well.

I once heard someone say that much of our lives are spent learning the same lesson again and again. For me, that lesson is remembering, affirming, and celebrating my right to exist and take up space. In this chapter of my life, that means learning to live extravagantly.

Extravagance is new for me.

What do I mean by “extravagance”? I mean living into the fullness of what it is to be a person on this earth. 

At 40 years old, I’m a newcomer to taking care of myself. I have just started to focus on making sure my need for food, water, and rest has been met. Meeting these needs has allowed me to feel more embodied – more sure of my body in space and more able to speak my needs aloud. As I do so, I realize that I am hungry for more than just existing. I am hungry for extravagance.

What do I mean by “extravagance”? I mean feeding my senses and my soul as often as I feed my body. I mean looking for ways to experience joy throughout the day. I mean living into the fullness of what it is to be a person on this earth. 

I think it is a shame that we think of extravagances as separate from the things we need to physically survive. We are body and spirit and mind. What may seem an extravagance to the body is necessary for the mind; what seems superfluous for the mind may be essential for the soul; and what the mind may dismiss as an inconvenience is a balm to the body.

Luxuriating in life is sometimes seen as a mortal sin, especially if we aren’t white and wealthy. 

These are not just vague feelings that come from nowhere; they are rooted in our country’s history. 

Yet, when we feed all these parts of ourselves, we can be made to feel selfish or undeserving – especially if we are women, mothers, poor, or if we are Black or people of color. Luxuriating in life is sometimes seen as a mortal sin, especially if we aren’t white and wealthy. 

These are not just vague feelings that come from nowhere; they are rooted in our country’s history. 

There is the contradictory practice of working enslaved Black people to death while simultaneously calling them lazy. There is also the 18^th-century law in South Carolina that mandated that enslaved Black Americans wear only lower grade cloths. And there is the 18th-century Louisiana law that required mixed-race women with Black ancestry to cover their hair with cloth. The law was created to force the women into wearing simpler, less-attractive hairstyles (it didn’t work entirely; the women just fancified their hair coverings instead). And then there were the 20^th century local laws that forced Black men and women to work because white people needed domestic help or just didn’t want to see Black people at rest. These laws specifically targeted Black veterans who had enough of a pension that neither they nor their spouses needed to seek additional work. Forget extravagance – they weren’t even allowed to have rest.

This distaste for extravagance galls me in a country supposedly founded on Judeo-Christian values. 

I joke with my friends that I am “more or less a Christian.” But even I know that extravagance can be a holy thing. I often think about the Biblical story of a woman pouring an expensive jar of perfume on Jesus’ head near the end of his life. Jesus’ all-male disciples tsk-tsk the extravagance and the woman, saying that the money could have been spent on the poor. But instead of scolding the woman, Jesus scolds the disciples, saying the woman is preparing him for his impending death. “She has done a beautiful thing,” he says.

I could imagine those disciples tsk-tsking a young working-class mother today: “Stop buying $5 lattes and make your coffee at home! That money could go to the poor or your 401K or your emergency fund.” I can hear them saying this because I have internalized these voices; they chastise me each time I indulge. 

A latte isn’t always just a latte. It’s an opportunity to feel taken care of – to enjoy something, and to give myself the gift of living beyond absolute survival.

When they do, I remind myself that a latte isn’t always just a latte. It’s an opportunity to feel taken care of – to enjoy something, and to give myself the gift of living beyond absolute survival. In a household where both my husband and I work, and in a day full of client meetings and carting children from school, that latte may be my only chance to feel held in the day – to have someone do something for me.

But hear me say that extravagance isn’t just about buying things.

As a kid, I lived in a trailer on almost 13 acres of wooded land. We didn’t have money for fancy things, but I still lived extravagantly. I spent much of my free time outside in the woods, playing with our goats and chickens, creating artwork, reading books, and writing stories. It wasn’t idyllic – there were ticks and snakes and I wished mightily for cable TV – but it was a time I remember my entire self being acknowledged and fed. 

Fast forward thirty years, and I am learning to do this all over again. And I am seeing how much I really do want extravagance.

I want rings on my fingers. I want doodles on my notepads. I want ice cream after dinner. I want cookies for no reason. I want beautiful clothes and eye shadow, perfume and mascara. I want long walks and beautiful candles and sumptuous fabrics. I want soft grass beneath my feet and wildflowers in my line of vision. I want music thumping and singing at the top of my lungs and swinging my hips. I want strolls through museums and window shopping with friends. I want fragrant teas and belly laughs and filling up peoples’ tip jars with crisp dollar bills.

There are lessons to be learned in extravagance. When I get a manicure, I am learning to get used to what it feels like to be taken care of, uninterrupted. 

When I take a walk in the middle of the day, I am learning that movement helps my body process stress, I am learning to stop and greet the neighborhood cat that trots from its house asking to be petted, I am learning the medicine of the outdoors.

When I make myself a matcha in the middle of the day by sifting the fine powder, boiling the water, and whisking the mixture into a thick green foam, I learn that the finest of movements can produce something extraordinary. I teach myself to savor life’s silky, earthy sweetness. I remember that in the time it takes to make and sip a cup of tea, that I can come back to myself. 

The other day I went to my mom’s apartment and saw a note on her counter that she had written in artful block lettering on bright yellow paper. “Water the plants,” it said. I smiled and remembered how my mother used to decorate my brown lunch bags when I went on field trips as a kid. This small act of extravagance made me feel loved and transformed my plastic-wrapped sandwiches into royal delicacies. 

A nearly 100-year-old man I knew once said, “No matter how long you live, life is short.”

Why not live it extravagantly?

I remembered how her mother, my grandmother, laughed shyly to herself when she was fixing herself a plate of food. She arranged the food beautifully, as though it were about to be photographed. “Sometimes,” she said, “I just like to make it look nice, just for myself.”

Decades later, I remember that she allowed herself the small extravagance of plating her food for no other reason than that it made her happy.

The stories of Jesus and the disciples, of my mother and my grandmother, are about allowing ourselves to feel full of life while we are here on earth. For, as a nearly 100-year-old man I knew once said, “No matter how long you live, life is short.”

Why not live it extravagantly?