Giving Thanks
Somewhere along the line, I learned that a good way to deal with a potentially irksome situation is to show gratitude. I don't mean keeping a gratitude journal, although I'm sure that's a great idea. I mean being thankful in the moment, even when you're blowing steam out your ears.
For instance, once I was pulled over in my ancient, beat-up pickup truck (RIP). I hadn't been speeding. It was a dicey neighborhood, late at night, and I suspect the trooper was used to catching drivers with suspended licenses or no insurance. As I fumed and the police car's headlights bore into my rearview mirror, I calmed myself and determined to be thankful. The cop told me the light over my license plate was burned out and coldly asked to see my license. (Boy, I bet he surprised to find a middle-aged woman on her way home from book club with a half-eaten bowl of tabouli on the seat next to her.) "Thank you for paying attention, officer," I said. You know what? I felt better right away. Telling him how thankful I was unclenched something inside me. The next thing I knew, I truly was grateful.
I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Keep in touch through email or on Instagram at @angela.m.sanders. I don't check in often on Facebook, but I'm there, too, at angelamsanders.
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The Most Beautiful Dress in the World
Years ago, I went to an artist's talk at Yellowstone Park. The artist traveled in Loretta Lynn's old tour bus teaching drawing workshops in odd corners of the states. He told us beauty is a physical sense, just like seeing or hearing. We don't "decide" something is beautiful--it simply is, and we know it in our bodies.
I remembered that when I felt a gut punch of beauty seeing this dress fifteen or so years ago. It's a 1958 Scaasi in stiff silk brocade, and when my eyes lit on it, the air left my lungs. (If I were a witch like Josie, I think my magic would come from lived-in dresses and old household furnishings.) Liz, proprietress of the Xtabay vintage clothing boutique, where I'd worked at the time, let me borrow it to wear to a gala dinner at the historical society. The next day, I bought the dress. I had to. With gold Prada evening sandals and an updo, wearing the dress was like living inside a symphony.
I was even able to talk to the dress's original owner from her assisted care home. For a storyteller like me, knowing where the dress had come from, who wore it, and where, brought it even more vividly to life.
Two weeks ago, I sold the dress. It had been zipped inside its garment bag in my basement for too long, and it was time for it to make joy with someone else. Besides, these days something with flow suits me better. But, oh, when I lifted the dress from its bag, I got a little beauty-drunk once again.
From me to you: pay attention to the physical smack of beauty, the coup de cœur. When you feel it, don't mess around and don't reason it away. Go there. You won't be sorry.
Is there something so beautiful to you that you feel it in your body? I'd love to know.
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Seven-Year Witch spent eight weeks on the Barnes and Noble mass market paperback bestseller list. Thank you SO MUCH! Witch and Famous comes out the last Tuesday in July 2022. (I think it's the best in the series so far. I hope you love it.) Yesterday I signed the contract for three more witch librarian mysteries, so the series is good through at least book six.
In other news, I'm leading two coaching groups for writers starting in January. Maybe you're having a hard time finishing that novel you've started, but you can't afford one-on-one coaching. If so, this group might be for you. I'm capping entrollment at five participants each, so let me know soon if you're interested. More info is here.
Otherwise, I've settled into a winter routine of writing in the morning and nesting and reading the rest of the day. Even after thirteen published novels, the writing process still feels magical. I sit at my keyboard with a whole world in the ether around me, and the story unspools according--more or less--to my plot, but all kinds of surprises appear. It's really wonderful.
In December's newsletter, I'm planning a short Christmas story starring Josie as a little girl. Stay tuned.
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Why Don't You....?
I've always loved Diana Vreeland's "Why Don't You?" column in Harpers Bazaar. Here's my take. This month, why don't you:
- Make a shrub--a sweet and sour fruit syrup--to sip in the evening. Simmer two parts fruit with one part sugar, and one part vinegar and strain. I like pineapple with brown sugar and rice vinegar. It's nice in a tiny etched cocktail glass on its own, and brilliant with seltzer water and ice.
- Mix a half teaspoon of cedar oil with rubbing alcohol and spray it in your closets. It discourages moths and smells so nice.
- Light beeswax pillars after dark. They're a fraction the cost of fancy scented candles and smell gently of waxy honey.
- Clean out your bathroom cabinet and toss your old eyeshadows and lipsticks (you know you've been meaning to do this for a while). Line the shelves with a beautiful wrapping paper.
- Shake up your routine by taking a bath before lunch.
- Write a question on a piece of paper and tuck it under your pillow to dream about.
- Give yourself something new and inspiring to look at by changing your computer's wallpaper to a gorgeous old public domain painting like the orchid and hummingbird above.
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