A Cup of Tea

My husband and I recently returned from a trip to the US, and as usual, the first thing I wanted on return was a cup of tea.  It is the one thing – next to my own bed- that I miss the most  when I am away.

What is it about a cup of tea?

Raised by a Brit, tea is part of my heritage.  Growing up, we started every day with a cup of tea, and quite often ended each day with one also.  I especially remember that as teenagers, my siblings and I would convene at the end of a night out and share stories over a late night cup of tea.  Every dinner would end with someone putting the kettle on.

My children’s father was also a Brit, and he introduced me to tea time – a ritual cup every day at four o’clock, always accompanied by a sweet or biscuit.

The secret, not practiced in many restaurants, is in the preparation:  the pot must be warmed first, and the boiling water added to the tea and not the other way around.  In our family, the milk went in the cup first, with just the right amount of sweetener to offset any bitterness.

Special tea, a concoction of mostly warm milk and honey, with a splash of tea, is a family recipe for curing childhood ailments.

I don’t drink tea in the afternoon anymore as the caffeine keeps me up at night, and I have replaced the milk with non-dairy alternatives, but I still have a sense that all is not well unless I’ve started the day with that one lingering cup of tea, prepared just the way I like it.

Ahhh, the simple luxuries of home.

(Image: officemum.blogspot.com)

A Call To The Quest

My friend Andi’s insatiable craving for knowledge has her signing up for all kinds of workshops and lectures.  I am more selective in how and where I spend my time and money, so when she called up and asked if I was interested in a private audience with a medicine woman, I said I’d pass.

“Will you at least go with me?”  she pleaded.  “I’m a little nervous.”

So, book in hand, I accompanied Andi to meet her newest guru.  “Come inside,” she insisted, when I indicated I’d wait in the car.  Grudgingly, I obliged.

The woman of honour was visiting from New Mexico, and was being housed in a bungalow belonging to a friend.  The house was small, and unassuming.  As we stepped through the front door, we were confronted by a wall, which opened on either side to reveal either the main sitting area, or a hallway leading to bedrooms.  But all of that immediately became a blur to me, as my attention was captured by a large portrait hanging in front of me.

Pictured was a man poised majestically, with feathers adorning silver hair that was pulled back from his face.  Intense dark eyes peered out from the portrait and seemed to penetrate me to the core.  A chill ran through me as I felt an onslaught of tears overtake me.

“Do you know Bartholomew?”  a voice asked to my left.

“No.  I’m sorry……I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t apologize.  Go with it.  What are you feeling?”

The voice was calm, and soothing, and I seemed unable to tear myself away from the image long enough to see who was speaking.

“It’s sounds crazy,”  I blurted between sobs, “but I feel as if I’ve been lost for a long, long time, only I didn’t know it until just this moment, and now I am home.”

“Well then, welcome home.”

This was absurd.  How could an image cause such a reaction?  What was happening to me?

The woman gently ushered me into a room.

“I only came to keep my friend company,”  I panicked.  “I don’t have an appointment.”

“Not to worry.”  The woman had long flowing hair, and her face glowed with a soft light that defied any telltale signs of age.  She was not what I expected.

She began to run her hands just above my body, as if searching for something.  The flow of tears continued, and by now my nose was running, and I felt an urge to use the toilet.

“I’m sorry,”  I apologized as I quickly exited in search of the bathroom.

“No problem, Running Water,”  she joked, and added, “That is surely your Indian name.”

After what felt like an uncomfortable length of time, I finally got ahold of myself.

“What happened?”  I asked the woman.

“Your soul made a connection to something that is obviously of importance to you.”

“And what is that?” I was stilling feeling somewhat vulnerable.

“I like to call it the Great Mystery,”  she replied.  “Some call it The Way.”

It was definitely a defining moment for me, from which I would be forever transformed.

(Image: storify.com)

Independence

“Take the train into the city, Mom.  It would be so much easier.”

“No,” I insisted.  “I like the independence of having my car.”

So, I arrived at my daughter’s Monday morning to find there were no parking spaces on her street.  I texted her to meet me outside.  It was close to lunch time, so I suggested we go for some lunch and then, hopefully, find a place for my car afterwards.  I parked near the restaurant, which was just blocks away from her home.

