THE LITTLE FORTUNE COOKIE BOOK

Saturday morning, I climbed on to my usual chair at the counter in Heirloom and opened the Fortune Cookie journal to the very last page. Then I proceeded to write my very last tiny story based off of a fortune. By the time I had filled the page, I had emptied my plate and I sat there looking from the empty plate to full page and back. Empty plate. Full page. Full book. I put the date at the top of the page so I would have a record of when I finished. I did not think to put a starting date at the beginning. I had to go searching through my old photos to find the start date. September 29th, 2015. For nine years, I have been taking a Saturday here and there and writing a story based on a prompt from a fortune cookie.

Nine years.

I closed the little journal and walked out to my car and immediately started sobbing. Heck, I just started crying while typing this. When Michael asked me how I felt about it, I told him that I couldn’t talk about it. Now, I’m not even sure I can write about it. First of all….NINE FUCKING YEARS! I can’t believe that I have been doing this for that long. Sure the practice was inconsistent. I only wrote in the journal on the Saturday mornings I was alone and taking care of the grocery shopping. There were long stretches of summer months when this didn’t happen or weekends when I was out of town. There were limits to my writing ritual. I almost treated the ritual like I do a really good chocolate bar, eating one square at time savoring the rich chocolate for days. It’s almost as if I anticipated the ending before even beginning.

I completed a journal of incomplete stories.

Well…of course I did. That’s my modus operandi. My Google Docs folder is filled with stories yet to be finished. I am nothing but stories yet to be finished and to finish anything at all feels momentous. I thought I was on the verge of turning into Chris with a stock pile of journals each containing a sentence or list here or there, never filling one up. When Michael placed that little journal into my Christmas stocking all those years ago, he had no idea it would grow into a thing or a thing I might even finish. He started looking for a replacement journal and then started to panic because he knew I was reaching the end of this journal and he had yet to find a worthy replacement. I had four pages left in the Fortune Cookie journal and in haste, he bought a blank notebook and then carefully wrote down various well known quotes on every other page. This notebook is bigger with wide spacing, room for a story to grow. It is probably the most thoughtful gift he has ever given me.

On Saturday morning, I will climb up into the chair in what I now consider to be my spot at the counter at Heirloom. I will open a brand new journal and I will weave together a new story.

ROUTINES

C is for cookie, coffee and Cindy.

6 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "C is for cookie, coffee and Cindy."

I didn't write in my Fortune Cookie journal all summer except maybe once. With Michael home and he and the Cabbage doing daily chores, I didn't have a reason to get up early on Saturdays. They got the grocery shopping done on Fridays. If I got up early on Saturday mornings it was to go to a yoga class. Which, I am not going to lie, was real nice. I'd get up early enough to shove a breakfast bar in my gut and then scooter out to one of my favorite studios. Sometimes I'd have coffee or juice with a yoga friend after class. Sometimes Michael would meet me for brunch someplace and then we'd spend the rest of the day scooting around town. Now that Michael is back in school, we are back to our normal routine where I get up early Saturday morning and do the grocery shopping while everyone still sleeps. 

Trust me when I say that I do not mind spending my Saturday mornings this way. I prefer to do the grocery shopping early and alone. No crowds and I spend less money because I only buy what's on the list. I go to Heirloom and order a breakfast sandwich and a cup of coffee. Then I sit at the counter and take my time sipping coffee and writing in my journal while nibbling on my sandwich. I do a bit of people watching. I do a bit of watching some of the employees roll out dough or measure sugar. I dance a little in my seat to whatever music happens to be playing. Mostly, I write. This is good because I need to be writing somewhere since I don't feel like writing here too much lately. The thing about the Fortune Cookie diary is that it's fiction and a story that I don't have to finish. Even if it turns out to be a total shit story, it is still serving a purpose. The Fortune Cookie diary forces me to use my imagination. It exercises my brain. Photography forces me to see things differently while writing forces me to think things differently. 

