Grace in Small Things – 97 and 98

• An excellent admissions interview by phone today with Paul at the school in Toronto where I will be getting my TESL certificate. Before I could even finish my apology for not being able to interview in person due to the four+ hour drive (“you’ll just have to imagine the warm smile, good eye contact and firm handshake,” I said), he was falling all over himself telling me how impressed he was with my test score (almost perfect) and going on about how he and I both lived in Sapporo, Island of Hokkaido, Japan and attended Hokudai.
• My friend Rachel at worked walked up to me and rubbed my fuzzy head, telling me she has always wanted to do that. “Everyone must be touching your head,” she said. “No, just you,” I said. She is funny! Jenn said, “you got balls, Chickie!” A couple of other people said, “you’re brave.”
• Two stress-free days at work, to be followed by a holiday tomorrow (Canada Day), to be followed by my last two days in cubicle land!
• My wonderful boyfriend who loves to take care of the details, like comparison shopping summer residency accommodations around Toronto and  pricing student Via Rail passes.
• Seeing a friend so happy about an upcoming trip that she may start spinning around so fast that her feet leave the ground.

• The possibility of seeing a dear friend again after a long time – in Toronto!
• This feeling in my heart now… indescribable… to finally be pursuing a dream that has lain dormant for 20 years…to finally be using MY DEGREE… to be re-entering the world of academia, if only on the fringes.
• A nice email from my mom replying to the photo of me with hair buzzed off. She said, “I think I like it,” and that it’s remarkable how much I look like my late father, who died in 1969. I thought the same thing when I first looked in the mirror… HEY, I’m looking right at that 1944 Navy cadet shot with his crew cut, freckled face and eyes so blue you can tell they are blue even in a black and white photo.
• A song on Steel Belted Radio on CJAM driving home from work that got me bopping and hopping all over the car, it made me so happy! (If the host emails me back, I’ll tell you the name of it.)
• The school and the dorm we found AND where my friend will be staying are all within blocks of each other. Sometimes everything just flows, you know?

Hair Holds Old Energy!

Elspeth tells me that hair holds old energy. Well, that could explain why this buzz cut has me feeling so free to start fresh. Some of you requested photos (as did my Mom), as Sylvain dutifully reported with camera. Your wish is our command.

I am looking forward to the dynamic at work tomorrow. I feel more courageous.

Super Synchronicity and No Hair

There are times in life when the synchronicity just ratchets itself up a notch or two and it feels as if you are in the right place at the right time… ALL DAY LONG. And then again the next day. And the next day.

Is this purely a product of letting go of fear, directly proportional to my level of surrender????

There is this little something I’ve been wanting to do for, oh, twenty-five years or so.  I floated the idea past my mom once. “Oh, Kelly, please don’t,” she said.

I haven’t been brave enough to do it while gainfully employed in the private sector, in an office job with conservative office types on whose approval I depend for my daily bread.

So it occurred to me two days ago that now, having said adios, amiga to one boss and with the next job not happening until I return from Toronto, it’s the perfect time!

I warned Sylvain. “I’m going to shave my hair off.”

“How short?” he wanted to know. (He’s a fan of long hair and wishes I would grow mine out, even if just temporarily, so he could see how I look with it long.)

Oh, you know, with one of those electric clipper dealies…not bald to the skin…but about yea long.” I held out my fingers with a half inch of space between index finger and thumb.

“Like my dad?”

“Yeah, about the length your dad gets his buzzed.”

I was apprehensive about finding someone to do it. My neighbour Neil does his wife’s for her, but I did not quite have the chutzpah to knock on their door and ask if he would do me, too. My hair, I mean.  And the last time I ran the idea past a barber (it was my grandfather’s buddy whom I had been visiting for bubble gum, comic books and a chat since I was eight years old), he said no, he would not give any woman a “flat top” as he called it.  A personal rule.

I had to go to the mall anyway to find the Service Ontario kiosk and renew my license plate stickers, so figured I could survey all the salons in there until I spotted a stylist who made me feel at ease.

I am a creature of habit and always park on the same side of the mall in almost the same parking spot. But today some kids in bathing suits were brandishing poster boards and yelling “car wash” at the same time my cell phone rang, causing me to cruise right past my usual spot and end up parking on another side of the mall, outside Sears.

As soon as I got inside Sears, it dawned on me that they have a really cheap family salon. This will be easy, I thought. Surely they serve families with little boys, old men…someone here will be okay with shearing me like a sheep. I spotted the Hair Studio sign and headed toward it, saying a little prayer not to get a derisive look when I made my request.

There was nobody at the welcome desk, so I peeked over to my left where the one stylist was finishing up a cut for a customer. I could not believe my eyes.  There stood a big-boned, bright-eyed, beautiful woman about my age with… no hair.  A huge smile spread across my face.

I stepped back to let the older lady pay while I gawked at this woman’s ruddy, freckled face and velvety head.

“My name is Margaret, what can I do for you?” she said after handing the older lady her change.

“I want what you have,” I said, unable to wipe the silly adoring look off my face.

She did not seem to get it, so I pointed to her head and back at my head.

“I want that,” I said.

She smiled broadly, said “this won’t take two minutes,” and ushered me to her station.

“What number do you want?” she asked. Seeing my puzzled expression, she added, “this is a two, but you’re so fair, you might want to go with a three.”

“No, I want a two, too. It will be a three in a week, anyway. Yeah, a two.”

In short order she was running the clippers over my noggin as locks of hair fell onto my shoulders and the floor.

I walked out of there beaming. Who knew twelve dollars and fifty cents plus tip could buy me a perma smile?

