“Falling in love.” What does that mean? What does it mean when you do it? What does it mean when someone else does it with you? And if you can fall in love, can you fall out of it, too?
It seems like “love” is the only area in which falling is seen as a good thing! Otherwise, falling is something we spend a considerable amount of time and energy endeavoring to avoid! But when it’s L-O-V-E , we just can’t wait to take the tumble!
I remember my first time to “fall in love.” His name was Charles Brock, and we were both in the seventh grade. He was skinny with huge brown eyes, a sweet and crooked smile, and this shock of blond hair that would tumble over onto his forehead no matter how hard he tried not to let it. Charles wasn’t a great conversationalist, and didn’t care much for music (which has always been a big part of my life), and I honestly can’t remember whether he was very intellectual or not. No, the most attractive thing about Charles was that he was attracted to me! I didn’t understand it, but I was grateful! Finally, I was part of the grownup world of being “in love.”
I remember that a few years before that, I asked my mom how come all the songs were about being in love. As I said, music has always been a huge part of me, and at around 8 or 9 I noticed that just about every song I heard anywhere ever was about people who were “in love.” My mom told me all the songs were about that because it was just about the most important thing in life. That was a little confusing, because she had previously always said that my little brother and me were the most important things in life.
I asked her how you know when you’re “in love,” and her response was most unsatisfactory – “Oh, sweetie, when you’re in love, you just know!” Well, what kind of an answer was that? I was terribly disappointed in Mom for that one!
And yet here I was, a few years later, at the tender age of 13, having just been kissed for the very first time in my life by Charles Brock with his shock of blond hair and crooked smile, and suddenly it all made perfect sense. Yep, I was in love. And I knew it. Mom had been right … when you are, you just know!
Of course, Charles was the first, but he certainly wasn’t the last. I’ve been “in love” a few more times since then. I was “in love” with Billy in high school, and he was in love with me too, for awhile. Until he was in love with someone else. I wasn’t in love with Bobby, the man to whom I surrendered my virginity. He was very nice, and I liked him a lot, but we weren’t in love. I was deeply in lust with the man who became my first husband. Although I grew to love him during our short three years as man and wife, when we first got together, it was absolutely about the fabulous sexual connection, which was really all we ever had in common anyway. And my second and final husband – the father of my child – is someone with whom I never even shared so much as the illusion of love. We each had our own reasons for marrying one another, and none of them had to do with romance or even lust.
There was a boy in there that I dearly and deeply loved, from the time we first connected in high school until this very day. I loved Terry with my whole heart and soul, and I love him still. I expect to love him throughout the remainder of this lifetime, and on into the next. It was a love that was borne of a genuine soul connection, and it took up residence inside my heart permanently. The follies of youth invaded our lives and caused us to part and go our separate ways. He is now happily married to a wonderful woman, and I am genuinely happy for him. But I will go on loving him forever, of that there is no doubt.
Notice I didn’t say I “fell in love” with him? I remember some very tender and sweet feelings as I was getting to know Terry better and better; the kind of affection that grows daily as someone opens to you like a flower; the kind of warmth that spreads through your being when you innately know your heart is completely safe with this person. But there was no “falling.” It never felt like a shock. In my experience, falling in love always feels like a shock.
You see, I have analyzed this phenomenon in the last few years, concomitant with my personal and spiritual growth, and I have come to realize that “falling in love” is far from the wonderful, be-all, end-all pinnacle of life it’s touted to be. In fact, it’s actually quite an unhealthy reaction, in my opinion. It’s more like succumbing to an addictive substance than growing larger and stronger as a human.
You see, “falling in love” feels kind of like a drug-induced high. You’re riding a wave of euphoria you hope will never end. At first, everything about the person who is the object of your affection – or object of your addiction? – seems to be perfect and shiny and miraculous. This person appears to have no flaws, like an angel descended from heaven to finally make your life complete!
In fact, it is an addiction of sorts, this type of relationship. What you’re addicted to, though, isn’t a substance, and it isn’t really even another person; what you’re addicted to is the feeling of being adored. You’re addicted to how the reflection of your wonderful Self in another’s eyes makes you feel about YOU! It’s rather like a surfer riding the biggest, most perfect wave in the world. The only problem is that wave must eventually, inevitably come crashing against the shore, and when that happens in our romantic relationships, we’re never prepared for it, it always comes as a hideous surprise, and we allow ourselves to be devastated.
Now you’re going cold turkey, against your will, “jonesing” for what’s been yanked away from you. You think you’re in love and you’re missing that person; in reality, what you’re missing, what you’re craving, is the way the other person made you feel about yourself. You very quickly became accustomed to the high of feeling adored, and now that it’s been torn away from you, it hurts down to the quick.
The bad news is, that was never real love.
The good news is, that was never real love!
What? You’re not convinced? Let me illuminate this for you.
Do you have kids? Know how you feel about your kids? You know, that unconditional adoration that lives in your heart and that is independent of their feelings, moods, or behavior? THAT, my friend, is real love!
Know that friend who you felt connected to from the first moment you met? The one that you can always turn to no matter what? The one who’ll tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not? The one you will be there for through thick and thin, even the consequences of doing exactly what you warned against? THAT is real love!
You know that four-legged critter that can’t wait for you to get home at the end of the day? The one you yelled at this morning for getting in your way because you overslept and were running late? The one you forgot to feed the other day? The one you sometimes ignore for days on end, but who is always just as happy to see you as ever? THAT is real love!
The “falling in love” phenomenon is real, too, but it’s different. It’s your first taste of what it feels like to be unconditionally adored. But that’s all any other person can ever give you – a taste.
But … and here comes the REAL good news … you CAN have that feeling all the time, on a daily basis, every minute of every day, and under nobody’s control but your own! YOU can give that to YOU!!!! That’s the value of the “in love” experience. You’ve now had a taste of total acceptance and you don’t ever want it to end; but as long as the locus of control is external to yourself, it WILL end.
So take this as a sign, a signal that you have work to do. You need to work on loving your glorious and magnificent Self. You need to “fall in love” with YOU! Take the time to cultivate your own unconditional adoration! Start noticing every little wonderful thing about you, and compliment yourself for those things. Spend time basking in your own company, and admiring your amazing qualities. Dress up in your very finest and take yourself out on a date, making sure to comment on how fabulous and sexy and delicious you look!
You see, the concept is very simple, even if it’s not easy to implement: you can never give away that which you do not possess. If I asked you to give me 100 gold coins, you would have to say no. Whether or not you like me, or would be willing to part with some gold, or think my reasons are worthy … none of that is relevant. You would have to say no because you don’t HAVE 100 gold coins. Now, if you DID have 100 gold coins, then it would get down to those other issues, and you would need to duly and reasonably consider them and weigh the value of each, and make a logical decision.
It’s the same with love. You cannot give away that which you do not possess. We all need love, and hanker for it in our deepest inner being. But the foundation of fulfillment of this desire must come from within. Until you have love, you cannot give away love. And the same is true of all humans. So as long as you go around trying to gobble up the love of another person in a well-intentioned, albeit horribly misguided, attempt to fill that void within your soul, you are bound for disappointment. You will find yourself crashing against those rocks on the shore, wondering why this happened again and what you’re doing wrong and why nobody can love you for long.
The answer is inside you. The solution is already in your soul. YOU have to love you, unconditionally, with premeditated reckless abandon, unreservedly and unabashedly! Then and only then will you find yourself able to connect with another person in a healthy, loving relationship that actually might stand a chance of lasting the rest of this lifetime!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
PINPOINTS
I just realized something this morning. Something that made me smile. I’ve made quite a bit of genuine progress! I saw a post from a friend on Facebook about going through the roughest time of her life. This particular person is really more of an acquaintance than a friend (although I would like that to change and am hoping it will), so I don’t know the specifics of whatever it is she’s going through; but my empathic self has picked up one thing for certain … she significantly underestimates her Self and has no idea how strong nor how valuable she really is.
That’s when it hit me … I don’t do that to me any more! Not every day of my life is stellar and sterling, and not every moment of my existence am I whistling a happy tune with bluebirds fluttering around my head. But even on my darkest days, even on days when I feel sad or discouraged or downhearted or frustrated or just plain overwhelmed, I don’t ever, ever feel completely lost or lonely or adrift any more. THAT IS HUGE, PEOPLE! There was a time in my life when lost, lonely, and adrift were pretty much my regular state of being, with little isolated incidences of brighter moods here and there, like tiny pinpoints of light in a vast sea of darkness … never predictable or dependable or within my control (that I knew of), but just enough to keep me from going COMPLETELY off the deep end.
Then as I began my Self-work lo these twenty-plus years ago, those pinpoints of light began to show up a bit more often. After awhile, they were more than just tiny pinpoints … they came more frequently and lasted longer each time. I was beginning to garner a sense that there was a connection between the work I was consciously doing on me and the increase of the light, and though I still didn’t have a firm grasp on causing or controlling them, I knew I was heading in the right general direction.
Over the years, with a shift so gradual as to be almost imperceptible to anyone, perhaps, except my Self, the light became the norm and the occurrences of darkness the anomalies … pretty much down to “pinpoint” status, and with lessening frequency and impact.
I noticed another thing not too long ago … when the darkness does appear, it takes MUCH less time to dissipate now than it used to! What would once have been a funk that might last several weeks now washes over me and recedes in a matter of days or even hours!
But it wasn’t until I saw my friend’s post this morning on Facebook that I realized how far I really have come! My lowest low nowadays is little more than a momentary glitch on the radar that disappears almost as soon as it presents itself! And now that I DO know that I’m in control of my emotions, if I’m tired or distracted enough to let a pinpoint of darkness pop up, it’s not shattering or devastating any more, because I simply order it away as soon as I notice it! And even in my worst moments, I no longer feel utterly lost and adrift, because I have my anchor, and my anchor is my glorious, fabulous, wondrous, beautiful, amazing, awesome Self! I have ME! I am my center, and no storm that shows up can sever that certainty! There is an indwelling of peace that permeates my soul and which cannot be rocked by any exterior circumstance, event, or occurrence.
