Today I sold my first candle.
It was sitting on the countertop of my magical acupuncturist’s office, the same space where I have laid on a heated table, breathed into needles, and tried to come back to baseline more times than I can count.
Yesterday, she carved out a small square of real estate for me. Just a little patch of light.
Three scents, all born from our healing work together:
Fire Horse — for the Lunar New Year and the spark of beginning again.
Okayness — the gentle middle place we talk about, the steady baseline that isn’t chasing ecstasy or fleeing discomfort.
EVENing — that exhale feeling after a session, when my nervous system remembers how to soften.
Someone picked one up. Venmoed. Took it home.
It feels less like a sale and more like a quiet affirmation. Like: Keep going.
And I am not going anywhere fast. There’s no five-year plan. No big ambition. I just want to make things with love and intention and see where they land.
Today I stayed home from work because my body decided to stage its own mysterious protest. Snarfing. Sniffling. Coughing like a Robotussin commercial from the 1980s. Eyes watering. Sludgy.
Jen has been brewing potions ever since — turmeric cayenne garlic chicken noodle soup, ginger lemon jalapeño honey tea (with a splash of bourbon because let’s kill whatever demon is living in my body). The house smells like spice and steam and candles and care.
She’s been on strike lately, exercising her right to demand change. In between, with the help of a new friend and garden guru, she’s built a new planter for an upgraded herb garden and laid an artistic pathway from our gate to the front door. She’s started making sourdough.
Alchemy everywhere.
Last weekend, Valentine’s with our kiddo meant new candle experiments instead of candlelit restaurants. One inspired by Jen’s childhood home on Woodlawn Ave in Chula Vista — pepper trees, eucalyptus, wet grass, and sea air. One called Hold Fast, nodding to Langston Hughes and the quiet bravery of holding onto dreams. One honoring the magic of our new majestic backyard herb garden. And because it was the day of love on the calendar, one specifically honoring my love for Jen’s gorgeous and spicy lion heart.
We walked the beach while the teenagers did what teenagers do at the boardwalk. We ended the night with chicken parm and a table full of conversation, hosting a dear friend and her new love. The next day, one of my favorite humans flew in from Berlin. Dinner. Brunch. Stories. That full feeling of shared history.
Life is not grand right now. It is granular. It is soup and sourdough and sawdust and strike lines and sniffles and sea air.
And somewhere inside that, a candle sold.
Someone reached out recently asking if I’m still writing because something I wrote once gave her a little hope.
The truth is, words have felt harder lately. Thicker. Less obedient.
But maybe this is the writing.
Maybe this is the light.
If you need a reminder: You don’t have to scale your art. You don’t have to monetize your soul. You don’t have to turn every gift into a strategy.
You can just carve out a small square of counter space and let the light sit there.
I am honored. I am grateful. I am very, very okay with small beginnings.
And if one of these little jars finds its way into your home and keeps you company through soup days or strike days or soft baseline evenings… that is more than enough.
