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The Easel and The Flow
May 29, 2024 When Lila, TIji, and I got on a plane for the US, two summers ago, I had two goals: One was to spend three months deeply enjoying my family and my friends, as well as my beloved island cottage. The second was to sell the cottage. I had a whole summer to accomplish this and while these two goals possibly seemed mutually exclusive, I have learned better than to agree with the way things look on paper. I wanted both of these things very much and I was trusting that they could co-exist. It turned out, they would. Beautifully and with Ease. Which does not mean without work or help. One of the “work” parts, was to hold several consecutive garage sales to bring my belongings and those of my kids to the smallest amount possible. I was pretty set on not renting a storage unit so everything I owned would have to either be gifted, sold, or cross the border. Knowing that my house in Mexico had no closet or storage space made me quite focused and committed to the mantra I have taught for decades: “Actively Used OR Deeply Cherished.” The first garage sale was intense. I decided to start with what would hurt the most. I wanted to rip up the band-aid and get going. Everything else would be easier. This meant carrying my easel to the sidewalk. And leaving it there, all open to the whole world for someone who wasn’t me to take it away. My Easel, my friend. Both Actively Used AND Cherished. But heavy. It didn’t take long. A nice woman approached us, asked how much it was. I am pretty sure I let my son answer her and then I watched her carry it away. Tightness in my chest, I reminded myself that it was the right thing to do. No storage unit. Just a few pieces of wood hinged together. Don’t love things that can’t love you back, Laura. Let it go. For some reason, as I repeated all these good words to myself I reached into the pocket of my overalls. I hadn’t worn them for a couple of years and I was surprised to find a folded piece of paper in there. Also, a little yellow heart that I didn’t remember having met before. I tucked the heart back into my pocket and unfolded the paper. The handwriting punched me in the gut. My mom’s handwriting, unmistakable. The same curves that I had read since I was old enough to read, the same ones that wrote notes excusing me from gym class or later on were stretched on letters from “America” to France telling me that she missed me and would I please come visit. My mom’s handwriting, the one that never changed, just as her voice had never changed. Now in the shape of a short grocery list scribbled on one of these cute pieces of paper she liked. This list, I did remember. An hour or so after she had died I had picked it up from her desk drawer and tucked it into my backpack. Maybe I already knew that I wouldn't get many more earthly things to remember her by. How it ended up in my overalls, I don’t know. But I did know right away that the timing, of course, was perfect. A sweet infusion of impermanence, a reminder of yes… letting go. I think she had done a lot of this, eventually the biggest one, and maybe she had come by for a second, the perfect second, to support me. We had a couple more garage sales in the next few weeks and in the end, we did rent a small storage unit. We still have it and I’m still navigating my opinion about it. It’s ok. As the leaves began to turn red, Lila, Tiji, and I made our way back to Mexico and soon after, we moved into our house. Eventually, Casa Sama was finished and eventually, I started to paint again. I thought about My Easel. I could have brought it. I could have stored it. I didn’t and that was that. Then one day I received an email. I wish I had saved it because now I can only paraphrase it and this always feels weird to me. It was from the lady who had bought My Easel at that first garage sale. She had been reading some of my recent posts and saw that I was painting down here. She wanted to tell me how good it had been for her to have The Easel. How it had kickstarted her art again. She too was painting! She sounded inspired and had generously wanted me to know. Her words immediately felt important to me. It made sense, it fit perfectly with my understanding of Life and of the world when I’m not caught up in the smallness of fear. I was grateful for her having taken the time to tell me. I was grateful that what was now Her Easel was not sitting in a storage unit, away from where it could do its magic. I was grateful that Life was flowing as it always does when we don't get in its way. I kept on painting, developing a whole new style, one The Easel had never seen. In March, I flew back to the States to attend the gathering and unveiling of a collaborative show. WOA. A series of portraits celebrating twelve extraordinary women from the island. The Women of Anacortes. It was a very special evening. At the end of the evening, as people lingered enjoying talking with each other and also with me, a woman approached me and kindly reminded me that she was the one who had bought Our Easel and who had sent me the email. She had taken the time to come to my show and she had taken the time to wait to say hello. There, surrounded by this art, these portraits - which I didn’t even know I could create when I sold The Easel - it was touching and reaffirming and also very sweet to be reminded once more of how The Flow works, of how by letting go we bless others and we bless ourselves. How we open up to more than we knew we were ready for or capable of. Today I invite you to trust, and to remember that while things can’t love us back, they can be excellent partners in growing our lives, whether by holding on to them or by letting them go to where they are needed next. In