The Cosmic Rainbow Wheel of Awareness

I catch myself just staring out into space throughout the day, no real conscious thoughts going through my head.  My husband must ask at least 10 times a day if everything is ok.  “Sure,” I tell him, “I’m fine.”

I feel like I have the iconic Apple rainbow wheel spinning on my forehead.

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I wonder if everyone feels energy in the way that I do.  (Hang tight because we’re going to get cosmic here.)  There are many layers of what I feel, sort of like diving in the ocean… the pressure changes, the temperature changes, the sense of space above and below you changes… but you just sense it all, never really consciously noting it all down.  For the most part, my daily existence is rather like surface swimming… having conversations, participating in activities, moving from task to task … none of these things generally involves a deeper sense of energy awareness, unless of course there is a conflict, or an emotional exchange that generally takes things to the next level.

Underneath this surface level, much like a current, there is an energetic layer where I can feel the energy of others as they mingle with mine. (Told you, cosmic.)  Like when you dive beneath a wave and the water temperature drops, you didn’t necessarily notice it on the surface, but now the coolness is running from head to toe. Within this place of awareness, I can feel when others are spinning in some sort of emotion… anger, fear, sadness, anxiety… and it has taken me a long time to understand how this impacts me and how to remain neutral.

Sure there are other layers of awareness, not anything I’ll get into right now since it would be nice to live out a full two weeks in our new home without being committed, but lately, as my rainbow wheel spins, there is an overarching awareness, as if I’m suddenly swimming in that ocean, with all it’s layers and temperatures and currents, and now I’m also aware that I’m on a moving planet.  It is as if I’m literally processing, at an epic level, all that has happened in my life up until this point, and downloading new data to run the program that is “California”.  But none of it is conscious, and I couldn’t possibly begin to put words to what parts of me are leaving and what new parts I’m gaining.  All I know is that just staring off into space feels really good right now.  Sure, it is freaking the shit out of my husband, but the good news is he is a computer guy.  When he asks for the 11th time if I’m okay, I’ll just tell him…

“Yeah.  I’m just processing.”

 

Purple Sand Dollars

This morning, amidst the crowded walkways flooded with apprehensive kids making their way to classrooms, and eager parents dropping them off, I thought, just for a second, that I saw my sister.  In that flash, I saw her beaming smile and high fashion sunglasses walking towards us, and I instantly anticipated her excitement to see my daughter in her new school, the love and the joy that would gush over all three of us.

But it wasn’t her.  And as the throng of other smiling, fashion forward moms streamed past me, I remembered that she is too far away to be here, and that she wasn’t going to see my daughter in her new school.  I tried desperately not to cry.

I’ve done a damned fine job of holding it together for the last few months.  All holy hell was breaking out around me as I left, and yet I got out of bed every day, put on my big girl pants and wrapped myself in another layer of packing tape so that I could make it to this place … The Other Side.  And I’m here.  And the packing tape is starting to come unstuck.

My sister and I left on good terms, but we were both battle scarred.  Together we had built a business, one that was designed to bring light and love into our community, and it did just that.  But when it came to our relationship the business took its toll, and in the end it almost tore us apart.

Ultimately, I was hurt and she was busy.  We made amends because there was no other choice.  Our final days together weren’t filled with bonding over coffee or spending time playing with each other’s kids.  Instead, we just lingered on the edges of connection… the random small talk, the awkward hug.

The walk home from school is a blessed stroll along the shore.  We’re in a temporary house for one more week, so I know that I need to soak up every ounce of this return trip home.  I like to believe that the salt water is detoxing my being, the sand is filtering out my leaking energetic impurities.

Every day we see something new and amazing.  Yesterday’s find was an unfortunate decomposing porpoise…yum. Today, however, was sand strewn with sand dollars. Until this morning, the only sand dollars I had ever seen were bleached white, and mostly broken, but here there were purple ones. These were whole delicate circles, cast in a violet color radiating out towards lavender, with a five point star etched in the middle.

