I know a woman and her husband who belonged.

The other day I was taking off my shoes and sweaty socks after a run, and I paused to look at my feet.  Even being exhausted from the run, my brain harshly judged the appearance of my feet amazingly quickly.  As I sat there judging my feet, I remembered that I have a friend with beautiful feet.  She is one of those people who likes to take their shoes off so I have had a few opportunities to see her feet, and they are lovely.  It occurred to me while sitting there with my feet that one of the things that make her feet so beautiful, and mine so not, is how comfortable she is in her feet.  That kind of comfort in your own feet is a big part of what makes feet beautiful.

Yesterday Haley and I were hiking on a tough, steep and rocky trail down near the Potomac River.  That lazy river that rolls through D.C. is an intense, dangerous river that cuts through a steep rocky canyon just a few miles north.  It is not uncommon for people to drown in that section of the river every year.  As Haley and I scrambled over rocks, climbed a section of cliff, pondered where the trail markings had disappeared to, and generally pretended to be mountain goats instead of humans, we came across a group of hikers who were not prepared for the difficult trail we all found ourselves on (what they were wearing on their feet revealed this to us). Turns out one of their members had twisted his ankle and they were on the Struggle Bus to complete the hike.  Our random act of kindness was to stop and offer to help them.  They cheerfully said no.  We offered to tell a Park Ranger who could come and get them.  They declined.  As we parted ways, I encouraged them to not be shy about asking for help, should they decide they needed it, as that is what Park Rangers are paid to do (with their taxpayer dollars) and also that people in the woods are typically glad to help each other (I didn’t mention the ax murders who roam all woods) .

As I thought about why these people who so obviously needed help declined to accept it, I realized there are lots of reasons why it is so hard to accept help from others.  A biggie is that we are then open and vulnerable to others.  Let’s face it, things never went so well for the children in fairy tales who stopped and asked for help from strangers….or asked their family now that I think of many of those stories.  Another crucial reason is one that falls from what if we ask for help and the person says no.  My experience is when that happens I feel stupid and self-conscious for even asking, and this then starts a series of internal dialogues about whether I asked too much, am I worthy of asking for anything, that receiving a “no’ is probably revealing that I am not worthy of asking, and in fact I don’t belong to whatever pack of humans I just asked for help from, I most assuredly must not belong for good reasons, and I will never belong anywhere….  I feel small and constricted. Ah, the beat of the crazy drummer goes on.  Now maybe it is just me who gets zinged when requests for help are denied.  If so, would you do me the favor of pretending it happens to you too? Learning that it is just me would totally fire up the See-You-Don’t-Belong blast furnaces in my soul.  Thanks.

Belonging?  We have touched on this before in these posts.  Is it really that big a deal?  Does it matter that much?  The answer is “yes.” A quick story from the Hippies (with apologies for bastardizing such an important tale): When Siddhartha Gautama (The guy who became Buddha) decided to stop messing around and get serious about the whole enlightenment gig, he plopped himself down under the Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa, for those of you who are interested in that kind of thing), determined to sit through the Long Dark Night of the Soul, facing whatever remaining challenges blocked his path. Mara (The Crazy Demon Hamster that lives in each of our heads and hearts, spinning in his wheel, bringing up doubts and self-judgments) arose before Siddhartha with his Crazy Demon Hamster Army and began to confront Siddhartha with all the doubts and self-judgments he could draw from the deepest depths and most hurtful private places within Siddhartha.  Siddhartha meet them with compassion and kindness, turning them into flower petals which fell to the ground.  When the morning star arose and dawn was near, Siddhartha sat surrounded by a pile of flower petals, and Mara was down to his last weapon.  In his most fierce Crazy Demon Hamster voice, Mara screamed, “Who are you to think you are worthy of rising above the suffering of humans? Who are you, foolish vulnerable flawed human, to think you are worthy of enlightenment?”  In response, Siddhartha smiled and reached down and touched the Earth before him, signaling that he was worthy because he Belonged to the Earth, he Belonged to the World, he Belonged to the Foolish Vulnerable Flawed Humans.  He Belonged.  With a string of profanity and promises to return, Mara vanished.  Siddhartha was still a Vulnerable Flawed Human, and he was now the Buddha.  For the record, Mara continued to return throughout the Buddha’s life.  The Buddha invited him to tea.

