The Real-Life Adventures of A Former Glamour Girl

Invisible? Not.

On Saturday I had my Tarot Cards read by a blue-eyed fairy.  (Seriously, I’m pretty sure she was not of this world, even though she lives in my town and is in my greater circle of friends and acquaintances.)  I sat down in Sparky, which is a little airstream trailer, and faced this fairy a foot and a half away from me as she peered into my eyes and asked the question; “What brings you?”  I don’t know.  Duh!  I just thought it would be fun.

“Well you must have a question.” She pushed with her giant fairy eyes.  “Okay,” I ventured, “maybe about my writing.  I feel like I’m holding back.  “    She asked me to draw one card with my left hand and set it in the middle of the table.

“This is a spiritual card,” she said.  “You are embarking on a transformation.  Draw another card.”  (Now she had already told three of my friends that they were going on a trip, so I was expecting a trip to be in my future. Big deal.  I’m leaving on a trip next week.  She never mentioned it.)  “There are many people trying to distract you.  Maybe your family and friends.  They are tugging at you.”  Uh, huh.  “Draw another card.  Sometime this summer you are going to have to make a choice.  It will be crystal clear.  You must choose yourself.”

I have a friend who can picture me exactly.  From three thousand miles away, she can see me in my kitchen in high heels and a dress, preparing a feast for a small crowd of those I love.  She knows I will have been up since dawn, having arranged the flowers, changed the pillows on the sofa to Spring pastels, brought out the pink plates and prepared the three entrees and three side dishes intended to feed twenty five, (but will actually feed seventy five.) 

Knowing that my friend knows me so intimately washes over me like warm salt water, and heals wounds I have yet to name.  They are the wounds of being invisible.  This is real intimacy, being seen and truly known.  My friend knows my heart and how in my heart I want nothing more than to lavish love and create memories and magic for my family and friends. She also knows my head that is talking to me all through the afternoon, pointing out that “I am too old for this, and asking the air “when do I pass the baton?”  She knows that today, the day “after” I feel like I have been run over by a semi truck and dragged and that I have a sugar hangover and have re-started my diet.  Again.  You cannot buy this quality of friendship.  It has to be born.

I met my friend Kym over thirteen years ago and our souls recognized each other, if not immediately, then soon after.  Something about my remembering her name and her speaking my truth. We could each see the other.  The heart knows. 

I can feel my children, who are now on the downhill side of forty, growing up to the point that they no longer need me in much of any way.  This is how it’s supposed to be.  They needed me well into their thirties and now they do not.  Good job Mom!  As I pat myself on the back, now what do I do?

 I have not talked to my friend Kym and yet I know what she will say.  She will say to choose myself.  She will imagine me into a life I cannot imagine, of walks on the beach and leisurely lunches looking out at the mountains, followed by a nap.  She will see the finches at my window and the cushy chairs and lounges that call to be occupied on my terrace overlooking the oaks and the creek below.  She will see me with the perfect cup of coffee and my notebook.  Maybe I will be taking a break from painting and having a snack of fruit and a cracker with brie.  My phone will be silent. 

This past week I held not one but two live birds who had become trapped inside my living room.  The first was a humming bird who feverishly beat her wings and pressed against the glass to no avail.  When she lit, I scooped her up with my hand and set her free outside.  Her wings felt like butterfly wings.  Later a finch came in and repeated the failed exit at the window.  She fought against my help at first but then surrendered.  I set her free to fly away as well.  Maybe because I saw them I could free them.  Maybe because my friend sees me I will be free to fly on as well and leave behind a little pile of poop and some pretty feathers to prove that I was truly here.

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just not fair, lucky for me!!

 

 

Right-size me please!! (But not too hard God!)

“Shut up Naomi!”  (This I say to myself several times each day as Naomi is chiming in with her demands of “what about me?  Look at me!  Don’t forget me!”  She makes these demands when my higher self seems to be in control.)  Naomi is my ego.  I named her for the country singer of the same name whom I have come to love in spite of her narcissistic demeanor.  I know she has a good heart. 

