This post is about living — living deep and well. And, recapturing that kind of living. And stranger things besides.

Some of you remember that I often say, “Go do something unusual. Do something not related to your regular life in any way. Shake up the salt. Give your mind something to chew on other than it’s usual 20 things.

I call it “stocking your pantry.”

Tonight, I’m participating, as a student, in a workshop for professional women with autism. No, I don’t think I have autism, but two members of my close family are on the spectrum. I just want to understand high-functioning autism and meet a bunch of cool ass women who’ve utilized it to become crazy successful.

Next week, I was torn between going to the Beyond the Brain conference that’s researching what happens after we die, or to see a very strange and exclusive magic show in Los Angles. Los Angeles only won out since I’d booked it months prior.

By restocking my pantry, I’m restocking my dreams.

Do you remember how, early in the pandemic, our dreams all started to collapse in on themselves, and we started circling on the same material each night as we slept?

Scientists told us it was because we had, collectively, reduced the input to our minds so much each day that not enough new material was being added to keep our dreams lively and unique. (For real.)

My dreams these last few weeks have finally, fortunately, been exceptionally varied. It’s nice.

Restocking your dreams means adding in things to your life you’d normally never do, know little about, and may not have much interest in.

It’s like letting a fresh unexpected breeze blow through an open cabin door.

The door, of course, is your life. My goal is to be more free about the breeze that comes in, to allow it to bring me dandelion seeds and stray balloons. I want fodder for my dreams, for not just the ones at night, but for my dreams for life, generally.

Good ideas don’t get through closed doors. You have to fling all your doors open and do things way out of your normal routines if you want to be refilled with hope and new direction.

I want to explore experiences that ask me to think about what I want next, what would light me up inside, and what would give me the security and safety that I know sets me up for my best work.

Instead of squeezing and directing my life to the nth degree, I instead release my clutch around it and ask it to show me something interesting, something that may pivot me or seduce me.

This is how, now that I’m in my 50s, I’m able to peer forward into the next 30 or 40 years and feel like, “Yes, the next ten will be as good as or better than any ten before it.”

I know we often lose that feeling. Everything that was “the best” feels behind us. It’s not. It only feels that way when your pantry is empty.

Go fill it.

What bright, odd, fascinating things are you doing this month to fill your pantry with new ideas and experiences?

Please tell me in the comments. I’d love to hear!

Lots of love to you and wishing you a wonderful adventure