 Alright. Time to try and do things a little differently, for me. I feel as though I have moved through the gradual stages a bit slowly, maybe because I’ve had so little ramping up.
I have heard “the voice” talk s*** in my ear, too: you should do more, you should sigh less, you should be more inspiring, more inspired, more proactive, more connected, less connected, eat better, weed more ... goodness. I have felt lonely too, which is rare for me. Even though I am an introvert, I thrive in Community within my home and around my kitchen table especially. Zoom potlucks might hit the spot eventually but more than anything, for now they make me ache for breathing the same air as my friends. This morning, I can feel the very small and very quiet stirrings of a new way. I can’t quite see it but it feels humble - and mat rather than shiny. Maybe I’m reaching the Acceptance stage and maybe from that place I’ll be able to tap into ways of adding some good stuff into the world. I sure want to. Today, wherever you are, I hope you can hear the birds singing, I hope you can feel the pleasure of the air inside your lungs, I hope that maybe we can all vision - even if it’s just a glimpse - our new normal, and the astounding Gifts that will be part of that. And hope you can remember how much your words, your thoughts, your expressions of YOU matter. Onward with love, Laura
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 Last night as I had been sitting really still for a while, I had a realization as to some of why I have been feeling so deeply rattled.
Some of it is obvious and universal and for some of it, I needed to get a little more specific as to the nature of my angst. I left the US on February 29 and landed in a new-to-me place in Mexico where I experienced some really special times. My Core Essences were brightly lit and shining. Everyday a new life invitation showed up including the opportunity to volunteer at a beautiful heart-based non profit, working with local kids. While there, I heard talk of the virus but it seemed that it was not a reality, certainly not a reality that would ever reach this place. On March 11, hours before I was supposed to get on the plane back home, my son called and strongly asked me to consider staying put. But I had committed to being “a flight angel” for a pup who needed to get to the US and I didn’t want to go back on my word. I figured I would go home, get some things figured out (including getting my book “You Sprinkle Happiness” translated into Spanish so I may read it to the kids), get my own pup and then head back down for a while. The plan felt viscerally right and everything was lining up to make it happen. The plane ride home was packed and as soon as I landed I was presented with a shocking level of intensity, along with some dramatically exaggerated news, including that “the borders had been closed while I was in the air.” It was not true but my nervous system did not know that, and I now understand that in that very moment I re-lived a 40-year old trauma of being told that “I would not be going back.” Just writing these words now bring up tears from somewhere deeper than my eyes. Home the next day and trying to adjust while moving forward with my plan. Requests come in to switch work meetings to FaceTime, I navigate the difficult waters of unravelling my Bali Retreat and the challenges that come with that. I am still filled with the complete sense of “rightness” of my vision. I see how it will serve, how good it is. I go through the steps, fueled by my dream. I get the book into the perfect hands to lovingly translate it into Spanish. I map out my road trip. I connect with my friends in Mexico daily and they assure me that nothing has changed. But day by day I realize that while I was gone almost everything has changed up here and it does not take me long to catch up to the heaviness of what is. It’s dizzying. I think that if I move fast enough, I can still go back. Go back to a place where none of this is true, where I can still walk down the street and sit down for a juice with a friend who is having breakfast. Maybe share a bite of the same chilaquiles. For a couple of days, I’m told that that is the case, to hurry back. That it’s a gringo story and that since I’m not officially a gringa, I belong down there. Then, as life seems to shrink around me up here, the tone changes a little bit from there, too. “Get on the plane tomorrow. We’ll figure it out once you’re here. It’ll be fine, just get here.” That’s my clue to slow down. Twenty four hours later I read a post on a FB group: a woman is flying from the US to Puerto Vallarta and she’s kindly asking if anyone would like her to bring anything down for them. She gets cyber-assaulted and I hurt for every word coming her way. It’s obvious that as far as the general public goes, no one in Mexico wants American coodies. And I get it. As much as it hurts, it’s time to put my plan on hold, just as so many others are doing. Last night I’m told that there’s no one on the beach, that restaurants are closing, I hear a veil of something sad in the voice coming over WhatsApp. And just as home has morphed while I was away for a few days, I know that the place that I have been scrambling to return to ... is no longer there either. In two weeks, two of my worlds went away. This is a lot. A lot for all of us to take in. We are being asked to shift the way we move, the way we share, the way we work, the way we love. As all of this takes place in our outer world, I am reminded of the powerful analogy of the lake. The deep, deep lake: on the surface everything always changes. It’s hot, it’s cold, it’s day, it’s night. It’s calm, it’s hailing. At the bottom of the lake, things are dimmer and very quiet. The plants move slowly, rooted in the sand, the fish weave in and out, at their own pace. Nothing changes much, no matter what’s going on at the surface. As the surface of my lakes whirl and twist wildly, I am going to try and go spend some gentle time at the bottom. Resting. Trusting. Noticing the constants, too. If this resonates with you, I invite you to meet me there. No distance required. Until we can share a plate of chilaquiles. Love, Laura PS: just as finish writing this, I learn that the borders are closing. I guess I’ll never know what the right side of it would have been, for me to be on.  I have been having a tough time this morning. Couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I knew it was personal, not just global.
I also know that when internal rumbles threaten to get our sanity, it’s often a good idea to go to the simplest next step. For me it was doing the dishes. With my hands in hot soapy water, I could start to feel the emotion, feel it make its way up to the surface. I breathed through it and asked it to tell me more. It wasn’t long before I knew what was happening: a re-traumatizing. A reliving a deep feeling of being geographically stuck. The third time in my life and this time with more awareness than I’ve been able to access in the past. Pretty soon, the sobs came and I was leaning against the sink, feeling all three events - spanning almost 40 years - at the same time. It’s tough to stay with so much flooding but I knew that having bypassed it before had not been what I wanted to do again. In not too long, a little ray of lightness showed up, along with a call to action. I dried my hands and then I saw this little pinch pot that I had made just a few weeks ago, before the madness started. The rays of light in the photo are not a filter. They were just there, giving me a hug I think. No social distancing from Magic. |
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March 2020
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