—-

Sylvain and I sat at the marina a while reading our books. I can’t remember which of your blogs I saw it on, but I decided to read “The Shack” for my summer fiction treat. You gotta love any male author who portrays God as a large Black woman. I still remember when I told a guy I was dating that in my vision of God, she rather resembles Aunt Jemima. I felt hurt when he laughed. I had not been joking.

Sylvain invited me to Mass with him.  I only go along once every few months, but felt like it tonight.

The priest in training’s sermon started “it can be difficult for some of us to ask for help.”

Sylvain and I traded knowing glances.  There are times when God simply speaks so loudly and clearly, there can be no doubt you are being addressed.

Then we opened the song book and the lyrics did the same thing…jumped off the page and spoke directly to my current situation. Again Sylvain and I looked at each other and smiled as I wiped away a few tears.

The Smallest Kindness

I said I wanted to talk more about this post of Laura’s. Now’s a good time. Oh, and this post by Brene Brown, (thank you, Olivia, for the link) is bang on, too.

Yes, yes, yes!

It’s one of the few areas of my job as a claims examiner I have enjoyed: talking to accounts receivable people all over the United States and Canada. The phone rings for this reason a few times every day.

This is Bo, this is Roberta, this is Carlo, this is Tanisha and I need to get claim status, please.

Hi, Bo! (Roberta, Carlo, Tanisha), can I just get your phone number and where you’re calling from, please?

Manatee Memorial, Emergency Physicians of SW Florida, Stat Medical Clinic…

After I enter the policy or case number into my search window but before the case has loaded on my screen, I have two seconds to wonder what Roberta’s life is like. Does she like her job? Is she tired? Does she wish she did something else for a living? How many outstanding bills does she have to call about in a day? Does she get to break up her day with other duties now and then, or is it just call, call, call all day long?

Each call is different. Each person is different. The ones who sound especially burnt out and impatient I treat with an extra dose of attentiveness and courtesy. I enjoy hearing the surprise in their voices when they realize I will do everything I can to speed payment along. I know their supervisor or client rewards quick collection and punishes failure to collect with reprimand or pressure to do better.

Then you get the ones who enjoy their jobs, make a point of calling you by name, wish you a wonderful day, ask you how the weather is where you are.  Here we both are stuck in tedious jobs, but hey, we have jobs and we can still turn every single human interaction into something fun, a reason to smile or laugh.

I am going to miss Roberta and Carlo and those brief moments of connection between strangers so many miles apart.

Grace in Small Things – 96

Things are getting looser, I am relaxing and letting go in a few areas, though it can be hard for me to see and admit how I am being rigid and self-denying for supposedly noble reasons in SO MANY small areas.

When my coworker asked me at lunch if I was going to the fireworks, my automatic response was “if you’ve seen one fireworks display, you’ve seen them all… and I don’t like crowds all that much” and plus, “it’s past my bedtime.”

Because I ran over to WMG after work Wednesday to return some books and let them know why I would not be there for the second week in a row, I ended up taking The Drive all the way from the west end of town to the east end, bringing me right past the fireworks area.

People were already setting up tents and rows of lawn chairs and coolers for an event that did not start for almost five more hours! Those who live across the street from the riverfront had signs up in their yards announcing the price of parking or the price of a bottle of water.  Sausage vendors were setting up their little grills on wheels.

“Aw, this is sweet,” I thought, feeling a tiny pang of regret at having told Sylvain that I really wasn’t keen to go. I felt my heart open a bit, something in me loosen up.

—

Thursday could not be our regular date night, I told Sylvain, because I had already lost a day and absolutely HAD to start my search right after work for a TESOL program around here (Detroit or Toronto, most likely) whose summer session enrolment deadline I had not already missed.  I found one with not one day to spare. I would have to compose my admission request letter, dust off my resume and apply that night, as classes start July 7 and there is still an interview to pass. Fortunately, I keep resumes in a folder on my computer called RESUMES and they are tailored by type of job being applied for. I grabbed the “multicultural” one that I made over a year ago for YMCA immigrant settlement program receptionist and added a new section for my current role. Being organized pays off! No need to stay up till midnight. Yay!

—

Date night got pushed to Friday, Sylvain insisting we could afford a meal out (my frugality speeches must get really old, poor man). After dinner near the water, he suggested we go for ice cream. As I stood in line to pick a flavour, I realized almost all the flavours were Nestle brand.  I am boycotting Nestle products. Ever since my friend’s then 10-year-old son told me about the boycott and the reasons behind it over two years ago, I have made sure the chocolate bars and cocoa I buy are not Nestle and nothing Nestle goes into my shopping cart. The boycott can be especially inconveniencing when I’m at an event outdoors and the only water available is bottled and I see Nestle on the label.  I go thirsty.

You could say I am a woman of my convictions, an admirable thing. Or you could see, as I did while standing in line for ice cream, that my BE GOOD complex can sometimes get a little out of hand. I stood there debating silently inside my head whether to turn to Sylvain and say, “you go ahead, I can’t buy ice cream here,” and risk that it would put a damper on the the up-to-that-point fun evening, whether to settle for one of the very few non-Nestle menu item that I did not really want, or whether to compromise my commitment to the boycott and just order what I wanted.

I don’t know which answer is really being true to myself, but I am glad I was able to bring the complex into the light and look at it.

—–

Since word got out in my department that I quit, three people have come to me to say, “you can’t leave, who will I go to for the answers to all my questions?”   This has touched my heart, hearing the impact I have made on these women with my patience and love of teaching.

—–

The way Spirit is taking me by the hand now to show me how much is possible when I surrender and relax and release fear.  I know full well the timing is no accident. Everything is falling into place. I feel held and cared for by a very loving Universe.

“Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”  — The Talmud

“Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow, grow.’”