my bathroom, I now have a little yellow heart. Someone once asked me if there was one of my former loves with whom I wished I was still sharing my life. I am pretty sure he asked more clearly, but this is the best I can do in my late afternoon sweaty state. Anyhoo, you get the idea: did I regret the proverbial One Who Got Away? I thought for a short while, did a little inventory in my head, Rolodex style, and gave him a clear no. Nope, no regret at all. Even when the end had hurt, I held no regret. Edith Piaf would approve. Today, inspired by a message that showed up in my inbox, I am revisiting my answer. Yes, one. There is one. And that one, The One That Got Away, I had very much made sure he did. It was 1986, and I was in a relationship I had no business being in. Nothing terrible-terrible, just definitely not a match. My best friend at the time had made it clear that she felt I had no business being in that relationship and instead of insisting I leave or telling me why I should she had simply, one afternoon, said to me: “The day you are ready to leave, just call me. No matter what I am doing, I will come over and get you out.” She must have sensed in me something that I am still grappling with: I don’t leave easily. Yet, that day came. Quietly, one summer morning, two lines in the middle of the newspaper that had been thrown at our front door did it. They said, “How can I find you if you are still with him?” I don’t remember the context; it seems a little odd in retrospect, but hey, angels come in all kinds of outfits, and this one arrived wrapped in newsprint. This relationship had been stripped of its life force for a very long time if it had ever had any. There was nothing left to harvest, nothing left to plant. Just the urgent need to walk away before one of us turned to dust. Still in my PJs, alone in the Seattle apartment that this boy and I shared, I picked up the phone and told my friend, “I am ready.” She responded: “Unlock the door, sit on the couch, and don’t move. I am on my way.” I later learned that she was in the middle of a prestigious fashion shoot and had handed the camera to her assistant long enough to get in her pickup truck and make her way to me. I was paralyzed. She walked in and asked me to point. I pointed. My clothes, my paints, my toothbrush. When she walked towards a big picture frame above the couch, I shook my head. I did not want him to come home to a sad apartment. She made a few trips to her truck and then took me by the hand. She moved me into her huge walk-in closet, up on another hill across the city, where she lived with her husband. She said I could stay there as long as I wanted. And then she suggested I go on a date with her ex-boyfriend. “He’s great,” she said. “I think you’ll really like him.” This seemed fast. Had she been planning this all along, I wondered? The ex-boyfriend part? Did she know something I didn’t? Just a few years my senior she used to love reminding me that “When you turn twenty-seven years old, Laura, you will understand things better.” Well, I did go on a date with her ex-boyfriend. We’ll call him John. And it turned out she was right, he was great. Scary great, in fact. A bit older than me (and even a tiny bit older than my friend), he was wicked smart - which wasn’t the first, nor the second thing one noticed about the boy I had left. He was funny. The smart-funny kind of funny. He knew stuff I didn’t and I loved that. He was adventurous, the opposite of passive, inventing fun left and right. He gave me a copy of the book Siddartha and even though I kept it for years, it would be a decade before I understood it. He had the sweetest cutest dog and in the big old house he shared with some hippy friends, he introduced me to cardamom. Cardamom always reminds me of him and it’s still my favorite spice. I really, really, really liked him. A lot. He also seemed to have a lot of women friends, and I wasn’t sure what to think of that. But he made it very clear that he liked me. A lot. I could see that what he liked was the true me, too. He saw beyond the cute French-bubbly me. He saw me and as a little bit of time passed, he said that he loved me. I believed him. I felt it. It was so very easy and so very good, and I didn’t know what to do with that. You see, romantic relationships are not where I excel. I know many of the principles, and I have since studied and even taught the principles. I have successfully shared what I know with other couples. It just doesn’t help much when it comes to me. When the leaves turned red, in the tiny studio I had moved into on yet another Seattle hill, we carved the pumpkins he brought over. He helped me paint the walls mauve, we shared my Murphy bed and there too, it was so easy and so very good. This scared me. Somehow, I sensed that if I got too close, if I said YES to the question he may not even have known he was asking me, but which I could see in his eyes, I would never leave. And I wanted to leave. I wanted to move to Hawaii, I wanted to be free, I wanted to feel life without someone attached to mine. I did not know then, and maybe I still don’t, that one can feel free even when tied at the heart and at the hearth with someone intelligent, kind, self-confident, and funny. I thought maybe I would learn later. I was only 22, I had so much time. Surely I would learn later. I did not know how rare this was. When Christmas came, John flew down to Florida and met my family. My grandmother wanted him for herself, and I wouldn’t have put it past her to try. New Year’s that year was special. He gifted me the softest, most beautiful leather jacket. But I was leaving. I had to. I was flying to Hawaii for an undetermined time and he was generous enough to bless my adventure. And well, that was