If that story doesn’t convince you then I perhaps these lyrics from Radiohead might: “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo.  What the Hell am I doing here?  I don’t Belong here.”    See?    Even rock stars have this challenge! This is clearly a real human struggle, right?

Not convinced yet?  How about Tracy Chapman: “So remember when we were driving, driving in your car; Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk; City lights lay out before us; And your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder; I had a feeling that I Belonged; I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.”     Even Folk Rock Stars know what we are talking about.

I have faced a series of events lately that have been pushing on the tender spot that is my struggles with that whole Belonging thing. Most of the events have been rough, and nothing special.  Perhaps of more interest has been the process of the struggle, which in all honesty has mostly been a series of wins for the Struggle, rather than me.  I do get some points for awareness and moments of presence, but typically it ends with the Crazy Demon Hamster doing a victory dance, tiny hamster arms raised triumphantly overhead.   This morning I put up a good fight and it came out a draw…possible even a slight margin of victory for me, so let’s look at that one (because I look relatively good), shall we?

I was hanging with the Hippies at a yoga class of which I previously was a regular attendee, but had missed a couple months due to dealing with the psychodrama of the Close-Family-Member-Who-Has-Alzheimer’s disease, work travel, illness, and all the kinds of stuff that emerges when you just want to go an exercise for Christ’s sake. On top of this, I have also been struggling to get back into long distance running, coming off a long standing injury that took me out of running for most of a year.  So with that as background: before class I heard two people discussing their recent training runs, distances & times, upcoming race plans, etc., and watched as they both warmed up for class; looking strong and powerful.  The Crazy Demon Hamster in my head and I looked down at my body through glasses tinted with comparisons to these others.  The Crazy Demon Hamster said, “Wow, do you look the Pillsbury Dough Boy or what? And I thought we agreed those feet are ugly and here you are walking around in them in public. WTF are you thinking? You don’t belong here.”

It wouldn’t surprise me if you read this and think it is just plain silly. My experience in that moment was that it really hurt.  It hurt so much I almost started crying and considered leaving class.  Kudos for my being aware of what was happening, and I still wanted to run away, stuff these feelings back under the stairs in the basement, maybe barricade them in with whatever other garbage is down there.  In the end, rather than “bravery,” it was the embarrassment from the thought of leaving class that kept me there.  Probably related to that annoying daily RAK gig, I figured as long as I was going to stay I might as well see where this would go.  As I sat there trying to “calm my mind and be present in this moment” for class and all that other Damn Hippie stuff yoga instructors implore us to do, I was filled with awful. I didn’t Belong here.  I didn’t Belong anywhere.  Current assessment indicated I didn’t even Belong in my body. I didn’t Belong in my brain. I didn’t Belong in my heart.  I didn’t even Belong in my feet!

I am many things and, in beneficial and destructive ways, one of the things I am is stubborn. Having determined to “be present” for this, I was all in.  Bring it, Crazy Demon Hamster! Let’s see what ya got, Mother Fucker!  I sat there watching this tidal wave rise, holding fast as I could to the moment, the curiosity, the sensations, at times offering a small morsel of compassion to this Goliath and even occasionally to myself.  It sucked, and I stayed.

Class began. I sloshed around in the waves of sadness, loneliness and sense of not Belonging. Then the  experience began to change.  No, I didn’t become enlightened, wasn’t filled with this joyful belief that I Belonged, or a powerful grounding awareness that I was in fact comfortable in my own feet.  No, none of that. I did however have less of the feeling that I didn’t Belong, my constricted internally-focused view of the world loosened some, enough for me to occasionally see the others in the room for what we all were; Humans on the Struggle Bus.  The room had all kinds of people in it.  Sure there were Yoga Rock Stars, who were fun to watch when not being used as a comparison of how lacking we are, and they also had times when holding a poise sucked like it did for the rest of us.  Pretty much all the Humans were trying to get through an hour of intense yoga without collapsing into Child’s poise and begging for mercy (Yoga instructors are a kind and cruel lot). The Struggling Humans were also fun to watch when not being used as comparisons to create a false sense of how much better we are, but rather as recognition of the human continuum as we all seek to find some peace in our day….and more flexibility with a stronger core, let’s not forget that.

