Buy twenty pounds of marrowbones the approximate diameter of your own wrists. Roast at high heat and then soak for 48 hours, until the bones crumble and the vegetables vanish. Pour into a white mug and sip slowly, without looking at your phone or thinking about your parents. Go on with the rest of your day as usual and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow: rose quartz under your pillow. Vetiver at the topmost point of your scalp, for lift. Breathe deeply, fully, without trying to breathe. Peel an entire orange without dwelling on your life regrets. 

Look at your children. No, really look at them. Imagine you can see through their skin, behind their ribs, to their blue-veined and pulsating organs. You made those. Own the horror and the wonder. Fill your lungs with it. Exhale.

At bedtime (yours), dab caffeinated gel beneath both eyes with a damp sponge. Floss your teeth carefully, deliberately, respecting but not fearing the inherent fragility of your mortal body. Imagine that the TV you hear through the wall is real life, and you are a fiction. Silently hum a favorite song from high school. Then try to forget it.

Shower in the morning, massaging your head with both hands. Tip your head back and open your mouth. Hold, hold, spit. Count the hairs circling the drain, without clinging to a desired number.

Avoid sugar. Avoid milk. Avoid self-flagellation.

Consume greens as dark as 1990s velvet dresses with ivory lace collars. Something to think about: many raw foods are not even digestible by the human stomach.

Small meals throughout the day are best. Plant-based, maybe some nuts. Not almonds because almonds are killing California. Not peanuts because peanuts are —you know where this is going. Write a quick note of gratitude to the Earth for providing plastic sachets of dried mango slices, at great cost to itself.

A plan for the future: finely mince an entire cauliflower into granules. Congratulations on creating a cipher, a hill of virgin snow.

When in doubt, adaptogenic herbs. When in doubt, rest in child's pose. When in doubt, welcome doubt. Be a river through its rock-bed, tonguing every crevice.

Schedule a recurring follow-up appointment, end date never.

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Julia LoFaso has work in or coming from McSweeney's, Conjunctions, Prism International and others. She lives in Queens.

Read her postcard.

Detail of art on main page courtesy of Cless.





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