Or understanding chart graph thing-a-ma-bobs.

Playing Blackjack TERRIFIES me. Too much on the spot addition.

I don’t gamble in general because comprehending odds is …. incomprehensible.

And statistics, make me mad.

I understand that sometimes statistics urge people into action, usually by making them mad  - “I will not end up a statistic!”.

But I think, in general, statistics are for the very young and hardy.

Here’s why.

Statistically speaking I am a total loser.

I don’t have a career. I am a 42 year old women with only a high school diploma and some college (mostly theater classes so they don’t really count).

In my savings account there is $29.69. The typical American household (headed by a 43 year old) has just over $18,000 in savings.

No health insurance.

Not a homeowner.

No children (don’t get me started on the statistics about having a baby over 40).

On paper, my future looks pretty damn dim at best.

And if you listen to the numbers about the economy, and the deficit, and the big scary scariness of it all – my soul crumbles a little bit.

So I am choosing not to believe the stats, about anything.

I have to believe in something else.

I am choosing to believe in birds.

And trees.

And miracles.

I am choosing to believe that nobody has statistics on how many 42 year old women climb trees and get to watch a flock of little yellow birds catching bugs just feet from their heads.

A Townsend's Warbler

And no one has measured the magic that experience creates.

The incredible invigorating liberating energy that surges up in my being.

No one has calculated the effect of astonishing beauty on my cells. Or my soul.

I will not graph my life.

I will believe, instead, in the perfect unfolding of my statistically “nightmarish” life.

I will believe in energy, and desires, and infinite possibilities.

I will believe in my ability to create, in spite of the odds.

I will believe in the deliciousness of my life because, when I woke up this morning, I had no idea what the birds had in store for me and neither did anyone else.

Here are some other posts that you might like instead:

How Big is Your Venus?

Our Crabby Hearts

If you are going to stick around, thanks. Here are the first two posts in this series:

The Truth about my Mama: part 1 “Whore”

The Truth about my Mama: part 2 “Prison”

This is not an easy writing assignment but a necessary one. And so it continues…

Wednesday Oct. 28, 2009

Here are some other posts that you might like instead:

A Pelican and Your Purpose

We’ve all got a Fetish. Yes, even you!

If you are going to stick around, thanks. Here is the first post in this series:

The Truth about my Mama: part 1 “Whore”

This is not an easy writing assignment but a necessary one. And so it continues…

Wednesday Oct. 28, 2009

The ICU is frigid. I sit holding my mother’s icy, bloated hand. I am waiting for her brother to arrive with his wife and two kids. My uncle has just been allowed back into the fold in the last month, due to mom’s health problems, before that he spent years on my Grandma’s shit list. I think his big mistake was marrying a woman Grandma couldn’t stand, it is a familiar tale, but also – he is a man.

Men are not held in high regard in our family.

Terrell TX, May 2008

“They came in with a sack of potatoes.”

My mother tells me this as we drive to the home she has lived in for several years but one that I have never seen. I don’t visit often.

We have just come from seeing my brother, in prison. It was a “no contact” visit which meant talking to him on a phone as he sits behind glass for two hours. He has lost his privilege for a “contact” visit because he keeps getting into it with the guards.

“If they want me to respect them, they better respect me.”

I don’t think he fully understands the concept of prison but then, maybe he does.

Originally I had been approved for a four hour visit, due to the distance I traveled to see him, but when I arrived at the prison they had changed their mind. They can do that. No respect.

It is frigid in the prison visiting room.

My brother tears into the sacks of M&M’s, Doritos, and Skittles I have purchased with the quarters family members are allowed to bring. Twenty-five dollars in quarters, carried in a Ziploc bag. My mother has instructed me that the first thing I do upon entering the visitors area is raid the vending machines buying as many sodas, candy bars, chips and, if I am very lucky, sandwiches as my money will purchase.

Prisoners don’t have access to this kind of fine cuisine except when they get a visitor.