I AM Naomi, except for the fame and riches.  I’m a girl who likes to wear sparkles and too much make-up and high heels even though I have absolutely no business doing any of that at my age.  Naomi is full of herself.  She pats me on the back with what a great job I’m doing, asking why no one else is making a fuss.  “Shut up Naomi! “I say again in my head.  “Jeez!  Everything is not about you!”  Naomi thinks it should be.  About me, that is.

She does not talk much when I’m striving.  Not when I’m struggling, not when it is clear that I am right-sized. Never when I am resting in true humility.  She talks to me when things are going “right.” She whispers in my ear, “look!  You’re a big shot now!  People think you know something.  It’s about time!”  Shut up!”  I say again and again.  “I’m working here.”

There is an acronym for ego; it is E G O, edging God out.  That’s Naomi.  She wants to believe she has had something, no everything to do with what is good, and sweet and clear about my life.  She wants to believe it is she who puts me on the right track and leads me out of the messes I’ve made.  I don’t think so dear!

Last month I attended a spiritual retreat.  I did not want to go however I had committed to being one of the retreat leaders so I prepared my part and showed up with a smile.  It took all of about ten minutes for me to realize that this particular retreat was EXACTLY what I needed.  (Funny how that happens.)

I had been on a fast track, running to meetings, being of service, lunching with my friends and just doing my life.  I had forgotten how restorative it can be to just slow down and notice.  The fact that the focus of this retreat included continuing to take a personal inventory and communion with my higher power in meditation was an added gift.  When I finished the retreat on Sunday I felt like a new woman.

For the next several days, maybe a week or more, I floated.  I was clear and deep in the knowledge of all things being in perfect and divine order.  I felt in touch with a “deep inner resource” that was guiding me. I was in harmony with my fellows and all of creation. That’s when Naomi got restless.  “What about me?  They should ask me!  I’m more spiritual than those other people and besides, I said it first!”  Yah, yah, yah, take a time-out, oh sparkling one! 

So today I am doing just that.  I am sparing my friends the blinding light of my presence and staying home.  No, I am not making them pay.  I am giving them and my ego Naomi, a break. I am grounding myself with the filling of bird-feeders and the slicing of peaches.   Some of us are slower than others.  Some should never reach the peak of their own perfection.  I am one of those.  God knew exactly what He/She was doing when slapping me with a lifetime of flaws and questions to unravel.  “Keep coming back,” they say around here.  It’s going to take more than one lifetime for you and your fancy friend. "But, but ...!  Oh shut up Naomi.  Sit down and give it a rest!"

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just not fair, lucky for me!!

 

Preview of THE morning-after.

Over the past several years I have come to think of “heaven” as the morning after a really good party.  You know the scenario; we sit around in our pj’s, curled up with our morning lattes’, on fluffy white sofas with our nearest and dearest of the honored guests and family.  We sit for hours, rehashing the events, the glamour, the setting, the miss-haps and the gossip of the previous nights’- goings on.  It is my very favorite part of a party!!

That is how I felt this past week when I had lunch with my friend Paige and her husband Jack, and how I feel whenever I talk to Leeder, Tayo, Bobbi,  Marcia,  Rich or Ed or any of the friends with whom I have a long and colorful history.  Thursday may have been the first time Paige and I have seen each other since we graduated from high school nearly forty-seven years ago.  We had a lot of filling-in to do.

Paige and I met in the fifth grade when we both became Ticktockers.    As I’ve mentioned before, Ticktockers is the daughter’s branch of the mother-daughter philanthropic organization, National Charity League.  It is also where Paige and I were taught to be ladies, or at least that was the goal.

I remember the first day of ticktockers because I was perhaps the youngest girl in attendance, (even though I was by far the tallest, with Paige a close second,) at age eleven.  Ours was a group of fifth and sixth grade girls, who came together once a month from that time until we graduated from high school, for the purpose of doing service in our community and to learn social graces.  (I guess they knew it would take more than one meeting.)   Paige and I became fast friends that first day even though we lived in neighboring cities. 