I worried when I sat down to write in the journal after spending the summer away that I would struggle. I thought I would just stare blankly at the page and listen the gears in my head clink and screech while trying to turn on rusty pinions. I felt for sure that this was an exercise I would not easily be able to pick back up. So I was surprised to fill up that page and wrap the text around the edges. I was surprised at how easily the story came to me and how I wrote so quickly at times that the words are illegible. It felt good. It felt right. And I know I'm not writing anything spectacular or profound. I am just writing a scene, a moment and I'm trying to really put an effort in describing that scene. Those gears start moving and I almost believe that I truly am a creative kind of person. I think for a moment that I could be an artist.

I think to myself that you can take the girl out of the liberal arts college but you can't take the liberal arts out of the girl. 

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Gerber

3 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Gerber"

Last weekend, I did three things that I haven't done in long time. The first thing was to take the nail polish off my toenails and leave my toenails bare. I know I've posted here before about how neglectful I can be to my toes. I still have a scar on my wrist from that time in yoga class when I sliced my wrist open with my big toe while hopping forward to forward fold (my mat has seen it all; blood, sweat and tears). Last Friday night, because I know how to p-har-tay, I gave myself a pedicure and when I had finished the trimming and filing, I opted to not repaint my toenails. It seems a little odd to see my toes without a bright shade of blue or purple attached to them, yet totally normal and natural. I like it. 

The second thing I did that I haven't done in many weeks was to write in my Fortune Cookie Journal. It seems that I only write in that journal on Saturday mornings when I go to Heirloom and sit alone at the counter. We've had other obligations recently that has kept me from that morning routine. Saturday morning, I sat down in my usual spot and opened my journal to the first free Fortune Cookie prompt. I tapped my pen on the counter, took a sip of coffee and then looked off at nothing in particular while thinking about how to even start the first sentence. My biscuit sandwich arrived just as I was really getting going and very soon the words wrapped around and around the page, filling all of the white spaces of the page. I can't tell you how often I am surprised that I run out of space or I have that much to write for one sentence. I can't tell you how often I get frustrated when I run out of space and sit there stammering to myself "but, but, but..." I can't tell you how good this makes me feel.

The third thing I did that I haven't done in really long time was to buy a bouquet of fresh flowers. This is something I haven't done in ages. I stopped buying flowers after the first time we thought we might buy a house as way to sort of cut back on spending. It was $4 a week that was unnecessary, and is still $4 a week that I should not be spending. Michael has a new pay schedule and budgeting around that is eating my lunch. I thought I had cracked the code of the new budget with his last paycheck. Turns out, I would make a terrible decoder. Last Saturday morning I walked into Trader Joes and the first thing I saw was the flower display. I had started turning towards the sunflowers when the Gerber's caught my eye. I reached for the bouquet and said to myself "you deserve this." Then I decided that flowers were a necessity because of joy. This made me happy.  

Today, I am thankful for bare toenails, Fortune Cookie tales, and $4 flower bouquets. I am thankful for doing some things that I haven't done in a while. I am thankful for the simple things that have brought me joy this week, like the arrival of our giant Wast Management bag. I'm going to throw so much crap away this weekend. It makes me giddy. 

I am thankful for you.

LOVE THURSDAY

After a week of sick and no creativity, there was something exceptionally satisfying about today's Fortune Cookie journal entry.

"After a week of sick and no creativity, there was something exceptionally satisfying about today's Fortune Cookie journal entry."

That Saturday after my week of being sick, I was finally getting back into my groove. I got up and did my usual morning routine. Heirloom, breakfast biscuit, coffee, and my Fortune Cookie journal. I had just had a week of nothing, where I hadn't written a single word of creativity. Everything written and posted that week was complaining about being sick or a laundry list of pointless. I admit. I'm good at those kind of posts. They're easy, but no one wants to read that crap. The creative posts, the ones where I have to look things up and spend actual time contemplating the words I'm going to type out, those are the hard ones. Those are the ones where I have to work, but I've noticed that even if only five people read it after I've done the work to write it, those kind of posts make me feel pretty dang good. It's like that after workout feeling some people talk about getting after a good spin class. My fortune prompt for this day was "The most beautiful views have the hardest climbs."