He has the length of the visit to eat and drink as much as he can. It is like watching a strange Japanese game show but he doesn’t win anything in the end.

Mama has given up her chance to see him today so that I can bring our paternal Grandma with me instead. Neither myself nor my Grandma has seen him in years.

For me, it has been over ten years.

Seattle WA, August 1997

It was time to take the leap. I was moving to Los Angeles to pursue my acting dream.

My mother and brother flew in from Texas to help me drive down the coast. I was both grateful for their help and anxious about the trip. Historically, my brother could be an obnoxious prick but I also wanted the chance to better our relationship.

He drove the rental truck while we drove the Subaru Turbo hatchback she had purchased for me from a friend. It was a terrifically emotional time as I was leaving a boyfriend behind and starting a new life with no job, money or place to live.

We began our trip on the day Princess Diana died. My mother saved a newspaper with the headline, she placed it carefully in the back so it wouldn’t get creased. I found that newspaper twelve years later while cleaning out her house.

Mama was excited about the trip because it was the first time the three of us would be together as adults, it was also the last time although none of us knew that then. It turned out my brother was still a prick – disappearing at convenience stores just as we were about to get back on the road, making us look for him for half an hour or more. He was obstinate and overbearing but also kind and loving.

Just like mom.

For all the days we travelled together the moment I remember was on the Golden Gate Bridge. Mama loved to sightsee and turned this utilitarian trip into a family vacation so, as much as I just wanted to get to L.A., this grand opportunity would not be missed.

My brother and I had walked to one of the bridge towers and were discussing dropping coins over the edge. I was adamantly against this, trying to explain that a mere penny tossed from this height could kill someone down below. You know, someone sailing around or something.

A stranger approached, “Did you see the guy?”

“No, what guy?”

“There was a guy here and he just jumped.”

We looked over the railing, floating face down in the water below was the guy. Dead.

Standing in the place where a person has just chosen to end their life is surreal. Knowing that just a few seconds separated our lives from intersecting with his. Wondering if perhaps things could have turned out differently.

Terrell Tx, May 2008

“The house is a mess.”

Mama is trying to prepare me for something but I don’t really understand the warning. Her house is always a mess.

“We have a roach infestation. They came in with a sack of potatoes.”

I grew up in Texas and lived in Florida for a time so… I understand roaches – I think.

“The German roaches are particularly aggressive,” she says, “They will come right up on the edge of a hot sizzling pan while you are cooking.”

German roaches? There are German roaches? There are more than just the big ass slow roaches and the smaller fast ones?

I had no idea what I was walking into.

Here are some other posts that you might like instead:

What the Scientists don’t know

Build it like a bird – The Artist’s Purpose

If you are going to stick around, thanks. This is not an easy writing assignment but a necessary one. And so it begins…

Wednesday Oct. 28th, 2009

I will start at the end. The end is cold, sterile, brightly lit. There is a chair for me, it is not comfortable but it is clean. I can sit without picking up my feet every few minutes to shake bugs off my shoes. There is a nurse, Lisa, she is exquisitely kind.

Holding my mother’s hand feels like holding a stone in December. Yet, she is alive. Lisa tells me she is so cold because of the fluids they are pumping into her.

I wonder if Lisa in the nurse who called?

Tuesday Oct. 27th, 2009

The phone rings sometime before 5:00 am just as the morning light grows blue. An unfamiliar number from Texas, shit.

“Your mother is going back into surgery, the bleeding has started and I need you to authorize giving her blood.”

Right, I remember… I am her medical power of attorney, her regular power of attorney – I hold all her power.

“Yes, give her blood. Is she conscious?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her I love her.”

The phone was close that morning because I had talked to my mother the day before on my way home from work.

Monday Oct. 26th, 2009

“They are discharging me tomorrow.”

Again the doctors can’t find the source of the bleeding but think it has stopped. I am not happy about this.