that. Upon arrival, Hawaii had me drunk with freedom, with its smells, its colors, and its aloha. Our phone calls got further and further apart. For Valentine’s Day, he got me a gift certificate from a nice local restaurant. I think if I had asked him to join me, he would have. I didn’t. A few months later I ran straight into the father of my children and because our three children needed to be born, the pull was strong. I said yes to that road. It’s likely that I chipped John’s heart, if not broke it a little. My girlfriend didn’t talk to me for fifteen years. Once in a while, John and I find each other in this big world. Never in person. An email. A message. A couple of phone conversations. He says: “You catch me every so often, my darling!” Like me, John has had a big life, like me he has loved much and hurt also, played, worked, lived. Like me, he lives out of the US. Like me, I think he is happy. Maybe, like me, sometimes, he thinks of me as The One Who Got Away. As usual, the sky was still dark when twelve paws enthusiastically woke me up. For a moment, in between two worlds, I didn’t remember. Then slowly, I did. Mitsu. Mitsu has been my faithful, comfortable, spacious, forgiving, strong, and ultra-reliable companion, since a few weeks after we arrived. She is the first car I ever drove in Mexico. She has been with me through countless adventures, water crossings, places in the jungle where I wasn’t sure cars could go, flooded country roads, mountain passes, the cobblestones of the village, and paved city streets too. She has moved all my stuff from the tiny cabin to my house and she has helped me move many friends’ things too. Plants, animals, she has always said yes. She has been my overnight shelter when the thunder got too loud to sleep in a tent and she has transported many construction materials in the months when Casa Sama was being built. She never once complained, hesitated nor left me stranded. I satisfied her hunger for ample amounts of motor oil and got help fixing her occasional popped tires. Last year she got a new suspension and a hard protective roof. She still has her pink striped seat covers. When I first got her, I asked her to please stay with me for three years. It felt like an eternity stretching in front of us. Last March, aware that we were passing the three-year mark I got bold and asked her for a seven-year extension. Two nights ago, with zero warning and in the most gentle way possible, she told me that she couldn’t give me that. That she was done. Mitsu had kept her commitment and now it was time for her to retire. She took care of me until the last minute, giving me her news before I started driving into the jungle at night, and during one of the only times when a girlfriend was following me home after an afternoon together in the city. It was so smooth, so sweet. An odd noise, a knowing of sorts. The transmission was acting strangely. I pulled into the last gas station before the huge trees and the dark curvy roads, made sure she would be safe overnight, and then climbed into my friend’s car to get home. Yesterday morning I made my way back to her where a tow truck was meeting us. We put her on the back, and I took this beautiful photo. So very her. Festive, strong, and looking pretty Mexican for a car who was born in New York. Perfect. Back through the jungle I left her into my mechanic’s hands. I went home and waited for a diagnosis. At 5 pm he texted me. “It’s the transmission," he confirmed. I went over there. Of course, I immediately talked about replacing the transmission. He advised me against it. “The motor is at the end of its life,” he said. He had been telling me this for a good while and I hadn’t wanted to believe him. I didn’t believe him but also… anytime I thought of going on a long road trip, my intuition made some noise of its own. Yes, she had never let me down. But also, I knew I shouldn’t push it. And I did want to go on road trips. Underneath the sadness, something felt right. Gentle was the word that kept coming back. We drove her home and here she sits. And now what? I don’t know how to buy a car. Also, I don’t have a lot of money to do so. Could I just … not have a car? Not having a car feels scary. I have never not had a car, as an adult. Having a car means Freedom to me. And god knows I love Freedom. Also, whereas it would be possible - although inconvenient - to be without a car if I lived in the village, living in the country this way feels much scarier, especially with the rain coming. I want to be able to make my way to the vet quickly if needed. I want to be able to cross the rivers without wading through them each time. I want, I want. I want my car to magically be well. Because at least with her, I know what’s wrong. A new-to-me car? It’s trickier. So, as I woke up to this new reality, and while it is not comfortable, there is a whole lot of gratitude that goes along with it. Also, a trust that something good is coming. Nothing lasts. No one lasts. Letting go is an art form, one that takes so much practice to do painlessly. We forget, we want to forget. We say things like “forever,” or “seven more years,” and the words feel so good. We say: “See you in the morning,” and “I’ll be there.” And we may, or we may not. I think one part surrender, one part awareness, and one part joy may be the perfect cocktail. Now I am thinking about gear shifting, about going from one speed to the next, one car to the other, smoothly. About reducing the grinding and enhancing the flow. Enjoying the ride. Inviting, receiving. Because even though Mitsu is retiring from the gear-shifting business, I am not. This life… |
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I write because this is the way I am able to taste life more deeply. |