I left the class with much of the same emotions as I started with (I cried a little bit on the way home), and those emotions were less so.  I have a painful history.  You have a painful history. We have painful histories.  It is hard for me to imagine a time where my Crazy Demon History, my own Mara, won’t challenge me.  It is hard for me to imagine a time when I don’t struggle with Belonging.  And I am the tiniest bit optimistic that I can avoid being waylaid by the emotional storm that arises; that I can be a smidge more present in those moments without running for cover; that perhaps even on occasion I can bring a sense of curiosity, an active welcoming for what surfaces from the deep without harsh judgment of myself or the need to put others down in my head so I can climb; that I can have moments of compassion for myself while also bringing kindness and empathy to the Other Humans and their struggles.

As I take baby steps on this path, I returned to thinking about my feet and how intense a judge I can be. My feet and I have been together for as long as I can remember, we have a longstanding relationship, and here I am being so harsh.  We have resolved to try harder, to try to make it work between us.  I promise to try to not be so critical and neglectful.  My feet promise to use this attention and caring to the best of their advantage, try to show the world that they are loved, if not always liked.  I think it is a long steep road to continue to try to build a sense of Belonging anywhere, including my body, brain and heart.  Perhaps trying to be comfortable in my own feet is a start.  I may even invite my feet to tea.

I know a woman and her husband who have reminded me of the importance of getting back on the diving board.

“There was still the serpent whispering…..’Taste and be as Gods.’     But neither infinite power nor infinite wisdom could bestow godhood upon man. For that there would have to be infinite love as well.”   A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr

As I am not yet ready to get another dog, today I tried out volunteering for a dog rescue organization that was doing a Meet Some of Our Lovable Dogs Who Need Good Homes event in one of those big box pet supply stores.  While hanging out near the front of the store with one of the Lovable Dog Who Needs a Good Home (who by the way was truly a Lovable Dog Who Needs a Good Home if anyone is interested: https://ophrescue.org/)  I encountered a woman who was juggling an infant in its infant-sized space capsule, a medium sized dog who was Super Excited(!) about this field trip, and a large purse that appeared to also be Super Excited(!) about this field trip, as she tried to separate a shopping cart that was tightly snuggled with its fellow shopping carts.  I helped her get a cart and made sure she was safely off on her pet supply shopping adventure. Random act of kindness in a big box pet supply store: Check!

Despite having completed the legendary quest of moving the Close-Family-Member-Who-Has-Alzheimer’s disease to a situation much better prepared to deal with her worsening status and growing care needs (See “Ouch” and “An Epic Tale”), my stress level has continued to be extremely high. I can easily generate an impressive list of reasons for this, but I could also tell that there were underlying reasons that did not immediately shout out their names when the roll call of likely suspects was performed.  I blame random acts of kindness for the loss of the blissful ability to ignore any signals from the Deep indicating there were reasons to listen more closely when searching for explanations. Stupid RAK.

But there those signals from the Deep were, so listen I did.  It turns out a key source of this extremely high stress was this situation required that I needed to rely on others, in this case the staff at this facility.  How can I know the staff is doing what they say they are doing?  How can I know they are truly trained and skilled enough to handle the current level of (hopefully temporary) psychosis and cognitive impairment? How can I know they won’t fail me, abandon me, leave me to try to pick up the pieces in a tidal wave of crisis?  Yes, I know these thoughts quickly escalate up the crazy spectrum, and there they are and my knowing they quickly move toward irrational does not stop them from being there.

I suspect most of us have had things happen in our histories that lead us to draw a line in the sand marking how far we go with trusting others, often for solid reasons, even if staying on this side of the line closes our horizons and shrinks our world. Some of us develop the skills to venture beyond that line, many of us don’t. I could be wrong, but I think most of the people in my life, even those I am quite close to, would be surprised that trusting others is such a big challenge for me.  I think I come across as open and trusting, and in many ways I am, and there is a wall that has historically been nearly impossible to get beyond.  I have been working on changing that, becoming one of those people who boldly ventures beyond the line in the sand.  It is really hard.  Perhaps the following story will help us both understand why it is so difficult:

I started swimming competitively when I was like 6-years-old and continued through high school. I could have continued to swim in college but by that point in my life the path I was on had taken some strange turns so I didn’t.  I was a decent competitor, but not great (which is pretty much the story of all my athletic activities). Some time late middle school/early high school I started to play around with springboard diving, again decent but not great. One day I was learning a new dive on the 3-meter board (the dreaded “high dive” our youth).  I had performed all the preliminary pieces off the board.  My coach and I had walked through putting the pieces together on the deck.  I climbed the ladder, stood on the board, thinking the steps through in my head, started my approach, made my jump-step, started my dive at the peak of the arc as the board tossed me into space. Somewhere as I folded and unfolded, twisted and spun, I made a mistake.  I opened up not as a knife edge slicing through the surface of the water, but as a full belly flop, every inch of the front of my body landing flat on the surface. Had the point of the dive been to complete a full belly flop, I would have received high scores from all judges. Sadly, that was not the point of the dive.

