Despair and Hope

The end of December can be fraught with dejection. My worst childhood Christmas came in 1960 when I didn’t get a Chatty Cathy doll. Mom said, too expensive. Instead I got a blue stuffed poodle (the previous year I had asked for a dog).

This Christmas, I looked for that doll on eBay, but soon realized it wouldn’t heal me. I had to live in the present. On my fridge, I taped up some notes I got from young piano students: “You’re a real light saber!” “I hope you get to see a lot of movies on your vacation.” “You’re so funny.”

I want to be hopeful. I look forward to a new year, new ideas, new gifts and new surprises. Who cares if I don’t get what I think I want? That blue poodle was more cuddly than a plastic doll, and since my mother was on the outside edge of the autism spectrum, I sure needed a good cuddle.

As we pass into the new year, appreciate what others might know about you that you don’t know yourself. Keep connections and make some new ones. Try to replace times of despair with hope.  

Time Travel at the Movies

Young Kate (maybe she’s thirty?) and I went to the matinee on Friday to see Brooklyn, an Irish period drama set in the fifties. When I taught Kate music as a teen, her mom Claire and I used to talk about movies and books. I laughed at Claire’s love of romance and she laughed at my lack of interest in the classics.

Claire died of cancer around the same time my mom died, so Kate and I have a bond we wish we wouldn’t. But I imagine it’s nice for Kate to have someone who talks about her mom. From the afterlife, I think Claire smiles at us, especially when we see the romantic flicks.

I love period pieces. They allow me to time travel to a different decade and to other countries. For two hours, I am someone else. This time, I was young and beautiful, with creamy skin and lots of angst.

I don’t know why so many people widen their eyes when I say I time travel. Isn’t that what all of you do when you read a fabulous book? Or tell a story from the past? Or smell the scents of your childhood? I love the future the most; it beckons. But the past definitely has its virtues.

Intuitive Connections with Animals

For many years my connection with animals has been confined to Leon, a 6 year old Rottweiler boxer mix who lives next door.  He woofs when I get home and barks at visitors.  He’s my guard dog and I only have to feed him gluten free treats. 

My minimal exposure to animals changed last weekend in Montauk, New York, at the eastern tip of Long Island, where a majority of the land is preserved.  On my first walk, I said hello to a momma and baby dear.  The second day, she stood in the yard and mimicked me when I wagged my hips three times.  As I talked to her, she moved closer.  How shocking, since I never connect with the bunnies and groundhogs at home.

Next I met Yankee, a strong willed horse with a thick coat ready for winter.  On our trail ride through the forest on the way to the beach, he tested me.  I sang Yankee Doodle Dandy verses and after a soft rendition of Oh What a Beautiful Morning, he finally settled.  By the end of the ride, I felt like we were best friends. 

Why did I not realize the intuitive connection between myself and an animal?  Too concerned with children and adults, I narrowed my world.  In Montauk, through the haze of prior ignorance, I found a special kind of fun.  As my grumpy dad used to say, we learn something new every day.

Intuitive Connections All Day

Intuition is prevalent in almost everything we do.  If you ride a motorcycle with another person, you have to lean together.  It’s the same with slow dancing.  You lean together and foresee the other person’s movement without the use of your eyes.  You become one entity. 

When I give speeches, I make a loose plan.  A firm one can’t work.  One audience laughs every few sentences while another acts intense and quiet.  I have to watch and feel, then connect and adapt. 

Musicians rely heavily on intuition.  We aren’t machines that keep a steady rhythm.  We dip and weave, slow down and rise up.  With one musician, I lead.  With another, I follow.  We don’t discuss it in advance.  Soon after we start, we just know and it falls into place.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, she loved to move.  Elbows jutted as she prodded my insides.  I thought at the time I wouldn’t know her until I saw her face, but in retrospect I did know her.  She rested, then moved fast when she was awake, same as she does now at 31.   My son was quiet in my womb.  Today at 24 he likes to move slowly and his body stays calm.

We connect all day.  Even alone, we connect with our own body and mind.  We discern what’s right without a map.  We feel our lives.  We know.  Feeling becomes knowing. 

My Half Birthday

Today I am 64 ½.  Most of the time, I’m not bothered by my advanced age.  Since I don’t have a great attachment to my body, I see it as a car to be maintained.  I gas it up (good food), add oil (water) and keep it running (walks or piano playing every day).  I’m a great believer in intuition, which has no roots in physical reality, and my interest in perception, instinct and insight is more temporal than corporal.  I call myself a walking head. 

I am the youngest I will ever be and my half birthday makes me happy.  My phone won’t ring off the hook, my Facebook page will be silent and I don’t need to thank my intelligent, long gone mother for birthing me. 

I laughed and acted silly as my neighbor and I walked past tall maple trees this morning.  My green beans from a local organic farmer pumped up my breakfast.  Today’s errands will be laced with trying to make people laugh because I am celebrating a day like any other.  And yet, I think I only have 38 more half birthdays.  Maybe next one I’ll take a vacation. 

Dip into life.  Be silly sometimes, like the 5 year old who just started Big Kids School.  Fly backwards through time and be 4 for a minute.  Have some beans.   

