I’ve been watching the gang of hummingbirds that gather on my daughter’s porch in Yosemite, dining on nectar all day long, getting a sugar high on life. They’re smarter than I am. Lately I’ve let work and worry turn me sour, and I’m trying to remember all the sweet things about my life and what I used to like about myself. For instance, I used to be a funny girl, able to laugh at myself and make others laugh, too. I miss that person, so I’m trying to remember to apply the 5-year perspective to situations that I blow out of all proportion: Is [insert crazy-making scenario] really, really likely to make a difference in my life 5 years from now? Usually the answer is an unequivocal “no,” which frees me to deal with it in an entirely more relaxed way and to separate what is worth going to bat for vs what can walk on by. Sweet!

I’m headed to Yosemite tomorrow to visit my younger daughter, who’s the park anthropologist, and I’m looking forward to real hiking instead of the metaphorical kind. 2011, while far from being my annus horribilis, has been a process of gaining a foothold and losing a foothold, over and over, until I feel I’m right back where I started in January. I’ve been disappointed in myself more often than I like to admit and exasperated to tears by the people around me at times. Who am I and why don’t I know what I’m doing?! It’s ironic that I started the year jauntily declaring that 2011 was going to be my year of Change,  but I didn’t stop to think it might be difficult, upsetting and bewildering change! I followed all the good advice I read in blogs and books (The Happiness Project, The Year of Wishful Thinking, Living the Creative Life, etc. ), did my Wildly Improbable Wish list, took workshops, practiced waking up spiritually — and then got kicked in the ass by the Universe, which was wearing steel-capped boots. Not that any of those books and blogs were wrong — they just weren’t right for me. Or maybe they were, but I wanted easy change because I thought I was doing all the right things to attract it. I was a caterpillar curled up waiting for a metamorphosis, a Saturday-afternoon-at-Saks makeover for my life. What I didn’t reckon with was that my year of change would feel more like being locked in an industrial-sized laundromat dryer than emerging from a cocoon with pretty wings. It’s forced me to take a close-up look at myself, my work, my past, my present. To pull myself up only to slide back down again. It’s kind of a relief to recognize it, admit it, lie here at the bottom of the mountain and just stop struggling so much. Who knows — maybe I’ll find another path, one that goes around the mountain instead of straight up and over or find that the whole point of change was in the struggle, not the outcome. The future is a mystery, but even so, I haven’t given up hoping for my own kind of  annus mirabilus along the way.

I’d buy Indian summer and keep it all to myself. When it’s dryer-lint humid in South Carolina and so hot that dogs won’t put their paws down on the sidewalk, I’d have my yard air-conditioned.  I’d downsize my boobs and raise them up so I wouldn’t need a bra in summer. No more underwires. In fact, I’d stop wearing underwear at all — if you’re rich you don’t have to be respectable. I’d hire someone to exercise for me so I wouldn’t have to sweat. I’d never sweat again! I’d put a ceiling fan in my car to move the a/c around. As we all know, it’s easier for a camel than a rich man to go through the eye of a needle (I always wondered why either would be forced to do that–wasn’t there a side road they could have taken?), but sometimes it’s nice to dream, to want, to imagine. I can almost feel the shock of cold water that suspends my breath as I slip into that pool, the weightlessness, the lifting of  a burden off my shoulders and the lift of water wings replacing them. But, dear Guardian Angel,  since I’m not rich and there’s no pool waiting for me at home, I’d be happy just to have an automatic ice maker/dispenser on my refrigerator door someday.

Today, I had to get the oil changed in my car. It was 95 degrees and I’m sure even hotter down in that oil-change pit. As I was talking with one of the guys who works there, I realized all over again how undeservedly lucky I am. My big preoccupation today was my continuing battle with insomnia, not a minimum-wage job in a sweaty shop. Not oil ground into my skin so deeply that I can never completely scrub it away. Not customers who expect me to screw them over or avoid looking directly in my eyes–just get my car finished so I can get on with my important life. I thought about it all day. So what if I can’t sleep — it might be unhealthy but it gives me more time to be aware of being alive, to be thankful for the Tempurpedic mattress I was able to afford, to be cozy and content with a book in bed. And even though I might get The Dreads in the middle of the night, I’m learning how to breathe through them and know that in the morning I’ll have a job to get up for and work I love when I get there. Some of my family are struggling in this recession, not only to make a living but also to find that trail of breadcrumbs that will bring them safely home. I saw that lostness in other faces today and vowed to value what I often take for granted. And to scatter more breadcrumbs.

