Welcome back to Winging It with Wendy.
Yes, we are finally here.
Today I'm bringing someone onto the podcast for the first time, and she's someone you absolutely must meet. A native Chicagoan, Erin Schulze, whom I met through Jeff Wilmore. I could not be more thrilled that she said yes.
This episode is an important one, because Erin's story is one of inspiration and resilience. It is tender in places, and joyful in others, and by the end of it I think you'll find yourself looking down at the ground a little more carefully on your next walk.
For Erin, it all starts with a marble. And a dad who never lost his.
The Marble That Started Everything
Erin was born and raised in Chicago. In 2018, she and her mom made the move to Arizona, and not long after, she started working part-time at a restaurant while also working for the Jeff Wilmore Autonomy Course, which, as some of you may remember from Episode 3, is where I had my own little run-in with a skeptic or two.
In the summer of 2019, Erin came back to Chicago to visit family over the Fourth of July. While she was there, she spent a day with her dad. And that's when he told her a story she has carried with her ever since.
Her father had been sober for about fifteen years. Early in his recovery, his sponsor had given him a marble. The message was simple: keep it in your pocket every day, and when you get home from work, take it out and remind yourself you didn't lose all your marbles.
He had carried that marble for fifteen years.
He pulled it out and showed her right then and there, and Erin said she just knew, this is important. She felt it instantly. That quiet, certain knowing that something worth holding onto had just landed in her hands.
And then they walked outside.
Her dad has a gardening background and was showing her around the backyard, talking about his recent plantings. Erin took one or two steps into the flower bed, and there, right on top of the mulch, was a marble.
She picked it up and thanked him. He looked at her and said: "Erin, I am in this dirt and this backyard every single day. I have never seen that marble."
They stood there together in that backyard, both of them going, okay. Something is happening here.
Over the following month, Erin found three more marbles on walks with her dog Josephine. She kept every single one. The original from the backyard she tucked into a little pouch in her purse alongside her chapstick, because she reaches for her chapstick at least five times a day, and she wanted that marble right there where she'd always feel it.
I haven't lost all my marbles. Every time. A little reminder.
I Actually Lost All My Marbles
Now here's the part of the story that made me laugh so hard I nearly fell off my chair.
Three people in the world knew about Erin's marble story at this point: her dad, her mom, and a friend she had made at the restaurant where she worked, a fellow Chicagoan named Eric, who had become one of her closest friends in Arizona in a very short amount of time.
Eric also taught fitness classes on the side, and one day he invited Erin and her mom to come to one. They went. They got their butts absolutely kicked, as you do. Afterward, the three of them went to the restaurant next door for food.
Erin reached into her purse for her chapstick.
The pouch was gone.
And she looked at the two people sitting across from her, the only people who knew exactly what that pouch meant, and said: "You guys... I lost all my marbles."
She was genuinely panicked. They went back to the gym, checked the lost and found, checked the locker. Nothing. Went back, finished eating, went home.
And there, sitting on her bathroom counter, was the pouch. She had taken it out before the workout and completely forgotten.
She texted Eric and her mom a photo of it immediately.
You guys. I did not lose all my marbles.
I love this story so much. I love that the universe set that little joke up perfectly. I love that the only two witnesses were the only two people who would have understood it.
The Morning After He Died, an Angel Sent a Message
A few weeks later, at the end of August 2019, Eric and his friends took their annual trip to Switzerland.
Eric was a BASE jumper. It was the sport he lived for, that feeling of gliding through the air, the rush of it, the freedom. Switzerland was the place they went every year for it.
He died there. Doing something he loved, on a trip he had looked forward to all year.
When Erin got the call, she went home and cried all night. Eric had been more than a fast friend. There was a possibility there, something unspoken between them, and she was grieving all of it at once, the friendship, the loss, and everything that might have been.
The next morning, she did what she always did. She took Josephine and her mom's dog out to the backyard, cup of coffee in hand.
Josephine wouldn't come to her.
Erin walked over to pick her up. And when she bent down, right there on the grass, next to Josephine, was a marble.
She said there was no hesitation. No wondering, no second-guessing. She just knew.
Eric had been one of three people who knew about the marbles. And Eric was gone. And here was a marble, placed right where she would find it, on the one morning she needed it most.
It's so important for everybody to realize that Angels do have the ability to send us signs whenever we are feeling lost and down and missing them. They're all around us.
791 Marbles, and Counting
Erin moved back to Chicago by the end of 2019. And as she settled back in, the curiosity she'd been quietly carrying started to grow into something she couldn't ignore.
She found a podcast called Psychic Teachers, two women who talked about guides, Angels, crystals, and all the things Erin had always been quietly drawn to. She listened to every episode she could find about connecting with your Angels.
And she started using her morning walks with Josephine as her time to pray and connect.
She would step outside and ask her guides and Angels to send her a marble, just to let her know they were with her. By the end of almost every walk, she had found one. In downtown Chicago. On sidewalks, in alleys, in places you would absolutely not expect to stumble across a marble.
She got more specific over time, the way all of us do once we realize our Angels are actually listening. She started asking yes or no questions. Three marbles for yes. Two marbles for no. Clear parameters, clear answers. No room for her own interpretation to get in the way.
She had her medium. Her Angels had chosen it for her back in that backyard in 2019, and they hadn't stopped since.
I asked her, before we recorded, to bring something with her to our session. And when I asked her on camera how many marbles she had found since 2018, she said seven hundred and ninety-one.
Then she lifted the bag.
I have no words. You need to see it for yourself.
791 marbles. Found in Chicago and beyond, on walks, in alleys, on sidewalks, in moments of grief and confusion and hope and love. Each one a sign. Each one Eric, or her dad, or her Angels saying: you haven't lost us. We're still here.
Erin keeps track of every single marble she finds on her Instagram, where she goes by the name Madam Marble Oracle. You can follow her at @madammarbleoracle, and I promise you, once you start watching, you won't be able to stop.
Your Turn
Erin's story reminded me of something I say often, and truly believe: your Angels choose the language that is yours alone. For Erin it's marbles. For me it was pennies as a little girl, and feathers as I got older. For you it might be something entirely different, a colour, a bird, a song, a coin, a number.
You don't need to go looking for it. Just stay curious. Stay open. And when something keeps showing up, pay attention.
Because your Angels have already chosen their way of reaching you. They're just waiting for you to notice.
In the next episode of Winging It with Wendy, I'll introduce you to my next guest... and trust me, you're going to want to be there for that one.
Until then, keep your eyes on the ground. You never know what might be waiting for you.
And if you've had a moment that felt like more than coincidence, I truly would love to hear it.
Because we might not be winging it alone.
Have a story to share? Send it here.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.