“I can leave my car here.”

“No, parking here is only one hour.  We’ll have to move it after lunch.”

We lingered on the patio, enjoying the day and catching up on each other’s lives.

After lunch, we drove around again, searching in vain.  I parked in the one hour zone again, hoping something would come up later.

We rested for a while, then drove the car to get some groceries from the store that was, also, just around the corner.  On our return, I found a spot across from their townhouse.

“I won’t want to move my car any time soon,”  I joked.

And, in fact, I didn’t.  My daughter’s home is situated in a trendy neighbourhood close to shops and restaurants – really anything you need is in walking distance.  My car, it turned out was just a burden.

My need for “independence”, on my terms, really only complicated things for me.

I wonder how many other routines or habits complicate my life.

Simplifying my life means being willing to let go of some of the beliefs that I cling to, and being open to another way of doing things.

Birthday Weeds

“Can I have a bike for my birthday this year?”  A typical, impatient eight-year-old, I must have asked my parents this question a million times.  I was excited for my upcoming birthday, and really wanted a bike with a big banana seat, and raised handle-bars.

“You’ll have to wait and see,”  was the constant reply, but my birthday falls in the middle of the summer, and so many perfect bike-riding days were passing me by.

As my big day approached, my father teased me that I was getting bubblegum for my birthday.   I was confident he was kidding and that I would soon be soaring through the streets on my new, longed for wheels.

Birthday morning came, and no present.  “You have to wait till your party,” Mom informed me.  The hours just didn’t pass fast enough.   My friends arrived in the afternoon, and we swam for awhile before my father barbequed burgers and hot dogs, and then it was time for gifts.  After opening all the gifts from my friends, the moment I had anticipated finally arrived.

“There is one more gift,”  my father announced, disappearing into the garage.

And there it was!  A shiny, new, all-mine, bicycle.  “Here’s your bubblegum,”  Dad beamed.  I beamed back.  It was exactly what I wanted.

“Thanks so much!”  I gushed, and was about to say more when I noticed my mother following with something else.  Another new bike……for my little sister.

What?  It wasn’t her birthday until November.  “Me too, me too,”  she started to squeal.

I didn’t say anything.  I didn’t know what to say.  I got what I wanted, so why was this bothering me so?

It was a question that would fester inside me for a long time.  That year would mark the end of birthday excitement for me.  It was the start of a legacy of disappointment that I never addressed, and therefore; allowed to grow out of control.

For my ninth birthday, I got a new bike, but I also gained the realization that life is not always fair.  I knew without asking why my sister got a present on my birthday – it was so she wouldn’t throw a temper tantrum – but I also knew with certainty that I wouldn’t get a present on her birthday, and somehow that didn’t seem right.  I wasn’t given to temper tantrums, but did that mean that I also had to forgo being special for one day?

In the years that followed, my birthdays were celebrated on family vacations, usually in public places with just a cake to mark the occasion.  I told myself it didn’t matter.

I lied.

Truth is, I allowed that initial seed of disappointment to ferment inside me.  I didn’t confront the issue because I thought I was being oversensitive.  I didn’t want to hurt my parents feelings, and I certainly didn’t want them to think I was ungrateful.  But the more I pushed the hurt down, the bigger it grew.  In my own mind, I compounded the issue.  My parents didn’t love me as much as they did the other children;  there was something wrong with me.   Every time I felt left out or overlooked, my feelings were just confirmed.  I came to dread my birthday month.  By the time I reached adulthood, this dread was accompanied by depression.

The issue exploded on my 40th birthday.  My mother, in her usual way, had been calling me leading up to my birthday, making comments such as:  “You have everything you need, I don’t suppose there is anything I could get you anyway,”  or “Don’t know if I’ll get you anything for your birthday this year,” and so on.  When she showed up with a frozen turkey, I lost it.

“Mom!  Why do you have such a problem with my birthday!  If you don’t want to celebrate it, then don’t, but don’t taunt me with it!”

“Of course, I want to celebrate your birthday.”  She was taken aback.

“You never have!  You always make it sound like it’s such a hardship.  I’d rather you didn’t acknowledge it at all!”

“What do you mean?  I’m here with a gift aren’t I?”

“Yes, Mom, but all week longed you’d hinted that there might not be a gift, as if you really don’t want to give me anything.”

