Laying in bed one evening.
Linen sheets.
Three pillows.
Two fleece blankets.
My hair,
Still damp.
Tucked into a satin bonnet with a USC beanie perched on top.
I found myself thinking about my brother.
He's the King of Quokk.
When we're together,
We volley lines back and forth.
Movies.
Trailers.
Skits from childhood.
Odd clips we absorbed growing up.
One favorite that tends to return again and again.
Is from the trailer for the movie,
Brave.
I hardly remember the movie,
But I remember that trailer.
The main character,
Meredith,
Asks in that charming Scottish lilt,
If you could change your fate,
Would you?
The spiritual mischief in his eyes slips the line into conversation at the perfect moments.
He tips his head,
And with that accent,
Perhaps just a bit overdone,
He says,
If ye could change your fate,
Would ye?
I always double over.
That night,
Tucked under my mountain of blankets,
I saw his face.
I heard that line.
I've studied tarot.
Its symbols.
Its history.
Its practice.
I've witnessed fate unfolding like weather.
Reading for myself and for others.
Cards sliding into place like destiny.
Revealing themselves in a sacred dance.
Have I ever tried to change it?
Oh yes.
Absolutely.
As I laid there,
My imagination began to bend.
The world.
The career of my dreams.
Swung open like a sunlit door.
The paycheck.
The person I've carried a quiet flame for.
Came running toward me.
And,
Choosing me with zero hesitation.
A home by the sea.
Quaint.
Somehow affordable.
Appeared,
And I bounded in.
Resources arrived to explore.
Not only the recesses of my mind and heart,
But the four corners of this round globe.
Technology bloomed that could lift my consciousness toward the stars.
And somehow,
Finally,
I could express the innermost music of my heart in a way the world would understand.
So we could all tug.
Maybe then,
I would feel home.
As the scenes played,
Something tugged.
I wasn't changing my fate.
I was making desire me.
Making a home cheaper.
I handed over destiny.
To a choreography of perfect circumstances.
Oh,
The blankets got heavier with that recognition.
Like they'd filled with sand.
I had abandoned myself inside my wishes.
I wasn't becoming the me of my dreams.
I was inserting me into the world of my dreams.
Beautiful,
Yes.
And tragic,
Too.
Came my brother's smile.
Pulling me from the dark.
That lilting put-on accent.
The joke and its glow.
If you could change your fate,
Would you?
And a clearer answer began to rise.
It isn't fate I want to change.
Not outcomes.
Not crushes.
Not houses by the sea.
I dare not fumble with the tapestry the divine has woven.
Part of me believes it knows.
The shortest path to happiness.
A wiser part.
A greater part.
Tragic.
Remembers the divine.
Knows better.
I didn't assemble my family's twinkling faces.
Something vast did.
They are gifts I could have never engineered.
I didn't engineer my friends.
Or even that long-time love.
Something wider arranged those crossings.
I only brought myself.
And asked if I could love them.
And many times,
They said yes.
So,
Instead of changing fate,
Today,
I choose to love it.
To lean into the energies and actions that match my soul's longing.
Fully aware that nothing guarantees outcome.
And perhaps,
Even more beautifully,
A guaranteed outcome would drain the joy anyway.
Today,
I will show up for the dream of a career.
And ask if it will let me love it.
I will show up for the dear people of my life.
And ask if they will let me love them.
I will show up for the sea.
And ask if she will let me love her.
I will show up for the earth.
And for the stars.
And ask if they will let me love them.
And I will offer the deepest parts of my heart.
I did not come here to make this place in my image.
I came here to let this place make me.