The Talmud

Learning to Receive

“I’ve come to say I’m not coming,” I told Sheila and Gerry on Wednesday after work. “I quit my job and Sylvain and I need tonight to talk. My friend J was already there and so I got three hugs before setting off for home, where I’d asked Sylvain to meet me after supper for a talk. I had had some important revelations during my dinner with E and wanted to share them.

Yes, something huge shifted in me while I was visiting with my friend E on Tuesday night. The unblocking of a complex came while I was listening to her talk about her relationship with her partner who lives a plane ride or eight-hour car trip from here.  She talked about how things change between them, how fluid it is.

It helped me see my dysfunctional need tokeep tight  control over everything and my notion that if I can’t be the perfect girlfriend, I don’t want to be his girlfriend at all. It’s all or nothing. For example, if I have to go to Arkansas, we may as well break up, because I might get down there and not want to come back. I also saw how strong and irrational was my resistance to receiving everything he wants to give me.

Ever since I started realizing I was losing my mind and self-esteem under that manager, I’ve periodically indulged in a worry session in front of Sylvain, fretting over how trapped I felt by my condo rent. I wish I had never let him talk me into such an expensive place, I would say.

“I would have had more wiggle room in some tiny walk-up,” my argument would go.

“But it wouldn’t have been wheelchair accessible!” he would say.

“But I wouldn’t have felt so imprisoned by high rent, I would have had the ability to live off savings a few months or take a lower paying job for a while…” I would say.

“Sweetie,” he would say to me not for the first time, “I can help you cover your bills for a while if you need to go see your mom or look for a new job that pays as well.”

“That is out of the question,” I would say. “I wouldn’t even let my mom give or loan me that kind of money,” I would say.

And on and on the debate would go, with this huge boulder in my blind spot that I refused to look at as one of the factors that was mutable.

I would envision sticking my furniture in a friend’s basement and running off to Arkansas or Toronto to get my TESL certificate. I have LONG dreamed of teaching English to speakers of other languages. But this scenario would just lead to more fretting over the logistics, like breaking my condo lease and storing furniture versus selling and obsessive worrisome thought loops ad nauseum.

Wednesday night I was eager to tell Sylvain of the breakthrough in my way of seeing things, of seeing us. I told him that after my evening with E, I had come to feel that we can get through this together and there are many more options than I had been able to see before. For one, if I visit Arkansas, even for an extended period, it doesn’t mean we have to break up.

Somehow that rigid picture I had in my head of what a good girlfriend should or shouldn’t do was disintegrating.

And I was opening to the idea of accepting his offer.  After all, my savings account is $5000 lighter because of the risk I took in moving to Windsor and setting up house in this condo. So why am I so opposed to letting him spend some money on the same risk…the risk of our future together?

Sylvain was visibly…relieved is not the word. He had been nervous and distracted all day, afraid the reason I’d invited him over for “a talk” was that I was ending it.

He told me he wanted to do this, to invest in our future and invest in something that has so much potential to bring me happiness. And his happiness is our happiness, he said.  He also pointed out that he could swing it without getting out the plastic, something I had not realized. “That’s money I no longer have to set aside each month for credit card payments,” he explained. “It’s been freed up.”

So my nagging him over the past two years to get his credit card balances down to zero, something he accomplished not too long ago, has come back to kiss us!

You could almost see the weight lifting off both of us, rising up, up, up and dissipating in the sky.

We could both breathe again.

“Do you want to go see the fireworks?” I asked him. Previously stick-in-the-mud, have-to-be-in-bed-by-ten Kelly felt like a little celebrating. The frantic search for a TESOL program whose registration deadline was not already past could begin the next day.

We set off for his house to grab water bottles and a lawn chair.

Don’t Go Back to Sleep

Before anything else, please hear my shouted from the rooftops THANK YOU to each one of you who has blessed me with your words of love and encouragement. There is no room for doubt…it is unanimous and resounding YES, don’t look back, this happened for a reason, go through that open door no matter how scary the unknown feels right now.

While reading blogs Monday night, on Annie’s blog THIS POEM jumped clear off the screen and bit me on the nose!!!

Stay Awake

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
people are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
-Rumi

My mantra all day Tuesday was “Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you want. Don’t go back to sleep.” Oh, master Rumi, thank you!

——————

Monday night I slept fitfully, waking up through the night unable to catch my breath, feeling as if I were going to be evicted from this apartment at any moment with no place to store my things or nobody to help me move them wherever I might go next.

Here I go again, I thought with disappointment in myself and my incorrigible self-defeating patterns, having to sell or Freecycle furniture, dishes, pots, pans. How many times do I have to strip my life down to what fits in a hatchback, like a gypsy packing the caravan? How many times will money spent buying all new things to sit on and pots and pans go down the drain because of me and my impulsive hopping from town to town and life to life? What am I DOING?

I would look around me at the things I wish I could keep and begin to weep.  My Ugly Doll OX looks at me from atop my high boy and I reassure her that I can find room in a suitcase or box, no matter how bare bones I have to strip my life down this time.  I can give away pairs of shoes and even things like spotting scope, book case, lamps. But if it has eyes, it comes with me. Feeling nostalgic and sad, I brought all five of my stuffed toys to bed with me that night. One is a little cloth lamb about 3 inches long with black nose that I bought at the yard sale of a family I had babysat for when I was in university. I liked having a little lamb doll that one of the children used to cuddle.

Worries churned in my head… it’s stupid to sell an almost new car… what will my landlord say when I break the news to him that I have to get out of the lease early?

And sometimes peace settled on me, a sense of surrender.

I am giving my company the gift of two weeks more of my brain to allow for transitioning of my case load, finishing the procedure manual, teaching someone how to continue the manual, and teaching someone how to maintain my Excel macros. So I did go to work Tuesday.

