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My friend and I were talking about fitness the other day. She's been wearing a 'FitBit,' and another friend of mine has been wearing  Nike FuelBand. I was contemplating investing in such a gizmo, as I'll be the first to admit I could take better care of myself than I do. These things are neat little gadgets and I'm sure they work for tracking, motivation, and encouragement . Mulling it over before sleep that night though, I started thinking about the tools that I already have. I've got a food tracker on my smartphone, I've got a pedometer, and I've got my Tarot. 

"How on Earth does the Tarot fit in with a keep fit plan," you might well ask? Before you chalk me up to being completely crazy (as opposed to just the 'way-out-there-crazy-but still-functional' type of crazy that I'll readily admit to being), hear me out. I thought I might be off my rocker, but I've played around with this for a few days now, and I've been very surprised by how well it works. 

A recent household occasion presented an opportunity to implement a natural solution instead of using a chemical-laden product. My daughter Emily is eleven-going-on-20 and upon her happy discovery of my homemade concoction, she sat quietly for a while and then asked, “If you were a normal mom, what would you have done instead?” Huh. If I were a “normal” mom, what would I have done? This question has sat within for a few weeks now and it has led to a good chuckle more than a few times. Emily and I did talk about her question at that moment because I was curious to know what she defined as being a “normal” mom compared to being a mom (perhaps me) who is “not normal”. It generated a lot of laughs between the two of us and offered up great time to connect deeply.

If I had been asked this as an ungrounded new mom years ago, my psyche easily could have taken a backseat on the train toward the villages of Panic and Self-Doubt. I suppose there have been conscious choices which have been made through the years to define myself in her mind as being somewhat “not normal” as she places that language in her mind. Upon inquiry I learned that she sees me laughing. A lot. Singing, playfulness, prayerfulness, and random dance moves are busted out at random times of the day, often early in the morning in the kitchen while I "should be" packing her lunch for school. Dress-up consists of wrapping ourselves with big swatches of colorful fabric and then often these pieces are brought outside on windy, sunny days to watch how they shape-shift in the light and air.