That is a miracle to me, and I sit here beaming with joy at having realized that I’ve attained that for my Self! But there’s an even greater miracle that I’m now moving toward … establishing within my Self this unshakeable, immovable base of peace was only the first part of my dharma; the next part, I am just now seeing, is to share it with the world!
So I now consciously and intentionally embark upon the shift into the next phase of my life, evolving to ever-expanding fulfillment of my purpose, my reason for coming here this time … to take what I have learned in this great lab experiment known as my life and interpret the results and share them with those in this world who are thirsting and ready to receive!
And so it begins. And so it is!
That’s when it hit me … I don’t do that to me any more! Not every day of my life is stellar and sterling, and not every moment of my existence am I whistling a happy tune with bluebirds fluttering around my head. But even on my darkest days, even on days when I feel sad or discouraged or downhearted or frustrated or just plain overwhelmed, I don’t ever, ever feel completely lost or lonely or adrift any more. THAT IS HUGE, PEOPLE! There was a time in my life when lost, lonely, and adrift were pretty much my regular state of being, with little isolated incidences of brighter moods here and there, like tiny pinpoints of light in a vast sea of darkness … never predictable or dependable or within my control (that I knew of), but just enough to keep me from going COMPLETELY off the deep end.
Then as I began my Self-work lo these twenty-plus years ago, those pinpoints of light began to show up a bit more often. After awhile, they were more than just tiny pinpoints … they came more frequently and lasted longer each time. I was beginning to garner a sense that there was a connection between the work I was consciously doing on me and the increase of the light, and though I still didn’t have a firm grasp on causing or controlling them, I knew I was heading in the right general direction.
Over the years, with a shift so gradual as to be almost imperceptible to anyone, perhaps, except my Self, the light became the norm and the occurrences of darkness the anomalies … pretty much down to “pinpoint” status, and with lessening frequency and impact.
I noticed another thing not too long ago … when the darkness does appear, it takes MUCH less time to dissipate now than it used to! What would once have been a funk that might last several weeks now washes over me and recedes in a matter of days or even hours!
But it wasn’t until I saw my friend’s post this morning on Facebook that I realized how far I really have come! My lowest low nowadays is little more than a momentary glitch on the radar that disappears almost as soon as it presents itself! And now that I DO know that I’m in control of my emotions, if I’m tired or distracted enough to let a pinpoint of darkness pop up, it’s not shattering or devastating any more, because I simply order it away as soon as I notice it! And even in my worst moments, I no longer feel utterly lost and adrift, because I have my anchor, and my anchor is my glorious, fabulous, wondrous, beautiful, amazing, awesome Self! I have ME! I am my center, and no storm that shows up can sever that certainty! There is an indwelling of peace that permeates my soul and which cannot be rocked by any exterior circumstance, event, or occurrence.
That is a miracle to me, and I sit here beaming with joy at having realized that I’ve attained that for my Self! But there’s an even greater miracle that I’m now moving toward … establishing within my Self this unshakeable, immovable base of peace was only the first part of my dharma; the next part, I am just now seeing, is to share it with the world!
So I now consciously and intentionally embark upon the shift into the next phase of my life, evolving to ever-expanding fulfillment of my purpose, my reason for coming here this time … to take what I have learned in this great lab experiment known as my life and interpret the results and share them with those in this world who are thirsting and ready to receive!
And so it begins. And so it is!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
DEFYING YOUR AGE
Our culture is obsessed with youth. This is not news. I believe that any thinking person over the age of 30 would agree that this is something we need to change. However, I would propose that even those who recognize this imbalance could perhaps use a focus adjustment as well.
I have a friend who recently posted on Facebook that she had been accused of trying to “hide” her true age by how she dresses and acts. Her response to this was quite understandable … she first “outed” herself by declaring her correct chronological age, and then defended herself by saying she’s never tried to mislead anyone about how old she is. The responses of her friends and supporters shared a basic theme – that she is beautiful and doesn’t look her age and shouldn’t worry about it.
That’s very nice, but it still places the emphasis on the wrong part of the problem, in this writer’s opinion. To try to comfort someone by telling her she “doesn’t look her age” is to play into the myth that younger is better. We tell a 40-year-old she doesn’t look a day over 30, or we assure a 55-year-old grandmother that she sure doesn’t look like a grandmother. While these are apparently positive and supportive statements at first blush, the reality is that they imply there’s something wrong with “looking like” a 40-year-old or a grandmother; and further, that there even IS such a thing. What does a 40-year-old look like? What does a grandmother look like?
And WHY do we blindly accept the presumption that it’s better to be young? Why do we deify youth in this culture? I purport that this has come about largely as a result of some very successful marketing strategies used by just about every advertiser in the world. After all, marketing is based on the premise of supply and demand. You can either perceive a demand and supply what’s needed to fulfill it, or you can CREATE a demand, supply the promised fulfillment, and get rich, rich, RICH!
If I can convince you that who you are, how you are, is unacceptable, then the sky’s the limit as to the products I can sell you to make yourself once more acceptable. And since every human is growing older every day of life from birth to death, what better lie to sell than that younger is better? We’re told we should strive for skin that’s as soft as a baby’s bottom; a face with no lines or wrinkles; eyelashes that are long, dark, and thick; a figure resembling that of a pre-pubescent boy; and for God’s sake we must NEVER let our natural hair color show!
Why? Why is baby-butt skin better? How can eyelashes make you more desirable? And who said being pencil-thin is the way women should look, even if that were possible to achieve? THE ADVERTISERS WHO WANT YOU TO BUY INTO THE MYTH SO YOU’LL BUY THEIR PRODUCTS, THAT’S WHO!
My real-world, reality-on-the-ground, not-made-for-television life experience has shown me things that are quite contrary to what the advertisers want you to believe.
One of my best friends met her husband when they were both in their late teens. They’ve been married for 40+ years now, and a few years ago he told me of the night they met. He saw a beautiful 17-year-old across a crowded room (literally!) and fell madly in love at first sight. He told his buddy standing next to him, “That’s the girl I’m gonna marry.” He described to me in painstaking detail – lo, these almost 40 years later – what she was wearing, how her hair was fixed, and who she was talking to. That in itself was heartwarming and incredible, especially coming from this outwardly gruff, car-racing redneck of a man; but what followed brought tears to my eyes. He looked into the kitchen at his now-50-something-year-old 20-pounds heavier wife in jeans and a stained sweatshirt, no make-up, unkempt hair, her hands in dishwater, and his eyes grew misty as he said, “Every time I look at her, that’s how I still see her, and I fall in love all over again.”
My own grandfather, twice-widowed, fell madly, passionately, head-over-heels, giddy-as-a-teenager in love when he was 80 years old. Always the strong, silent type, characteristically a man of very few words, he gushed effusively about his beautiful lady love, who he married and remained mad for until the day he passed from this earth ten years later. He thought she was gorgeous and sexy and amazing. She was also 80.
You see, the heart’s vision gets there a split second before the eyes’ view registers, and THIS is what we are actually responding to, albeit usually unbeknownst to us. But alas, we are spirits travelling through this plane of existence trapped inside these temporal bodies, and as such we tend to interpret our experiences and perception through the lens of form. We are attracted to, or repelled by, someone we just met and we attribute those feelings to something physical about that person, when in reality we are feeling the energy that person is emitting and THAT is what we’re reacting to.
Case in point? We can all think of someone – a celebrity or someone we know personally – who at first glance impressed us as not very attractive, but who, once we started to know them, became beautiful. And conversely, everyone knows someone who is aesthetically pleasing, but whose insides reveal an ugly person.
I am here and now calling for you, the people, to stand with me as we rise up and start a revolution! Let us no longer swallow the flavorless, unfulfilling pap being shoved down our throats by marketers. Let’s rip the scales from our eyes and start to “see” with our hearts. Let’s recognize that there is beauty in every person, and that it’s not connected to complexion or eyelash length or hair color or even – and perhaps most importantly – a person’s age. Let’s broaden our definition of beauty to include the place where beauty originates – in the heart and soul of a person. And most of all, let’s start to see, acknowledge, and proudly claim our OWN beauty. Let’s be the ones who teach the rest of the world that form is temporal, but spirit is ageless. And beautiful. ALWAYS!
I have a friend who recently posted on Facebook that she had been accused of trying to “hide” her true age by how she dresses and acts. Her response to this was quite understandable … she first “outed” herself by declaring her correct chronological age, and then defended herself by saying she’s never tried to mislead anyone about how old she is. The responses of her friends and supporters shared a basic theme – that she is beautiful and doesn’t look her age and shouldn’t worry about it.
That’s very nice, but it still places the emphasis on the wrong part of the problem, in this writer’s opinion. To try to comfort someone by telling her she “doesn’t look her age” is to play into the myth that younger is better. We tell a 40-year-old she doesn’t look a day over 30, or we assure a 55-year-old grandmother that she sure doesn’t look like a grandmother. While these are apparently positive and supportive statements at first blush, the reality is that they imply there’s something wrong with “looking like” a 40-year-old or a grandmother; and further, that there even IS such a thing. What does a 40-year-old look like? What does a grandmother look like?
And WHY do we blindly accept the presumption that it’s better to be young? Why do we deify youth in this culture? I purport that this has come about largely as a result of some very successful marketing strategies used by just about every advertiser in the world. After all, marketing is based on the premise of supply and demand. You can either perceive a demand and supply what’s needed to fulfill it, or you can CREATE a demand, supply the promised fulfillment, and get rich, rich, RICH!
