Make a good wish

Can you expand your capacity for joy?

“My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?” Dostoevsky, White Nights.

On Saturday night, Rebecca and I sit by the pool and watch the pink sun sink beneath the hills in the distance. “Right now,” she says, “What I’m learning is that I need to focus on expanding my capacity for bliss.”

Here's what I know about bliss: I spent most of my life afraid of it. Afraid it wouldn't last. Afraid I didn't deserve it. Afraid that the second I let myself really feel good, some cosmic accountant would show up with a bill I couldn't pay.

A version of my current truth: August has given me joy after reckless joy, and part of me is afraid of losing it. What comes next? Where to? When the other shoe drops, what then?

On Monday, the stern teacher of the Zodiac slides back into Pisces for the final act of my Saturn Return — the last six months of a three-year journey that dismantled and rebuilt every corner of my life until I barely recognized myself in the mirror. But also: until I finally, finally, liked what I saw, which must count for something in this whole song and dance.

When I’m thinking clearly, I realize what a privilege it is to welcome a new chapter without the breathless need for it, the hungry reach of please please please let this be the time that I get my shit together.

This time, the lessons arrive through breath, touch, sunlight, hunger, song.

This time, my body is the textbook.

Now I know what surrender tastes like, and I’m hungry for more.

*

A few weeks ago, a friend gave me a jar of the best peanut butter I’ve ever tasted in my life: turmeric and chili, earthy and sharp with a ridiculously addictive kick. The kind of thing that makes you understand why people write poems about food, why the body has its own vocabulary for pleasure.

I’ve been slowly making my way through it, dipping my pinky in every night and scooping out the sides with the precise childlike joy of someone who knows she is, at present, expanding her capacity for bliss in all the ways she should have been all along.

We drive from Tuscany into Lazio with all the windows down, singing ourselves hoarse, and I feel my capacity for bliss expand with every single note. Heart full to bursting, voice cracked open like prayer.

I sit in the sun for a couple of hours and soak up each ray of sunlight like a hungry sponge.

I lead a group breathwork that makes me cry with joy, and on the drive home I tell myself: you are alive, you are allowed to feel this good, you can actually hold it.

I fall asleep on the green couch with my feet locked around a friend’s ankles, blissfully comforted by the way our bodies have learned to trust each other enough to ground into shared silence.

Go softly, sweet girl, and then softer still.

The divine lives in flesh: not despite it, but because of it, and bliss tastes like giving the divine our full attention.

Like the exact opposite of rushing through your life hoping the good parts will somehow catch up, it’s the art of being fully present to pleasure in whatever form it may present itself.

It’s learning that expansion isn't about getting bigger but about getting deeper — into yourself, into the present moment, into the radical possibility that you deserve to feel good simply because you exist.

Ah, yes. Isn’t that better?

*

Jessica Dore writes: "A heart’s desire sprouts from a sense of self that’s sturdy enough to have preferences independent of external factors. When we know who we are, we can appropriately weigh our internal wants and needs against the wants and needs of the whole. Sometimes, learning to make a good wish is the work.”

A sense of self sturdy enough to have preferences.

How many years did I spend not knowing what I actually wanted? Not what I thought I should want, or what would make me look good, or what would keep me safe — but what made me feel like myself, only more so?

Learning to make good wishes might be the work of a lifetime, but I think Monday, September 1st, sounds like a great time to start. What a fucking reset.

I have lived in Tuscany for exactly one month, and expanded my capacity for bliss in every conceivable way. Tonight I scraped the last of the addictive peanut butter from its jar, getting my finger into every corner and smiling into my palm like a kid.

Here's what I'm wishing for as Saturn prepares for its final bow: More capacity for bliss. More trust in my own ability to hold joy without waiting for the other shoe to drop. More heart space for what’s to come, in full opening of whatever way it should decide to make its way to me.

More pink sunsets. More friends who speak the language of expansion.

More empty jars that once held something sweet, and will again.

More deep breaths shared with people who might be made of actual magic — and who, in turn, make me remember that I am, too. The right kind of wish. The only one that really counts.

More evidence that we can change, that we do change, and that the person we're becoming is ready for us when we are.

*

Tomorrow is Monday, September 1st, and I’ll wake up in this body, in this life I've fought for and surrendered to in equal measure.

I’ll open myself, again and again, to the kind of bliss that isn't the exception but the whole point.

I’ll make good on my promises.

I’ll make a good wish.