Somehow I know her tissue paper insides will not hold. She has just had three major surgeries in two weeks. One of them to close a quarter size ulcer hiding underneath her stomach. I think it is not so much that they can’t find the source of bleeding but that they can’t find the source of income.

My mother has no health insurance.

“I love you,” she says.

“I love you too mama.”

These are the last words I will ever hear her say. I am so grateful for them… I just don’t know it yet.

Sunday Oct. 25th, 2009

“I’m going to the big hospital in Dallas this time.”

She has begun to bleed internally – again. For a woman who routinely ignores her body she can tell when she is bleeding to death. It comes out in her shit.

“Should I fly in?”

“No, not yet. I’ll tell you when.”

I am relieved to hear her say “not yet” and later ashamed of that relief. The relief is not because I have confidence that she will recover, I really don’t know how she could. The relief is in having a few more days at home, in a bed without roaches.

Although I am shaking when I hang up the phone with her I am in the middle of an anniversary party for some dear friends and don’t immediately tell anyone about the call. My body knows before I do what is coming. I just don’t listen.

I should have left the party and gotten on a plane but there was a performance to give in honor of the anniversary couple and I don’t ever miss a chance to perform. My friends and I had rehearsed this piece for two whole hours.

Our sketch was a success, everyone loved it. I basked in the glow of applause and appreciation, but the truth is – I am a whore.

Seattle WA, 1984

When I was a teenager my mother went through a phase of calling me “whore”. At the time I couldn’t figure out why as I had never even kissed a boy.

I was fifteen years old and desperately wanted to do all the sexy things that my romance novel reading mind could conjure, but when faced with an actual opportunity to kiss my boyfriend, with tongue, I stalled – for months.

Fortunately, he had Mono – which is so helpful when avoiding the first kiss you want so badly.

Finally, he was well and I could delay no longer. As my best friend Kimberly waited in the car I walked him to his front door and we kissed, with tongue.

It was fine.

After that night things did get more steamy between us but I was firm in the line I had drawn for myself. I was not ready to have sex. And I didn’t. Not even close.

My mother still called me whore.

Austin TX, 1961

Grandmother always hated the boys my mom dated. Every single one of them, until my mother gave up on men entirely in her forties.

In high school my mama was gorgeous. Young Belinda Carlisle gorgeous. But she wasn’t popular.

A vicious rumor had been spread about her by a spurned football player yet she still managed to get a boyfriend, Byron.

Byron was a troubled youth, a great starter rescue project for my mother, and he loved her intensely. A letter he wrote describing her as his “angle” instead of his “angel” was mercilessly ridiculed by my grandmother the rest of her life, that is not an exaggeration, we still laughed about that “stupid kid” when Grandma was 92.

There was no way in hell Grandma was going to allow their relationship to continue.

She enrolled Grandpa in her campaign and together they forbid, harangued, and bargained, even promising my mother a car… If she would break up with Byron.

My mama said no.

They called her a whore.

Eventually, they gathered everything Byron had ever given my mother and took it to his parents one afternoon saying, “Keep your son away from our daughter.”

That ended the relationship but was not the worst thing my grandparents would ever do to my mother over her choice in men.

She had yet to meet my father.

Wednesday Oct. 28th, 2009

The ICU unit is loud and public. Thin blue curtains separate my mom from three other patients, one of whom moans constantly. Not the place to speak quiet goodbyes and apologies.

My mama was right.

I am a whore.

What else could I be with my pedigree.

But I am not the kind of whore she was scared of me being.

I didn’t spread my legs heedlessly exposing my precious parts.

I am the kind of whore who sells the chance to be with her dying mother for a three minute comedy piece in the back of a Los Angeles restaurant.

Regrets… I have a few.

As always I welcome your comments. However,  for this series of posts I would like to hear your own stories of regret or loss, if you feel up to it. I believe regret, loss, and pain move when we dare to share them. Thank you for reading and sharing. Here is Part 2 of the story.

Have you noticed?

Not writing.

Not being social on social media type things.

