At least consider this. Please.

First thing's first. I'm thankful to be
alive this morning.

I'm writing this earlier than normal,
because I left the house earlier than normal, because there's a rule
that I have to get up earlier than normal after last week I signed a
contract with myself promising that I would be more productive. In
the moment this seemed perfectly reasonable, but on typing that out
loud I recognise that perhaps I could've
kept it in my Obsessive Behaviour That
Isolates Normal People box.

Related note to self: crying at work
because your fancy pen ran out and you just don't feel like your
notes are pretty enough without it could also, on further reflection,
have gone in the box.

I'm surprised I didn't die on the way
to the cafe because the traffic this morning was immense
bumper-bumper smogdom, which I normally get to avoid because I leave
the house when most people have been at work for two hours. More cars
= increased likelihood of death-by-vespa. And to think that they say
math isn't my strong suit.

Italians have this rule whereby even
though the traffic light is on red it's possible to make a left turn
anyway. So one can be meandering along the crossing quite calmly,
pondering self-made contracts and the likelihood of ever dating again
and BAM! Maurizio cruises along at full speed, missing you by mere
millimeters, and the only solution to near-death you can fathom is to
gesticulate wildly at the pedestrian green man WHICH APPARANTLY
NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT.

Even the flashing sign shrugs and make
that ubiquitous Roman noise that means whatever: B'OH!

I fucking hate that
noise.

Basically my point
is that it is a good job I have my spiritual shit together otherwise
I'd be sat here with my cafe grandad watching over me like we're in a
Werther's Original advert, shaking with anger as my two fingers hit
the keyboard BECAUSE YES I TYPE WITH ONLY TWO FINGERS and counting in
my diary again how many days til I blow this popsicle joint.

Fifty-nine.

Fortuitously, I
have just finished reading The Celestine Prophecy and so I am at one
with my inner self, aware of how my attitude affects others.

Last weekend the
book was gifted to me by my friend Alma, who I went to visit in
Milan.

“You just teach
me so much,” I told her after the first day making smoothies and
checking my running technique together.

“Laura, that's
what good friends do,” she replied. “Teach other.”

And then I panicked
that maybe I wasn't teaching her anything when I'd come away with a
great recipe for blueberry and banana pancakes and knowledge of the
higher self, and so I showed her how to apply red lipstick and taught
her what a Louboutin is because I am nothing if not a selfless giver.

Anyway,
The Celestine Prophecy. YOU NEED THIS BOOK IN YOUR LIFE. It's
self-improvement disguised as poorly written fiction but look past
the cliches and there is the question to life itself. Because that's
the thing: we all search for the answers without really knowing what
the questions are. Read this book and you will.

Things The
Celestine Prophecy Taught Me:

1. 
   The basic
   stuff of the universe is pure energy which is malleable to human
   intention.
   
   


2. 
   Nothing
   happens by coincidence. Chance encounters have a deeper meaning.
   When we have a question the right people show up to give us the
   answer.
   
   


3. 
   Love in not an
   intellectual concept or a moral imperative. It is a background
   emotion that exists when one is connected the energy available in
   the universe.
   
   
   


4. 
   FOOD is the
   first way to gain the universe's energy, and to absorb the positive
   energy we have to learn how to appreciate it.
   
   

I was totally down
with that last one.

I
gobbled up every page within 24 hours, making notes and highlighting
my favourite passages to copy
down later. Landing back in Rome and flicking through those notes, it
is entirely evident to me where I began the day making useful
insights about what the text was communicating and where I had found
a little osteria and accidentally got drunk on 2 Euro spritz whilst
waiting for Alma to finish class at her nearby grad school.

The
distinction is made between post-its that say, Perhaps this
links to my own drama conflict of aloofness and
why, then, if this is true, do I use my wit as a defense
for life? to huge loopy scrawls
that say, YESSSSSSSSSSSS and
Fuck! This is totes trusies!

My annotations
reveal more about me than the choice of book, I think. Those
annotations must be burned.

Otherwise, you will
all know that my version of enlightenment involved 3 spritz at three
o'clock in the afternoon, a trip to the bookstore to positively
visualise my own book in between authors
Wilkinson and Wisen, and then eating more than one McDonald's in an
attempt to sober up before I met Alma again to say goodbye.

Which, now I've
started to really think about it, was way more fun than eating a
plate of vegetables as suggested by The Celestine Prophecy, and so
now I'm thinking maybe I could just scribe my own self-improvement
book.

Maybe I could call
it, 'Follow your Heart, Heed the Omens, and Drink More Spritz.' Or
possibly, 'Cool Shit That Happens When You Drink Alone.' If we
anthologise our collective knowledge we'd probably have a bestseller.

Thoughts, anyone?