trust

Right On Time

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 3 Comments

A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to. ~Gandalf 

“Why’d you come at the end!?” My friend and fellow writer, Arida, exclaimed a couple days ago, at an event honoring Black History Month with readings of poems by Black poets.

I got there late but not at the end, she just hadn’t seen me. We cleared it up, and the whole interaction cued up the scene of Gandalf responding to Frodo’s similar accusation. I often get accused of being late and this quote eases my mind every time. 

I’m arriving at another event, Arida launching her own book of poetry, and I appear to be late again. She’s not reading though, so it’s all good. It’s on the rooftop terrace of the Studios of Key West.

“Going up?” I say to the guy at the elevator doors. 

He smiles a gentle smile and nods.

I quickly laugh, “I guess there’s nowhere to go but up!” trying to shrug off my awkwardness. The awkwardness I often have when half my brain is still on whatever I was writing before, as I try once again to merge back into social traffic. Adding a bit of random information pushes the gas pedal down a little more. “No one has a basement in Key West. We’re at sea level.” 

We step into the elevator. He asks how long I’ve lived here and I ask how long he’s visiting for. He’s from northern Illinois. I’m originally from Madison, Wisconsin.

His eyes light up, “I’ve been to Madison. Loved it!” Of course he did, I think, Madison is amazing. Mentally, I put up two points on the scoreboard my subconscious has suddenly erected. 

We step out onto the fourth floor: Hugh’s View. Giving a 360 degree angle of this island beloved by so many. The bar greets us to the left, “Can I get you something?” He asks. A couple more points go up.

You might be wondering, ‘Is it that easy to impress you, Jen? Been to your hometown and loved it, offers to buy you a drink.’

Yes. Yes it is. 

Turning from the bar, I see there’s a mic and a chair onstage. As we turn further, towards Arida’s table, I hope she doesn’t do her exclamation again. I’m in the bubble of pseudo-perfection that a new, chance meeting creates and I’d like it to not burst quite yet. 

“Arida, meet…” I motion to my companion, “I don’t know who this is.” Then I look in his eyes and laugh, “Who are you?” 

“Will.” He says to me. “I’m Will.” He says to her. 

He leans in, watching intently the mutual admiration flow between Arida and I. “You are such an incredible writer, Jen.” Then to Will, “This chick’s poetry is so profound, I had to read it twice.”

I praise the animated way she delivers her material. The confidence she exuded when she read at the launch for the guild’s hot off the press anthology a few days ago. “You inspire me. I took mental notes.”

His eyes are wide with engagement and he nods along, showing belief in everything we’re saying. Tipping his head down to the table, he asks,“Well then, which book should I buy?” Breaking his wallet out again.

Arida could’ve promoted one of her own books, but she directs him to the anthology. “You’ll probably like this one the best. It’s got a bit of everything.”

A warmth climbs my neck–my poem and story are both erotica. That’s a heck of a first impression. “Every poem and story inspired by and set in The Keys,” I chime in.

“That’s what I like, the slice of life kind of stuff.” And now he’s using my line. 

He asks us both to sign it. I add to mine, ‘thanks for the wine!’

He and I move over the the edge. He shares about the radio show he had in college on the campus radio station, based on the experiences he and his co-workers had delivering pizza. “To the middle of a football field. To a strip club and getting tipped in a stack of ones. Once I had to help rescue a lost cat.”  

His voice sounds sexier to me as I imagine it caressing the airwaves with his slice of life stories. Pizza slices of life. 

We point to things from the rooftop–church steeples, the haunted Artist’s House B&B, sailboats bobbing on the Gulf. He’s open, inviting. Present. Truly interested. He travels like I travel–totally immersing ourselves into someplace new, becoming intimate with the unknown. He makes some jokes and keeps putting up points.

The rooftop portion closes and we go down to the second floor where the theater is. Like many places in Key West, it’s said to be haunted. It was once a masonic lodge, the chairs with members’ names, numbers and various decals still remain. In trying to decipher their meaning, I guess the double eagle with a ‘32’ is the highest rank. “Eagles are regal,” I reason.

“Thirty-three is the highest number in Masonry, so, yeah.” He says it like he’s saying ‘The sun sets in the west.’