As if the universe already knew where I would be on Tuesday and what I would need for my soul, I had a date already on the calendar to join a dear friend at her home for dinner. This friend, her name is E, was surely a shaman in a past life. She took such tender care of me all evening, grilling portobellos for us as I sat swinging under the shade of a big tree. The evening breeze came in to cool off what had been a scorcher of a day.

While she was grilling, she encouraged me to lie down on the swing. She covered my feet with a shawl. As my body leaned sideways, the grief came spilling out like liquid from a tipped vessel. It’s good to have a friend you can cry in front of. I realized I had been holding back the sadness, thinking that because I initiated this situation, I have no right to be sad.

It felt good to let that grief come, to feel the sadness of all the endings. A part of me will even miss that crazy workplace and my coworkers.

Then I sat up again and we talked some more. I showed E how to do the gratitude dance, and soon we were laughing.

I learned a lot Tuesday night while visiting with E.  Listening to her describe her relationship with her long-distance sweetie started something shifting inside me.

She encouraged me to talk about my good child syndrome and where it came from…this need to be low-maintenance, perfect, self-sufficient…this need to stay in control, not let people help me.  This inability to ask for help… how many more years is this disease to please going to be my companion? We talked about healthy selfishness and how we cut ourselves off from Love and Life when we can only give and never ask for what we want and need.

I haven’t even mentioned yet that the meal and dessert were to die for.  As I left, E told me something so valuable as I described how this place of uncertainty was unsettling, yet I did feel trust that all would be okay in the end, that the Universe knows what it is up to and my Inner Wise One knows what it is up to, as well. She said, “during this time, you won’t be able to see around corners.”

You won’t be able to see around corners. What a great way to put it.

I GET IT!

And I couldn’t wait to tell Sylvain what had shifted in me for our relationship. But it was late and that would have to wait until Wednesday night.

I Quit

I quit my job today.

It wasn’t the nice, planned, controlled resignation I had hoped for, with another job waiting in the wings.

I have never in my life done what I did today.  I usually plan things out and suck it up until I have the safety net securely under me.

I had not planned for this to be the day. I was not even especially anxious this morning as I prepared for work and pulled into the parking spot. The day started like any other.

The work load is DOWN. Way down. All the stressors of the past months (Snow Bird season) are fading.

But there I sat staring at my screen faced with a stupid phone call. A call that should not have to be made. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but I also felt I couldn’t point out to my supervisor the stupidity of the call. She isn’t approachable and doesn’t listen. Or at least that’s how it feels from inside my skin, with the person I am and the personality I have.

I realized I was losing time just staring at the screen, so I thought I would set that file aside and try the next task. Maybe it would get me rolling and I’d come back to the first item. But the second task was something else stupid. I just could not bring myself to do the next thing that needed to be done on that file. It was just so meaningless, devoid of common sense.

I set that aside and tried the third file.

It was like being caught in a jar of honey. I couldn’t lift my arm to dial the phone. I could only stare at the screen, dreading the moment when my boss (who sits behind me and to the right, facing my way) would notice that I was sitting there like a zombie.

I opened my drawer and eyed my purse. I fingered the strap.  How many times have I fantasized just walking out?

Lots of times.

My coworker offered me some homemade rhubarb pie, so we went off to the kitchen.  I needed a breather. Maybe I could snap out of it.

I stood there staring in the kitchen, like in a dream. My friends noticed and I told them, starting to cry now, “I just want to go home.”

By home, I meant Arkansas.

J hugged me and H took me in the washroom to talk.

“I just can’t do it anymore,” I told her. “I can’t make myself keep going another day.”

She took me for a walk around the building, grabbing tissues from the bathroom. We sat in the sun and talked while I wiped tears and blew my nose. She understands because she is going through the same thing. She is the one who talked to our boss’ boss on Friday to tell her how bad it is. She suggested I might want to go see my doctor about stress leave instead of just quitting.  She asked me to go talk to our boss’ boss rather than just driving off.

We walked back in and I tried to do a little work. I made it another half hour, doing a simple repetitive task, until that feeling rose up in me.  It’s a pull. It was almost like my body was at the end of puppet strings, not my own. I walked into boss’ boss’ office and turned in my key card.

“Whoa, whoa, have a seat,” she said.  I sat and we talked. She tried to get me to stay, but nothing she said made a difference. In the end it is still a stressful job made even more stressful by the current style of supervision. She asked me why on earth I did not come to her before it came to this. I said I don’t like breaking the chain of command, going behind someone’s back.  And why didn’t I talk to my supervisor herself about how unhappy I am? I addressed that as well as I could in my state of upset and zombiness.

And so here I am, after a long talk with Sylvain, an email to my mom and lots of praying.

I am scared, confused, hopeful, relieved, feeling stupid…all at once.

I have no idea what happens next. What happens with the condo lease, not up till end of October? What happens with my loving boyfriend, whom I love and who does not want to lose me if I cannot / will not stay in this town? What happens with all this new furniture? What happens with my car that I bought new in January 2008 and am paying for monthly?

I am going to try to relax and float my way through this.

Dream: No Dinner for a Friend

Suzanne and I were friends from age 16, but after I moved to Canada in 1999 we hit some very rough patches in our friendship. It seems I regularly–without meaning to–triggered some of her complexes, shenpa if you want to call it that. Hot buttons.  And she triggered some of mine. The end result was that we ended up spewing some toxic shit each other’s direction.

Hurtful. Painful. Not nice.

We are both highly introspective, smart women and were able to see the pattern. And so we would mutually agree to keep away from each other. Some months would pass and we’d think we had matured enough, wised up enough, gone through enough therapy (ha, ha) to give it another go. We missed each other. The good parts of the relationship were so valuable.