If I can convince you that who you are, how you are, is unacceptable, then the sky’s the limit as to the products I can sell you to make yourself once more acceptable. And since every human is growing older every day of life from birth to death, what better lie to sell than that younger is better? We’re told we should strive for skin that’s as soft as a baby’s bottom; a face with no lines or wrinkles; eyelashes that are long, dark, and thick; a figure resembling that of a pre-pubescent boy; and for God’s sake we must NEVER let our natural hair color show!
Why? Why is baby-butt skin better? How can eyelashes make you more desirable? And who said being pencil-thin is the way women should look, even if that were possible to achieve? THE ADVERTISERS WHO WANT YOU TO BUY INTO THE MYTH SO YOU’LL BUY THEIR PRODUCTS, THAT’S WHO!
My real-world, reality-on-the-ground, not-made-for-television life experience has shown me things that are quite contrary to what the advertisers want you to believe.
One of my best friends met her husband when they were both in their late teens. They’ve been married for 40+ years now, and a few years ago he told me of the night they met. He saw a beautiful 17-year-old across a crowded room (literally!) and fell madly in love at first sight. He told his buddy standing next to him, “That’s the girl I’m gonna marry.” He described to me in painstaking detail – lo, these almost 40 years later – what she was wearing, how her hair was fixed, and who she was talking to. That in itself was heartwarming and incredible, especially coming from this outwardly gruff, car-racing redneck of a man; but what followed brought tears to my eyes. He looked into the kitchen at his now-50-something-year-old 20-pounds heavier wife in jeans and a stained sweatshirt, no make-up, unkempt hair, her hands in dishwater, and his eyes grew misty as he said, “Every time I look at her, that’s how I still see her, and I fall in love all over again.”
My own grandfather, twice-widowed, fell madly, passionately, head-over-heels, giddy-as-a-teenager in love when he was 80 years old. Always the strong, silent type, characteristically a man of very few words, he gushed effusively about his beautiful lady love, who he married and remained mad for until the day he passed from this earth ten years later. He thought she was gorgeous and sexy and amazing. She was also 80.
You see, the heart’s vision gets there a split second before the eyes’ view registers, and THIS is what we are actually responding to, albeit usually unbeknownst to us. But alas, we are spirits travelling through this plane of existence trapped inside these temporal bodies, and as such we tend to interpret our experiences and perception through the lens of form. We are attracted to, or repelled by, someone we just met and we attribute those feelings to something physical about that person, when in reality we are feeling the energy that person is emitting and THAT is what we’re reacting to.
Case in point? We can all think of someone – a celebrity or someone we know personally – who at first glance impressed us as not very attractive, but who, once we started to know them, became beautiful. And conversely, everyone knows someone who is aesthetically pleasing, but whose insides reveal an ugly person.
I am here and now calling for you, the people, to stand with me as we rise up and start a revolution! Let us no longer swallow the flavorless, unfulfilling pap being shoved down our throats by marketers. Let’s rip the scales from our eyes and start to “see” with our hearts. Let’s recognize that there is beauty in every person, and that it’s not connected to complexion or eyelash length or hair color or even – and perhaps most importantly – a person’s age. Let’s broaden our definition of beauty to include the place where beauty originates – in the heart and soul of a person. And most of all, let’s start to see, acknowledge, and proudly claim our OWN beauty. Let’s be the ones who teach the rest of the world that form is temporal, but spirit is ageless. And beautiful. ALWAYS!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
FLESH
Do you ever have to re-learn the same life lessons more than once, or is it just me? I hope I’m not alone in this, because I already feel foolish enough.
I recently made yet another sojourn back to – and subsequently back from – veganism. I was born with a deep love and compassion for animals, and since the age of about five or six, when I discovered where meat came from, it has always bothered me to think of an animal dying so that I could eat its flesh. Although I was a healthy child, I was tiny and frail-looking, so my parents were constantly concerned with my food intake, and on most nights, my required number of bites of meat was apportioned to me and I was not allowed to leave the dinner table until I had consumed every one of those bites. Vegetarianism was not an option.
In what I now think of as the “middle years,” I was far too consumed by the romantic and social aspects of my life to give much thought to what I put in my mouth. But a few years ago, I decided to try becoming a vegetarian. At that point, I had vaguely heard of “vegans” (although I had no idea how to correctly pronounce it), but never seriously considered taking that route. It seemed like something quite extreme to me.
That first trip to veggie-land lasted about 2 months. I had done absolutely no research and was totally unprepared … I thought all I needed to do was not eat meat. So I ate a lot of eggs and cheese and peanut butter, and at the end of 7 weeks, I was feeling weak, cranky, and logy, and I was craving meat so badly that my poodle started looking like those cartoons where you see a big steaming plate of food walking around with four furry legs!
Since that first attempt, there have been several others, the most recent of which [before this one] was about 10 months ago, when I went vegan for the first time. That only lasted a couple of weeks, mostly because I was getting very weak and VERY hungry. I was far better prepared that time, having done extensive research, having calculated the protein requirements for my body, and scrupulously keeping a food journal wherein I tracked the grams of everything to ensure that I was getting all my daily requirements. But I was still hungry … no, I was ALWAYS hungry! It seemed that no matter how much wonderful, delicious vegan food I ate, I was never satisfied.
Now, let me share here that I am a survivor of an eating disorder, and that’s not something to play around with. I spent a full year conquering that problem many years ago, but it’s like a barely-visible wolf who is always looming just outside the perimeter of my life, watching and waiting for any opportunity to pounce and once more take control. Obsessive thinking is the culprit, and I know of no faster way to dive back into obsession than manipulation of my diet. Whether it’s giving up sugar to enhance my physical health, or giving up animal products to soothe my soul, the justification for the beginning of that journey becomes irrelevant as I realize the ultimate destination is the same – a quick fall into the quicksand of obsession.
And let me interject here that if you, the reader, are starting to look down on those of us who deal with this tendency, even ever so slightly, try this little thought experiment: Think of your favorite food in all the world. Imagine it, what it looks like, what it smells like, what it tastes like. Get such a vivid vision of it in your mind that your mouth starts to water just thinking about it. Now, imagine that someone tells you that you can NEVER have that particular treat again. Not that you can only have it occasionally, or that you must perform some feat or accomplish some task before you can have it – simply that you can NEVER EVER have it again. How does that make you feel? What if this omnipotent being told you that you can have anything else on earth you want, and as much of it as you like, but you can never have that again?
Chances are, just as the result of this little allegory, you are already craving whatever your favored treat is, and chances are even greater that you will be having some by the end of this day, or certainly by the end of this week. That is the power of obsession. You just dipped your toe into the edge of a sinkhole that almost sucked me under several years ago, and I will not go swimming in that particular pond any more if I can help it.
So last night, as I sat on the couch playing an online Scrabble-type game on my phone in an attempt to distract myself from the gnawing hunger in the pit of my stomach and the gnawing obsession in the depths of my brain, I began to realize that I was starting to move in a barely-perceptible but definitively circular motion … slowly and gradually at first, but in an ever-tightening pattern that would surely end with me getting drawn into the vortex and going down the drain.
That’s when I realized I had to end this journey, only days since its inception. I felt embarrassed and like a big failure. I have endeavored so many times and with such fervor to be my authentic self and live my beliefs, and I always seem to fall short. So I did what I have been known to do in moments of existential crisis – I called my friend Kathleen! Kathleen is filled with common sense and is one of the most pragmatic and logical people I’ve ever known. She is deep and spiritual and funny and beautiful and intelligent, and has this uncanny knack for kicking me in the ass and bringing me back down to earth when I need it.
I explained my dilemma to Kathleen – or at least this chapter of it – and she sat silent for a moment. When she spoke, her words found their mark in my soul in a very profound way. She said, “I think it’s great that you care about the animals so much; but you have to care about you, too.”
Wow! That was huge! I forgot one of the lessons I so consistently preach to others … you don’t always have to be at the very top of your own priority list, but you should always be ON that list. I was putting all God’s critters on my list, to the exclusion of yours truly! That can never be healthy.
So I decided that I must once more allow my errant inner pendulum to swing back toward center. Finding my balance is one of my major quests this time around, and I cannot abandon that pursuit. And so I will return to my habit of purchasing only organic meat and dairy, and of giving genuine thanks to the animals who gave their lives that I might eat, and mostly of making food a non-issue in my life.
Am I embarrassed to have played this episode out in such a public way? Yeah, a little. But deep down, I am proud … proud that I am brave enough to share my journey with the world even though I may take some ribbing; and proud that spiritual understanding, growth, and development that would once have taken me months or even years now happens in a matter of days or even hours!
Feeling exhausted, hungry, and a little defeated last night, just before I drifted off to sleep, I remembered one more thing I learned a long time ago but had since forgotten … although I am not a rabid, in-your-face Christian person, I do believe that Jesus was the most enlightened being who has ever traversed the surface of this planet, and he was definitely not a vegan! He went fishing and he fed fish to the multitudes following him. He also partook of the traditional Jewish Passover meal, with the main course being lamb.
So I start this new day feeling a bit battered, but delightfully incredulous at the wisdom and growth that keep crashing into my already-richly-blessed life. I am truly wealthy, and for this I am truly grateful!
I recently made yet another sojourn back to – and subsequently back from – veganism. I was born with a deep love and compassion for animals, and since the age of about five or six, when I discovered where meat came from, it has always bothered me to think of an animal dying so that I could eat its flesh. Although I was a healthy child, I was tiny and frail-looking, so my parents were constantly concerned with my food intake, and on most nights, my required number of bites of meat was apportioned to me and I was not allowed to leave the dinner table until I had consumed every one of those bites. Vegetarianism was not an option.