Not feeling like I have much to say and when I do have an idea just not sitting my butt down to clack it out.

Some dear friends have noticed my absence and nudged me -

“I would like to encourage you to please write some more please.”

“I miss getting your missives.”

“you bring light to the world, and it’s dark out there, so… no pressure…”

Honestly, it feels good to be noticed.

Really good.

And nudged in such gentle ways.

It also makes me think of people in my life who have slipped into silence.

How might they feel to be noticed?

There are average and massive tragedies happening all the time.

People recover, and don’t recover.

The question is, will you notice what is gone?

Is their joy missing?

Is their drive stagnant?

Is their light dim?

Is there one little phrase you can utter to make them know they are missed, and needed, and loved?

The answer is yes.

I encourage you to notice today what is missing from someone in your life.

The first person who pops up will be the one who needs to hear from you, even if on the surface it seems like all is well.

Send them an “I noticed…” note or ask if all is truly well.

Noticing feels really good for the noticer and the noticed.

So, I am ready to write again.

And I am going to tell you some things I haven’t before.

I am going to tell you the truth about my mama, who is dead now for two years.

I am going to tell you the truth about my brother – what, you have a brother? Exactly.

Some of these stories will be raw, grotesque and ugly but it is time to tell them.

And I will continue to write about knowing yourself, stretching your soul, and claiming delight.

I promise.

I have just noticed that it is time to share more about my life and am trusting it is the right thing to do.

Please spread the word about noticing by liking or tweeting or shouting this post from the rooftops. Thanks my friend.

It’s been a while.

A summer has happened.

Mine has been filled with equal parts joy and heartbreak.

I won’t share the details right now because joy is joy and heartbreak is heartbreak – regardless of the why.

Although sharing “the why” does let people who have experienced that same “why” join your team and comfort you, right now I just don’t want to.

Right now I am thinking about dreams.

The architecture of dreams.

The dreams that we lay out for ourselves and step into each morning – after the dreams of our night selves have faded.

I am coming to realize that there are dreams with hard edges that can be written in block letters and stacked up into a pyramid to climb.

1. I will go to school and earn degree in smartness.
2. I will practice smartness as an unpaid and lowly intern.
3. I will land paying job for my smartness. (this is a pre-recession plan)
4. I will bask in the glory that my smartness has created.
5. The End.

And then there are dreams with soft edges that require more prayer than plan.

These are the dreams that you take to the reflecting pool and lay on the surface of the water.

You breathe as your dream dissolves into colorful swirls and is no longer recognizable.

You relax as your dream evaporates into the sky above.

You surrender as your dream rains warmly back down soaking through to your core.

You rejoice that your dream came to you in this exquisitely unplanned way.

That is what I am holding on to right now.

Faith.

Faith that my life and dreams are unfolding perfectly even when there is no hard evidence.

Living in the soft unknown takes courage.

I wish for you all the courage you need to gently receive your dreams.

And all the strength of Atlas when you fear that they may not arrive.

I assure you they are coming.

Sometimes it just takes a while for the rain to fall.

If you are sitting in a similar place I invite you to leave a comment or spread the love by tweeting, liking, and otherwise sharing this post. Many thanks sweet one.

“I understand that, but you have had a lot of time to watch your silly shows lately and I am bored.”

“I’m bored too,” resistant me responds,”But that doesn’t mean I want to stop watching T.V.”

And so the Mature-ish me argues with the teenager-ish me and my expression/growth/potential stalls.

I become frustrated but seemingly unable to move into action at the same time.

I am engaged in the universal Battle Royal between Unfoldment and EGO!

Unfoldment being when that sweet unfettered soul inside us that has sonnets to write, mathematical equations to solve, businesses to build, and general wonderment to create actually does these things.

And in this corner wearing the black trunks with a scull and cross bone insignia we have EGO! (the crowd goes wild)

EGO is a master at distraction, un-encouragement, and generally crapping on inspirational action.

This is a mismatch of gigantic porpotions!