She felt it all the way up her right side. She'd fallen hard, slipping on a rock. The moss on the rock making it slick and treacherous. She hugged her knee into her chest, rocking while trying to breathe away the pain. The voices in her head started their chattering. "What on earth made you think you could do this?" "You are physically incapable of climbing a dumb mountain." "You're not even wearing the right shoes." "I think the number is 10. 10 years ago you might could do this. 10 lbs lighter you might could do this." "You are weak." She heard those voices loud and clear. She could give up. Easy. Limp her way back down the trail. She turned her head to look up and saw the sun sparkling through the trees. And she knew. She couldn't give up. She stood, gingerly testing out her leg. Then she continued to pull herself up the mountain. 

I finished writing that journal entry and my whole body felt lighter. I have a theory. All of us have the ability to be creative in some way or another. Some of us have to work harder than others at creativity. For some people, it's just easy, but even if it's a struggle to write or paint or whatever, we have to make the effort to do so. If we don't, that pent up creativity forms knots of tension inside our bodies. You don't even realize they're weighing you down until you've done something creative to release them.

I've been thinking a lot about labels lately. We label things to make sense of them, to understand, to be able to have conversations about those things. Sometimes, though, those labels are too confining to describe the reality of what that thing is or who that person is. I've always been so resistant to being called a writer because it's hard for me to see myself as such. I am more than any one label. We are all more than any one label. I think this is why I've fallen in love with my Fortune Cookie journal. It makes me feel like maybe I am a writer. It reminds me I am more than any one label. 

I've written other stories since the one posted in today's entry. There's a story about arguments and ice cream and how Chris used to bribe me with ice cream to get me to go to a computer store. My latest one is about trading lemons for cookies. It involves a woman with an over abundance of lemons from her backyard lemon tree and a man with an over abundance of cookies from his backyard cookie tree. It's a silly short story that makes me smile at the idea of cookies growing on trees. It doesn't have to be good or polished. I just have to take a moment to let myself be inspired. Every time I do this, I am filled with joy. I went home that Saturday after finishing the hardest climb story and once again thanked Michael for giving me that journal. This time it was more than a simple "thank you". This time it was more of a heartfelt "no, really. THANK YOU!" I told him that he had no idea how much this journal makes me happy or how important it has become to my Saturday mornings. 

Because all of that is true. 

Happy Love Thursday. May your day be filled with love and joy on this Thanksgiving Day. 

SACRED MORNINGS

Morning coffee view. @heirloomkc

"Morning coffee view. @heirloomkc"

Last Saturday, I woke up around 7:30 AM, which believe it or not is actually considered "sleeping in" where I'm concerned. I got up, showered and dressed and headed out to run some errands before Michael woke up. This is not a new routine. I can get a lot accomplished in the mornings, but also I get some mental health time. I've made Heirloom Bakery my first stop lately, on these solitary Saturday mornings. Heirloom is a fairly new bakery that's opened in the Brookside area and everything about it reminds me of Portland. They bake everything from scratch and use local and seasonal ingredients whenever possible. Behind the counter there's a large work table where the young people who work there are always busy kneading dough or icing poptarts. 

Every time I walk in, I am tempted to buy one of everything from the display case. My personal favorite is the homemade poptart. On this particular day, I resist. Though all bets would have been off if the guy in front of me hadn't bought the last two Royals cookies. I went for the bread by the slice, toasted and slathered with peanut butter and local honey. I filled my coffee mug and took a seat at the counter. The counter spot is the best place because you can watch them making everything. You can see their faces, the look of joy and contentment as they work. Watching them move around the counter from one task to the next is like watching a well choreographed music video. I couldn't help but smile as Huey started crooning about the power of love being a curious thing and I watched the owner turn it up with a wicked grin. The bakery hummed. This is one of the reasons why this place reminds me of Portland. 

