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The weather has been divine. But wait, there’s more. In the midst of this word intensity of late, I would not dare ask for your time to tell you about the deliciousness of the cool winter tropical breeze. As I said, wait, there’s more - and you may like it. Let me start with a funny little story my Greek grandpa Jacques used to tell me. It was the story of a little hen who was riding in the front seat of a car as a passenger and was very very thirsty. She kept telling the driver how thirsty she was, making him a little batty. “I am so thirsty,” she would say every few minutes, “I am so thirsty.” Finally, they stopped somewhere and the man bought the little hen (why, oh why, was it a little hen?) a nice big glass of cold water. She drank all of it, smiled her little hen smile, thanked him, got back in the car, and within two minutes she was sighing and starting to tell him over and over again: “You know, I was so thirsty. I really was so very thirsty.” Why that story stuck in my mind, I am not sure. But then again, maybe this is why: The temperature over the last six weeks has gradually stepped away from its sticky heaviness. No more sweating most hours of the day and night, no more looking at the clock wondering if it’s too late or too early to go to the beach or on a walk. Basically, it is exactly what I have been waiting for since spring. No, no. Not waiting for. Longing for. Yearning for. Fantasizing about. True, this last summer has felt particularly difficult for me for a combination of reasons. I did not dance well with the hot season. I complained a lot. I think I may have whined, too. And then I complained about whining. I counted the weeks. But this is where it gets rich: here we are. In the place I have been counting toward, fantasizing about. It is delicious. We can walk out of our home anytime we want. My clothes barely smell like mushrooms anymore. I sleep with a blanket. I take a little shawl with me at night. And I drink hot cacao before bed. We have arrived. Which in theory should translate to: I can rest. But I don’t. I don’t, and I am irked that I don’t. The truth is: I don’t trust it. Somehow I am able to simultaneously be almost high on the comfort of the current temperature and both still caught in the sticky memory of the past summer and the sticky knowing that “it” is coming back. In a nutshell: I am fully, embarrassingly non-present. Yuk. How does this translate? Like this: every day for the past six weeks until just a few days ago, I have been looking at my escape plan options for the coming summer. Yup. Instead of basking in the delightfulness, or rather WHILE basking in the delightfulness, I have been auditioning a myriad of cooler summer options, some of them bordering on the silly. In JANUARY. Of course, I have fully observed myself doing this mad dance. I have also observed myself talking way too much about “how-hot-it-was-last-summer.” Good grief. WHO CARES?? Yeah, it was hot but guess what? It’s not now. And as far as how-hot-it-will-be next summer… WHO CARES?? Do I even know for sure that I will be alive next summer? No, I don’t. Thank goodness, I was finally able to catch this, realize I was full-on doing a Thirsty Little Hen routine, and was able to put an end to this pain bath. How? Well, first I had to be nicer to me. I had to stop telling myself how crazy I was, how I would be able to help any of my clients with this, and why I couldn’t help myself. I had to admit that yes I had been a Very Hot Little Hen and that it was ok. AND that it was now time to make some changes. So I looked into my coaching toolbox, moved around a few tools, and found just the one I needed. The Date Tool. Which, while not as fun as it sounds, is super effective. I made a date with myself - or rather, I made a date with this thing/question that was making itself a nest in my head. I thought about it for 12 seconds and decided that May 1st would be a perfectly adequate time to sit down and make a summer plan. Not too late, not too early, May 1st would work just fine. After having enJOYed - really truly enjoyed - months of lovely, gentle tropical breezes, by being present. I made a date and so now, anytime the questions pop up all I need to do is remind them that we already have an appointment to address their concerns. It works. I am 90% better. And of course, this is not just about the temperature. Of course. It rarely is. It is about boundaries, about timing, about knowing what we can take in and when and why. It is about deciding how much news I let in today (and they come in through all kinds of sneaky, harmless-looking little ways), it is about knowing the difference between what I have control over and what I don’t - and then choosing to put most of my energy where it may matter. It is about reclaiming our thoughts, our energy, the way we use our brains, our words, and our hearts. It is about the Essence of Sovereignty at a time when we need it so very much. I often talk - and write - about how I live in The Land of Contrasts.