Well, our last mutually agreed upon silence lasted about three years, ending the other day when she had computer access while house sitting. We managed a flurry of emails to catch up on each other’s lives that remained warm and CLEAN and caring.  After the week, we bid each other farewell again.

It feels good to have this new, cleaner goodbye.

She used to be in my dreams all the time, especially when we were trying to break up as friends and doing such a messy job of it. I was in Jungian Analysis at the time and remember Anna asking me “what is Suzanne’s essence?”

I never did understand that question or that term. Essence. But I was able to tell Anna what Suzanne symbolized for me. I think she led the free bohemian life I was afraid to lead.

She never held a 9 to 5 job in an office. She was out on her own at an early age, had her own apartment while waiting tables. She–like me–ran off to Europe. But while I came home as soon as the saved up babysitting money ran out, she worked as an au pair in France and later as a caberet singer and later as I don’t know what, made it all the way to GREECE where she lived for some years with a bunch of alcoholic Greek kids her age.  She is brilliant (IQ in the 160+ range) but has always had a problem fitting into society.  Probably Asperger Syndrome as a child, back before they were diagnosing that so rampantly.

Now she makes a living (and burning out) as a massage therapist, though her recent completion of a masters may change that.

We would sometimes compare lives (after she finally returned from Greece) and she would marvel at how on earth I could clock in and out of an office job for so little money. How could I do it? Wasn’t it soul-crushing?

I felt hurt and misunderstood.  How could she, I wondered, live with the insecurity of no health benefits, no retirement employer-sponsored 401K and all that?

Her apartments struck me as dark and grotto-like, decorated with shards of coloured glass picked up along the railroad tracks, twisty pieces of driftwood tied to bedposts with twine.  Her own artwork was propped here and there, all of it depressing as hell, in my view.

My apartments were painted yellow, drapes and blinds always OPEN to the sunshine.

We represent each other’s shadow, in a way, I think.  This is part of why we trigger each other’s complexes–I symbolize that part of her she has trouble facing and vice versa.

Last night I dreamed she was coming to dinner. Only the setting was her apartment, or it LOOKED like her apartment. In the dream it was my place and she was arriving at about six to dine with me. When she got there, I realized I had not even been to the store yet! Holy crap, what a feeling of shame and embarrassment came over me that my dinner guest was already here and I had not started cooking, had not even bought the groceries!

There was nothing else I could do but hurriedly apologize and scoot out the door, racing to the store. Once outside, the world felt menacing and easy to get lost in. A young man started following me and I hid in a public park bathroom.

Dream: Armless Baby

Two nights ago I dreamt I was at another woman’s house, not anyone I know in real life but I suppose I must have known her in the dream since I was in her house. A couple came over, they were from India, and brought their new baby daughter. I picked up the toddler and could tell she needed her diaper changed, it was heavy with poop. So I told the mom and she said I could change her. That surprised me, as most moms will take care of that themselves, but I was happy to do so and told her not to worry, I had lots of experience changing diapers from all my years of babysitting and volunteering as a baby rocker at the hospital (both facts from my real life).

I lay the baby down on the kitchen counter by the sink, of all place, after the mom put down a changing pad. I then noticed the baby did not have arms. I concealed my surprise and asked the mom for some wipes. She only had one. I was thinking, well, this will be quite the chore getting the baby’s bum clean with only one wipe.

I had the feeling that the mom did not love her child as much as she might have had the baby been born with arms. I felt bad for the baby.

—I have not been remembering very many dreams lately, but that one sure stayed with me after I awoke!—

I am not sure what to make of it, except that I remember hearing child psychologists say that when children draw a picture of their families and draw themselves without arms, it can mean they feel powerless in the family setting.

I certainly have been feeling powerless lately. I don’t like to wallow in what isn’t going well, and I don’t like to post things here that can upset my sweetheart or make him feel bad. So my blog isn’t always a fair representation of what all is really going on inside me.

I have felt my life is no longer my own.

It continues to be difficult for me to adjust to my new life here, even after two years.  Things have been looking up on the social front. I have been finding new interests, going to Ann Arbor for singing once a month. I have a couple of friends who come to dinner now and again, and I am invited over to dine and talk with each of them not infrequently. These things give me hope that I might one day be okay here.

The job has continued to be soul crushing, which may be where I’ve been feeling most powerless.

But even the lovely condo that I rent still feels no more like home than a hotel room feels to someone on an extended business trip. Each time I pass the display at the grocery store with herbs in pots and pansies and bromeliads, I stop myself from bringing one home. Something in me clenches shut, will not open and relax here and begin to call it home.

Longest Day of the Year

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a lovely young woman sent my way, and me her way, through a mutual friend and blogger. AB is a warm, fun person who is very into Landmark Forum. I had never heard of it, so after our lunch I visited their website and watched some videos. The basic premise looked very good, the price tag a bit hefty, the marketing techniques reminding me of Bill Harris’ gimmicks…the ones that insult my intelligence…like order by x deadline and get $yyy off. That sort of thing.

As she was telling me about friends who are also coaches or promoters of this program and her interactions and relationships with them, a little bell was going off in my head.  The relationship dynamics she was describing to me, unaware, I’m sure, of how they were coming across on my end, were setting off the same alarm bells for me that get set off by groups who prosceletize and attempt to convert.  Her references to others’ treatment of her reminded me of how you end up being treated if you ever get involved in one of the more evangelical churches.  They love you, they truly have your best interest at heart, they want to save your soul from perdition, but they just will not take no for an answer.  If you don’t come to church for 2 Sundays straight, they come knock on your door and use words like “backslide.”

But I like to keep an open mind, so when she called me a week or two later and invited me to a free introduction, I agreed to go. It was across the river in a suburb of Detroit.