“Well, it’s just that you have everything.”

“It’s not about the gift, Mom.  It’s about the acknowledgment.”

The conversation didn’t go well.  My mother left feeling hurt, and I felt I had made a worse mess of things.  I would like to say that things have improved, but they haven’t.  For the second year in a row, my mother has completely forgotten my birthday.  I asked for it, I guess.

When you allow things to fester, they grow roots, and like untended weeds, can get out of control.

I am fifty-four years old, and I still don’t know how to uproot the weed associated with my mother and my birthday.

Growing Wings

“Thank you for being here, Mom.”  The exhaustion in my daughter’s voice was echoed in her face.  The epidural had finally kicked in, and we were all feeling a sense of relief.  It was 5 a.m.  Her first contraction had hit at 1:20 the day before, as we were walking home from a lunch out.

I didn’t know what to say.

So many feelings were flooding me.  It didn’t seem like that long ago that I had laboured with her, pacing the hospital hallways, seeking relief in any way that I could.  Now my baby was having a baby.  It was a miracle to behold.

So I was feeling sentimental, and at the same time, wishing I could do it for her – taking her pain away.

I was in awe of the strength and courage she was showing, this young woman who as a child feared everything.   She cursed a few times, and moaned as the pain wrapped around her and squeezed relentlessly, but not once did she complain, or wish it away.  From somewhere inside her she had harnessed a determination to see this trial through, and her focus was admirable.  I could not be more proud.

I knew what awaited her at the end of this journey.  I knew all about the indescribable bliss and wonder that fills you the moment that baby emerges and is placed in your arms.  I understood how in that moment there is an instantaneous shift of realization that this new little being is totally dependent on you.    I couldn’t tell her, but she would experience it soon enough.

And I couldn’t tell her that my presence on this sacred occasion was no burden to me, but an incredible gift.  She could never know how grateful I was to her, and especially the baby’s father, that they had invited me here to witness this sacred event.

So, I smiled and squeezed her hand, and stroked her face, and reassured her that it would all be over soon, and bit the inside of my cheek to stop my own flood of emotion from pouring forth.

Somewhere along the way, my baby had become a woman, and as I bore witness, she grew wings and took on her mission with grace and dignity:  ascending to motherhood without looking back.

When Looking for Answers

The call came just as I was falling into a deep sleep, which didn’t help my mood.  Neither my husband nor I recognized the number.  After the usual formalities, Thor handed me the phone. It was a man who had tracked me down earlier in the year, looking for psychic counselling.  Although I don’t practice anymore, I had made an exception for him.

“I need your advice,”  he started.  “I feel like things are shifting, and I have a new woman in my life.  I think she is my soulmate.”

“You are not going to like what I have to say,”  I interrupted.  “I don’t believe in ‘soul mates’.”

“You don’t believe in reincarnation?”

“Yes, but not that there is only one person for us.”  I really didn’t want to get into this right now.

“I think I have been downloaded several times.”

“Are you still there?”

“I don’t know what that means.”   The conversation was becoming very irritating.  ‘Downloaded’ was a new one to me, but I had heard lots – ‘walk-ins’, ‘star children’, among others.

“I am very pragmatic.”  I warned.  “If the idea or information is not practical, I avoid it.”

I cut the conversation short.

I understand the drive to find answers to life’s mysteries.  I myself spent many years exploring different philosophies and theories, looking for one that would help me understand and feel in control.  Truth is, none exist.  No matter what we believe, or think we know, life is full of uncertainty, and yes, risk.

This caller, like many before him, wants to know that the choices he is making will lead to happiness and a better life.  He wants to avoid pain and heartache, and above all, loneliness.   He wants to believe in magic over common sense.

Whatever answers we seek, we need to be able to weigh them against some practical form of measurement.  We need guidance for living a good life, not a promise that we will meet a ‘soul mate’ who will fulfill us, nor a foolproof plan for ensuring eternal bliss. Sound advice for slogging through the hard stuff, simplifying our lives, and being true to ourselves are the answers we should be seeking.

(Image: macpeanut.wordpress.com)

An Enlightened Life

“What would you like to learn about?”

“Tell us about your life,”  one woman called out.

