Hello, my friend!
Sometimes, if you pay attention, the universe speaks to you. Last week it spoke to me through a dying Tesla and a mailman named Dennis — and I don’t think I was meant to miss the message.
↓ In today’s email:
- This week’s inspiration: The week the universe grounded my car
- Latest blog post: Why your stress hormones matter more after 40
- What I’m reading: 5,000 years of Iraqi history — and a longing I can’t explain
This Week’s Inspiration: The Week the Universe Grounded My Car
On one fateful Wednesday last week, the universe was sending me messages about my car.
"Be careful of full self-driving on your Tesla," one client said. Then, two hours later, my mailman told me, "I’ve got the same Tesla, and it just broke down for 10 hours on the BQE." And the week before that, my son had said, "I think that Tesla is going to be the death of us."
Lo and behold, the car decided to just die on the spot — which was probably merciful, because I would have used self-driving (with its intermittent, scary braking) to go to Maine last weekend. And now the universe was saying, No way are you driving that car.
One of those messages came from my mailman, Dennis.
I’d never really seen him before, and then he just appeared last week. In addition to his own dying Tesla, he wanted to talk to me about the 4th and 5th dimensions, string theory, and how — after praying very hard, when he was supposed to say goodbye to his dying mother — he pounded the steering wheel of his car, pleading with God. The next day, he went to Dana-Farber to say his final goodbye, and something had changed. The skin that had been rotting off of her face was perfectly clear. The cancer was, miraculously, gone.
Dennis says he likes talking. I’m a professional listener, so I was happy to hear what this adorable mailman had to say. He told me, "Don’t worry if you forget my name." I said, "That’s very kind of you." He said, "I’ve got an advantage. I know your name — because I see it every day. I deliver your mail."
That made me smile, turns out that little angels sometimes arrive in the form of someone you might otherwise overlook — like your mailman.
Latest Blog Post
Understanding Cortisol: Why Your Stress Hormones Matter More After 40
If you’ve been feeling wired but tired, waking at 3 a.m., or noticing weight settling in places it never used to, that’s your body flagging a shift in how it handles stress — not a character flaw, and not something to push through. In this post I walk through what cortisol actually is, why perimenopause changes the way your body handles it, and how the same stressors that once rolled off your back can start to hit harder and linger longer after 40. I look at it through both Western endocrinology and Chinese medicine, because this topic is worth a thorough review — not another lecture about "relaxing."
What I’m Reading This Week
5,000 Years of Iraqi History
Although I haven’t been to the Middle East in recent decades, I still carry the memory of a few trips — Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco looped in with them. Those memories still spur my imagination, right down to the cuisine of my own home. Perhaps my pull toward that food is something deep in my DNA. I think it’s something more that I can’t quite explain.
I once looked at a coffee table book of beautiful Islamic architecture — mosaics of turquoise and cobalt, domes with light pouring through — and inexplicably wanted to cry. I told my husband that something inside me felt like I used to live in a place like this, and that the life there crumbled, perhaps from war or the fall of an empire, something I don’t even know. I felt such a yearning for something so long gone. (Here’s the kind of architecture I mean.)
Even in my reading, I keep grabbing tomes that reach far back — to Mesopotamia, Greek for "the land between the two rivers," the Tigris and the Euphrates. Modern-day Iraq.
Last week I went back to the Redwood Library to take out 5,000 Years of Iraqi History. To my sheer astonishment, the librarian said, "Since this is a new book, you can have it for two weeks." I said, "It’s not a new book. I read it last year." Still, she said, "It’s due in two weeks." It’s a nerdy book, for sure — but certain paragraphs are so stunning I read them over and over.
Sending warmth your way
Dr. Catherine