EGO has two hundred pounds on Unfoldment and a reach like an octopus. There is blood lust in its eyes and a magnificent record of knock outs to bolster its confidence.

EGO keeps me doing things “just good enough” but never full out excellent.

But wait, you may be thinking, aren’t there really successful people with huge EGOs?

Wouldn’t your EGO want you to think you are so great, better than everyone else, and therefore drive you to accomplish more and more?

Yes, if that is how your particular EGO is organized!

But there are many versions of EGO, this is just my version, and it is important to know what yours is up to.

EGO may be keeping you from really loving someone or you could be wildly successful but have no idea the heights yet to reach because EGO is limiting you in some way.

EGO is a sneaky bastard!

So how are we ever to win this battle of sweet soul vs Massive EGO?

Go on a detour with me for a moment into a forest.

Before you stands a magnificent Oak tree.

Hundreds of years ago when the seed that became this Oak tree fell into the rich soil and started to grow it contained no resistance to what it was.

It unfolded from seed to sprout to sapling to tree, naturally.

That does not mean it didn’t meet obstacles like drought, insect infestations or having to fight for its light.

What it did not fight, though, was itself.

It did not wish to be a Pecan tree or hope that it wouldn’t bother anyone else with its roots.

It did not fret that it was fat, not pretty enough, or too stupid to live.

It did not strive to be the biggest, best Oak tree in the world and crush all other competing Oak trees.

It just grew.

Quietly, consistently, gracefully.

And as it grew it nurtured other life.

Birds, squirrels, bugs, flowers, people that love to climb trees.

Its unfoldment encouraged other unfoldments.

At our core we are the same as that Oak tree.

In the “seed” that became us is everything we need to grow into our highest selves.

All the talent, skills, dreams and spirit is in our DNA.

Our job is not to resist what is.

We can unfold with grace and in doing so encourage the unfolding of others.

Our job is to meet each moment of our life with awake-ness.

If you are breathing deeply and can feel your toes on the floor you are unfolding.

We will never deliver a knock out punch to our EGO because that is not what unfoldment does.

Our sweet soul can dodge, duck, and dance away from the crushing blows and when we get stuck in an embrace with EGO, while it pounds our kidneys, we can whisper to it that there is another way.

We can calm, soothe, and breathe it into a more submissive state.

And in those moments of peace all we need to do is allow our unfoldment.

Allow yourself to write from the soul, dance your guts out, gaze into a child’s eyes or whatever your spirit is here to do.

They can be the worst of times or they can be the best of times.

Or they can be both.

You can learn new stories about your ancestors from long ago (we might be related to Pocahontas) or you can drink beer and get drunk.

Both equally valid reunion pastimes.

I learned, however, that growing up in Texas where my family reunion was just held doesn’t mean that I still know the lay of that land.

And while the majority of the reunion was awesome there was one special day that I got to drive into the countryside to visit a relative that couldn’t make it.

For this trip I was equipped with a well maintained Tahoe, a full tank of gas, and COPIOUSLY detailed directions from my Uncle Preston.

A note about my Uncle Preston:

When my mother died my man flew to Texas to help me clean out her house and we stayed with Preston.

One day my man casually asked if Preston had any tools he could borrow whereupon he was escorted to the perfectly organized garage and presented row upon row of exquisitely maintained tools, nails and screws. Anything we could want or need was easily found and in perfect condition, and not because it had never been used before.

My man still speaks of this day with reverence and awe.

That is the kind of guy my uncle is.

On the morning I left for my day trip he woke at 5:00 am to clarify one little piece of the map he had already gone over with me the night before.

There was no way I was getting lost… which would have been a true statement had I not been the one driving.

A note about me:

I suck at reading maps.

Whichever direction I am facing I assume is North.

This creates catastrophic consequences for my arrival times, always.

A note about Texas highways:

There are stupid.

Stupidly named. Stupidly arranged. Just stupid.