Seriously, who is this guy? 

Walking to my bike, the regret of missing Arida’s reading tugs at my heart. It’s followed by the replay of running into Will at the elevator. Would I still have ran into him if I’d arrived earlier? Maybe. But one little change sends out ripples. Swap out one of the puzzle pieces and the big picture won’t come together the same way.

I settle once again into the comfort of Gandalf’s quote. I had arrived precisely when I meant to. 

Flip or Flop

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 2 Comments

Some things are best mended by a break. ~Edith Wharton

I know I promised last Throwback Thursday to write about the three things that led to my gypsy life on the road. But there was one big thing that cleared the way for them–I’d better talk about that first.

I bought a house (this probably sounds like a move in the opposite direction, but stay with me). A broken house bought with a man I was in a broken relationship with. Perhaps I thought I could fix them both.

The house was a foreclosure, the deep neglect of it assaulting my nostrils with a stench of mold so strong I thought it must’ve opened the door itself, to escape. A small pond had gathered in the basement, black mold climbing the walls like velvet wallpaper. Wires and plumbing hung from the rafters where the furnace and hot water heater had been ripped out. If a house could be raped, this one was. Plugging my nose and holding my breath, I couldn’t see any potential through my watering eyes as I ran back out to the motorcycle waiting for our ride to resume. 

But M could. He convinced me we could flip it, make a profit.  

A few months later, when the lease was up on my apartment, I moved into this work in progress–everything I owned in the garage, an air mattress on the floor where spackle would fall all around but thankfully never on. I hung drop cloths for curtains and aligned my transformation with the house’s–knowing when it sold it would send me somehow…somewhere. I’d been escaping winter more and more and for longer and longer, leading to the realization: the world was too big and beautiful to keep living in one place. With each trip, my grip around the only place I’d ever called home loosened. 

I was living on a launchpad.

Searching through paint samples prompted the searching of my mind–I was looking for what spoke to me on both fronts. “Caribbean Aqua Blue” and moving to an island. “Afterglow” and afterthoughts; all the things I’d miss, leaving all my friends. Could I do it? Would I be miserable? I painted walls and contemplated possibilities, altering us both. Designing the bathroom while searching new designs for my life. Out west? I loved the Zen feel of Sedona and her hundreds of hikes. Farther? The part of California where some of my dad’s family lived had a chic vibe with laid back surfer towns a quick drive away.

Into this reverie and renovation came an invitation to attend the wedding of M’s cousin in New Zealand. 

Our feet were dangling from the chuppah where a freshly minted marriage had vowed “til death do us part,” but my relationship was dead on arrival. No, nothing had happened. There hadn’t been a fight, none of the usual drama. Just an insight breaking across my heart, as soft as the mist beginning to fall–that’s how I knew it was true. We’re not going to make it. This will never be us.

An inconvenient truth only three days into a trip on the other side of the world. The timing was weird, ditto the location. Our vintage dress and the black and white photos would show us having a great time, our inner demons distracted for a while. But there was no mistaking it. A chasm was opening between us. M was sitting and talking right next to me, but he felt farther away. 

The mist turned to a soft rain, drops hitting my skin like punctuation marks. Okay, I get it. To make sure, it rained harder–in exclamation points. We ran into the big tent and joined in celebrating the newlyweds’ love with a night of drinking, dancing and laughing. Everyone was happy. We were happy. I pushed the chuppah revelation away, back to the inkling it typically was.

But the next day, it started to develop, like a photo appearing in the darkroom. Faint at first, then becomes more defined with time. Finally, as we traveled to the tip of the north island–officially named the Far, Far North–I could see it clearly and had to call it.  

Each linoleum square on the kitchen floor represented the intermittent intimacy in our six year on-again-off-again relationship. Both had fallen out of fashion. Both took time, strength and deep determination to rip up, my motivation rewarded by what I was uncovering. The original design. Hardwood floors and a heart ready to shine.

I learned mistakes could be corrected, sanded out, painted over, re-measured and re-cut–no one was going to look at my results as closely as I did. We took chances on a lavender accent wall in the living room. The belief everything was always getting better carried me and a trust in the outcome–for the house and for the new direction of my life–gave me inner peace (and power). There was a divine designer in charge. 

