by Jess Salgueiro

She is a vision. Literally- a vision of my future. So unrelentingly cool and full of love. She wears big, dangly, hand-crafted earrings; and trousers in natural fabrics (she needs things to feel good on her body). She’s got a lot of animals around, maybe even a monkey. She is surrounded by trees that create a canopy where streams of light peek through it’s exotic branches; and wherever this is - its warm…sticky, with a cleansing humid air. Her hair is white. It’s course and curly and crazy. You hear her wooden bangles jingle as she walks and she’s always smiling. Crows feet, jowls, laugh lines, neck wrinkles - she's got it. There are friends, artists, grand kids, nephews and nieces all around. She lives in a sanctuary and perseveres to keep it an open, welcoming and healing space to all it’s many guests. People are always visiting cause she reminds and inspires them to laugh, cry, soothe and learn. This is the space for that.

She reminisces about when she was 30- half her age now. It was a year when she started to gracefully come into her own; less pushing, more opening, less stress, more patience. As she looks back at this beautiful, hard-working and well-meaning woman she has a few things to say:

Be proud of yourself. You are truly doing your best. There are layers upon layers upon layers of unlearning to do and it takes awhile. Damn, some people never do it.

Do yourself a favour and accept the decisions you’ve made in your past - you were acting from the best place you knew. Forgive, forgive, forgive yourself.

Love is here to teach, not to possess. It’s here to inspire a blossoming into your truest self. It’s not here to achieve or to claim.

Stop living from your head and move into the world from your heart and your guts - I mean it.

Bravery is the sexiest thing you could possibly wear.

Go take up some motherfukin’ space.

As she finishes, she resumes smokin something delicious and home-grown from her bamboo pipe and lets out a soft chuckle as her 4 year old granddaughter comes running in for a big Gramma bear hug. She snuggles into the child’s neck and softly whispers, Life will be more full and divine than you ever could imagine.

advice from my 60 yr old self