If you have never had the opportunity to experience the sensation of a full belly flop from a height of more than 3 meters, I will share with you that it is quite painful. I paused before surfacing and swimming to the side of the pool to assess my choices. Getting out of the pool and trying the dive again pretty much seemed to be the only option, what with my coach and other divers, etc., standing around waiting for me to get out of the water. I climbed out, the front part of my body now lobster red. My coach and I made a few jokes, I headed back to the board, climbed the ladder, and dove….with the exact same result.

This time I stayed under the water for a longer period of time while my body communicated in an extremely direct fashion about the consequences of falling from that height and landing on a substance that had the surface tension of water with the full surface area of the front of my body.  As I climbed out, I noticed my coach had stripped down to his swimsuit and had a look in his eye like he was getting ready to go in after me.  Meanwhile, additional people were starting to gather near the diving area.  My guess is the loud crack my body made as it encountered the water in a full belly flop had attracted curious onlookers. As fate would have it, some of these curious onlookers were attractive girls that I knew. Keeping in mind that I was a young adolescent male with all the glorious insecurities that come with that, the stakes were now significantly raised.  Far too cool to let on how much pain I was in, or to make eye contact with the ladies (Attractive girls? Huh, didn’t even notice them), of course I headed for the board.

I climbed the ladder, prepared myself, started forward with my approach, and my body froze. My brain watched this happen and at first couldn’t do anything to change this unexpected rebellion by my physical self.  Then, with great effort, I took another step forward. My body started to shake, I began to cry and I could move no further on the board. I had to climb down the ladder, left the pool in tears. Given that I am now such a well-educated smarty-boots, I know what happened was I had a panic attack.  At the time I didn’t know what had happened, I was humiliated, confused and still in pain due to the physics of flesh and water. I was never again a decent but not great spring board diver, because I stopped diving.

Our interactions with our Fellow Humans are filled with so many chances for missteps while attempting aerobatic maneuvers from the high dive.  We open up and find ourselves in the wrong space, smack!  Pretty much all of us get hurt in relationships. Sometimes it is a sting, sometimes it is the kind of injury that makes your coach wonder if they are going to need to pull you out of the pool. Sometimes you get really, really hurt by the people who are supposed to most look out for you and care for you and love you and provide you with a safe place to be you. Full on belly flop from the high dive. It is easy for our hearts to learn to simply say fuck that. No more climbing the ladder to the high dive.

Relationships are such a crucial part of finding our way toward that…..that something which allows us to become our best selves, to find meaning in all the complicated goo.  And we get hurt in relationships. Our evolutionary history has mechanisms to protect us from pain, physical or emotional.  One key tool is our body stepping in and taking control when it decides we are being too stupid to be left in charge (Body to Brain: Freeze, sucker! Nobody move and no one gets hurt!).  Another key tool our history as a species brings is Avoidance.  Seems to make a lot of sense, right? Stay away from things that cause pain.  Simple. Done. Well, that was easy…. Except avoidance of relationships means isolation from the source of something crucial and makes our fear of being hurt even worse, not better. Oh, crap. Well, this sucks…….

We are left struggling between wanting the intimacy of others and wanting to not get hurt. We try to play it both ways; having relationships but staying curled up (you might make a huge mess splashing others with a cannonball all curled up but you won’t belly flop). But is that really having a relationship? Really a way to get access to all those marvelous connections and prizes that are sort of the whole point of having relationships?

If avoidance actually makes our fears worse and trying to both be in relationships while staying safely unopened doesn’t seem like it would lead to relationships that nurture and feed us, where does that leave us? How do you get back into the trust pool when you belly flopped from the high dive? How do you walk out on that board 3 meters above the water when every neuron is on red alert and screaming, “Stop him! Abort, abort!! He can’t be trusted to drive this body. Stick a wrench into the spokes of the motor neurons. Lock those muscles down!!”

