Optimisms
Cheering each other on
Life’s Most Underrated Moment: The “Cusp”
The cusp deserves its day.
Like the sense of smell to taste, the cusp to a big moment is part of what makes the moment so big in the first place. That cusp—that point of intersection between the anticipation of something happening and it coming to fruition—is everything. What, after all, is a first kiss without the uncertain seconds just before your lips meet? Those are the ones charged with energy, nervousness, and hope. Those are the seconds that make a first kiss what it is.
We gasp before the trapeze artist grabs her bar... ("Trapeze Artist" by Gusto)
There’s optimism in the cusp: You’re trusting that the moments will follow through and turn out well. And when they do, we collapse into it, even more grateful. What, after all, is the most prolific moment of a wedding? Not the part of exchanging rings, reciting vows, or even the first kiss as a married couple. No, the moment women seem to talk about most is walking down the aisle toward those big moments. The cusp is everything.
There’s the cusp of dessert, as your fork cuts into a piece of cake, your mouth opening in expectation. There’s the cusp of a bursting flower bud about to bloom, which can be as beautiful as the bloom itself. One chill-worthy moment in Julie & Julia (see: Julie & Julia: Your Optimism Gurus!) was when Julie (more…)
What Your Texts Say About Your Relationship
Gosh, I’ve suddenly become self conscious about what I text. And so might you—but maybe that’s a good thing. According to a study I just came across, the words you use in your texts and IMs to the person you like (or love) reveal gobloads about how solid your relationship is.
The study, which was done by Richard Slatcher of UCLA, and published in the journal Personal Relationships eight months ago, said that women who use the word “I” more often in their instant messages actually report being more satisfied with their partners.
Specifically, says LiveScience, the women who used the word “I” a lot were 30 percent more likely to stay in their relationships.
Also, the more that women used what the researchers called “positive negations” like the term “not happy,” the (more…)
Steal This Love Trick from Rachel Zoe!
Oh, how I love The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. (Duh.) But my love for the show about this ultimate fashion stylist is about so much more than watching her, Brad and Taylor dress stars for an awards show. The fact is, Rachel Zoe has a quality that would benefit each and every one of us in both life and love: The girl’s got passion!
She's dying. Die-ing. (from BravoTV.com)
I admit that when I first watched the show last season, I thought her passion for fashion went a bit too far—clothes being something that, when measured against the grand scheme of life and death and health, didn’t seem worthy of such gasping to me.
But I’ve since changed my tune about Rachel and her Project. Why? Because (more…)
How to Live in the Moment
It’s so easy to talk about “living in the moment,” but not quite as easy to do. The other day, however, I forced myself to try, and it was such a rewarding experiment, I want to pass it on to you.
Me, I left my top on. ("Vacation" by Gusto)
I was with my husband, my sister and two of my friends, in a fab house in the hills of L.A. As much as I love my own home, my backyard is covered in crabgrass, so lying on a lounge chair by a pool with a cold drink at my feet and nowhere special I needed to be makes for a good day.
Yet as happy as I was in the moment, I kept losing myself to thoughts that pulled me away from it: I wonder if that email came through? What should we get for dinner? Ooh, and I have to remember to add that to my To Do list. Sure, my body was there, but my thoughts weren’t. And when I snapped to, I wondered: How much of the good stuff do we lose like this because our minds are somewhere else, because they’ve moved on to future plans, to rushing around,to texting, to tweeting? This moment was too good, and I was determined to “live in the moment” the way we all say we should. So, I went sense by sense through what I was feeling from the base of my toes to the top of my head. I ask this of you, too: Put down the camera, turn off the phone and take a picture with your mind.
Trust me, I’m not one to put down my iPhone easily; I’m addicted to the Trivial Pursuit App and I love me a good Twitterific visit. But I promise you: You will feel better sitting with silence for a few minutes and taking your life in. Here’s how:
Ask, “What do I feel?” Work your way up or down your body so you get it all. That day, for instance, I felt my heels on the soft cushion. My back touching a pillow. My eyes and chest warmed by the sun. I also felt a perfectly soft breeze. And a bit of a scratch on my left thigh, which I attended to.
Ask, “What do I hear?” Close your eyes if it helps to focus. I heard birds that day. A dog barking. The pool filter. My friend laughing from inside the kitchen.
Ask, “What do I smell?” This one’s such an underrated sense, but is so closely tied to emotion and memory. Breathe deeply through your nose and see what you get. Me, I mostly smelled my suntan lotion. (You can make me wear sunscreen, but it still has to smell like coconuts frying on the beach!)
Ask, “What do I taste?” I tasted a mimosa. And some nacho chips stuck in my teeth. This could be improved upon.