My favorite is the Dallas North Tollway that I needed to go South on.

That didn’t happen.

Within 3 minutes of starting my journey, a half hour early even (yay for me!) I had missed the first exit.

It took me 20 minutes to realize this.

Stop, ask for directions, and continue.

An hour passes going the correct direction and then I miss the second important exit.

It took me 20 minutes to realize this.

Stop, ask for directions, and continue.

Another 40 minutes passes going the correct direction and then I go the wrong way off the right exit.

It took me 1 hour to realize this.

A trip that should have taken me 2 1/2 hours has now taken 4.

I am starting to crumble.

I cannot call my uncle for help because this is not the Generals fault!

His plan was perfect – it is the execution in the field that has failed.

I, the Captain, am solely to blame… and the stupid Texas highways, so so stupid.

So I call my man and the conversation goes something like this:

“Lost. Very very lost.”

“What do you see?”

“Cows.”

“Need a bit more information than that.”

“Goats and horses.”

When I finally saw a street sign he somehow miraculously found my location on Google maps and then informed me I was two hours away from my destination.

“Cursing. Growling. Cursing.”

Then my man decides he can get me there in half the time by guiding me on the Farm to Market roads of central Texas.

This means following those little tiny two way roads through little tiny towns that are not well marked, at all.

I miss the first turn but realize it in 1 minute.

My man stays on the phone with me telling me where the road is going to turn and what to be looking out for:

“You are looking for route 36, or it could be the 53 at that point, or it might also be called Adams Ave.”

Miraculously I make this turn but miss the next.

Stop, ask for directions, and continue.

I did finally make it to my destination, in one hour not two thanks to my amazingly well direction-ed man.

And I realized somewhere outside the minuscule town of Rosebud the difference between “hopelessly lost” and what I was which was “hopefully lost”.

When you are hopelessly lost you give up, sit down and cry while the fire ants nibble at your ankles.

When you are hopefully lost you are constantly looking for the next turn that will get you back on track or the next person to point a finger toward home.

I think this translates to life in general also.

Instead of labeling ourselves hopelessly anything I think most of the time we are actually hopefully looking for solutions.

People might say about themselves that they are hopeless at math, or in relationships, or at carrying a tune.

And yet every time I take out my calculator and try to do a math calculation I am hopeful for a correct answer. I don’t stop trying.

Hopeless in relationship and yet people still keep falling in love and forging ahead, they are living in hopeful.

The definition of hopeless:

1. having or offering no hope
2. impossible to analyze or solve
3. unable to learn, function, etc.

I think very few of us are actually hopeless.

When I was younger I could fall asleep anywhere… literally.

My mother once took my teenager self and my brother out to the strawberry fields of Washington state to spend a “fun” afternoon picking the berries!

We were allowed to eat as many as we wanted and after an hour or so of the sun beating down on my strawberry bloated body I fell asleep. Sitting up, in the middle of the berry patch.

In college I was always the first one to curl up in the corner during a raging party and go to sleep, no alcohol required.

As I have gotten older, however, I have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep at night but am very aware of “sleeping” through my days.

There are so many opportunities in a day to allow a rote response or conditioned pattern to take control of a moment and when I allow that to happen repeatedly I become disconnected and “sleepy”.

Like answering the simple question:

“How are you?”

My go to answer is, “Okay.”

And what does that mean?

It means I am not willing to take the time to check in with myself, in this moment, and risk sharing how I am really feeling thereby trusting that you do actually want to hear what I have going on and are not just sleep walking yourself.

I know the “How are you?” question is often viewed as simple social grease so we don’t just stare at each other in silence when we meet.

And I understand that every time we are asked “How are you?” doesn’t need to be a cathartic unloading, but what if we tweaked the question just a bit?

What if we asked:

“What are you feeling right now?”

Not How are you feeling because that is too easy to answer with: fine, good, great.

When asked “What are you feeling?” it doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room.

It makes me pause and really look at myself in that moment.

The question wakes me up.

