How I wonder, do you find true faith when you don’t believe in God?

I think my faith comes from keeping my mind open, swatting away the cynics, the suspicious, the fearful. In our world, where almost everyone takes up the right to tell other people what to do, faith comes from being me, finding the answers to life myself, taking my own risks, trying something new.

It was a great shock for me to realize that most of the people telling me what to do all my life had no idea what to do and wrapped themselves in arrogance and bullying as a way of hiding their fear and confusion.

Today, I once again did one of those things I’ve never done and found more than I ever realized was there.

I drove to Saratoga Springs this afternoon to get my second pedicure at the Nightingale salon in a mall shopping mall just outside the city. I bought the best package-foot massage, callus treatment, lotions and potions, creams, and trimming.

As she did the first time, Maria came with me and got the simple basest pedicure as she is want to go. My feet hurt a lot more than hers, I’m sorry to say, but they feel a whole lot better tonight than they did this morning.

My feet are severely flat, calloused, and, as happens to older feet, sometimes painful.

As a diabetic, many people have warned me to stay away from pedicures. So many people have told me to stay away from pedicurists, I wondered if I’d live to come home to the farm.

But the place was spotless, the staff confident, careful and empathetic, masked and socially distanced.  Nightingale was careful, experienced, and, it turned out,  more creative than I thought.

But then, I didn’t really know what to think. People on social media love giving warnings; they often confuse it with actually doing gone.

I felt right at home there, so good that it puzzled me.

I loved the whole thing – the scene, the Asian pedicurists with wrestler’s arms, and once again,  I said I’d like my toenails painted. She didn’t speak English to me, yet I felt she understood every word Maria and I were saying to one another.

I decided to test her, an old reporter’s trick. I said “oops” at one point, and she stopped, looked up at me, and said in broken English. “Does this hurt?” I assured her it didn’t, and I wondered why she felt the need to keep this mask on between herself and her customers, perhaps because she thought nobody trusted her.

The pedicurist – I can’t recall her full name asked what I’d like painted on my toes. I said it was up to her; she should do whatever she wanted.

This time, yellow, I had thought perhaps the pedicurist could paint a flower or heart or whatever she wished on my big toes, the only nails big enough for art. But I decided to leave it to her, and Maria and I watched with increasing interest as she painted a beautiful and graceful arrangement on a thumbnail.

Then the whole tenor of the visit changed. She became totally focused on my toe, learning forward, adjusting my foot, adjusting the light. She took out three jars – one yellow, one red, on full of sparkly things.

Maria and I both got quiet and paid more attention. We both saw the same thing: an artist, taking great care with her creation, been though it was no bigger than a thumbnail.

She was completely lost in herself.

She wasn’t a pedicurist any longer but an artist and she painted a work of art on my big toe, right after trimming a callous on the bottom of my thumb.

Why was I doing this, I asked Maria? On the way home.

Why was I loving having my toenails painted so much? Why was I so comfortable in this alien parlor, a place I had only been in once before in my whole long life, and that was a month ago.

“Maybe you’re a crossdresser at heart?” Maria suggested, having fun with my puzzlement.  No, I said, it wasn’t that, but what was it?

First, I thought there were practical reasons.

As part of my Bedlam Farm Old Man Safety and Health initiative, and as a diabetic, I needed to take better care of my feet, just as I needed to take better care of my heart.

These people at Nightingales really know what they are doing. I chose to trust them, and it was the right instinct.

It’s hard for me to trim my foot nails properly; I don’t have the tools and keep cutting and wounding myself. I can’t do it right, so I’m paying to have it done right, and the bill is a lot smaller than the medical bills I wracked up fighting off possible infections.

My feet felt instantly more comfortable after the treatment.

No more ingrown toenails, the callouses are in hand, the massage was wonderful for my circulation, which is important to people with diabetes.

At the end of the hour, my feet felt soft, comfortable, light, and painless. And my big toe has some genuine art on it, which thrills me as much as anything.

I’m in. I’m going to get a pedicure at least once a month and every other week if I can figure it out.

I’m not into extended navel-gazing, or perhaps I am and can’t own up to it, but I wasn’t sure why I was so glad to be in this quiet nail parlor 45 minutes from the farm. I love doing things I’ve never done before, and I guess I’m learning that color is not only important to me but important on me.

I live with an artist, and I know another artist when I see one, and watching this young woman learn forward over my toe and conjure up light, and graceful floral arrangement made me feel very much at home.

Creativity is everywhere.

I am also married to a creative person and a person who understands the importance of encouragement. She told me she was thrilled that I was getting my toenails painted as if I did it all the time.

I find that I like stepping out of myself. I am weary of angry know-it-alls who poison our trust and love to mind other people’s business.

Every time I stick my head out of my rural retreat and look into the world, I see and hear angry people shouting at one another but never listening to one another.

In the same way I am excited to have an Amish family living a stone’s throw from me, I am eager to stretch myself, step across boundaries, do many of the things that people warn me not to do – like get divorced, move to the country, get a border collie, herd some sheep, volunteer with hospice, decide abruptly to do some good, and yes, get a pedicure.

So this if faith for me, I suppose, my God, the thrill of doing something new, of seeing something new, of feeling something new. I can’t be as confident of outcomes as the real God Believers are, but I do know this is what was meant for me to do, to be.

I remember reading one of Joseph Cambell’s books more than 20 years ago. Follow your bliss, he said, the alternative is to become a hollow person.

That’s it, I thought, I am following my bliss. As simple as that.