In what I now think of as the “middle years,” I was far too consumed by the romantic and social aspects of my life to give much thought to what I put in my mouth. But a few years ago, I decided to try becoming a vegetarian. At that point, I had vaguely heard of “vegans” (although I had no idea how to correctly pronounce it), but never seriously considered taking that route. It seemed like something quite extreme to me.
That first trip to veggie-land lasted about 2 months. I had done absolutely no research and was totally unprepared … I thought all I needed to do was not eat meat. So I ate a lot of eggs and cheese and peanut butter, and at the end of 7 weeks, I was feeling weak, cranky, and logy, and I was craving meat so badly that my poodle started looking like those cartoons where you see a big steaming plate of food walking around with four furry legs!
Since that first attempt, there have been several others, the most recent of which [before this one] was about 10 months ago, when I went vegan for the first time. That only lasted a couple of weeks, mostly because I was getting very weak and VERY hungry. I was far better prepared that time, having done extensive research, having calculated the protein requirements for my body, and scrupulously keeping a food journal wherein I tracked the grams of everything to ensure that I was getting all my daily requirements. But I was still hungry … no, I was ALWAYS hungry! It seemed that no matter how much wonderful, delicious vegan food I ate, I was never satisfied.
Now, let me share here that I am a survivor of an eating disorder, and that’s not something to play around with. I spent a full year conquering that problem many years ago, but it’s like a barely-visible wolf who is always looming just outside the perimeter of my life, watching and waiting for any opportunity to pounce and once more take control. Obsessive thinking is the culprit, and I know of no faster way to dive back into obsession than manipulation of my diet. Whether it’s giving up sugar to enhance my physical health, or giving up animal products to soothe my soul, the justification for the beginning of that journey becomes irrelevant as I realize the ultimate destination is the same – a quick fall into the quicksand of obsession.
And let me interject here that if you, the reader, are starting to look down on those of us who deal with this tendency, even ever so slightly, try this little thought experiment: Think of your favorite food in all the world. Imagine it, what it looks like, what it smells like, what it tastes like. Get such a vivid vision of it in your mind that your mouth starts to water just thinking about it. Now, imagine that someone tells you that you can NEVER have that particular treat again. Not that you can only have it occasionally, or that you must perform some feat or accomplish some task before you can have it – simply that you can NEVER EVER have it again. How does that make you feel? What if this omnipotent being told you that you can have anything else on earth you want, and as much of it as you like, but you can never have that again?
Chances are, just as the result of this little allegory, you are already craving whatever your favored treat is, and chances are even greater that you will be having some by the end of this day, or certainly by the end of this week. That is the power of obsession. You just dipped your toe into the edge of a sinkhole that almost sucked me under several years ago, and I will not go swimming in that particular pond any more if I can help it.
So last night, as I sat on the couch playing an online Scrabble-type game on my phone in an attempt to distract myself from the gnawing hunger in the pit of my stomach and the gnawing obsession in the depths of my brain, I began to realize that I was starting to move in a barely-perceptible but definitively circular motion … slowly and gradually at first, but in an ever-tightening pattern that would surely end with me getting drawn into the vortex and going down the drain.
That’s when I realized I had to end this journey, only days since its inception. I felt embarrassed and like a big failure. I have endeavored so many times and with such fervor to be my authentic self and live my beliefs, and I always seem to fall short. So I did what I have been known to do in moments of existential crisis – I called my friend Kathleen! Kathleen is filled with common sense and is one of the most pragmatic and logical people I’ve ever known. She is deep and spiritual and funny and beautiful and intelligent, and has this uncanny knack for kicking me in the ass and bringing me back down to earth when I need it.
I explained my dilemma to Kathleen – or at least this chapter of it – and she sat silent for a moment. When she spoke, her words found their mark in my soul in a very profound way. She said, “I think it’s great that you care about the animals so much; but you have to care about you, too.”
Wow! That was huge! I forgot one of the lessons I so consistently preach to others … you don’t always have to be at the very top of your own priority list, but you should always be ON that list. I was putting all God’s critters on my list, to the exclusion of yours truly! That can never be healthy.
So I decided that I must once more allow my errant inner pendulum to swing back toward center. Finding my balance is one of my major quests this time around, and I cannot abandon that pursuit. And so I will return to my habit of purchasing only organic meat and dairy, and of giving genuine thanks to the animals who gave their lives that I might eat, and mostly of making food a non-issue in my life.
Am I embarrassed to have played this episode out in such a public way? Yeah, a little. But deep down, I am proud … proud that I am brave enough to share my journey with the world even though I may take some ribbing; and proud that spiritual understanding, growth, and development that would once have taken me months or even years now happens in a matter of days or even hours!
Feeling exhausted, hungry, and a little defeated last night, just before I drifted off to sleep, I remembered one more thing I learned a long time ago but had since forgotten … although I am not a rabid, in-your-face Christian person, I do believe that Jesus was the most enlightened being who has ever traversed the surface of this planet, and he was definitely not a vegan! He went fishing and he fed fish to the multitudes following him. He also partook of the traditional Jewish Passover meal, with the main course being lamb.
So I start this new day feeling a bit battered, but delightfully incredulous at the wisdom and growth that keep crashing into my already-richly-blessed life. I am truly wealthy, and for this I am truly grateful!
Monday, November 29, 2010
HOW I KNOW
When I was nine years old, Tina came into my life. On my ninth birthday, to be exact. My parents had been asking me for weeks what I wanted for my birthday, and all I ever had to tell them by way of response was, “a kitten.” I wanted a kitten more than anything. More than a new doll or a new outfit or any new toy I could imagine. I just wanted a kitten. A soft, furry ball of fluff to call my very own, who would love me more than anyone or anything on earth – almost as much as I would love her.
We already had a dog – a lovely little poodle named Frisky. I loved Frisky, as did everyone in the family; but it was no secret that Frisky was my mom’s dog. It didn’t start out that way, of course. We got him as a family pet, because both Mom and Dad had grown up with animals and wanted my little brother and me to have the same experience. But since Frisky was a puppy when he came into our family, and since my brother and I were away at school all day and Mom was the one home taking care of him, he very quickly and thoroughly bonded to her, and before too many weeks had passed, there was no denying it – Frisky was my mom’s dog!
I loved our dog, of course, but dogs were rambunctious and playful and clumsy and … well, more of a boy’s pet, at least in my 8-year-old view. I wanted a pet of my very own, a kitty who would be bonded to ME, and who would think I was the greatest thing since … well, since warm milk! And I had the timing all figured out, too: my birthday is in June, which meant school was already out, so my kitty and I would have all summer to bond with one another, and she would surely be MY kitty indeed!
My dad was in the Air Force, and we moved around a lot, and as anyone knows who has ever moved even once, moving gets pretty complicated when you add a pet into the mix, and exponentially so when you add more than one. I understood that. In my mind, I knew that my parents’ consistent denials of my pathetic pleas for my own kitty-cat made sense; but in my little almost-nine-year-old heart, all I knew was that I WANTED A KITTY! I was obsessed with this yearning, so when Mom and Dad persistently questioned me about what else I’d like for my birthday, my refusal to name even a single other gift was no attempt at manipulation or guilt-mongering – it was just the only thing I could honestly imagine that I wanted!
Dad had been transferred to Midwest City, Oklahoma, and we had been staying in guest housing on base the first week or two of June. They had been searching for us a house to rent, and as it happened, we were approved and able to move in to our new abode on – yep, you guessed it – my birthday! Timing may not be everything in the life of a military family, but it’s a BIG thing, so there was really no choice, we HAD to move in to our house.
The movers came and unloaded all our belongings from the big truck, finishing in the late afternoon. They left behind the usual conglomeration of furniture and boxes all over the house, waiting to be put in order. With the dinner hour approaching, there was no time to rummage through the cartons and attempt to dig out the necessary kitchen equipment for my mother to prepare dinner – even if we had been able to find the nearest grocery store and shop for food – so Mom and Dad said they were going to get some hamburgers for us to eat for supper, and afterward we would at least find the boxes containing the bedding and be able to make up our beds for that night. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start unpacking and putting away everything else.
My little brother and I had already made a new friend who lived next door, so the parental units granted us the gift of not having to get back into the car to go with them to pick up dinner. (If you were an Air Force brat who had spent too many hours criss-crossing the country in the back seat of a Dodge station wagon with MY little brother, you would know what a gift that was!) So after securing the approval of new friend’s parents, Mom and Dad set off, waving goodbye to us as we happily played in the yard with our new friend.
Having never been terribly materialistic, and not prone to selfishness as a child, the thought had probably not entered my mind that this was, after all, still my birthday, moving day or not, and here it was, the day almost over, and I had yet to receive a single gift. If I thought of it at all, I just figured it was my own fault – I mean, they had repeatedly begged me for some clue, any clue, as to what I’d like to have as a present, and I had stubbornly refused to name anything except the ONE thing they had already decreed that I could NOT have!
I honestly don’t know how long they were gone, but my tummy was starting to rumble a bit when I saw the “Blue Bomb” – our family’s only-half-joking nickname for the Dodge – swing wide and pull into our driveway next door. My brother and I happily trotted over to the nearest side of the car to where we were playing, which happened to be the driver’s side, just as my dad opened the door and stepped out, familiar orange and white bags in hand. I didn’t even notice Mom get out on the other side until she called to me: “Cindy, come over here for a minute. I need you to carry this bag inside for me.”
I was a child who genuinely thrived on every opportunity to be a good little helper, so I cheerfully ran around the front of the car, expecting Mom to hand me an orange and white bag filled with burgers or fries. Instead, she had a small, plain, unmarked brown paper sack in her hands, with the top all crumpled down. I must have looked quizzically at her for a moment, because she said, “Well, here, take this. It’s for you.”
I reached out and accepted the bag from my mother, and at that very moment, the bag moved! Something wiggled inside the bag, and as I opened the top of the crumpled paper and looked inside, I heard a “mew” and a little furry head popped out! My mom and dad chimed in unison, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” as I went into delirious shock and removed my brand new baby kitten from the brown paper bag!