“Well, yes, that,”  the tiny woman responded, “but there’s nothing to learn there.  What do you want to learn?”

After several protests, our teacher promised that she would fill us in on her ninety plus years at the end of the weekend.

I had anticipated this workshop for months, without really knowing what to expect.  Dora Kunz, co-founder of Therapeutic Touch, had published several books about her work, but I found them difficult to read, and hadn’t gained much from them.  Unlike her partner, Delores Krieger, Dora did not have a nursing background and so remained somewhat of an enigma to those of us who pursued understanding of this simple, but powerful technique.  I had taken several workshops with Delores, each of them long and gruelling, packed with information and experiences, Delores being a tireless lecturer.  Krieger’s workshops were always accompanied by an outline of curriculum expectations, and formally conducted.  Participants would have to ask for breaks, as Krieger’s passion for the subject matter precluded any need for a break in her presentation. It was immediately apparent that Dora Kunz’s approach was in stark contrast to that of her colleague.

My initial reaction to Kunz’s opening question was disappointment.  I had signed up for a workshop on meditation, did she not know that?   Was this woman too old and senile to be able to put a program together?

“Well we signed up for a workshop on meditation.”  Someone else must have been thinking the same as me.

“Yes, but what about meditation would you like to learn?”  I had to admit, the lady was charming.  She must have been all of 4’10”, with waves of white hair caressing her gentle face.  A warm smile, and twinkling eyes embraced her audience, and an obvious sense of humour set us at ease.  “At my age, I don’t plan for these things, you know.  I find it’s better to just go with the flow.”

So that’s what we did.  For three mesmerizing days, we listening hungrily to the words of this tiny guru, whose vast bank of experience and pragmatic approach to teaching guided us to the deeper understanding we sought.  For me, her greatest lesson was yet to come.

At the end of the weekend, as promised, Dora told us about her life.

“I was only five years old,”  she began, “when my parents, recognizing there was something different about me, built me a meditation room.”  As a young child, Dora had an awareness of energy and other realities that most parents would brush off as an active imagination.  Dora’s parents decided to nurture these gifts in their only child.  When Dora was eleven, she was invited to study with a man at an institute continents away, where the spoken language was different from her own.  Her parents told her to meditate on it, which she did, and decided to accept his offer.  “I looked like an eight-year-old boy,” Dora laughed, “when I arrived at this institution full of adults.”  Dora stayed and studied with this man for several years and then moved to another foreign country to further her studies.  Her work eventually led her to the United States, where I would have the privilege of meeting her.

When asked how she knew which offers to accept, Dora responded:  “No was not an option for me.  I trusted that this work was my calling, and so I always looked for a way to say yes when opportunity knocked.”  It was not always easy, she went on to explain.  At one point in her life, she was asked to speak about her spiritual beliefs to a group of convicts.  She was just a young woman, and felt incredibly vulnerable and intimidated by the gathering of murderers and hard-core criminals she encountered, but she said that was all soon forgotten when the men found something comforting in her words.

Dora continued her work, and I would encounter her again at another workshop, still teaching, just two weeks before she passed away.  She was 95.

Dora Kunz remains for me an icon of someone who has led a complete life.  She lived her life inspired by a passion for learning and helping others.   She was dedicated to a life of service.

(Image from nancybragin.com)

One Way Conversation with Dad

Happy Birthday, Dad.  You would have been 88 today.

I miss you today, Dad.  I miss your wisdom; I could use some right now.

I don’t know if you can read this, Dad, or hear me, but I’d like to pull up a chair anyway, so we can talk.  You see, I’m just not feeling that confident today, Dad.

I know, I know.  You’d say “Why not Squeegie?  Life’s what you make of it, and you’re doing a pretty darn good job, from what I can see.”  And I would smile, despite myself, and thank you for the vote of confidence.

Truth is, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in life, Dad, either from stubbornness, or just plain stupidity, and I’m beginning to think that that old saying is about me – you know, the one you used to say all the time:  Failure to plan is planning to fail.  Well, I failed to plan, Dad.

Before you say anything, I’m not bemoaning my life – it has been good.  I’m just recognizing, at my age, that if I had planned, life would be a lot different right now.  I’d be retiring with my friends, and looking forward to spending many days with my grandchildren.  Instead, I don’t even have a full-time job, so retirement is definitely not in the cards.

