It's my birthday!

Today is my birthday. No matter my age, I love my birthday. I'm so grateful for this life and on this 62nd trip around the Sun, I couldn't be happier.

This past week, I've been receiving cards, gifts and sweet text messages. I've enjoyed lunches and dinners with good friends and family. Bob made me a birthday brunch this morning and then I shopped all afternoon treating myself to some new clothes and makeup plus my free birthday drink at Starbucks. Tonight, I will take a hot bath and watch a Hallmark movie. All in all, the perfect day.

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Italy visiting Lake Como, Lake Garda and Chioggia which is on a Venetian lagoon. As much as I love the ocean, seeing the lakes with a backdrop of the mountains was absolutely breathtaking. I'll share more pictures soon, but here I am pictured above my new favorite city, Verona, the land of Romeo and Juliet.

While I'm still not back on Facebook, I have created a new Instagram account where I've posted a few travel photos (not in real time) with some new haikus I've written. If you'd like to follow me there, I'm @diane.dicola.

Until next time, hope you're all enjoying the beautiful colors that October brings...yet another reason why I love my birthday...Autumn.

It's not me, it's Mercury Retrograde

Yesterday, I was running late for an appointment. Thanks, Mercury Retrograde! I tend to drive too fast...ask my husband...so of course, I got stuck behind a someone driving...very...very...slowly. This person was having a Sunday drive on a Wednesday and it was downright maddening!

The car was an older model, probably 1990s, but looked to be in showroom condition. This massive automobile was a "boat," as we called big cars of that era, its full size stature a bit intimidating to its more compact cousins.

I must confess, I had to do a little tailgating to see just what kind of car it was. Inching closer, I saw that the big beige boat in front of me was a Mercury Grand Marquis. A classic! Side note: Back in the 80s, I wrecked into the back of a Grand Marquis. My Chevy Cavalier was totaled. The other car? Nary a scratch.

I laughed out loud realizing that this slow going Mercury automobile was driving me crazy not unlike the planet Mercury, also testing my patience for the past couple of weeks as it retraces its path in the sky.

Thankfully, the Grand Marquis turned left on 13th Street which was lucky for me because I made it to my appointment with a few minutes to spare.

Astrology geek that I am, when I got home, I checked my Astro Gold software to determine Mercury's position in the sky at the time of my encounter. I discovered that the planet was at none other than 13 degrees.

13th Street. 13 degrees. Not a coincidence. Life on Earth is a reflection of what's happening in the celestial realm. And sometimes, if you're lucky, you get proof.

In case you also experience mischief and mayhem during Mercury Retrograde, you'll be happy to know that the trickster planet goes direct on September 15, 2023.

Destination Unknown

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been going through something this year, a transformation of some sort. I'm so deeply enmeshed in this change that I haven't been able to step outside of it to identify it, name it. Fighting to see what is happening to me, within me, is futile. I hold on then let go, grasp onto something, anything, but it's pointless. If I have come to realize anything at this stage, it's that I am not in control.

This world wants us to believe that we are in total control of our destiny. Grab the bull by the horns, they insist. You can do anything! And maybe that's true for awhile. You set a goal, you take action to achieve said goal and ultimately, you reach the goal. Now what?

Forgive me for getting deep and philosophical here, but for lack of a better explanation at this point, I believe I'm in the "now what?" stage. After achieving a lifelong goal of publishing a book, I feel a bit lost at sea with no rescue boat in sight. I try to go with the flow of life's current, but if you're a self-admitted control freak like me, you want to know where you're headed so that you can chart your course, steer the ship.

But I'm finding that somehow I've become a stowaway aboard a private yacht. I don't believe I've seen our captain nor do I know where we're going, but I have to trust that wherever we're headed it's to a safe harbor. Most of the time, my trust turns to rust and I feel out of control. Destination unknown.

I'm not the best passenger.

I grab hold of the rail then release my grip. Clench hard, let go. Ebb and flow.

Meanwhile, we sail on...