible, how to roll with the punches, and not to dwell on the things that went wrong. Seriously, it's been a lousy year so far, but not the worst I've ever had, and there are lots of weeks left for it to get better.

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  2. [the tangent] Tomato soup cake?!? I am SO going to have to try that. Maybe for April Fool's day. It'd go along well with my "meat loaf and mashed potatoes disguised as a cake" trick. (And now I'm imagining what other soups might go well in cake.) I needed a new weird food thing to experiment with... thank you

    [on topic] For me, it wasn't the New Year, or fortune cookies - it was something my mother said at our belated Christmas dinner. And oddly enough, you were involved.

    At least, your fudge recipe and your toffee brittle story were.

    See, I've been planning to try making fudge for ten or twelve years. Think the fudge version of your toffee brittle story. That's just exactly it. I'd print the recipes, buy the books, even buy the ingredients... and never make it.

    I made fudge for Christmas this year. Three whole batches. And your recipe was the one that worked. (The others, well, they were spreadable and tasted good on graham crackers.)

    And so I was telling my mom and sister where I'd gotten the recipe, and mentioned how you'd posted something that really resonated with me, just a couple days prior. That you'd think about it, dream of it, but then never actually DO it.

    My sister added in her two bits. "Authors are weird."

    And my mom answered without missing a beat, "Yeah, well, we already knew that. Look at your sister."

    And what hit me, right then and there, was that My mom already considers me a writer.

    Published or not.
    Productive or not.

    And that one realization shattered the wall. Crumbled all the anxiety and fear into little piles of rubble that are much easier to shovel and wheelbarrow away in small bits.

    I've written more in these last nine weeks then I have in over a decade... and with none of the stress.

    So... thank you.

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  3. I got a fortune cookie that told me, "You will inherit a large sum of money." No time frame, no notice of from whom, etc. Not sure I really believe this one...

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  4. Mmm. Cake. I think I'd rather buy a good cookbook and experiment, but then again, there's a place in town that bakes cake I can never hope to duplicate. I guess it's good to remind me that I always have something to strive for, and maybe that's my present message from the cosmos.

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  5. Hugs to you, dear Lynn. Something last year taught me: There is grace in receiving. As a card-carrying member of the 'it's all right, I'll sit in the dark' school of martyrdom, I understand the whole coping/I'm fine/I can handle it thing.

    But the thing is, it's not an independence versus dependence vibe: it's about interdependence. We're all in this crazy life together.

    And you know who was instrumental in helping me with that life lesson? A certain Paperback Writer who helped fill my bare bookshelves after our fire.

    xo

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  6. You totally rock, you and your lovely fortunes.

    I received one once that said, "When winter comes, heaven will rain success upon you."

    Needless to say that several winters have passed since then. Yet for all I know, the success has been raining on me all this time, and I didn't even know it.

    You are so inspiring!

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  7. There is something in the air this year because a good majority of my friends are feeling the pain with me. So yes, I get what you're saying.

    This year will get better. Right now that's my mantra.

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  8. I used to think the cosmos doesn't like me. But you know, we all have our ups and downs and whether the cosmos likes me or not, someone does. Someone has faith in me. Someone knows that even though I often think the back corner of my closet looks like the best place for me to live, it's really not. That just because I spend the darker months of the year thinking everything I do and write and try is all crap, it's not. That sometimes, the friend who thinks they're lousy because they're sitting in the same box I am is the one I treasure and who means so much.

    That's the kind of thing that kicks me in the butt and gets me out of that corner and back to living. And back to writing! Which I just quit doing around the same time the sky got dark.

    Now, where's that fortune cookie that says I'll win a hundred million dollars...

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  9. Oh, wait! Cake!

    I love cake, but 364 days out of the year, I'm a twigs and nuts person too (sans nuts because I have a little IBS) but this past week, my MIL made my favorite cake in the whole entire world for my birthday...it's a chocolate chiffon with pure buttercream icing. Mad in an angel food cake pan, three layers with an inch of that decadent frosting between each layer...

    Makes my mouth water typing this!

    Of course, then I spend the next week with a really touchy tummy...

    But it's so worth it.

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  10. So far this year I've been affected by:

    1) The Brisbane Flood - my storage unit got half a metre of water. I didn't lose everything but my complete collection of Stardoc has been reduced to random books in a series, and I lost some of my Patricia Briggs too :(

    2) The Christchurch Quake - All my friends and family are safe and I'm glad to only have had minor hurts and a safe place to live. Devastating to see a city I love changed so much, but I have hopes we can rebuild better and stronger.

    I don't know what the cosmos is saying to me, but I wish it would stop talking!

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