I know what you’re thinking: you weren’t a very good role model, because you failed to plan also. ( Oh, by the way, I was mad at you for that – for leaving Mom with so little, despite all the money that you made.)  Seems I’m doing the same to myself.

But it’s more than that, Dad.  I just don’t feel like I can trust myself, enough to make right choices, career-wise.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I have a hard time telling if I’m doing a good job, or am appreciated.  I always feel apologetic or inadequate.  Why is that?

No, don’t start, it’s not all your fault.  Okay, you didn’t help, but I’m an adult now, you’d think I’d be over that.  I’m just tired of doubting myself.

Remember when my marriage fell apart, and how the day I realized it, I drove directly to you?  You sat in your chair and listened, while I crumpled on the couch, spewing anger, and disappointment, and heartbreak.  I felt so defeated, and you cried with me, and shook your head, and raged on my behalf.  I don’t remember exactly what you said, but this is what I heard:

“Squeege (your pet name for me), I don’t know why this has happened to you, but I do know this:  you are a bright, loving woman, and you give your heart and soul to everything you do, and everyone you love, and you deserve better than this.  Goddamn it, you deserve better than this!”

You could be a bastard, a lot of the time, Dad, but you were also my rock.

I’m just sorry that today, you weren’t here for me to tell you so. As for my problems, guess I’ll have to figure this one out on my own.

I was too proud to tell you when you were alive, Dad (and too stubborn), but truth is, I needed you.  Still do.

Thanks for listening, and by the way, Happy Father’s Day.

Love you,

Squeege

The Diving Accident

The moment I felt my foot slip, I knew I was in trouble.  I attempted the flip anyway, wanting to impress my 10 year-old friend.

I didn’t pull out on time.

My head hit the bottom of the pool, and as my neck snapped back, I was intensely aware that this was the end.  Now paralyzed, my body sunk.  My eyes sought the surface of the water, searching for some hope, but all I could see was a blinding light.

Distracted, I momentarily forgot my predicament.  Why have I never noticed the sun from here before?  I wondered.  An avid swimmer, I loved swimming underwater with my eyes open, performing tricks and pretending I was a mermaid or a dolphin. This day, I decided to practice my ‘Olympic’ dives.  My friend, who was a year older, wasn’t quite as brave.  I might have been showing off a bit.

It’s not the sun, I realized.  The white light was encompassing me now, and with it I felt a deep sense of calm and peacefulness.  My moment had come.

Come home, the light beckoned.

But I just got started!  Do I have to?

No.  You can stay, but you have to know it won’t be easy.

It’s okay, my mind responded.  I am strong.

You will have to be strong, but you will never be alone.

A force of love lifted me from that water, and I watched myself climb the ladder and collapse on the ground.   Then I was me again, shaken and trembling, but alive.  My friend had disappeared.  I hoped she’d gone for help, but when none materialized, I knew I had to make myself move.

I escaped that day with a cracked vertebrae, and a summer of sleeping on a hard board while it healed: a hardship I would soon forget.  The memory of that white light, though, has never left me.  I was nine when I had my first taste of how sacred life is, and learned that it is not a destination, but a journey.

Attitude Check

Energy flows where attention goes, is a principle of Huna.  It means that whatever we focus on we create.

Every spring, facing the end of my current teaching contract, I feel the tug of anxiety in the pit of my stomach.  I begin to doubt myself, and see only the impossibilities around me.  I wonder what will happen to me if they don’t hire me back, and I look at the colleagues who will be competing against me for jobs, and grow increasingly certain that I do not stand a chance.

“It doesn’t look good for next year,”  I recently expressed to a colleague.

“Hard to tell,”  she responded.  “Things turn around.”

I went on to explain to her why I didn’t think that would happen this year, and convinced her that I may have a point. We both parted in gloom.  Misery is contagious.

I began to read negatives into conversations, and convinced myself that I was neither valued nor wanted.  Then I decided to change my attitude and act as if I was appreciated and valued.

And guess what?

People started to tell me how appreciated I am, and many expressed hope that I will be able to continue in my job. I feel valued, and for the past two days, have felt a release in the tension.

Attitude is everything.  Gratitude is key.