PS I like to sleep on everything I write, editing it the next day before posting. I’m on my way home and quickly pop into a Mexican restaurant for some guacamole to go. Without knowing why, I decided to dine-in instead. Amidst chips and salsa, a song M used to sing while strumming guitar comes on. It’s old and obscure, I’d never even heard of it before him. And it’s no mistake it’s playing now, in the hang time of this piece being published. Now I know why I felt pulled to stay, and I’m glad I did. M and I may not have been good romantic partners, but we’d been great business partners. And the house venture is what opened the way for me living on an island in January. 

I Believe I Can Fly. I Believe I Can Touch the Sky. . .

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 4 Comments

“I’m thinking, for our next meeting, being the new year and all, it might be good for you to bring a business plan so that you’re free spiritedness doesn’t get blown off track from what you’re trying to accomplish. Since you’re a pantser, and all.”

He’s my accountability partner. We’re both members of the Key West Writers Guild working on first drafts of our first book. He wanted to stay on track and proposed we have weekly phone call check-ins. And he’s referring to what some writing instructors like to teach: Are you a plotter or a pantser? Plotters make outlines and plans. Pantsers fly by the seat of their pants and just see where the story goes.

“Noted.” I say as I put away the groceries from my bike basket.

“Oh…did I overstep?”

“That’s just not how I operate. I don’t even balance my checkbook and you want me to write a business plan? All the best stuff in my life has come sans plans.” Evoking the Jed McKenna quote to cross my mind once again. ‘God gives me better than I would’ve thought to ask for, and before I would’ve thought to ask.’

I’m not a panster, I’m a flow-er. And I’ve gotten to this amazing space in my life–living on an island, in a camper with my kitty, writing and business building on a seventy-some degree day in January. I’ve just had a story and poem published in an anthology and now get to bop around the island promoting it.

I did not plan this. I allowed this. I held steadily an intention of fulfilling my purpose, and am receiving (and thoroughly enjoying) the outward picturing, and support from the Universe. “There’s no way I could’ve planned all this.”

He verbally stumbles. “Uh, um, well, yes, of course. I didn’t mean to…”

But he did mean to. The same way many people of the planner and plotter persuasion have tried to reel me in, wise me up, structure me and convince me that some other, more orderly way of living would somehow be better. I was raised by a woman like this. A woman who’s view of me was akin to that of a wild horse needing to be broken. As if I would fall off the edge of the Earth if she didn’t keep me tightly tethered.

I was a wild child. Still am. Still gravitating to the edge, wanting to fly and be free–to be weightless. I didn’t like the pull on my freedom then and I don’t take kindly to it now. It chokes me, cutting off my air supply. I run from these conversations like someone from a house on fire. I’ll die if I stay inside. 

I live on the fringe full-time because, ‘If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.’ 

Are You My Home?

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

My commitment to blogging has been consistently inconsistent. It happens a lot with us travel bloggers. Magnetically drawn to adventure, we have a hard time sitting still long enough to tell anyone about all the adventures we’re having. But it’s a new year, I’m setting intentions and being older, I’m valuing history more–just like I’ve heard people say you do. 

Since I can’t go back in time, I’ll do the next best thing–use the Throwback Thursday trend to fill in some of the blanks. Beginning at the beginning: How I got into this wild and wanderful way of living on the road. . . 

I had just returned from Australia and over lunch with a friend, it came to me. “I think my four seasons are going to be Spring, Summer, Fall and Travel Somewhere Warm!” 

She nodded and smiled her understanding and we toasted my freshly hatched plan. But then, eventually, escapes from Wisconsin winter started turning into something else. What had started as flirting with foreign countries was turning into something serious. 

A couple years later, I was back in Australia for a second time. This was my longest trip yet. I’d left early on New Year’s Eve, traveled for twenty-four hours and landed in Australia in time to ring in New Year’s Eve. A month in, I was stepping off a city bus, looking up at the surreal blue sky above Melbourne when a revelatory thought streaked across my mind. I think I could be at home anywhere. 