She was a Siamese, she was eight weeks old, and she had clear blue eyes and a smushed-up little black nose, and I knew without a doubt that she was the most precious and beautiful thing I had seen on this planet during my entire nine years of life! She was so teeny-tiny that I named her Tina (don’t ask – it made sense to me at the time), and she became my constant companion from that moment forward! My intuition had been spot-on, and as it was summer and I had no school to attend, I was able to spend 24 hours a day with my new “baby” and she and I bonded like no other! She loved me almost as much as I loved her, and life was magnificent!
Tina wasn’t just a pet to me – she was more like an appendage, a veritable part of me. She slept curled up in the crook of my arm; she followed me around the house; she sat patiently in the steamy bathroom while I showered; she lumbered sleepily on the couch next to me when I watched TV; she even went outside into the back yard with me when I played. The next summer, I went away to summer camp, and Tina wouldn’t eat for days, so deeply did she grieve over my absence.
When Tina was four, my dad got transferred to England. I was very excited about getting to live in Europe … until I found out our pets couldn’t go. What kind of blasphemous hogwash was this? How could they expect us to be apart? This was a two-year assignment, what was I supposed to do, give away my best friend? Even when my grandparents generously offered to keep Frisky and Tina for the entire two years, I was not consoled. I cried and wailed and sulked and pleaded and begged to be allowed to stay with my grandparents along with Tina, but this time my parents would not budge. So off we went to “jolly old” with me being anything but jolly, I can tell you for sure!
Tina and I survived our two-year hiatus from one another, and although I had been terrified that she would not remember me upon my return, nothing could have been further from the truth – if it is possible for a cat to laugh, she positively did, and leapt into my arms, happily purring and nuzzling my chin as if we’d never been apart!
When Tina was ten, I went away to college. This separation wasn’t nearly as traumatic as the first one, partly because I was 18 and had a lot going on in my life, but mostly because I knew I was only going 100 miles away and would be back frequently. Besides, even though I was her “person,” Tina also loved all the other members of my family, and they loved her as well, and I knew she would be well cared for.
When I was in my twenties and got married, Tina stayed “at home” with Mom and Dad. By that time, she was 16 years old and it seemed kinder to leave her life intact than to try to haul her around with a young married couple from one rented apartment to another. I still saw her often, and we had each matured into a quiet, assured knowingness that we loved one another like nobody’s business and no longer needed to prove it by spending every moment together.
Tina turned 20 the year my son James was born. By that time, my husband and I had multiple pets of our own living in our own home, but I made a point of introducing Tina and the baby to one another. Some of my in-laws were fearful, spouting the old wives’ tale that cats suck the life out of babies, and other non-sensical – if well-intended – garbage, but I knew she would love him because he was a part of me. I was right. Whenever we would visit at Mom and Dad’s, Tina stayed right beside James, guarding him while he slept, and silently and stoically tolerating his ear-pulling and attempted eye-gouging when he was awake.
One day, when James was three years old, my mom called me early in the morning. She told me Tina wasn’t doing very well. She’d been to the vet, and he had said there wasn’t anything definitively wrong with her that could be treated, she was just very old and it was likely that her time had come. Although Siamese are the longest-lived breed, 23 was very old, even for a Siamese. I threw some clothes for James and myself into a small bag, left a note for my husband, and drove the 38 miles to my folks’ house through a haze of tears.
Tina had gradually developed cataracts over the years, making her clear blue eyes now a cloudy blue, but she when she heard my voice, she gave me her best version of a smile and a friendly, if mostly silent, meow. She knew I was there. She was resting on a big soft pillow Mom had put down on the floor for her in front of the couch in the den, because Tina had long since had difficulty jumping up on the furniture. So I sat down on the floor and gently scooped her up off the pillow and into my arms. She lifted her head as much as she could, while I lowered mine to meet her, and she nuzzled my chin as she haltingly purred. I knew it took more strength than she could afford, but it mattered to both of us.
In the three days that followed, I’m sure I must have laid Tina down long enough to go to the bathroom now and then. I honestly don’t recall. I gratefully allowed my parents to tend to James, and my husband came over every afternoon as soon as he got off work and hung out until he had to go back to our house and tend to the other animals. I don’t remember eating or drinking anything, although I’m sure I did, but those were things I could do with my best friend comfortably nestled in my arms.
On the third day, in the morning, before even the baby had awakened, Tina lifted her head up and looked me straight in the eye. She’d been practically blind for so long that it surprised me, but at that moment I knew she was seeing me. She looked at me and she loved me with all her might, and I loved her right back with all of mine. She felt my love, and she laid her sweet little head back down in the crook of my arm one last time, and I felt all her muscles relax as she closed her beautiful cloudy blue eyes and fell into her final sleep.
I knew this was the last time she would ever lay her head down and fall asleep in my arms. I had lost pets before, and there was always a terrible few moments of uncertainty where you wondered if they were really “gone” or not. But before that kind of thought even had a split second to form in my pain-saturated brain, I felt something else. Tina’s body had relaxed and her heart had stopped just a milli-second before, but then I felt something else. I can’t say I actually “saw” it, but it was as palpable to me as if someone had slapped me on the back – I felt her spirit leave her body. This is important, are you paying attention? Her body died, and a split half-second later, her spirit left her body!
I was raised in a Christian home, in a Christian church, and we definitely believed in life after death. More than any other, I loved the Bible passage that talked about the lion laying down with the lamb, for I took that as proof that animals also have a life after this physical one. I had believed that for all of my life. But this experience pushed me far beyond anything that could be encompassed by the word “belief.” This was not something to be believed; it was something I KNEW. I knew it the way you know you just hit your thumb with the hammer – “believing” has nothing to damn well do with it! It’s not unlike the difference between wondering what it’s like to be in love and actually being in love – it’s not easily explained in words, but when you know, you know!
From that moment forward, the whole trajectory of my spiritual journey was changed. What I had always accepted on faith, what I had always hoped, what I had always believed, I now absolutely, without a doubt, completely and solidly KNEW. For reasons I may never understand, I was granted the unspeakably amazing gift of witnessing this separation of body and spirit at the moment of departure, and it left me ineffably certain that the body is decidedly finite, but the spirit cannot die. Of course, in the twenty or so years that have transpired from that moment to this, I have researched and learned and meditated and intuited and even had one further confirmatory experience involving a pet; but it was that single moment in time that changed me forever. Once you know something, you can never go back and “un-know” it. And I know for a fact that spirit cannot die, it can only change locations.
So for those of you who have ever lost someone you loved – be they the two-legged or the four-legged variety – be comforted in knowing that the body is the only thing that can actually die. The euphemisms “pass away” and “pass on” are, as it turns out, quite accurate descriptions of what happens to us when our bodies die, because the spirit, the essence of who we really are – human OR animal – actually does pass away or pass on to another place, or another state of being, if you will.
Of course, my knowing can only serve to enhance your believing; but I wish for you that it might serve to assist in tiding you over until such time as you are gifted with a moment of your own knowing. Until then, Tina and I will be holding good thoughts for you!
~ Inspired by and dedicated to Elizabeth and those who loved her, and love her still. ~
We already had a dog – a lovely little poodle named Frisky. I loved Frisky, as did everyone in the family; but it was no secret that Frisky was my mom’s dog. It didn’t start out that way, of course. We got him as a family pet, because both Mom and Dad had grown up with animals and wanted my little brother and me to have the same experience. But since Frisky was a puppy when he came into our family, and since my brother and I were away at school all day and Mom was the one home taking care of him, he very quickly and thoroughly bonded to her, and before too many weeks had passed, there was no denying it – Frisky was my mom’s dog!
I loved our dog, of course, but dogs were rambunctious and playful and clumsy and … well, more of a boy’s pet, at least in my 8-year-old view. I wanted a pet of my very own, a kitty who would be bonded to ME, and who would think I was the greatest thing since … well, since warm milk! And I had the timing all figured out, too: my birthday is in June, which meant school was already out, so my kitty and I would have all summer to bond with one another, and she would surely be MY kitty indeed!
My dad was in the Air Force, and we moved around a lot, and as anyone knows who has ever moved even once, moving gets pretty complicated when you add a pet into the mix, and exponentially so when you add more than one. I understood that. In my mind, I knew that my parents’ consistent denials of my pathetic pleas for my own kitty-cat made sense; but in my little almost-nine-year-old heart, all I knew was that I WANTED A KITTY! I was obsessed with this yearning, so when Mom and Dad persistently questioned me about what else I’d like for my birthday, my refusal to name even a single other gift was no attempt at manipulation or guilt-mongering – it was just the only thing I could honestly imagine that I wanted!
Dad had been transferred to Midwest City, Oklahoma, and we had been staying in guest housing on base the first week or two of June. They had been searching for us a house to rent, and as it happened, we were approved and able to move in to our new abode on – yep, you guessed it – my birthday! Timing may not be everything in the life of a military family, but it’s a BIG thing, so there was really no choice, we HAD to move in to our house.
The movers came and unloaded all our belongings from the big truck, finishing in the late afternoon. They left behind the usual conglomeration of furniture and boxes all over the house, waiting to be put in order. With the dinner hour approaching, there was no time to rummage through the cartons and attempt to dig out the necessary kitchen equipment for my mother to prepare dinner – even if we had been able to find the nearest grocery store and shop for food – so Mom and Dad said they were going to get some hamburgers for us to eat for supper, and afterward we would at least find the boxes containing the bedding and be able to make up our beds for that night. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start unpacking and putting away everything else.
My little brother and I had already made a new friend who lived next door, so the parental units granted us the gift of not having to get back into the car to go with them to pick up dinner. (If you were an Air Force brat who had spent too many hours criss-crossing the country in the back seat of a Dodge station wagon with MY little brother, you would know what a gift that was!) So after securing the approval of new friend’s parents, Mom and Dad set off, waving goodbye to us as we happily played in the yard with our new friend.