I chose my time at the counter to write in my Fortune Cookie journal while I waited for my breakfast. It didn't take me long to fill the tiny space given to my fortune on that page. I licked honey and peanut butter off my fingers while I tried to squeeze in just a few more words in tiny illegible handwriting. The story continued to write itself in my head even as I ran out of room to write in the journal.   

Nothing good comes from jealousy but there is good to be found in jelly beans

Carrie pressed her face up to the window and gazed at all the beautiful candies. There were sours and chocolates and every kind of gummy animal you could imagine. She stood up on her tip toes to peek up over a display of Cadbury chocolate bars to get a better look. This was when she heard the sound of skipping and chatter. She turned her head to see Maddie and father open the door to the candy shop causing the little bell above the door to rattle. Of course, thought Carrie. Maddie probably got all the candy she ever wanted. Maddie was always wearing the cutest dresses and they always looked brand new and clean. Maddie ate a perfectly packed lunch out of a tin box every day, never a paper bag, and her dad had a job. Carrie watched as Maddie pointed to a jar of gummy bears and wondered what it would be like to go into the shop and buy whatever candy she wanted.

If there had been room, Carrie would have wished for jelly beans. If there had been room, Maddie would have bought jelly beans for Carrie. But there was not and I'm OK with that, because there was room in my day just for this. 

LOVE THURSDAY

Fortune cookie journal

"Fortune cookie journal"

A few weeks ago, when Mom was in town for a visit, Michael hung out at the book store while Mom and I store hopped on the Plaza. When we all finally met up for lunch Michael had a bag full different things he's found interesting. This included a Wonder Woman journal and a Fortune Cookie journal that he bought with me in mind. I have yet to unwrap the Wonder Woman journal because journals tend to fall into the same category as new boxes of colored pencils. I like to keep them pristine as long as possible, at least until I am ready to use it. Sometimes the clean lines of a new notebook are more appealing to me than putting any markings on the pages and I will savor the emptiness of those pages for a bit. 

The Fortune Cookie journal reminded me of one of Chris's writing schemes. He had the idea once to open a fortune cookie once a week and then let the fortune inspire his writing. He'd write a short story based off of what ever the fortune said. As a result, we had bags of fortune cookies in the pantry. I'd like to say I have a notebook somewhere of Fortune Cookie short stories written by Chris, but I do not. This idea would end up like so many of Chris's ideas. Like the Diner Saurs food blog that would feature dinosaurs like a T-Rex with a top hat and monocle. He would go so far as to buy the cookies and dinosaurs, but lose the desire to continue before moving onto a new idea or topic. I tossed the fortune cookies ages ago, but I'm sure the dinosaurs are still in the basement somewhere. I can't help but wonder if Chris's Fortune Cookie stories would have gone farther if the fortunes were already in a book with empty space under each one. Then I remember the box of journals in the basement, each one with one or two pages of lists written down in them. He was the greatest list maker this world had ever seen. 

The journal Michael gave me is small. The space under the fortune is just big enough to get an idea of a story, which is what I wrote down under the first  fortune yesterday. Michael thinks I should just randomly open to a fortune page and write. He says that takes away the idea that it's something I need to finish. I'm not sure if my analytical science brain will let me do that.  But I like the idea of filling this journal up with ideas.

An exciting journey awaits you with your first step in a new direction.

She took a left. She always goes right. Every day, she steps out the door and turns right. She walks past the newspaper stand where Frank stacks the latest copies of Women's Day and Handyman next to the Daily and the New York Times. Then she walks by the fruit stand, saying a quick hello to Mrs. Ruby who is always busy arranging the fruit so that the customers never saw the brown spots. Her next stop is the coffee shack where Max is always just setting her Americano down at the window right as she walks up. She places her dollar fifty on the counter with one hand while grasping the warm cup in the other hand as she nods her grateful hello to Max. Max returns her nod with a wink and watches as she turns on her heel to walk around the corner, past the statue of General Beauregard. She salutes the General as she hops up the stairs to her job at the library. This had been her path and her routine everyday, except on Sundays, for the past ten years. But today. Today she turned left.

Here's to an exciting new adventures and a happy Love Thursday.