The bus doors slapped shut behind me while something inside me cracked open, into a room chock full of possibilities. Biking the path along the river a few days later, I had a second revelation: There is no right way. There’s only the way that’s right for you. This threw a switch in the room of possibilities, lighting up Panama, Colombia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Canada–every place I’d ever been, and reframing them as places to live rather than places to visit. I watched myself interviewing, entertaining the thought of moving completely. Gulp. Wisconsin had been my going from and returning to my whole life. 

After staying in Australia for exactly the maximum three months the embassy said I could, I flew home on Thai Airways with a brief layover in Bangkok. I’d arranged to stretch the hours into a week. Since my next layover was at LAX, and some of my dad’s family lived near there, a two-day layover had been scheduled. As I threw my big and smaller backpack into my aunt’s trunk, she remarked, “I can’t believe you’ve been living out of that!”

“Me neither!” I surveyed it all. “I didn’t need this much.”

But I never got on the plane. I bought a new ticket for a month later, landing back home on Cinco de Mayo. Easter was on 4/20 that year and Wisconsin got snow.

That trip stretched the rubberband to a point I wasn’t sure it could keep snapping back. Not only had I survived in strange places for four months, I had thrived. A wildness had gotten under my skin. I could feel the wind in my hair, even indoors. Something, somewhere else was calling me.

Three things came together to start forming the picture of, and making a plan for, the gypsy life. Then there were three things that fell apart to take that picture out of my mind and into my world, kickstarting a plan into action. 

I’ll tell you all about the first three next Thursday.

Rerouting. . . . .

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 3 Comments

I’ve come to think of the Holy Spirit as my life’s GPS. It’s got the map, it knows where we’re going. I, by contrast, am to wandering off and have a fondness for distractions and detours. The queen of wrong turns, I need never fear. Because just like Google Maps, if I get lost or turned around, the app will spin and say “Rerouting” until it displays a new blue marked path I can follow to get back on track.

I grew up learning about the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I’ve long since traded religious dogma for spiritual laws; gone is the God I used to worship as something superior–I’ve found him on the interior now, in a deeper connection to my true self. The meaning behind a lot of the things I heard taught has changed, but the names remain the same.

HS is kind of my favorite. An energy that communicates through hunches and serendipities, gut instincts and nudges. If I listen to them, I’m living my best life and I’m happy. I’m still reeling from the latest one…..

In April I was all set to do what I’ve been doing for the past two years: taking my camper and kitty to a state park and workamping (working in exchange for a free site). It was time for my next assignment. After giving my boss notice, it didn’t sit right. I’d gotten this job playing games in swimming pools at resorts around Key West. It was listed as a “gig” in the job posting, which was perfect because I was only going to be at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park for a few more moths (there’s limits on how long you can stay at one park). Super fun job, great money, I biked between pools in my bikini and was done in time for happy hour.

The way I found the job was kind of magical. I was recovering from COVID, unemployment was ending, and I was aware I couldn’t go back to bartending; I was too weak. I felt I’d outgrown my old way of being and working during the shutdown. I wanted something new. I went to Facebook and came across a page on my feed I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since. It was “Key West Gigs & Short-Term Jobs.” Perfect! My site at the park was short-term, too.

Funny how we get into things and then they change. Interesting how my plans morph and change without me even knowing it, until I try to assert them and they fall apart.

The next day I took my notice back. I’d slept on it and woke up uneasy within it. Took it as a sign and followed it. And then she offered me a promotion. So now I’m Regional Manager and have found a lot that I pay for, have a lease for, an electric and water bill. Things I haven’t had for six years and thought I might never have, or want to have, again.

I trust this new direction because of all the other new directions I’ve taken that ended up being better than what I thought I wanted.

Just In Time

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

My financial funds hadn’t been this low since I was in college. I wasn’t exactly eating ramen noodle, but I was checking my banking apps daily–sometimes several times a day–keeping a close eye on what was coming in (not much) and what was going out (much too much). Do I drop my car insurance? The camper insurance? Food?

Florida can sustain me with sunshine, the salty air in my hair and surround me with the calm and curiosity that the aqua blue of the ocean evokes. But a pandemic that ended my job made me dependent upon an unemployment benefit of $197 per week (one of the lowest in the country) that I had to coax from an archaic website meant to discourage access. There was literally a stick figure that moved across the screen telling me where I was in line.

