portent.

Seen, touched and left for another. On a sidewalk in an alleyway in SOMA, somewhere between Folsom and Howard.

***

Function: Noun
Etymology: Latin portentum, from neuter of portentus, past participle of portendere
Date: circa 1587

1 : something that foreshadows a coming event : omen, sign
2 : prophetic indication or significance
3 : marvel, prodigy

***

"Omens are the individual language in which God talks to you. My omens are not your omens." ~ Paul Coelho

I came across that Tarot card on a forgotten sidewalk about a week or so ago. It was in a random alley somewhere South of Market, and now I can't remember exactly where.

Even without picking up the card, I knew it was from a Tarot deck, even though the image is not from a traditional deck. Upon examining the card, I saw it had no recognizable suit or arcana that I could relate to.

I smiled at the thought of a message I could not understand, and put the card back on the sidewalk, hoping the next passersby would glean a little more from the portent than I could.

***

In times past, I would have taken a random occurrence like that to have some vast cosmic significance. I searched for omens and signs and indications everywhere. It made me feel like I wasn't so alone. That the universe had plans for me, as insignificant and terribly mortal as I might be in the great scheme of things.

It was a charming and colorful phase of my life, sometimes devotional, sometimes dark. And sometimes I was just going through the motions, to believe that a message was intended only for me, if I could interpret it, even though deep down I knew it was like playing make-believe. I had my guides: my corners, my directions, my crystals and sage and oils and incense and chants and ragas.

And then somehow, it became easier to just live instead of trying to make sense of it all. Trying to figure out what will happen next in your life is stressful, and looking for portents is not a very good way to go about it.

Now, even though I slip up from time to time and utter "well, all things happen for a reason," with a wink, I'll catch myself and try to enjoy the magic of a random happening that has no import at all, only if I give it such.

The magic has gone out of my life in a way. Or perhaps by magic I mean whimsy, with a generous touch of delusion. But it has been replaced by a sense of the groundedness I thought I was giving myself all along.

***

When I got home from my walk, I googled different kinds of Tarot decks, because I still wanted to find out what that card meant. It's from the Zen Oshu deck, and the card I stumbled upon is The Creator.

THE CREATOR

There are two types of creators in the world: one type of creator works with objects - a poet, a painter, they work with objects, they create things; the other type of creator, the mystic, creates himself. He doesn't work with objects, he works with the subject; he works on himself, his own being. And he is the real creator, the real poet because he makes himself into a masterpiece.

You are carrying a masterpiece hidden within you, but you are standing in the way. Just move aside, then the masterpiece will be revealed. Everyone is a masterpiece, because God never gives birth to anything less that that. Everyone carries that masterpiece hidden for many lives, not knowing who they are, and just trying on the surface to become someone.

Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you already are a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it. God has himself created you, you cannot be improved.

Old habits die hard.

That message made me smile.

***

"He will put money in your hand," the old woman said to me.
At the bus stop yesterday, 6th Avenue at Clement

***

Yesterday I was waiting in the bus shelter for the 44 O'Shaughnessy and eating a little piece of crispy Chinese pork, which I had bought across the street, along with a few pieces of dim sum. Crispy pork is my new favorite pork discovery, although I'm sure the Chinese have been enjoying it for thousands of years.

An old Chinese woman walked into the bus shelter, looked up at the NextMuni sign and saw that we had 9 more minutes until the next bus. I didn't notice her pulling out the cardboard with cheap jewelry stuck to it, but before I knew it, I was getting a not-so-subtle sales pitch.

$2 earrings. No thanks. A jade cross pendant on a suede string. No, really, thanks.

Then she shows me the jade Buddha.

"Four dollars," she says. The woman looked chagrined, as if this piece was a bit too expensive. "But he will put money in your hand."

"Really? He'll put money in my hand?"

Because I could sure use some money in my hand these days. Living la Vie Boheme wears a bit thin at times.

She nods.

Then I notice her old plastic shoes with holes in them, and her dirty bag. How many pairs of $2 earrings must she sell a day just to buy a plate of crispy pork and dim sum? How many people say No Thanks until that happens?

I don't believe the Buddha will put money in my hand, really, although it's a lovely thought. But I do think the Buddha (if he ever existed and somehow was watching this transaction) would be pleased if I gave this lady four dollars, which I have (I have six dollars).

So I buy the Buddha.

And that is a story. Without magic, but a nice true story nonetheless.

Strawberry Money

Anna was left a young widow with four small children when her husband Nathan died. His death certificate says that he died of pneumonia, worsened by a cardiac condition, but the family rumor had it that his death might have been from complications resulting from when he had been shot while trying to smuggle weapons into Russia after the Revolution.

Whatever the story was, Anna, or Annie as she was also called, was a young widow in Brooklyn, left to raise four small children in a brownstone tenement. The year was 1924.

***

Anna was my paternal great-grandmother. Nathan had supported the family comfortably as a furrier. After his death, Anna opened a beauty parlor. She also made bootleg whiskey in her bathtub and delivered it to her customers in a baby carriage. My Aunt Edna's baby carriage.