Not liking to be even a minute late to anything, I asked AB what time I should leave home to allow plenty of time to clear customs, etc. And I left when she said to.  Mishap # 1: she meant if taking the bridge and I took the tunnel. The tunnel was backed up. I was going to be significantly late.

But I texted her to say ‘stuck in tunnel’ and she texted back to say ‘thanks for letting us know.’  All seemed well.

Until I, in typical Kelly fashion, got lost. Yes, I missed the turn off for 96 East. No worries, I thought. I’ll just take this next exit and turn around and give it another shot.

Yeah, no.

Somehow a simple plan to go in a circle and try again to get on the 96 E resulted in my going around contruction zones and past signs saying DO NOT ENTER and following other cars hoping they knew where they were going and finally seeing a sign that said BEYOND THIS POINT YOU MUST ENTER CANADA.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

It seemed to me that the gods were clearly turning my car around and pointing me back home.  The free introduction was not meant to be.  And so I texted again “hopelessly lost, very late, not coming.”

She called me. And as I sat there in a very long line to go back through customs to be allowed back into Canada, AB tried to convince me that it was okay to be an hour late and just come on back. I listened politely while she cajoled, but in the end said, “I appreciate what you’re saying, but it ain’t happenin’ today.”

So two weeks ago she called to tell me about another one, 7 to 11 pm on a work night. No, past my bedtime. Well, there will be one in Windsor on Saturday from two to five.

Okay, I said.  I want to be open minded. I want to hear about this thing that has changed her life and has become her life, if for no other reason than to say I did. And because she isn’t going to stop inviting me until I come to one. Because I can see this means a lot to her and I want to be nice. So up it went on the calendar.

Then somehow during the last 72 hours all kinds of other opportunities and activities and invitations came flooding in. YES, we want to pick up some sherry for your grandmother who lives in our town since you don’t live in this town. That would be a hoot! And YES, thank you so much Victoria, for inviting us to Sanford Estates Winery’s Summer Solstice BBQ with nature walks and wine samplings! And oh, there’s a chance to get two months’ worth of recycling out of the garage on Saturday thanks to my company’s owners, who rented a bin, and …oh, what a day.

We got up early, got the sherry delivered to a very happy nonagenarian. “This is from your grandson A,” we said. We had already planned what to do if said grandmother invited us in for a chat. “If she seems lonely and wants a visit, we’ll just blow off the winery and that’s that.”  But she stood in the door and took the bag from us, properly wary as one should be when complete strangers deliver something. And so off we went on our whirlwind of a day.

The solstice party at the vineyard was delightful. I learned all about the Eastern Fox Snake and how to create habitat for them in my yard (should I ever again have yard), picked up a pamphlet for the Essex County Field Naturalists, learned that Derek Coronado eats.

Oh, and Sylvain…thanks to Vicky…had his first ever “I read your blog” encounter in public.  Hee hee. That’s a fun one. I have Kitty to thank for mine (in a mall in Waterloo).

We kept our eyes on our watches and left before the falconer arrived so as not to be late for the Landmark Forum introduction.

AB had checked into it and told me the house was wheelchair accessible, which of course it wasn’t. When someone says, “I have a nephew (friend, son-in-law, aunt, friend) who uses a wheelchair and they get in just fine,” it usually means that person is either partially mobile without the chair OR has a manual chair that someone else hauls up the steps.

Yes, there were steps. We had already rehearsed what we would do should that be the case. If I was feeling uncomfortable, I would use it as my excuse to turn around and if I was feeling okay, Sylvain would just come back for me at five.  I gave him the “it’s okay” signal and he left me there.  (He later confessed to feeling just horrible about that, since I had begged him to come with me for the moral support.)

But all was well. The presenter was a cordial, funny, joyous woman from Detroit who put me at ease. AB was there as the host, and the woman who offered her house was there. The other person or people AB had invited did not show.

When all was said and done, I fulfilled two promises I had made to myself. The first: to listen with an open mind, share with an open heart; the second: not to sign on any dotted line or hand over any money that day.  I make it a rule to give myself 24 hours to sleep on something, especially in situations where others are pressuring me to make a decision on the spot.

My sweetie picked me up at five, took me to Marukin for dinner (yay, sushi!) and talked me into a long walk along the waterfront after. It was fascinating to watcht the Robert S. Pierson offloading gravel on sand point.

I shall sleep well tonight.

Grace in Small Things – 95

• A work day without stress. Actually smiling and feeling okay at work. This is due to a) lightened work load now that snow birds’ claims are dwindling and b) boss knows she is under the microscope and is on her BEST behavior. Respite from the madness!
• Thunderstorm!
• The energy surge from lots of B vitamins.
• Receiving an invitation to a fun event tomorrow.
• This post, which I want to talk more about later.

Nomenclature

THIS is a Mayfly. It may emerge in June in this part of the world, but that doesn’t make it a June Bug. Accepted vernacular terms include Mayflies, Mays, Upwings, Duns, Spinners, Dippers, or Fish Flies.

A June Bug looks like this. It is a beetle.

Glad we settled that.

.

.

.

.

…hey, who took my red pen?

Grace in Small Things – 94

• My brave, heroic coworker who sat down and had a long talk with boss’ boss about the sad condition our department is in.
• Three or four or five gazillion mayflies. This is a good sign, since they are pollution–sensitive animals. This means the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair are becoming healthy again. Easy pickings for the birds, too.
• Date night! I can’t believe I agreed to see a film in the horror genre, but something about the review made me think I would not be sorry. I’m not sorry! Pontypool was suspenseful, funny, clever and romantic. Sexy Stephen McHattie and his gorgeous wife and costar Lisa Houle showed up to answer questions after. FUN evening!
• An absolutely delicious dinner at C.H. Street’s gastro pub – a Stilton salad, Camembert fritters with strawberry coulis.
• A boyfriend who shares his sweet potatoe fries (best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had, by the way, either side of the Mississippi).