Sand dollars are a species of burrowing sea urchins, with their skeleton made up by a five fold pattern known as a ‘test’. They live in the sandy bottom area and are found mostly together, due to their preference for soft sand believed to be ideal for reproduction.

Each of the purple ones that I had collected were whole, no broken pieces, no battle scars… but still delicate, and still living.  All of the white ones that I picked up, and there were many of them, had pieces missing or disintegrated when I touched them. They had moved on.

Maybe we are like sand dollars. We start out beautifully colored, delicate and grouped with others like us. We are whole and hopeful and strong. But ultimately the tide of life carries us to other destinies, and in the process we lose parts of ourselves. Ultimately we find new shores to populate and beautify but we break, we lose parts of ourselves and we die.

Maybe it is time for the tape to come off. Maybe holding myself together for the last few months got us here in one piece, but now I’m actually more delicate and I need to lose some pieces or I will eventually disintegrate.

As life would have it, it wasn’t until after I collected the purple sand dollars that I realized that I had plucked living beings from their home. Because of me, they now will turn white in the sun, yet unnaturally remain whole.

Where am I? Right here.

“You don’t live at the ocean and not go to the beach everyday. What’s the point?”

This is what I told my mother this morning on the telephone. She agreed. For some reason she just figured you go once or twice and that is that, you simply continue on with your usual daily existence. But then, she doesn’t live near the ocean. She has never lived near the ocean. She has visited a handful of times, but then retreated back to her house inland, far away from a coast. You visit, you walk the beach, you get your fill and then you go home. That is her experience, and that is what makes the most sense. And I would have to confess that is probably what I thought too. Even when I went to college in Rhode Island, I didn’t go to the ocean everyday. Just wasn’t that big of a deal to me… well, at least, who I was at the time.

Not anymore.

Today marks the first full week of us living in California. Hard to even see those words materialize on my screen and believe that I’m actually the one typing them. There were so many moments in the last few months where pushing myself to put one foot after another, hell even breathing, was difficult to manage let alone comprehend, but here we are. We did it. We dared to realize a dream, and then we did the unthinkable… we made it happen. Despite the fear and anxiety of putting such a grand scheme into action, the world continues to spin on and no one has died. And every day not only do I get to wake up and smell salt air, I remember, “I did it.”

I would be lying to us all if I told you that I’m worry free. I would be lying if I told you that there aren’t moments where I’m gripped by paralyzing fear, where in a flash I think of a moment in my life back home that I’ve said goodbye to and realize that I will never see again. The wind gets sucked out of me as if I’ve been punched in my gut. Tears sneak their way into my throat and my head goes soft. I almost lose it.

But then I catch myself and breathe. Change cannot come without desire, without need, without a surrender or sacrifice of some kind. I wanted this, I needed this and all I have to do is live in the moment, not the past. I could no way hold onto those moments anymore than I could script the ones I have right now. So best enjoy what is passing before my eyes now or else time will flash past once more and I will be welling up all sad about this very moment and how it too has passed.

I also have moments where the What Ifs seep into the cracks of my happiness. What if the kids hate it here? What if the work dries up? What if I’ve fooled myself into thinking this is what I wanted all along? Again, the What Ifs are me projecting my worry into the future. Do my kids hate it right this minute? No. They love it more than I could have imagined. Is my husband still working? Yes, in fact he is the happiest I’ve seen him in years. Is this still what I want? Hmmm… let me think… kids happy? Check. Husband happy? Check. Me? Check. Ok, this moment works, let’s just ride this out right here, no past and no future. If I can stay right here, right now, then we’ll be just fine.

Upon arrival, walking through LA International Airport, my 6 year old turned to me and said…

“Mom. You know what? If I look around and say, ‘I live here. I live here.’ I get all scared, so instead I keep telling myself, ‘This is a trip. This is a trip,’ then everything feels like it is ok.”

I’ve taken that and applied it to life in general. This is all just one big trip. And why would I pay so much to be on it to not enjoy it now. Why wouldn’t I go to the beach every day?