Mexico is both so very sweet and so very tough, often within the same hour. It gives so much and asks for so much. And yet, as much as I like to say that The Contrasts are a Mexican specialty, I realize that they may be more of a … living life as a human specialty. The last two days have been pretty darn dreamy for me. In collaboration with a beautiful non-profit organization, I have had the bliss of creating a significant art project with local women, a project that will generate a pool of money for women’s healthcare needs. As soon as it is fully ready to be shared, I will say more about the project but for now, I want to talk about the joy. Together, we spent two days measuring, drawing, and painting one hundred hearts of many colors on large pieces of wood. Eating, laughing, creating beauty. Beauty that will bring peace of mind, all in my little home at the edge of the jungle. There were moments as I was painting when I took a step back and was filled with a blend of gratitude and awe like several dreams come true in one colorful package. Last night, after everyone left and as I was organizing art supplies and taking a look at all that got done, I was taken aback by how much beauty was all around me. I sat on a chair on my patio and let it all in. The garden with its flowers and fruits and birds. The jungle sounds, the roosters, the divinely comfortable temperature, the four large pieces of art, and the reason we made them. My pups. All of it. Then before going to bed, I did exactly what I advise my coaching clients not to do: I took a look at the news. Within minutes I was reading about a family who had traveled from Venezuela through the Darian Gap and across Mexico. They had arrived at the border with an appointment for their asylum interview. Which had gotten canceled the day before. I don’t know these people and I don’t know their stories. I do know that to take your family across the Darian Gap you must be running from something pretty terrible. I remember an eight-year-old boy in the refugee center where I volunteered a few years ago. His mama had put him on a boat to cross over to Greece in the middle of the night. She couldn’t go. She knew the risk of sending him. She likely knew that she would never see her child again. No one does this unless the cost of staying is bigger than the risk of leaving. When my family was expelled from Spain in 1492, Bayezid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire granted them permission to settle and become citizens. My family was welcomed and thrived there for several generations. When they ran from the Germans a few centuries later and arrived in France, they were again able to start a new life. Some of this story does not end happily but here I am and here are my children and now my children’s children. Because most of my ancestors were able to escape terrible terrible things and start over and contribute to a new country. All this to say, on some level, my cells know of this. As does my memory of having spent time on Lesvos island during a cold winter. The story of the Venezuelan family unraveled me. I could physically feel the weight of the disappointment, the exhaustion, the hopelessness. I wanted to drive up and scoop them all up. Bring them to my home and make it better. I wanted I wanted I wanted… to do something to take away the terror. And I knew that I had nothing, absolutely nothing to offer. So with all these colorful hearts on my patio, I went to bed and meditated and prayed. I asked to please be shown how I could help. I didn’t sleep well and this morning I was happy to see once again the beauty we had created during our last two days of painting. I was aware of The Contrasts, how it all exists at the same time, how we can be so enchanted one moment and feel so gutted the next. I sat with that and breathed through it. Letting both be true. I saw a hummingbird kiss a flower and I let myself trust that. I saw my cat perched on top of two pillows and celebrated her ability to find comfort. I allowed myself to get fed by the perfect nature around me, the peace of the morning. And then Marley ran through the front gate, so happy to see me and having very obviously enjoyed a second breakfast of one of the neighbor’s baby’s poopy diapers. Contrasts. (You may LISTEN to this essay on Substack) A Very Precious Thing
January 10, 2025 In my experience, relationships between women have a bright potential to be complicated. Much more complicated than my relationships with men. Men don’t need to talk things out for … weeks. Men don’t spend a lot of time wondering what we might be thinking (even though I wouldn’t mind if they did it a little bit more). This makes for simpler, more straight-lined connections. As a generalization. Also, the complexity of women-to-women relationships is what can make them so fulfilling. We go deep, we come back and dig a little more. And when we walk away, it can be hard. One beautiful facet of my women friendships is that we can be really good at supporting each other. For a moment or for a lifetime. Friends or even strangers. A few months back, during the height of the rainy season. I had driven to the village, grateful once again that my car was tall and strong and could cross the three Rios without me having to give it much thought. On the way home and as I approached the gently flowing river, I noticed a small car stopped right smack in the middle of the water. Not good. On my side of the Rio, a small young woman in a pale blue sundress looked stressed. Not realizing the car was hers, I asked if she wanted a ride to the other side. No, no, she said. I need help getting my car out. Oh. She explained that her car had stopped running as she was halfway across and didn’t know what to do. Just as I was thinking that my car could probably pull hers, two men arrived, one of them possibly her partner. As they brainstormed what to do, I offered to attach the two cars together and get hers to the other side that way. They liked the idea, got ropes, waded into the water, attached one end to each car and when they gave me the thumbs up, I pressed the gas. At first, I could feel some resistance, and then, nothing. I looked back and they were waving at me to stop. The rope had broken. The woman was in the water up to her knees and visibly distressed. I then offered to make my way to the other side of the river, position myself right behind her car, and gently push it with mine. They pondered that for a bit and then decided that no, what they would do would be to get another guy and instead push the car backward and up the sandy bank. When the third man arrived, I settled into my seat, leaned over the steering wheel, and watched, holding my breath with each uno, dos, tres that seemed to rock the car each time a little bit more. The woman had her back to me, hands on the hood and she too was pushing. Just as I thought that really, she could let the guys do it, she turned and gestured for me to … do something. I wasn’t sure what. Had they decided that they wanted my car to push after all? I mouthed something to her, asking for clarification. No, she gestured back. She wanted me next to her, pushing too. I laughed and mouthed again (mouthing in Spanish is pretty fun, it turns out) that I wasn’t strong enough to make any difference. But she was determined and wanted me with her. Maybe she had noticed that I had gone to the gym a couple of times lately, I wondered. I got out of my nice dry car and waded thighs-deep into a water that I know not to be the cleanest water. The woman smiled and made room for my hands next to hers and then we did the uno, dos, tres again, me doing more visualizing than actual pushing. The car certainly was rocking and with her eyes looking into mine and me laughing because this was pretty silly, the next uno, dos, tres propelled it out! She was SO thrilled. She high-fived me as though she and I had moved this huge hunk of metal to dry ground all on our own. For a second, she made me believe that maybe we had. The whole thing was wild and powerful and as I made my way home I pondered - and have since - about this special thing that happens between women. How we reach for each other, need each other. How we intuitively know, maybe from some long ago memory, that together, we are so strong, unstoppable. This is a very precious thing for us to know, and to live with. https://lauralavigne.substack.com/p/a-very-precious-thing |
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February 2025
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I write because this is the way I am able to taste life more deeply. |