Mission – Joy List

I’ve not reported here on the last few Joy Rebel missions, but that doesn’t mean I have not taken them to heart. A few weeks ago, the assignment was about receiving and then about giving. I thought about the retreat I went on, how I allowed myself to receive the place to sleep, the food donated and cooked by others, the teachings and sessions guided by the monks.  I gave a little that weekend, as well…a couple of back rubs and a donation to the center.

It felt very good to claim a day off work, leave my household chores behind for a whole weekend and receive three days of  meditation and chanting and sisterhood with my new Thai friends.

This week’s assignment is to make a Joy list…ways we feel and connect with Joy.

• I feel JOY when I sit down at the end of a day and read your blogs, find out what you are up to, smile at your triumphs and cry with you in your disappointments. That is the Joy of connecting with others like me.
• I feel WAY LOTTA joy when I pick up that old, red, oblong song book and head over to Ann Arbor for Shape Note singing. I can’t even put into words what happens when I am singing in the hollow square. It is mystical. I will call it the Joy of plugging into the Divine.
• I connect with joy when I am birdwatching, like this spring when I tromped through the woods near here and found my first ever Cape May Warbler singing in a spruce tree.
• I feel joy when I am communicating with an animal – whether getting kisses from a dog, offering a peanut to a squirrel or caw-caw-cawing to a nearby crow. They caw back. I think they are saying, “Hey, you silly human!”
• I connect with joy every night when my head hits the cool organic cotton/bamboo pillow case. There in my wonderful beddie, I feel as if I am crawling back into my mother’s womb, all safe and tucked away from the problems of the world. For me, my bed is safety and sleep is the ultimate sweetness.
• I feel joy when I get to visit with a friend.
• I feel joy when I hear Farsi spoken (please pray for the people of Iran).
• I connect with joy when I am planning a meal, doing the shopping for the fresh ingredients, and cooking.
• I feel joy when I make a spontaneous connection with a stranger…a exchange of smiles while passing on the sidewalk or a random act of kindness or witty repartee in the checkout line.
• I feel joy when the problems my mind manufactures evaporate and I get that knowing feeling in my bones that everything is just as it should be, I am right where I am supposed to be and all is right with the Universe.

If you make a joy list, please let us know so we can come read it on your blog.

PS. After I posted this last night I thought of three more areas whence I derive HUGE joy:

• Giving! When something I have to share helps someone else, that lights up my whole week.
• Learning! After I shut off the laptop last night and settled down with the medical terminology text that I borrowed from a coworker (what a blessing to have access to her book, since the course cost her thousands), it occurred to me that it’s hard to top the degree of contentment and excitement I feel when I am learning.
• Teaching! It makes me so so so happy when I am teaching. I enjoy showing my coworkers the advanced features of Excel, for example. If you have a job that involves pulling reports into Excel, please ask me about VLOOKUP. I would love to teach you that!

One Lovely Blog

Olivia has awarded me the One Lovely Blog Award! Thank you, Olivia! That means a lot.

I would like to pass on this award to:

Karen, who makes me very proud of her by getting out to her studio to do artwork regularly while still managing to feed goats and get kids to basketball games and build stone pathways and paint buildings! Thank you, Karen, for sharing your art and your techniques with us, and for my gorgeous blog banner, too!

Andrea of Colouring Outside the Lines, whose art make me happy–ESPECIALLY her paintings of houses!

Cassaundra, because her blog is One Lovely Blog! Just go see for yourself. It’s lovely.

Willow of Willow Manor, because her blog is so pleasing to my eye. I feel like a crow who has found a new sparkly!

Grace in Small Things – 93

• The peace I draw from watching from my balcony the gliding, wheeling gulls and flapping ducks and honking strings of geese and lately swooping, sweeping barn swallows.
• Being a sound sleeper. What a blessing to be able to fall asleep quickly and awaken refreshed.
• When a friend turns to me for a favour.
• A lovely dinner with my sweetie. I made cauliflower Masala and a potato & egg Dum, he brought the baby spinach for a salad and fresh fruit for dessert.
• A long walk on the trail together after supper; seeing how happy the bees are about the unclipped grass and clover flowers allowed to grow.

Grace in Small Things – 92

• Doing my week’s worth of cooking, taking my time peeling and cutting each vegetable, washing each sprig of cilantro, stopping to taste and thank the sun, the earth, the rain and the farmers.
• Farmers, we’d all be dead without them.
• A beautiful sunny day, perfect for my drive to Ann Arbor for Shape Note singing.
• Only getting lost once. I don’t get mad when I get lost. That would be silly because then I’d be mad all the time! Instead of cursing the waste of gas, I consider it the price of learning “ok, now we know home is not THAT way.” By process of elimination, I will eventually have the way there and the way back memorized.
• The way Spirit rises up inside me when I am part of the hollow square, singing Sacred Harp. I cry, I get goose bumps, and I remember on a cellular level that there is nothing to fear in this good, safe, all-loving Universe.

Biggest Heart Award

Annie has given me the Biggest Heart Award, which means a lot to me. I don’t know why, but somehow no matter how much I try to make a positive difference in the world, my inner camera has a filter on it that turns my picture of myself grey. Sometimes, through others sharing their vision of me with me, I can enjoy a brief glimpse of a bright and colourful picture of me as the giving and loving human that I try to be.