Great Aunt Edna had fond memories of her mother, that she was impulsive and good-natured, despite their constant struggles to make ends meet. When Anna would come upon a little windfall of money (maybe from the whiskey or a generous tip from a customer), my great aunt remembers that her mother would go out and buy a treat for the family. She remembers the strawberries vividly, an expensive luxury but how cherished those berries were and how special it was to have them.

I have always enjoyed imagining those strawberries, and the family of children delighting in them. Whenever I have a little windfall, I call it my Strawberry Money.

***

Yesterday I wrote that post about how Dickensian the world has been feeling and about not having money for a sandwich and all of that. I literally pondered if there would be a treat after all of this economic madness.

But when I got home, there was some Strawberry Money waiting for me. A check for $29 from Blurb, meaning that more than one person actually bought one of my books online, so I could accrue enough to get a little check in the mail! Hooray! Thank you, mystery customers!

Now, what will I spend my Strawberry Money on? That's the hard part. But like Annie, I'll figure out something delightful. I get to see two special friends tonight. Maybe I will spend my Strawberry Money on buying them an ice cream.

What would you do? When you ask for a little treat, you might just get one!

***

Photo of strawberries by ~MVI~ on flickr.

Junkie

"My case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement of the Volition, and not of the intellectual faculties." ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

***

When I sold my kit several years ago, I thought I had closed a chapter in my life. Well, I did. I walked away cold turkey and was glad about it. I was so burned out. I tried to stay away from the stores, the magazines, anywhere I might be tempted to relapse.

Until today, when apparently I'm off the wagon again.

***

This morning on the train into work (at 8:07 am, to be precise), I got a brilliant idea for a writing project, a book. At least, it's a brilliant idea to me. I had the kind of feeling that you get when you have a dream that's so clear and true that it keeps you going all day, like a muse has been whispering in your ear all night and you wake up with all kinds of aha's! and connections in your mind.

I'm not going to say too much yet, because you know how some of these brilliant ideas can be. You pursue them passionately to an unforseen dead end and then when you run out of steam, you realize that your idea wasn't really all that brilliant and you got all excited about nothing special.

So I'll tell you about the details if it looks like there's something to share details about.

***

When you're a makeup artist, you're a technique snob and product junkie, a review hound and an ingredients smartypants. You watch other artists work and appropriate their style, when you see them do something new you haven't tried yourself. You can't really go to school to learn how to be a makeup artist. In theory you can, but in reality, to succeed you need hundreds of hours of practice, on real human faces of every make and model. You pore over printed materials and you can pick up a Glamour magazine or Allure and, without reading the photo credits, you know which makeup artist did the cover model. You don't even care who's on the cover. You go gaga for the technique: if it's good, you go gaga. If there's a perceived flaw or mistake, you rip it up and you and your friends talk about how you could have done it better.

When you're a makeup artist, your kit is your most prized possession and it encompasses your ongoing quest for the Holy Grail. My kit was a classic silver metal train case, five compartments high and lined with black velvet, which doubled as a side table and I used to perch a small lamp on it when I wasn't using it. I needed to wear a wrist brace when transporting it to jobs because it was so heavy. I remember a lovely Nigerian taxi driver helping me at JFK Airport, who asked me if I was carrying bars of gold in the case because it was so heavy. A totally understandable question. When I told him the case was full of lipstick, he started laughing. I don't think he believed me.

When you're working, you try to make connections with account managers so you can get free product and then you never have to buy as much.

But you always end up buying stuff. Every artist says the same thing: Oh, but it's for my kit. If you say it's for your kit, then spending hundreds of dollars on shiny new packaging that's smooth and perfect under your fingertips, and subtle, finely milled powders that feel like silk, and soft sable brush hairs of every shape, and perfect bullets of lipstick full of pigment and sensual emollients, spending that money doesn't hurt so much. Because you're a pro, and you need whatever it is... for your kit. It's for my kit justifies a lot.

The truth is that it's never for the kit. It's for you and you just pretend like it's all business.

***

Pictured above, today's naughty haul at Sephora. Several months ago, I had heard a chorus of angels singing (in my head) when I first realized that now I can get YSL cosmetics there, and now I don't have to deal with the snobby clerks at Bloomingdales. Today's pile of beauty started because I got a gift card from my sister and because people keep asking me why I retired from being a makeup artist and all of a sudden I have a basket of items in my hand and in my head, it's all flowing back in a rush of creativity and memories.

It's for my kit.

***

And then, just to prove that fate or fortune or whatever is truly shining on me and my brilliant idea today, my dearest dutchbaby (who knows exactly what I like) scored a bacon scented, bacon flavored lip balm from... you guessed it, the guys at Baconnaise!


Dutchbaby went to the wonderful Fancy Food Show here in town last week and met the proprietors of Baconnaise and now not only do I have the option of glossing my pout with YSL Rouge Pur no. 134, but I can also make my lips smell like bacon! (This is sounding a wee bit pornographic, I realize that now.)

Dogs and men are going to find me irresistable. And No, this one is not going in my kit.