1. Scorpions in my shoes…it could happen.

2. What did I say about the Brazilian wax at the barbecue when I was a little drunk?

3. How can I make more money?

4. Where is that bracelet I lost last year? And my red glasses? I should get up and look for them again.

5. Why did I buy/open/eat the ice cream?

6. My dirt yard is so hillbilly. I need sod right away. How can I make more money?

7. Why isn’t my sleeping pill working? What if my doctor gave me a placebo?

8. What if I have sleep apnea and have to wear a Hannibal Lector  mask?

9. Why don’t I have any grownup clothes? Why do I have a princess bed? What possessed me? My whole life is badly, sadly decorated.

10. Do they give prescriptions for medical marijuana brownies to treat insomnia? I wish I hadn’t eaten all the ice cream.

When I was in spinning class recently, I felt like I was working hard enough to generate enough energy to run a hair dryer or a lamp. Or maybe even recharge the battery on my cell phone. A little whimsy to keep me from whimpering in pain.  And then I  thought how it would be even better if I could send the energy I was generating out to people I know who are in trouble. I visualized neon electrical ribbons flowing out and recharging them with the power to change their lives, to get up every day and go out into a world that is beating them down, to generate more faith in themselves. My energy would simply be overflowing into their lives from afar, but without the onus of rescue, enabling, codependency, guilt or the fireworks that result when I try to intervene or control. When I was spinning that day, I was doing good things for my body, but I was also thinking of the ones I love, willing them to keep pedaling, keep breathing, keep trying, keep safe.

Just a day after I was rejoicing about being lucky to be alive, I was losing my temper, yelling at coworkers and family and sobbing as if my heart had cracked open like a dam all the way home from work. It made me feel like a wild animal suddenly unmasked, and I know it’s because I rarely let myself feel angry and then I blow.  I want to learn how to live with that wild animal — not kill her spirit but not let her kill others’ either.  I hate that I’m not always honest with myself, that I’m afraid of the dark inside, that I’m always wishing someone would kiss a hurt and make it go away–when deep down I know I have to be both the hurt and the healer. Why isn’t real life like a blog? Full of epiphanies and arty insights and latte-thoughts to live by instead of the raw skin and scars that come from rubbing up against our own and others’ humanness.

This past weekend I was out on a friend’s boat in the creeks that run all through the marshes where I live. Porpoises were feeding next to our boat, great blue herons landed on the banks like majestic Concords approaching the runway, and it felt like we were living in Wind in the Willows. No fish were landed except baby sand sharks that got thrown back in to grow up and scare  the pants off people on the beach, but there was wine, a constant breeze and glorious sun blessing every pore and and wavelet and blade of grass. And no oil slicks. Yet. It’s extraordinary that one company has managed to destroy, maybe beyond restoring, a huge part of our coast. (Be sure to go to skirt.com or the print issue of Skirt in July to read “Deepwater Feminism,” a wonderful essay by Stephanie Hunt .) When will women exercise their voting and consumer power to protect Mother Earth instead of fighting each other? Emily’s List or the Susan B. Anthony List — why not one list of ferocious women devoted to healing the planet?

This was part of a Nick Cave exhibit of “Sound Suits” that I attended recently. The suits are out of this world, but it was this body suit that I fell in love with. Don’t we all flower and glitter and shine like this inside? What if we looked like that on the outside, too? A second skin that let our dream and visions materialize like a flower garden we’ve been hiding under Wolford black tights or skinny jeans or yoga pants or doctor’s scrubs. That guy you pass every day and dismiss as a jerk because he doesn’t return your hello. The cold fish who has enlarged diamonds rings on her fingers and a Dwell-worthy  house. The homeless guy under the bridge we avert our eyes from. What if they are blooming, too, and it showed on all of us?

I love the app that lets me take an ordinary photo and give it a vintage twist. At the same time, it makes me feel a bit guilty. Instead of waiting for magic-hour light, I used technology to give it a golden patina. In reality, the peonies are falling apart rather unphotogenically and the pot of brushes has been sitting there unused for way too long. I wish there were an app that could give my life this soft glow. Round off the awkward corners, smooth the rough spots, make it look like a series of scenes from an illuminated manuscript. Instead, my life has its fair share of awkward moments — a cluttered counter instead of this peaceful tableau, clean sheets piled on the table waiting to be folded, a dying basil plant. But in my mind’s eye, I see the romantically swooning peonies, old light slanting through the shutters and just-used paintbrushes instead neglected tools. Am I cheating by settling for wanna-be reality? Taking the easy way out? Or maybe it’s okay to try and turn the unremarkable into the rememorable now and then.