Happy Birthday to Me

Why I am not publishing new writing this week

Aloha mai kākou! Hello everyone, hello to my 450 free subscribers, hello to my 483 followers, hello to my 5 paying subscribers, and hello to anyone else who finds their way here. I am so excited to have you all here.

As a subscriber, you normally receive an installment of They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir by email on Sundays. I also put the link on Facebook and LinkedIn and have readers who never subscribed but access the posts through the links. Because today my Facebook (personal one, not either of the business ones) will be flooded with folks demanding my annual birthday headstand photo, I decided to save the essay I wrote this week to publish a week from today.

This was three years ago but is my favorite headstand photo to date because it was taken by a professional photographer friend who made me hold it until the guy in blue swim trunks got in just the right spot.

Turns out, I am not the most mature writer on Substack who has a thing about standing on her head. I recently discovered The Granny Who Stands on Her Head She is 83 years old, so she has 15 years on me. Ann Richardson writes with tremendous humor about all kinds of things, not just about growing up. Yes, some of us are still growing and growing up in our 60s and 80s. You should check her out.

The other thing I learned from Granny Ann is that Substack has a feature that allows for putting content tags on our posts. I finally took the time to do that this week, so for those of you who are newer to the site, you might find some posts of interest that way. Here are the content tags you will now be able to click across the top of page when you read They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir on line.

Memoir - 1992/1997 (the first year of my writing, minus the occasional essay)

Essay - the more random ones, mostly on current topics

Horses - as my teachers, my stories of riding and training, and Equine Guided Education

Spiritual Path - Isnʻt this everything? But some posts are more specific

Leadership - mostly what I learned from Horses

Relationships - both personal history and advice to take or leave

Real Estate - what Iʻm doing when Iʻm not writing or riding

Personal Growth - a whole lot of lessons I am still learning

Archive - includes all posts

About - please read this if you are not sure what this whole thing is About

If you are a faithful reader and you find a theme in my writing that I have missed, please suggest another tag!

[This is only my second post about birthdays, so no tag, but you could read how I spent my 40th birthday here. It is also about Peace and about Larger Commitments to doing things that make a difference, incredibly relevant in these times.]

Next week Iʻll be back with more reflections on my early days with my equine master teacher Zara and how what I learned from her influences my personal and professional relationships today.