I would like to share this award with:

Rick, because he always encourages others and looks on the bright side

John, for exploring empathy this year

Brandi, for being the fearless leader of the Joy Rebels

Daisy, for speaking out for what she believes in and fighting for social justice

Jessie, for giving her whole heart to the plight of abused and abandoned dogs

Heather, for her journey toward more authenticity, vulnerability and bravery

Olivia, for her commitment to love and compassion toward herself and her partner

Paula because sunshine pours from her heart and I can always count on her to cheer me

Lynn for her unstoppable creative energy and all the gifts she has spread around the world in the form of quilts, ATCs and other tokens of her love

Marianne, for her mandalas bursting with HEART

Patti, for contributing so much beauty to the world through her paintings and vision

Violet for being the kind of friend who offers to help and really means it

Elspeth for all she does to make a difference in the world, from documentaries about living HIV+ to drumming for elephants

Laura, though I don’t know her very well yet, for being real and reaching out to me

Suki, for her kind and peaceful and caring and very giving soul

Human Being for pouring her heart out on her blog and bringing poets and poetry lovers together from all over the world. My heart goes out to her as the situation turned violent and bloody in her country yesterday.

At least five Graces here

I woke up with THE DREAD.  But I did my work with it. Mindfulness stuff.  Sat on my cushion, did my meditating. I remembered I have to allow it to be. Sometimes I talk to my anxiety. I say, “hello, anxiety. Have you decided to be my companion today? Coming to work with me, are you? Well, okay then. First let’s take a shower. Come into the shower with me, anxiety.”

In the shower I get so absorbed in the Now, what with all the pretty droplets of water and the lavender soap and all, Mr. Anxiety often leaves me for a while.

Then on the cushion I focus on the breath, and if anxiety comes, I just acknowledge it with curiosity. What does it feel like? Where is it located? What colour is it?

And I breathe. And I sometimes chant Ra Ma Da Sa Sa Say So Hung. Elspeth taught me that one, and it’s VERY powerful.

After meditation, I realized I was going around the room picking up individual specks of dirt off the laminate floors to put in the waste basket. So I got out the whisk broom and pan.  That’s when it hit me.  Oooooh, my serotonin is dipping. I can always tell when my brain chemicals do a little wobbly imbalance dance because I get much more compulsive, lapse back into rituals that I’ve been mainly free from for a couple of decades. They grab me and won’t let me go.

Well, time for work. Instead of buying into my head’s version of how the day was going to go, I remembered one of Pema’s stories. “Look to the unknown future as thrilling rather than threat.”

You NEVER know what might happen today, Kelly. A miracle could happen today. You do not know. You and your compulsive urges toddle off to work now and just do the day like that if that’s what must be.  So what?

My boss had been out at a conference for two days, so I had saved up four questions for her. She has this tendency to initially disagree with whatever one of us claims examiners proposes. I’ve found that reverse psychology works really well on her. If I want to pay a claim, I’ll say, “this one looks like a denial…” blah blah. And sure enough, she’ll play devil’s advocate and point out why it’s payable. And vice versa.

But I did not feel like games this morning. So I just laid it out to her. This woman lost her husband, we owe her this money going on four months, and now come to find out that because of a clerical error, we are going to have to wait four more weeks…

“Pay it,” she said.

I couldn’t believe my ears.  “We don’t have to wait for the…?”

Nope, there are no suspicions of pre-ex. Pay it and we’ll get the xyz after.

And so it went with my other three questions.

—–

My team is so stressed and demoralized that we stand out compared to the morale of staff on other teams. We can hear them having pot lucks and laughing. When HR announces a theme dress down day for charity, we see the other teams taking pictures in their leis and hula skirts.  We give each other furtive looks that say, “what did we do to deserve getting stuck on this team with THIS boss?”

Some days I’m so overwhelmed by the pressure to get more done faster, I don’t even read the emails about health fairs and ride your bike to work day and dress down for charity. I delete them. There’s no time for fun on my team.

But today, on a whim, I opened and read one and discovered there would be a naturopath on hand in the deli. I don’t have a naturopath yet in Windsor, so decided to go check him out.

It felt good to get out and walk in the sunshine across to the other building. Many days, because of the workload, I head back to my desk after eating.

I met Dr. Denis Marier, started picking up his pamphlets, and learned he just opened his practice here after finishing his Masters with emphasis on ecopsychology in Toronto.  What is ecopsychology, I asked. Before I knew it, we were batting the OMG, what a coincidences back and forth as we discovered parallels of interest/practice in mindfulness, Buddhism and palliative care, not to mention Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy.

Wasn’t I just saying to my friend, “too bad there are not any practitioners of MBCT in Windsor.”  There is one now, and I have his business card in my pocket.

The other day when I got my orientation and tour of the hospice grounds, I was told, “and we just got a naturopath whose office is on the second floor…”

“My office is on the second floor of Hospice Windsor…” Dr. Marier said.

I’m thinking back a couple of months as I was gazing at the ads for pastoral care programs and so forth and feeling way too overwhelmed by the idea of trying to go back to school. Just one baby step. Just take one little step in the direction of this calling and see what opens up. See what networking you can do, what connections you make and what you learn about the field once you get over there among other people who are called to work with people with life-threatening illnesses.

Craziness.

Do the right thing and the Universe will support you.

Why do I forget that?

I was in a giddy good mood by the time Sylvain picked me up for our date to tour Carousel of Nations. The poor band was playing to sparse audience because today was not only Carousel of Nations, but also the Red Bull Races, blocks and blocks cordoned off downtown with live outdoor music on ever other corner AND the Red Wings playing in the Stanley Cup finals.  The beautiful guitarist with waist-length dreads and his gorgeous singer were trying so hard to get a response from us three people listening. So I got up and danced.

What a great day. I’m just so happy to know I still know how to feel good. My body remembers how to bounce, my feet remember how to dance, my face remembers how to smile.

My friend emailed me and said she got three fabulous hugs in a 24-hour period, one even being a feet off the ground, swing around hug.

Did anyone else experience a parting of clouds or special aligment of good energy today(Friday)?