At the age of sixteen, my family moved.  I was suddenly thrust into a new high school, where Paige was one of the two people I knew.  She instantly became my go-to-girl for lunch or confidance-sharing or talk about boys .  It was the early sixties, before Rove V Wade and during the time when Kennedy was assassinated.  My bond with Paige was deep and honest.  She was the voluptuous blonde to my flat-chested brunette. We shared the experience of our Mothers being friends and the fact that our training for life was similar, if not identical; how we looked, how we behaved, how we shopped, how we set a beautiful table. These qualities took precedence over careers.  It was a different time, especially for women.  Neither of our mothers worked outside the home.

Paige and I were among the few of our friends who married and had children right out of high school.  We kept track of each other for a while, hearing snippets of each other's lives off and on throughout the years, but never actually seeing each other.  When I received a comment on one of my blog-posts last summer, I squealed with delight and recognition.  She said she had Googled “Ticktockers” and my face had popped up.  (I love the Internet!)  We got in touch by phone and just hearing her voice was like going home. 

So last week when I received an email from Paige saying that she and Jack were driving down the coast and would like to have lunch I was thrilled!  I would have moved heaven and earth to see them.

I stood at the hostess podium at the Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara and jumped when I heard a familiar voice say my name.  “Kathy?”  Paige!  Jack!  Oh my God you both look the same!  Well, we all looked a little softened by the years.  Jack’s hair and beard were gray but he still looked the athlete he was in high school.  Paige was the same as I remembered her to be.  She was  beautiful, stylish, poised, funny and real.  It felt so good to be together again.

We sat outside for a half hour or more before we took a look at the menu.  We talked about the “party” our lives had been so far.   Paige and Jack, still married, had raised three great kids and traveled the world.  I had done the same only I’d done it alone and with a serial of husbands.  Neither of us drinks anymore. We both have grandchildren we adore.

We laughed at how we still love to shop, agreeing that it was in our “training.”  We spoke of our mothers who are now both gone and how we believed they would be happy we were together.  Before we parted, Jack took our picture.  Our arms were draped around each other like sisters, fighting back tears.

I would like to think of the end of my life as being just that way.  Where we all have a big reunion and talk about how much fun we had, what we wore, what THEY wore and how it all worked out perfectly.  I imagine saying something like; “We made it!  I want to do it again!”  Or “Can you believe what a blast that was?”   Or “I think I really got it that time!”  Or, “I am SO never going on that ride next time!”  It is somewhat like the morning after a great wedding.  The events of our lives that were years in the planing that are over in a blur and only the pictures remain.

How is it that nearly fifty years have passed?  Most of it was fun.  We did do a great job!  Would we do it again the exact same way?  Who knows?  I know I will see Paige again one day.  Maybe Tom and I will visit them in northern California or maybe it will be at some other reunion.  Maybe it will be the morning-after rehash in the after-life.  I think I still have a little work to do in this class, maybe a lot.  Still, I can’t wait to see the yearbook!  I know it will all go by too fast anyway.

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just now fair, lucky for me!!

 

 

 

Expecting the good to grow.

I want to see an owl!  That’s right, I am exercising my powers of manifestation, and I want to see an owl!  There!  I’ve stated it our loud both verbally and in print and I expect to be seeing an owl.  Not a picture of an owl, not a far away, off in the distance-owl, but a real live owl, up close and personal.  (Did I say LIVE as in NOT dead?)

I know I have the power to create; I have done it successfully many, many times in my life.  I once said out loud that I wanted to see a mountain lion.  I said it out loud twice and with conviction and low and behold, two months later I was standing at my kitchen sink in the hills of Hollywood and I saw a mountain lion walking on the retaining wall of the house across the street.  The universe may not be fast, but it IS listening!

A couple of years after the mountain lion, I manifested a beautiful, big house in Hancock Park in Los Angeles.  Now in truth, we really could not afford any house in Hancock Park, and that eventually proved to be true, (probably a manifestation of my husband’s fears,) but two years after driving around in a specific neighborhood in HP, a house came on the market that was just about in our price range and by a series of coincidences, we were able to buy it and live there happily for the next seven years. 