Having never been terribly materialistic, and not prone to selfishness as a child, the thought had probably not entered my mind that this was, after all, still my birthday, moving day or not, and here it was, the day almost over, and I had yet to receive a single gift. If I thought of it at all, I just figured it was my own fault – I mean, they had repeatedly begged me for some clue, any clue, as to what I’d like to have as a present, and I had stubbornly refused to name anything except the ONE thing they had already decreed that I could NOT have!
I honestly don’t know how long they were gone, but my tummy was starting to rumble a bit when I saw the “Blue Bomb” – our family’s only-half-joking nickname for the Dodge – swing wide and pull into our driveway next door. My brother and I happily trotted over to the nearest side of the car to where we were playing, which happened to be the driver’s side, just as my dad opened the door and stepped out, familiar orange and white bags in hand. I didn’t even notice Mom get out on the other side until she called to me: “Cindy, come over here for a minute. I need you to carry this bag inside for me.”
I was a child who genuinely thrived on every opportunity to be a good little helper, so I cheerfully ran around the front of the car, expecting Mom to hand me an orange and white bag filled with burgers or fries. Instead, she had a small, plain, unmarked brown paper sack in her hands, with the top all crumpled down. I must have looked quizzically at her for a moment, because she said, “Well, here, take this. It’s for you.”
I reached out and accepted the bag from my mother, and at that very moment, the bag moved! Something wiggled inside the bag, and as I opened the top of the crumpled paper and looked inside, I heard a “mew” and a little furry head popped out! My mom and dad chimed in unison, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!” as I went into delirious shock and removed my brand new baby kitten from the brown paper bag!
She was a Siamese, she was eight weeks old, and she had clear blue eyes and a smushed-up little black nose, and I knew without a doubt that she was the most precious and beautiful thing I had seen on this planet during my entire nine years of life! She was so teeny-tiny that I named her Tina (don’t ask – it made sense to me at the time), and she became my constant companion from that moment forward! My intuition had been spot-on, and as it was summer and I had no school to attend, I was able to spend 24 hours a day with my new “baby” and she and I bonded like no other! She loved me almost as much as I loved her, and life was magnificent!
Tina wasn’t just a pet to me – she was more like an appendage, a veritable part of me. She slept curled up in the crook of my arm; she followed me around the house; she sat patiently in the steamy bathroom while I showered; she lumbered sleepily on the couch next to me when I watched TV; she even went outside into the back yard with me when I played. The next summer, I went away to summer camp, and Tina wouldn’t eat for days, so deeply did she grieve over my absence.
When Tina was four, my dad got transferred to England. I was very excited about getting to live in Europe … until I found out our pets couldn’t go. What kind of blasphemous hogwash was this? How could they expect us to be apart? This was a two-year assignment, what was I supposed to do, give away my best friend? Even when my grandparents generously offered to keep Frisky and Tina for the entire two years, I was not consoled. I cried and wailed and sulked and pleaded and begged to be allowed to stay with my grandparents along with Tina, but this time my parents would not budge. So off we went to “jolly old” with me being anything but jolly, I can tell you for sure!
Tina and I survived our two-year hiatus from one another, and although I had been terrified that she would not remember me upon my return, nothing could have been further from the truth – if it is possible for a cat to laugh, she positively did, and leapt into my arms, happily purring and nuzzling my chin as if we’d never been apart!
When Tina was ten, I went away to college. This separation wasn’t nearly as traumatic as the first one, partly because I was 18 and had a lot going on in my life, but mostly because I knew I was only going 100 miles away and would be back frequently. Besides, even though I was her “person,” Tina also loved all the other members of my family, and they loved her as well, and I knew she would be well cared for.
When I was in my twenties and got married, Tina stayed “at home” with Mom and Dad. By that time, she was 16 years old and it seemed kinder to leave her life intact than to try to haul her around with a young married couple from one rented apartment to another. I still saw her often, and we had each matured into a quiet, assured knowingness that we loved one another like nobody’s business and no longer needed to prove it by spending every moment together.
Tina turned 20 the year my son James was born. By that time, my husband and I had multiple pets of our own living in our own home, but I made a point of introducing Tina and the baby to one another. Some of my in-laws were fearful, spouting the old wives’ tale that cats suck the life out of babies, and other non-sensical – if well-intended – garbage, but I knew she would love him because he was a part of me. I was right. Whenever we would visit at Mom and Dad’s, Tina stayed right beside James, guarding him while he slept, and silently and stoically tolerating his ear-pulling and attempted eye-gouging when he was awake.
One day, when James was three years old, my mom called me early in the morning. She told me Tina wasn’t doing very well. She’d been to the vet, and he had said there wasn’t anything definitively wrong with her that could be treated, she was just very old and it was likely that her time had come. Although Siamese are the longest-lived breed, 23 was very old, even for a Siamese. I threw some clothes for James and myself into a small bag, left a note for my husband, and drove the 38 miles to my folks’ house through a haze of tears.
Tina had gradually developed cataracts over the years, making her clear blue eyes now a cloudy blue, but she when she heard my voice, she gave me her best version of a smile and a friendly, if mostly silent, meow. She knew I was there. She was resting on a big soft pillow Mom had put down on the floor for her in front of the couch in the den, because Tina had long since had difficulty jumping up on the furniture. So I sat down on the floor and gently scooped her up off the pillow and into my arms. She lifted her head as much as she could, while I lowered mine to meet her, and she nuzzled my chin as she haltingly purred. I knew it took more strength than she could afford, but it mattered to both of us.
In the three days that followed, I’m sure I must have laid Tina down long enough to go to the bathroom now and then. I honestly don’t recall. I gratefully allowed my parents to tend to James, and my husband came over every afternoon as soon as he got off work and hung out until he had to go back to our house and tend to the other animals. I don’t remember eating or drinking anything, although I’m sure I did, but those were things I could do with my best friend comfortably nestled in my arms.
On the third day, in the morning, before even the baby had awakened, Tina lifted her head up and looked me straight in the eye. She’d been practically blind for so long that it surprised me, but at that moment I knew she was seeing me. She looked at me and she loved me with all her might, and I loved her right back with all of mine. She felt my love, and she laid her sweet little head back down in the crook of my arm one last time, and I felt all her muscles relax as she closed her beautiful cloudy blue eyes and fell into her final sleep.
I knew this was the last time she would ever lay her head down and fall asleep in my arms. I had lost pets before, and there was always a terrible few moments of uncertainty where you wondered if they were really “gone” or not. But before that kind of thought even had a split second to form in my pain-saturated brain, I felt something else. Tina’s body had relaxed and her heart had stopped just a milli-second before, but then I felt something else. I can’t say I actually “saw” it, but it was as palpable to me as if someone had slapped me on the back – I felt her spirit leave her body. This is important, are you paying attention? Her body died, and a split half-second later, her spirit left her body!
I was raised in a Christian home, in a Christian church, and we definitely believed in life after death. More than any other, I loved the Bible passage that talked about the lion laying down with the lamb, for I took that as proof that animals also have a life after this physical one. I had believed that for all of my life. But this experience pushed me far beyond anything that could be encompassed by the word “belief.” This was not something to be believed; it was something I KNEW. I knew it the way you know you just hit your thumb with the hammer – “believing” has nothing to damn well do with it! It’s not unlike the difference between wondering what it’s like to be in love and actually being in love – it’s not easily explained in words, but when you know, you know!
From that moment forward, the whole trajectory of my spiritual journey was changed. What I had always accepted on faith, what I had always hoped, what I had always believed, I now absolutely, without a doubt, completely and solidly KNEW. For reasons I may never understand, I was granted the unspeakably amazing gift of witnessing this separation of body and spirit at the moment of departure, and it left me ineffably certain that the body is decidedly finite, but the spirit cannot die. Of course, in the twenty or so years that have transpired from that moment to this, I have researched and learned and meditated and intuited and even had one further confirmatory experience involving a pet; but it was that single moment in time that changed me forever. Once you know something, you can never go back and “un-know” it. And I know for a fact that spirit cannot die, it can only change locations.
So for those of you who have ever lost someone you loved – be they the two-legged or the four-legged variety – be comforted in knowing that the body is the only thing that can actually die. The euphemisms “pass away” and “pass on” are, as it turns out, quite accurate descriptions of what happens to us when our bodies die, because the spirit, the essence of who we really are – human OR animal – actually does pass away or pass on to another place, or another state of being, if you will.
Of course, my knowing can only serve to enhance your believing; but I wish for you that it might serve to assist in tiding you over until such time as you are gifted with a moment of your own knowing. Until then, Tina and I will be holding good thoughts for you!
~ Inspired by and dedicated to Elizabeth and those who loved her, and love her still. ~
Thursday, November 11, 2010
PERFECT
I haven’t blogged in awhile. That is not because I don’t write – I do write, every day. And it’s not because nothing “blog-worthy” has happened – it does, almost every day. I guess I haven’t blogged in awhile because I just haven’t been focused on it, and because I’m not sure anybody reads my blogs anyway.
But today a friend directed me to another person’s blog, and I am so moved and inspired by it that I feel it’s time … actually, it’s long PAST time … for me to blog again. The blog that lit this spark of inspiration can be read here: http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/disease-called-perfection.html Read that blog. Or don’t. But if you don’t, what I’m about to write will be less meaningful to you.