What are we supposed to do when two crucial aspects of our evolutionary history, our very ability to survive as a species, let alone our own efforts to not get eaten by fierce-some beasts are at odds with each other? As always we have a choice (There is always some damn hippie, sucky choice). Climb down the ladder, walk away, hoping not too many people see you in your tearful retreat, stop trying to be a decent but not great diver (Yea! Yes, let’s do that). Or (here is that sucky “OR”) you can stand there on the board until the shaking stops, then inch forward, repeat until your toes find the end of the board and then jump. It doesn’t have to be a 1&1/2 in the pike position with a full twist. You get full credit for simply jumping off the high dive.

In looking back over this post, I doubt any of this helps. Except for maybe if you find yourself frozen on the high dive with the cool kids watching you, looking down into the relationship pool, know that you are not alone. At least I have been there even if it is only you & me.

 

 

 

I know a woman and her husband who I think would appreciate the telling of epic tales. Perhaps even this one.

 

The other day I was driving through the small backstreets of my neighborhood on my way to a large street then to a huge freeway to get to work. My caffeine dose was well titrated and I was in that obnoxious awake but relaxed and centered post coffee pre-work zone. A minivan came up on me quickly and a glance in the rear view mirror revealed an agitated bearded man who was pounding on his steering wheel in frustration at the audacity of my driving the 25 mph speed limit in this neighborhood filled with kids. He even honked at me. On another day I might have stirred his crazy by slowing down a smidge while remaining steadfast to my course. That day, as I was in the obnoxious awake but relaxed and centered zone, I pulled over and let him pass. A random act of kindness, perhaps? He zoomed by me, circled around two cars waiting to turn right at a stop sign, and the last I saw of him he was crossing a double-yellow line to get to the head of a line of traffic at the stop light to get on to the huge freeway. While watching him disappear in a mini-crime spree of traffic violations, I wished him well and hoped whatever was happening in his day got better……as well as thinking he was an asshole and hoping he had a “challenging interaction” with a police officer who issued him a ticket specifically for being an asshole.

A few morning commutes later I saw this same driver in our neighborhood looking much calmer & following all the traffic rules including speed limits, stop signs and demarcated no-passing zones. I wondered if maybe he was not a card-carrying Asshole after all, if maybe he had been having a particularly bad day, if maybe there was an understandable reason for our previous encounter, maybe that moment didn’t reveal who he truly was. Maybe.

I am in one of those narrow metal tubes filled with strangers flying home from the could-not-wait visit with the close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease (See the post “Ouch”). For some reason, this morning’s early flight is crackling with anxiety and rudeness. I wonder why? Of course in the midst of this there is a core group of pleasant people, as well as those who are clearly amused by the high crankiness level. I am in the clearly amused group as I watch the anxiety & rudeness, and I wonder why it is like this today?

 

There have been a few times in my life when events stacked up to take me far outside my normal stream (I have an epic tale of trying to get home from work in a record breaking snowstorm that includes disabled buses, exploding transformers and walking passed a car engulfed in flame). Whether the series of stacked-up events take me to a vast ocean with huge swells or land me in a stark desert, I find that I am so far from my own stream that swimming as normal becomes useless. Despite this fact, I often continue to flail about futilely, splashing and sputtering, going absolutely no where until the tide changes and I find myself, through no action of my own, back in familiar waters where I am a master swimmer.

 

On those occasions where I realize that I am Not In Kansas Anymore and give up attempts to use my standard strokes to escape the circumstances, the strange world I find myself in (whether vast ocean or stark desert), becomes less pressured and less frightening. I somehow become more in that strange world even if that world includes chaotic, horrifying, heart wrenching, grind-your-teeth-to-the-roots stressful events, as well as providing me with an opportunity to truly embrace the absurdity and genuinely laugh at the strange land in which I find myself. This trip I am returning from on this plane with the cohort of anxious and rude people was one of those occasions where I was far from the stream I call home.

 

The primary purpose of this trip was to improve the living situation of the close-family-member-with-Alzheimer’s disease and in turn help a close family member I hold dear who has provided care for her for too long. I also ended up interacting with a number of other family members, including other family members I hold dear, trying to bring something to their worlds which did not grow there easily. I have come away with another epic tale. There were no disabled buses, exploding transformers, or cars engulfed in flames, but it was an epic tale nonetheless. Heroic deeds were accomplished, dragons were flushed from their lairs and faced in the open light of day, an old lady was moved to a more appropriate living situation.