The house had everything I had asked for, including a gated property with a park-like setting and a gigantic pool.  It became a symbol for a living amends of sorts to my daughters.  It gave them a family home, with each daughter having her own room. My girls had never had that as children.  Their mother was a gypsy.  There was even a dorm room for the grandkids, a baby's room with two cribs and a playroom with all of the doll-houses, little kitchens and tables and chairs my little girls had never had.  The universe is generous!

So far today I have seen a squirrel, three crows, a bunch of yellow finches, some banded rock pigeons, (which Stacy nick- named “poves” because they look like a dove but are bigger than a pigeon,) and some beetles in the act of mating on one of our chez lounges outside.  I appreciated all of this personal witness to nature, but still, I am waiting for my owl.

My husband thinks I am crazy when I talk of manifesting.  He states over and over that anything he has every wanted to see or have happen, is guaranteed NOT to come about.  See what I am up against?  I have tried to point out to him that he IS manifesting by expecting to be disappointed.  He always gets what he expects.  That has happened to me as well.

I read in one of my meditation books last week about being careful what you wish for especially if you are a spiritual person with a belief in a higher power.   It said that belief in a higher power renders us creators, which means our thoughts, words and prayers have power.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.  The Secret.  But it’s true.  I’ve been manifesting good in my life since I could first utter words and long before the book of the same name was published.  I have also brought about that which I have feared and seen others do the same.

The big blue book that is my go -to book (as it is for many of my friends,) basically says something similar.  Not in the first hundred and sixty-four pages, but in Dr. Paul’s story.  To paraphrase what he is talking about when he says “what ever I focus on gets bigger.  If I focus on the problem, the problem gets bigger, if I focus on what’s good in my life, the good gets bigger.”  This has been my experience, and why I love making gratitude lists.

A gratitude list was first suggested to me over thirty-five years ago when I called a friend who had some time in recovery.  I was planning to whine about the state of my life.  He cut me off mid-whine and suggested I make a list of all that was good in my life.  At first I was offended, but later realized he had given me a wonderful tool, which would save me in rough going.

It is hard when things are in the shitter, to write down all of our blessings.  It is sometimes hard to even think of any. It can be unimaginable to believe that anything good is possible.   The blessings and the dreams don’t have to be big, broad, or sweeping. They can be as simple as the blessing of another day, a cup of coffee, or seeing a butterfly.   Believing in hope may seem like denial but I believe it is the cousin to faith.

So I was thinking today about a time a couple of years ago when I did see an owl.  We were driving home from dinner on East Valley Road. It was a summer evening around twilight.  A huge owl swooped down above and in front of our car as Tom was driving. My niece Heather and her husband Terry were in the back seat. We followed the owl closely for several hundred yards before it flew off to the side and out of sight. 

I knew seeing the owl was a blessing, a gift, animal medicine of some sort and I am quite sure I said “thank you” to the powers that be.  Still, I am greedy.  I want to see it again, not for proof of anything but because I know the universe is listening and there are plenty of owls to go around.  In the meantime, there are more “poves” and finches at the feeders.  I think I’ll put some walnuts out for the squirrel.

My life is so glamorous!  It is just not fair, lucky for me!!

 

 

A surprising place for a wake-up-call.

There is nothing like a funeral, to wake up a life!  To remind me I can choose to NOT be missing life with junk TV and junk food.  To remember how good it is to be alive and care.  Sometimes I forget.  I forget that the clock is ticking, the timer is set and I don’t know exactly to what time or day.  

Yesterday was our friend Fred’s day, Fred and his family of wonderful kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and Peggy his beautiful wife.  Peggy is my friend.

I only met Fred a few times but by listening to Peggy over the past few years, I felt as though I knew him well.  Hearing his daughter’s eulogy, I wish I had.  It sounds as though Fred lived a good, long life, filled with family and friends.  It appears he took full advantage of the time he was given here and enjoyed it all immensely.   It seems as though Fred was a “giver.”