I am not perfect. Most of the time I don’t bother to try to hide that fact. A lot of the time, I feel like there’s something wrong with me because I don’t CARE to be perfect, and I don’t even care to be SEEN as perfect. In fact, I don’t WANT to be seen as perfect. On this incredible, delightful, tortuous, winding, endless, joy-filled, pain-fraught path of self-discovery I have been consciously and intentionally traversing for 20+ years now, I have learned that “perfect” is ALWAYS an illusion when it’s some amorphous thing that exists outside your Self; a place you will be constantly striving for without ever arriving. “Perfect” as you perceive it in others or in the lives of others, does not actually exist. It’s a bit like an obstacle course on a circular racetrack – no matter how agile you are or how fast you run, you can never win, because if you ever do get anywhere close to the finish line, it absolutely WILL be moved!
I have learned to look for progress, not perfection. Anyone who’s known me longer than five minutes has probably heard me say that I may be miles from where I want to be, but I’m THOUSANDS of miles from where I started! Progress, not perfection.
And yet … I, too, sometimes make myself the victim of this insidious “infection of perfection.”
I look at my friend Becky’s house and I think, “Man, my poor old rundown fixer-upper of a house will NEVER look this good.”
I observe my friend Kathleen’s money management skills and I think, “Oh, geez, I will NEVER have the discipline she has, so I’ll probably never be able to retire.”
I consider the marriage of my friends Marc and Chila and I think, “Boy, oh, boy, all the good men really are taken.” And I simultaneously think, “Well, sure, if I looked that cute and hot and had as great a figure as she does, maybe I COULD find a wonderful guy like that!”
I sometimes make myself the victim in those scenarios. But the REAL me, the part of me that is mostly dominant these days, the part of me that knows the TRUTH, knows better.
The REAL me is very grateful to have a home of my own. The REAL me knows that the highest mountain is conquered one grueling step at a time, and my “fixer-upper” of a house can be fixed up into a lovely, comfortable home one project at a time.
The REAL me is very grateful to have a good job and enough disposable income to be able to have everything I need and a lot of what I want. The REAL me knows that I have come a long way in my money management skills, and I should pat myself on the back for my progress, and stop feeling bad because I have yet to attain the elusive “perfection.”
The REAL me is very grateful for the knowledge that everyone on earth is individual and different, and for every man who actually wants a stick-figure of a woman, there is another man somewhere who thinks plump and soft and curvy is WAY hot; for every man who is looking for a twenty-something supermodel type, there is another man out there who thinks life experience and inner beauty are far more appealing than any outer quality; for every “wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am” asshole roaming the earth, there are probably ten real men longing for a real connection with a real woman.
The REAL me knows that what I focus on expands, and that thoughts of gratitude are like bunnies – they multiply rapidly and at a seemingly exponential rate, so thinking otherwise just makes no sense.
So the upshot is that comparing oneself to others is not only futile, it’s frustrating and counter-productive. To paraphrase a thought from one of my gurus and favorite authors, Geneen Roth, it’s a hideous disservice to compare yourself with anyone else, because you are essentially comparing their OUTSIDES with your own INSIDES. You don’t know what that person struggles with, nor how their ugly empty lonely moments feel; all you see is the apparent perfection in the face they present to the world. It’s not like comparing apples and oranges – it’s way worse than that. It’s like comparing apples and motorcycles!
But I would like to take this discussion one step further. I would like to posit that while comparison perfect does not exist, there is a kind of perfect that does.
One day, my then 9-year-old son and I had planned a short walk to a park down the street from where we lived when a sudden cloudburst almost derailed our plans. We ended up deciding to go anyway. We plopped through every puddle along the way, we swung on the swings in the rain, we twirled ourselves around light poles and did our best imitation of Gene Kelly, we tilted our heads up with our mouths wide open to see how much rainwater we could catch on our tongues and nearly choked ourselves with the combination of water and laughter. When the rain started getting heavier and ominous storm clouds loomed, we ran all the way home, laughing and sputtering. We stripped our drenched clothing off at the door, wrapped ourselves in towels and then warm robes, and sat on the couch and drank hot chocolate until it got dark outside. That was a perfect afternoon.
Awhile back, having just finished spending three-and-a-half years holding down two part-time jobs while earning two bachelor’s degrees, graduating with a 3.97 GPA and without ever taking a single semester off, my mom and I flew up to Oregon and spent a whole week in a beautiful secluded chalet on the banks of the Zigzag River at the foot of Mt. Hood. We only went into town a couple of times – once to get groceries and once to get a pizza. We talked and we slept and we watched movies, but mostly we sat on the deck in silence and gratefully soaked up the pristine energy provided by the mountain and the trees and the river. That was a perfect week.
In the summer of 2008, my dad and I took a road trip to New Mexico. We visited the Alien Museum in Roswell and the Loretto Chapel in beautiful Santa Fe, and he took me to see the tiny house he spent his first six years in, and the little schoolhouse where he started his education. Knowing Dad’s lifelong fascination with railroads and trains, I arranged for us to take a little excursion. We got up early one morning and went into town to the Santa Fe Southern Railway station, where we boarded an old-timey steam-driven railway car. The seats and the entire interior were circa the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, and it was just like Dad had always dreamt of and pictured in his head. We opened the window and enjoyed the cool fresh air as our train slowly wound its way through the New Mexico foothills, eventually coming to rest at a tiny depot in a tiny town called Lamy. There, we disembarked and enjoyed a barbecue lunch provided by the railroad while sitting at picnic tables under some scrubby trees. The sun was shining, the food was good, and the look of satisfaction and sheer pleasure on my dad’s face was enough to make my heart feel like it might explode. After awhile, we re-boarded the train and made the entire trip back into Santa Fe in awestruck silence, just absorbing and wallowing in the unadulterated joy we were both feeling. That was a perfect day.
You see, before completely denouncing a concept like “perfect,” I think you have to define your terms. “Perfect” as applied to “how do I compare to others, or my perception of others” is always a futile endeavor. Since your view of others is incomplete and inaccurate, there’s just no way you or your life can ever measure up.
But if you think of “perfect” as something that exists inside every moment of your REAL life, if you stand still enough long enough to see it, then you will experience innumerable amazing moments of perfect. Perfect does not exist “out there” or “someday when.” Perfect only exists right here, right now. It’s only hiding inside the thin, illusory veil of imperfection, just waiting to be discovered, brought to life, acknowledged, and made real. Perfect is your birthright. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Revel in it. And most of all, be grateful for it.
But today a friend directed me to another person’s blog, and I am so moved and inspired by it that I feel it’s time … actually, it’s long PAST time … for me to blog again. The blog that lit this spark of inspiration can be read here: http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/disease-called-perfection.html Read that blog. Or don’t. But if you don’t, what I’m about to write will be less meaningful to you.
I am not perfect. Most of the time I don’t bother to try to hide that fact. A lot of the time, I feel like there’s something wrong with me because I don’t CARE to be perfect, and I don’t even care to be SEEN as perfect. In fact, I don’t WANT to be seen as perfect. On this incredible, delightful, tortuous, winding, endless, joy-filled, pain-fraught path of self-discovery I have been consciously and intentionally traversing for 20+ years now, I have learned that “perfect” is ALWAYS an illusion when it’s some amorphous thing that exists outside your Self; a place you will be constantly striving for without ever arriving. “Perfect” as you perceive it in others or in the lives of others, does not actually exist. It’s a bit like an obstacle course on a circular racetrack – no matter how agile you are or how fast you run, you can never win, because if you ever do get anywhere close to the finish line, it absolutely WILL be moved!
I have learned to look for progress, not perfection. Anyone who’s known me longer than five minutes has probably heard me say that I may be miles from where I want to be, but I’m THOUSANDS of miles from where I started! Progress, not perfection.
And yet … I, too, sometimes make myself the victim of this insidious “infection of perfection.”
I look at my friend Becky’s house and I think, “Man, my poor old rundown fixer-upper of a house will NEVER look this good.”
I observe my friend Kathleen’s money management skills and I think, “Oh, geez, I will NEVER have the discipline she has, so I’ll probably never be able to retire.”
I consider the marriage of my friends Marc and Chila and I think, “Boy, oh, boy, all the good men really are taken.” And I simultaneously think, “Well, sure, if I looked that cute and hot and had as great a figure as she does, maybe I COULD find a wonderful guy like that!”
I sometimes make myself the victim in those scenarios. But the REAL me, the part of me that is mostly dominant these days, the part of me that knows the TRUTH, knows better.
The REAL me is very grateful to have a home of my own. The REAL me knows that the highest mountain is conquered one grueling step at a time, and my “fixer-upper” of a house can be fixed up into a lovely, comfortable home one project at a time.
The REAL me is very grateful to have a good job and enough disposable income to be able to have everything I need and a lot of what I want. The REAL me knows that I have come a long way in my money management skills, and I should pat myself on the back for my progress, and stop feeling bad because I have yet to attain the elusive “perfection.”
The REAL me is very grateful for the knowledge that everyone on earth is individual and different, and for every man who actually wants a stick-figure of a woman, there is another man somewhere who thinks plump and soft and curvy is WAY hot; for every man who is looking for a twenty-something supermodel type, there is another man out there who thinks life experience and inner beauty are far more appealing than any outer quality; for every “wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am” asshole roaming the earth, there are probably ten real men longing for a real connection with a real woman.
The REAL me knows that what I focus on expands, and that thoughts of gratitude are like bunnies – they multiply rapidly and at a seemingly exponential rate, so thinking otherwise just makes no sense.
So the upshot is that comparing oneself to others is not only futile, it’s frustrating and counter-productive. To paraphrase a thought from one of my gurus and favorite authors, Geneen Roth, it’s a hideous disservice to compare yourself with anyone else, because you are essentially comparing their OUTSIDES with your own INSIDES. You don’t know what that person struggles with, nor how their ugly empty lonely moments feel; all you see is the apparent perfection in the face they present to the world. It’s not like comparing apples and oranges – it’s way worse than that. It’s like comparing apples and motorcycles!
But I would like to take this discussion one step further. I would like to posit that while comparison perfect does not exist, there is a kind of perfect that does.