Ask, “What do I see?” Take a shot with your mind of what’s ahead of you: the colors, the movement of things. I saw a blue pool, green hedges, my wet towel balled up on the ground that I wished I’d laid out to dry (dang it). Then look around you. What’s behind you that you hadn’t seen? Who’s beside you who you could be appreciating?
I did this exercise a few years ago with my sister’s friends in the South of France, at a dinner on the sand when no one had a camera to capture the moment. Instead, we took turns talking about what we saw, heard, felt. And even now, the moonlight on the water and the lapping of those waves is more ingrained in my mind than the cute dog I snapped on my iPhone yesterday.
Still, it IS a cute dog, right?
We need to give ourselves the gifts of capturing these moments. Yes, Facebook updates and Twitpics (and, ahem, blogging) is all fun, and so is planning all the great stuff you’re inspired to do as soon as you finish reading this! But what about being present in this moment of life? Not through a lens, not through a filter, not as a stepping stone to tomorrow. Look at what your life is giving you today—this hour—to be happy about and grateful for. How can we really know what we want tomorrow if we don’t know how we feel about today? Let’s give ourselves that gift more often than we do. The next time you find the present fleeting and life sort of passing you by, tune into your senses and take in the moment. You just may realize you love your life more than you knew you did.
Big love,
4 Life Lessons From: “Flipping Out”!
You should know this about me: I watch some TV. And by some I mean a lot. About half my favorites are on Bravo lately (I’ve said before, if they invent a Bravo chip that implants straight into the brain, I’m first in line.). Topping the list this week is Flipping Out, about obsessive perfectionist Jeff Lewis who flips multi-million dollar houses (or renovates and redesigns them) for a living with his hilarious team.
And as with most lowbrow entertainment, I can’t help but find high levels of wisdom buried within. I suppose you could call it justification for my viewing habits. (Actually…I call it that.) Well then, let’s justify some reality TV by showing the four lessons we can learn from this week’s episode of Flipping Out!
Jeff got giddy about his first "date" (from BravoTV.com)
Lesson #1: Sometimes it takes two dates to know if you click. When Jeff went to meet with a client considering him for a redesign project, he compared the experience to dating: “I don’t want to go on three dates and then you decide you don’t want to date me anymore,” said Jeff. “Like, I want you to know on the first date that I’m somebody you want to see for the long-term.”
In theory, heck yeah, I’m with you. Why get dragged through long pointless dates if one of you knows it’s just not right? But the truth is, sometimes we’re off our game on the first date. Sometimes we’re caught up in the awkwardness and nervousness. Sometimes you don’t get deep enough to get to the crucial heart of the person you’re with after twenty-odd minutes of small talk. Jeff was already sold on them (well, the clients were going to pay him after all), but the clients wanted a second date. So he reluctantly went. In his case it worked out. In real life, second chances can make all the difference, too!
Jenni got her happy on (from BravoTV.com)
Lesson #2: It’s okay to get really excited—and really sad—about being single. Jenni, Jeff’s newly divorced assistant (and co-star, really), is on a new quest this season: for love. And this week, she had some big highs and big lows. First, there were moments of laugh-y excitement about a potential set-up. Later in the show, she was let down when it didn’t go through, and had a soggy-eyed moment as she helped taste-test someone else’s wedding cake. (Ugh, right?) But Jenni’s doing it right on both counts, because looking for love is like a magnified version of life: Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, but the important thing is that you feel passionately on both sides of the spectrum. It takes heart to find love, so let yourself feel it all!
Lesson #3: If you plan for failure, you’ll get it. A new character this season is Rachel, a years-old friend of Jeff’s now working as his second assistant. But things aren’t looking like she’ll be able to handle much more of the job, and she blames Jeff’s keen eye for flaws—i.e. she feels that Jeff keeps his eyes peeled for what is going wrong, which brings the wrong out. “I feel like you’re almost set up to fail with that sort of thing,” said Rachel.“Something’s bound to go wrong, especially if someone’s gunning for something to go wrong. When you ask for mistakes or when you assume there will be, there usually will be.”
She’s really onto something, so listen up! It’s kind of like when you’re driving and you point to something on the side of the road…and then realize you’re accidentally steering right toward it? In life, we can’t help but follow our focus. If all you see at the finish line is failure, you’ll run right through the rope. Ta-daaaa, you lose! So if you want to win, you have to see success at the end of the road.
Lesson #4: Brown-er salsa is better than the regular red kind. It really is, you know. Jeff threw a minor fit that Rachel only brought home four brown salsas from Baja Fresh instead of ten, and I know why. The brown salsa is the best kind! Not just at Baja Fresh, but anywhere. I think they add some smoked peppers in those, or more pepper maybe. But Jeff’s right. Always get extra brown salsa. If nothing else, that’ll make you smile.
Big love,
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