I’d lived like this for the past year and a half. I was now newly employed, but the paychecks hadn’t hit my account yet. Just as I was scanning my mind for even more creative financing options–I’d already returned all the Amazon purchases that still had the refundable window open and spent all my gift cards and return merchandise credits–my birthday weekend rolled around.

And as I was working in my new gig of Pool Game Instructor, the topic would come up. This led to one of the guests/gamblers at my floating BlackJack table insisting, in his accent from Quebec, that he was buying me a birthday drink. And then another. Sure, he was winning, but it was only Monopoly money–er, chips.

I was drying off next to a chaise lounge after saying I really had to go to another resort and play more games in another pool when he came up to me and handed me a hundred dollar tip. I tried not to take it even as my wallet’s mouth watered, knowing how much I needed it. He pushed it back towards me. I shook my head, took a step backwards, trying to give my resistance deeper meaning.

“Just take it.” He said it so softly it was almost like he knew how much I needed it.

So I took it. Because I did. Badly. And then I thanked God once again for filling a gap that I was powerless to fill. I was grateful, this week before Thanksgiving, and somewhat amused that this Power greater than myself had Its own creative financing at play. Moments like this humble me. Remind me. Of that Bible verse “Consider the lilies of the field….”

Tales from the Side of the Road

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

No, I’m not broken down, everything works fine, I could leave anytime. But I don’t want to—-I’m in Key West. And everyone pays a high price to be here. I pay in guts, not money. I take chances; chances most people would be uncomfortable taking. It’s sometimes uncomfortable for me too, but I’ll take it over being a slave to corporate America any day. The price of my lifestyle is risk but with that risk comes great rewards—-freedom being one of my favorites.

I have good Spidey-senses and let my intuition be my guide; most of the time. Tonight was not one of those times. I hear their walkie-talkies before I hear them knock.

“Are you alone in there?” Always the first question.

You mean besides the fool who told me to park here? Is what I think but don’t say. “Yep. Just me and my kitty.”

They answer with the looks of disbelief that I’ve come to know so well (and actually kind of get off on). That boost that comes from being what I’ve always been—unconventional—never gets old. It only encourages me; adds fuel to my fire.

They let me stay after stern warning and one even helps me lift the steps into my camper back up.

I learned my lesson: don’t let anyone have the final say on where I lay. If it feels wrong, then move. I was not surprised by my middle of the night visitors, I was surprised that I’d let myself park somewhere that I felt in my gut wasn’t right.

Where In the World is Jennifer Montero?

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

My blog is my online journal–rough and raw. It’s me throwing paint at the canvas and being more concerned about the colors I have chosen than the strokes, shape and impression. The first baby steps in an effort to express myself, the birth of creativity. My live processing of what happens in this mad world.

I use the term mad in the most endearing Alice In Wonderland kind of a way. I take the potion often, the red pill, and it takes me through the wardrobe and behind the wizard’s curtain, finding the truth rooted in love. Something pierces the illusion and sets its sites on my fear. I find that if I keep moving, don’t establish, stay in the humbled state of unknowing then those magical moments happen a lot more often and my grip on the world loosens. My mind, released, naturally rises to the only home it knows–the one of infinite possibilities.

I post about my gut reactions and often about the sucker punches to the gut that life has a way of throwing when you’re busy looking the other direction. There’s a lot of things I’m still trying to make sense of or things I thought I already understood, learned the lesson but here it is, back again for another round. I seem to have a deep instinctive need to try to figure things out, look at them another way and grow and advance on the game board of Life.

Jason Isbell talked about touring in an interview. He said he felt stagnant when he was home yet his relationships were strained by him being on the road. Can’t decide which is harder. Doesn’t really feel made for either one of them. I can relate. I don’t find the safety and security that others find there, in stability. I don’t share their ambitions. Longing to break out of the crowd of popular opinion. I’m a wanderer, a wonderer and I live on the fringe.

“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” Cool thing to say as the first American to summit Everest. And I agree.

One more thing. I call it solo chick traveler because I usually am, solo. Sometimes with someone, but usually not for long. The constant and common denominator is always me and I make my moves quite independently even if it may look otherwise.