It also takes the interaction I am having to a deeper level very quickly – if I am brave enough to truthfully answer.

The answer could be: happy, peaceful, curious, anxious, sad, livid or even a made up word like shacocky.

(Answering with “I feel shacocky” will definitely move the conversation to a new place.)

But if you dare to ask and answer this question honestly you are daring to be awake.

Imagine if we were to become so attuned to our states of being that we honored ourselves and others by sharing feelings easily.

The fish guy in the Brooklyn market asks, “How you doin?” as he wraps up your mackerel and you reply, “I feel flitty inside cause I’m cooking for my new boyfriend tonight.”

I bet that would lead to an interesting conversation.

Life is lived in the tiny moments when we dare to share.

I dare you to try asking this question of someone you care about and just see what happens, then tell me all about it.

If you believe in risking connection please tweet, share, like, and generally disseminate this post. Thanks friends!

“Not a cloud or airplane in the sky,” my man exhaled.

“Yeah,” I replied, “Except for that one little wisp of a cloud over there and that one airplane way over there.”

Pause. Pause. Pause.

“Way to ruin the moment,” my man teased.

We had been facing different directions so what I saw was slightly different than what he saw.

But instead of just saying “Yes it is a perfect sky, my darling man!” I just had to be precise.

Welcome to the world of Air shaped hands!

Air shaped hand

People with Air hands have long straight fingers that stand up like “good soldiers”.

The phalanges are rectangular, as is the overall shape of the hand, looking much like a shoebox.

One of the best identifying characteristics is almost ruler straight edges of the palm.

The lines in the palm are more considered and exact than a fire hand, like they were drawn with a quill pen.

People with Air hands are the mental type.

They are keen observers (note the opening story of this post) and love to thoughtfully analyze all they survey.

There is an innate fairness, balance and objectivity to their nature which makes them good mediators.

And can sometimes drive their mates crazy!

“Can’t you just take my side for once instead of always looking at the other side too?” griped one ex-boyfriend of mine.

This is very difficult for an Air person to do because they are designed to gather information and investigate.

They are also very rational and don’t like inappropriate displays of emotion.

If you come to them in the heat of a reaction they are likely to try and calm you down so you can become more rational and objective… like them!

(Again, this can be very irritating for the person in the heat of the reaction)

Some other descriptive words and phrases for people with Air shaped hands:

Practical ~ Considerate ~ Organized

Loves to debate ~ Witty ~ Refined

Independent ~ Fault finding ~ Aloof

Some situations Air hands thrive in:

• Learning and teaching – they LOVE information
• Bringing order to chaos
• Brainstorming and communicating ideas

Some situations Air hands suck in:

• Being asked to “lose themselves” and go wild
• Situations where there aren’t clear instructions
• A rush job without time to analyze and understand

One of the biggest challenges for Airy people is that because they spend a lot time observing and analyzing their surroundings they can sometimes feel like they are on the outside looking in.

Which, to others, can seem like they are being aloof (sometimes they actually are aloof but sometimes they are just stuck in their heads).

And remember that thing about not liking inappropriate displays of emotion from others, that goes for themselves as well.

It can be very hard for an Air person to display their emotions even if they are completely appropriate for the situation.

So what to do if you have air shaped hands?

It is actually really good for you to go “wild” once in a while and feel what it is like to act from your gut and not your head.

If you start to notice that you feel withdrawn from people or your emotions take some really deep breaths and move your body.

Place your hands on your belly and gently shake that area.

Wake up your feelings and let them flow out even if it is just a little squeak.

And if you are in love with an Airy person use their powers of analysis for guidance, they will love you for allowing them to give you considered advice, and whenever you can – encourage them to howl at the moon.

Wondering if you have a Air hand?

Upload a picture of your palm to my facebook page and I will help you figure it out!

If you liked this post and would like to spread some Hand Analysis love please tweet, like on facebook, or rent an airplane and sky write your devotion. Big thanks!