What does it mean to live a full life?  Sometimes I feel as though I miss that point.  I think it means being fully present in the moment.  Saying “yes” when I am with my family or friends, to fully be there and not be sending texts or talking on the phone,or checking my email (although as I have pointed out to my family many times, I CAN dual process.)  They are not impressed.

I think sometimes it is hard for me to give my full attention to anything or anyone.  It can feel like too much.  Too much love, too much awareness, too much pain, too much joy. I think it is called intimacy.  I want to be present in my life and say yes to all of the moments I am given with people and with nature.  This is also my way of being fully present to God.  I think my full attention is the gift I want to give.  Where I put my focus and spend my time shows what and whom I love.

Yesterday’s services included a Catholic Mass.  I am not a Catholic, but I have been baptized and so I felt worthy to receive communion.  I don’t know if that was kosher  (please excuse the mixed metaphor,) but I got in line with the rest of the faithful and received the wafer from the priest.  I placed the cracker on my tongue and then sat down to feel the meaning of communion. I looked at those around me.  Was I supposed to wait to eat the wafer?  It’s been a very long time.  I hate not knowing the correct protocol.

What is the correct protocol for living?  I think it begins with being grateful.  After all, this life is truly a gift.  I say that most mornings in my prayers.  “Thank you God for another morning of life on planet earth.”  I don’t say thank you for the whole day right at first because I never know if I am going to get the whole day.  Before I go to sleep at night I say thank you again. 

Another part of the protocol is to give it all away, my attention, my time, and my riches.  Sometimes I fall short of that goal. Sometimes I overwhelm myself with giving and forget to get my own cup filled.  Then I become selfish and want to hoard.  This happens to me every year, especially after Christmas.

Christmas is a time when I love to give. It is a time when I have license to give.  Not just of gifts but of moments.  I love creating moments that are special for the ones I love.  Moments that turn into memories, the kinds we want to remember, but I must get my own cup filled before I have anything to give away.

I heard a fable many years ago about a young monk who went to study with a wise master.  The student sat down at the master’s feet to learn and the master said,” Before we begin, let us have some tea.”  The student held out his cup and the master began to fill the cup.  The cup filled but the master kept pouring until the tea spilled out onto to the table and the floor and the student said, “Stop!”  The master nodded and said, “Yes.  This is the first lesson.  Before you can receive, you have to empty the cup.” 

This is the part where I mess up.  The part of life when I have a quiet half hour to myself when I can choose to be still and empty my mind or choose to fill my mind and my life with static.  I do not believe the message or the gifts I want to give will be found by watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills or in any of the millions of distractions I have used.   

I think of myself as a “giver.”  But sometimes I pull myself in and hoard.  I hoard my attention, my experience and hope, my time and my stuff. I do not want to answer the phone or the door.  The pulling-in is okay I believe, if and when I remember to use that pulling-in time to refresh my supply of love etc., not to numb myself with things and activities that do not matter to my life.

For the past week I have been in my usual January–funk.  It happens nearly every year and this year was right on schedule.  For three months, including the month of December, I prepared and gave and spread love all around.  I did not go to my average four or five meetings, (the place I go to get MY cup filled.)  I did not take any time for the things that empty my mind and prepare me to receive.  I did not take my walks, or exercise, or sit quietly watching the birds at the feeder.  I was out of balance and by the time my kids and grandkids left to go home, I was done.

Out of energy, out of wisdom, out patience out of balance.  I tried writing for three days straight and all that come out of me was negative.  Then I went to Fred’s funeral and just knowing I was going to see people I love who were gathered to celebrate our friend’s life, my mood and my energy began to change. It lifted me up.

This morning I went to my regular meeting.  I felt happy just to be in the company of the people in that room.  I did not share; I really had nothing to give.  My cup is empty. Now I can begin to fill it up and then I can begin again to give it all away.  I am so grateful for the moments this week when I paused to check in with myself and with a greater power than I.  Happy New Year everyone!  Thank you Fred for yet another gift.

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just not fair, lucky for me!!