Where in the world is Jennifer Montero because it rhymes and because of the three last names I have had, Montero is my favorite. Compliments of my Colombian ex-husband.

Juggling Life and A Pumpkin Spice Latte

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

I have to move in a month. I guess I should start thinking about where. To be fair, I usually don’t give the road even this much notice–and to be doubly fair, I thought I was going back to Key West.

But. . . as I drove down that aqua-rimmed, one-hundred mile stretch, I wasn’t really feelin’ it. I had jumped at the chance to house and kitty-sit for a week, and figured that while I was there I would go and talk to the campground I’d workamped at last season about this season. But the closer I drew to it, the less excited I was. I left part of that plan hanging on each mile marker I passed, and by the time I got to the place where I was going to say, “I want to come back”. . . I couldn’t.

Maybe it was being away that changed me. Maybe Key West changed. There will be no Fantasy Fest this year, no Zombie Bike Ride, but that’s only part of it. Part of me is at moral odds with that little island. The island that often doesn’t feel like an island. But mostly, it’s me. It’s my need to explore and see new faces in new places. It’s my fear that I won’t get to every place I want to be before I. . . go. For good. That’s what really drives me.

I stop and indulge a craving for cheese curds. As soon as I step inside a Culver’s, I’m back in Wisconsin. That’s where its headquarters are and that’s why they have cheese curds. I want something familiar before I change everything again. I want to touch base and then launch. But mostly, I want to remember that I’ve been doing this for almost four years now and I’ve always been okay. Better than okay.

And it’s raining and they’re so warm.

I mull it over as I nibble; consider my options with each chewy gooey bite. I’m time traveling in that blue booth. Backwards to where I’m from and forwards, looking out the window while also looking to the future. And before my head gets too far ahead, I ask my heart. “Where do you want to go.” I love it when I remember to do that.

Back to Wisconsin, she states the obvious and I feel her longing. We were supposed to go this summer but . . . COVID. There would’ve been nothing to go to. Everything was canceled, everyone locked down. Next year. We’ll go next summer, for sure.

I sit in the Target parking lot and open the state park booklet. My trusty guide is well worn and I survey it again for a hint of direction. A starting point. I make some calls and I make some notes. Some stifle a laugh at my lateness and start talking to me about 2022. Can you imagine?! Others are only voicemails where I can try to impart my personality and enthusiasm onto the recording and hope for the best.

And others have had some changes with the COVID still lingering and borders that can’t yet be crossed. I am the queen of cancelations, I muse. As I’m sipping the pumpkin latte I can’t seem to shop without, I write notes atop an empty spot on a shelf where ‘size medium’ is out of stock. I’m the most common size and yet I live a most uncommon life. I consider a new job and a new place to live while also gazing at handbags and wondering if all my shit will fit. And almost with equal concern.

Because it always works out!. . . and always so much better than I could’ve imagined. A friend once tried to get me to go to a vision board party with her. As much as I liked the idea of playing offense instead of defense with our minds, I had to decline. Most of the best stuff in my life has happened without me knowing such a thing was even in the realm of possibility.

In the words of Jed McKenna, “God always gives me better than I would’ve asked for and before I would’ve thought to ask.” *

I know I want to be happy and I know I want to be free. And that may be all I need to know. That’s my vision. And I try every day to be more on the receiving end of it all. To open and allow and remove the blocks I’ve put in my own way.

And there are other times when I simply don’t know what I want. Don’t know what would be best and what would flop like a lead balloon. And in those times, my prayer is: “Show me what I want.”

Juggling a coffee and my future may look crazy to some, but it’s balanced to me. it’s good to hold the decisions of my life lightly, so I’m not so attached that I try to make something happen that really shouldn’t. I hold the reins loosely, so I can be redirected. The Universe knows what’s on the other side–I might be wrong.

Sometimes you try so hard for something and then when you get it, it’s not what you thought it was. It doesn’t make me feel the way I thought it would. But the things that just come to me, those I trust. Because they came from something greater, smarter.

“Sometimes we see only the underside of the tapestry of life. All knots, and gnarls, and missteps. But there is a Master Weaver who sees it from above. And He weaves according to a plan.” **

*From Spiritual Enlightenment, The Damnedest Thing

**From the best Christmas card I’ve ever gotten