Even with the dragons and heroic deeds, this would hardly make a truly epic tale, so the Universe added a cascade of tragic-comedies to make it a tale worthy of telling someday. There was the adventure of getting lost and being found in an Emergency Room 2 hours later with the mystery of how did she get there (Answer: She called 911 from a pay phone. Who knew pay phones still existed?). While waiting with her in the ER, because once you enter the Gates of the ER there is no escaping for hours, I heard a doctor tell a women in her 50’s she was having a heart attack and needed an emergency surgical proceed right now; watched the dynamics unfold for the multi-generational family of the grandfather next door who might not make it through the night as the mom tried to convey the importance of this to grandchildren who were sullen at being pulled away from their social activities; it goes on. Amidst all the beeping and advanced technology, Emergency Rooms are fundamentally human places, where we often find ourselves laid bare and vulnerable to much of what is so raw about being human.

 

Adding to the circus of the week were a visit to support a young relative who appears to have his act together as he ironically completes a short prison sentence; interceding in a domestic disturbance including calling 911, interacting with the police, and trying to support a family member I hold dear; and challenging an angry young man…..who was drinking…..and who was seen the day before with a loaded gun. [I am often not the brightest of humans when the Universe takes me on adventures, although I do have a great story about getting Not Robbed in Brazil].

 

 

How did I get here? Seriously, after all that, now this? Oh, Denizen of this Odd Space, is that really the life choice you want to make right now? Perhaps you should take advantage of my offer for you to take this in a different direction before the police arrive? I practically vibrate under the stress, and find myself giggling at the unlikely absurdity of it all.

It was also a week with many opportunities to perform daily RAKs, so I had that going for me. Much winning!

Ah, but back to the center ring of this circus: The close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease! Exacerbated by the stress of changing living situations, her Alzheimer’s flexed its muscle and put on an impressive display of classic Alzheimer’s symptoms. There were demonstrations of a wide array of pervasive hallucinations and delusions, confusion, dense memory deficits, mood swings, the emergence of near and distance past events which shape a life. And also my awareness of her ever increasing fragility and child-like manner she takes toward the world. There was the opportunity for me to strive to be fully present for expressions of deep sadness, fears about the very safety of the world, anger and betrayal. To be present for Cruel Words targeted to those trying to help her most. Cruel Words which stung deeply, not because she had said them (she is no longer herself) but because they were Cruel Words I was already saying to myself. Even as I knew the accusations were not reality, the sting hurt. A lot.

 

On the final day, I found myself standing quietly on the covered walkway leading into the new home of the close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease, talking with an older Hispanic gentleman who is also a resident. Shyly and with a soft voice, he repeatedly told me he had served in Vietnam for a “1000 years” and had received a Purple Heart medal.  He had seen me several times during the previous few days but never returned my hello or smile. I tried to be there as he smoked his cigarette down to the filter. I listened closely to his story. I believed him. He smoked another cigarette and then retreated back inside as one of the most intense thunder storms I have ever seen descended (and I am no stranger to intense thunderstorms). I stepped back out of the direct rain, but stayed on the porch. I tried to be as fully present as possible to the 30-degree drop in temperature right before the storm, the gale-force wind, the crack of thunder so close it immediately followed the lightening, the bits of rain & hail that reached back into my sheltered place to touch me, to how cold I was, standing there shivering, watching the streets flood. I tried to pay attention to and be as fully present as possible for all this fury, as I stood quietly on the covered walkway leading into the new home of the close-relative-who-has-Alzheimer’s disease.

Sometimes the events stacked up, you find you are no longer in Kansas and it is terrifying (Who covered their eyes during the Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch showed up? Show of hands?). But that is what makes it interesting, hilarious, and EPIC(!!), even if sometimes you do cry yourself to sleep. You take a foolishly large bite of the wasabi the Universe offers you, your sinuses explode, water gushes from your eyes, it stings like Hell, and it Shocks you awake. And maybe an opportunity to appreciate the humor and sadness that is happening in a different part of the world, far from the stream we are each comfortable in.

A lot happened this week, a lot happened that I don’t understand. Don’t know if I ever will. I know I had an adventure that may prove to have been an Epic Adventure as I absorb and ponder the lessons the Universe offered, and of course craft my story (I do love a good story).

In the short run, while waiting for my connecting flight back to my stream, I was given the Super Power of being able to walk around and actually “see” what was happening in a big, busy airport. Our fellow Flesh Puppets do some hilarious things.