One day, my then 9-year-old son and I had planned a short walk to a park down the street from where we lived when a sudden cloudburst almost derailed our plans. We ended up deciding to go anyway. We plopped through every puddle along the way, we swung on the swings in the rain, we twirled ourselves around light poles and did our best imitation of Gene Kelly, we tilted our heads up with our mouths wide open to see how much rainwater we could catch on our tongues and nearly choked ourselves with the combination of water and laughter. When the rain started getting heavier and ominous storm clouds loomed, we ran all the way home, laughing and sputtering. We stripped our drenched clothing off at the door, wrapped ourselves in towels and then warm robes, and sat on the couch and drank hot chocolate until it got dark outside. That was a perfect afternoon.
Awhile back, having just finished spending three-and-a-half years holding down two part-time jobs while earning two bachelor’s degrees, graduating with a 3.97 GPA and without ever taking a single semester off, my mom and I flew up to Oregon and spent a whole week in a beautiful secluded chalet on the banks of the Zigzag River at the foot of Mt. Hood. We only went into town a couple of times – once to get groceries and once to get a pizza. We talked and we slept and we watched movies, but mostly we sat on the deck in silence and gratefully soaked up the pristine energy provided by the mountain and the trees and the river. That was a perfect week.
In the summer of 2008, my dad and I took a road trip to New Mexico. We visited the Alien Museum in Roswell and the Loretto Chapel in beautiful Santa Fe, and he took me to see the tiny house he spent his first six years in, and the little schoolhouse where he started his education. Knowing Dad’s lifelong fascination with railroads and trains, I arranged for us to take a little excursion. We got up early one morning and went into town to the Santa Fe Southern Railway station, where we boarded an old-timey steam-driven railway car. The seats and the entire interior were circa the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, and it was just like Dad had always dreamt of and pictured in his head. We opened the window and enjoyed the cool fresh air as our train slowly wound its way through the New Mexico foothills, eventually coming to rest at a tiny depot in a tiny town called Lamy. There, we disembarked and enjoyed a barbecue lunch provided by the railroad while sitting at picnic tables under some scrubby trees. The sun was shining, the food was good, and the look of satisfaction and sheer pleasure on my dad’s face was enough to make my heart feel like it might explode. After awhile, we re-boarded the train and made the entire trip back into Santa Fe in awestruck silence, just absorbing and wallowing in the unadulterated joy we were both feeling. That was a perfect day.
You see, before completely denouncing a concept like “perfect,” I think you have to define your terms. “Perfect” as applied to “how do I compare to others, or my perception of others” is always a futile endeavor. Since your view of others is incomplete and inaccurate, there’s just no way you or your life can ever measure up.
But if you think of “perfect” as something that exists inside every moment of your REAL life, if you stand still enough long enough to see it, then you will experience innumerable amazing moments of perfect. Perfect does not exist “out there” or “someday when.” Perfect only exists right here, right now. It’s only hiding inside the thin, illusory veil of imperfection, just waiting to be discovered, brought to life, acknowledged, and made real. Perfect is your birthright. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Revel in it. And most of all, be grateful for it.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
OH, HENRY
Many years ago, in Mrs. Huff’s twelfth-grade honors English class, we read “Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. I was touched by that beautiful story and have remembered it fondly ever since. But I have never seen a real-life rekindling of those emotions until recently.
A couple of months ago my daughter-in-law, DaLynne, turned 22. Last year, on her 21st birthday, she was pregnant, so the celebration was necessarily different than it might have otherwise been. So this year, my son, James, decided to make a big deal of his lovely wife’s special day.
He got together with a couple that they had, up to that point in time, considered their best friends. In the spirit of changing the names to protect the not-so-innocent, we’ll call this couple Roger and Debbie. Anyway, the three of them planned a big surprise party that was to happen at Roger and Debbie’s house. A cake was ordered, decorations were bought, and the guests were invited. A plot was hatched – a cover story, if you will – to lure DaLynne over to Roger and Debbie’s house. In actuality, it wasn’t that difficult, since the couples frequently spent time hanging out at one another’s homes.
The theme of the party was the beach. DaLynne loves the beach, so the cake had a palm tree and some shells on it, and all the decorations were beach-oriented. The day before the party, James made up some excuse and sneaked over to Roger and Debbie’s to help decorate. According to him, the decorations were incredible, although for reasons to be related momentarily, none of the rest of us ever got to see them. The money for the cake was handed over, and Debbie picked it up to keep in their fridge until the big moment.
Now here’s where the story gets a bit murky. The night before the big party, some kind of an incident occurred – fueled, I believe, by too many margaritas – that caused a rift between the two couples. This was not pleasant, but in the interest of giving his wife the birthday she deserved, James was willing to look past it and proceed with events as planned. Debbie, however, apparently decided otherwise.
When James stopped by the couple’s house the morning of the party (which had been scheduled for 2:00 p.m.), Roger informed him that they would not be able to host after all, and he was essentially given the bum’s rush and ushered out the door, looking back over his shoulder wistfully at all the beautiful decorations that had been intended to highlight this amazing day for his beautiful bride.
Bereft and not quite knowing what to do, James felt he had no choice but to spill the beans to DaLynne. She was upset that the surprise had been ruined, and none too happy with their friends; but most of all she was heartbroken to see how hurt her husband was over the failure of this beautiful gift he’d wanted to give her. Little could he have known that the gift of love that came from his heart was quite intact for DaLynne, and she couldn’t have been more touched.
So with an alternate plan to hold the party at DaLynne and James’ house, guests were hurriedly notified of the change in location, and James set out to go pick up the cake at Roger and Debbie’s house (hoping they would be cooperative at least about that), and to buy some food and drinks for the guests who were due in less than two hours.
No sooner was my son out the door than his wife got on the phone and got to work. She dispatched her mom to do some very quick shopping for beach-themed decorations, and called another friend or two and myself to come help decorate before James returned.
Not having seen the other home, I can’t say how it compared; but by the time James returned to his own home, suffice it to say it definitely had a beachy flavor, with streamers and crepe paper palm trees and beach-ball straws abounding. It was a reverse surprise for he who had tried to give the surprise!
DaLynne’s heart had been so moved by what her husband had tried to do for her, and so broken by his pain at having his plans foiled, that she did her very best to turn it around and give the joy back to him in what I considered a very ingenious and touching turnabout. The look on James’ face when he walked through the door was somewhat hard to read. He is a man of deep emotion, but not one given to public displays, and he absolutely detests being the center of attention; but I think the gesture of his loving wife found its mark in his heart. I know it certainly did in mine.
A couple of months ago my daughter-in-law, DaLynne, turned 22. Last year, on her 21st birthday, she was pregnant, so the celebration was necessarily different than it might have otherwise been. So this year, my son, James, decided to make a big deal of his lovely wife’s special day.
He got together with a couple that they had, up to that point in time, considered their best friends. In the spirit of changing the names to protect the not-so-innocent, we’ll call this couple Roger and Debbie. Anyway, the three of them planned a big surprise party that was to happen at Roger and Debbie’s house. A cake was ordered, decorations were bought, and the guests were invited. A plot was hatched – a cover story, if you will – to lure DaLynne over to Roger and Debbie’s house. In actuality, it wasn’t that difficult, since the couples frequently spent time hanging out at one another’s homes.
The theme of the party was the beach. DaLynne loves the beach, so the cake had a palm tree and some shells on it, and all the decorations were beach-oriented. The day before the party, James made up some excuse and sneaked over to Roger and Debbie’s to help decorate. According to him, the decorations were incredible, although for reasons to be related momentarily, none of the rest of us ever got to see them. The money for the cake was handed over, and Debbie picked it up to keep in their fridge until the big moment.
Now here’s where the story gets a bit murky. The night before the big party, some kind of an incident occurred – fueled, I believe, by too many margaritas – that caused a rift between the two couples. This was not pleasant, but in the interest of giving his wife the birthday she deserved, James was willing to look past it and proceed with events as planned. Debbie, however, apparently decided otherwise.
When James stopped by the couple’s house the morning of the party (which had been scheduled for 2:00 p.m.), Roger informed him that they would not be able to host after all, and he was essentially given the bum’s rush and ushered out the door, looking back over his shoulder wistfully at all the beautiful decorations that had been intended to highlight this amazing day for his beautiful bride.
Bereft and not quite knowing what to do, James felt he had no choice but to spill the beans to DaLynne. She was upset that the surprise had been ruined, and none too happy with their friends; but most of all she was heartbroken to see how hurt her husband was over the failure of this beautiful gift he’d wanted to give her. Little could he have known that the gift of love that came from his heart was quite intact for DaLynne, and she couldn’t have been more touched.
So with an alternate plan to hold the party at DaLynne and James’ house, guests were hurriedly notified of the change in location, and James set out to go pick up the cake at Roger and Debbie’s house (hoping they would be cooperative at least about that), and to buy some food and drinks for the guests who were due in less than two hours.
No sooner was my son out the door than his wife got on the phone and got to work. She dispatched her mom to do some very quick shopping for beach-themed decorations, and called another friend or two and myself to come help decorate before James returned.
Not having seen the other home, I can’t say how it compared; but by the time James returned to his own home, suffice it to say it definitely had a beachy flavor, with streamers and crepe paper palm trees and beach-ball straws abounding. It was a reverse surprise for he who had tried to give the surprise!
DaLynne’s heart had been so moved by what her husband had tried to do for her, and so broken by his pain at having his plans foiled, that she did her very best to turn it around and give the joy back to him in what I considered a very ingenious and touching turnabout. The look on James’ face when he walked through the door was somewhat hard to read. He is a man of deep emotion, but not one given to public displays, and he absolutely detests being the center of attention; but I think the gesture of his loving wife found its mark in his heart. I know it certainly did in mine.
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