Writing, Intuition and New Pals

I joined a writers group several months ago.  It’s a small, older group of intelligent men and women.  We couldn’t be more different.  And I think my perception might be out of whack.

Last month, I thought the attorney with hair like George Clooney got mad at me because I hate gerunds (passive verbs with –ing), but yesterday he laughed about it.  The same goes for the man I call Freckle Head.  I don’t mean to be disparaging, since my dad and all my uncles have freckle heads and it’s something I like a lot, but my mother’s side is filled with Asperger/autism tendencies and I tend to be too blunt.  He laughed when he asked what I would say about his recent piece.

Mrs. Warmth is also an attorney but she feels like a sweet mother.  She gives me so much with her accepting nature that I almost don’t hear her suggestions.  Mrs. Warmth’s blue eyed husband is the antithesis of me, but his comments put my head into a tailspin, which is always a good thing with editing.  A female therapist seems skittish and yet complete.  My take on her is….I can’t call it. 

Sometimes intuition can work well and help guide us.  Other times it’s like a firework dud. 

I do know I get something sweet from everyone I meet.  A philosophy, a smile, a held door, a laugh.  I used to miss so much when I was young, but now I pay attention.  My days fly by and my nights envelop me.  Where a nightclub with live music used to be on my favorite list, people and words and love and beauty top it now.

I like my writers group.  They give.  To give is to live. 

Dreams

I am often asked to interpret dreams.  I love my own dreams but frankly, other people’s dreams confuse me or put me back to sleep.  At a recent talk I gave on intuition, I showed the audience my favorite dream book, The Dreamer’s Dictionary by Lady Stearn Robinson and Tom Corbett.  If you look up key words from your dream as soon as you wake up, you might have the answers I’m not able to give you.

For my entire childhood I had recurring dreams that I hadn’t studied for a test.  (Are you falling asleep yet?)  Unable to stop them, I started to teach at a school.  Voila, dreams gone. 

For my whole life, I had murder dreams.  At age 40 I began pro bono work on murder cases.  Flash, dreams gone. 

That’s the extent of my dream knowledge.  Buy The Dreamer’s Dictionary or save your money and create a new and different reality for your future.  That sounds more fun to me, and better and cheaper than coffee.   

Heightened Intuition in the Sky

I took my grown daughter to Negley Park in Lemoyne, PA for the first time on Saturday.  It sits on a big hill and overlooks Harrisburg and the Susquehanna River.  I dislike the cliff’s edge but I love being up high and close to what could be heaven.

My intuition is stronger the higher up I go.  One of my favorite parts of my flight attendant job at United in the mid 70’s was hanging out in the cockpit and letting my intuition soar.  Convention and inhibitions did not bind me.  Instead I felt free.  Sometimes I told the pilots their future because it came so easily. 

When I fly for vacation, I always take my tarot cards.  I don’t want to offend my seatmates, since I feel my belief system should not be broadcast in such a tight space, but I do love to pull out cards and lay them out on my lap.  First I ask my seatmates if they mind.  I tend to get friendly seatmates who ask for advice or comfort, which is lovely.  When I am in the sky I feel at home, earthy and spiritual.

Maybe you can try out your intuition the next time you fly.  Or when you are on a mountainside.  Or when you stand in the wind on a small hill.  It’s spring.  Time for anything natural to rock. 

Reincarnation

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” is a question I often hear.   

“I’m not sure, but I used to worry that I would drown in the ocean at age 26.  I thought it could have happened to me in a past life,” I tell them.  Then I listen to their stories.    

Reincarnation is in the news.  Ten year old Ryan Hammons and his mother believe he is the reincarnation of Marty Martyn, a bit actor in Mae West’s first film Night After Night.  Ryan was interviewed by Dr. Jim Tucker, associate profession of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, who then spoke with the media.  With a fact based assessment, Dr. Tucker put his career on the line and reacted in a positive way.  On a personal note, the University of Virginia has an excellent paranormal library because I spent an afternoon there in awe. 

A belief system is personal and should be respected.  We all learn lessons from the past, from our parents and grandparents and stories they tell.  No matter how far past and to what dimension some of us go, I think respect is the key.  Why ridicule the unknown?

A McGee on St. Patricks Day

My McGee relatives all live in Alabama.  They say they are southerners and that’s the end of it, but one distant cousin recently worked on a family tree.  A (great, great bunch of greats) grandmother “knew things” so she is my psychic relative.  The family tree didn’t go far back enough to include other countries, but the name McGee screams Irish.  Today I will wear the green.

St. Patricks Day fits me.  It’s full of leprechauns, which are magical fairies in Irish mythology.  Like me, a leprechaun is a solitary creature.  It can be called a sprite, which is defined as a ghost or a fairy.  I can relate to ghosts.  I see them when I work on murder cases and I sometimes see them in houses and forests.  A fairy feels spooky to me, especially the one in the movie Peter Pan. 

Green beer and Irish whiskey and anything gluten now give me hives, but I haven’t aged out of sprite behavior, so frivolity is in order.  And guess what?  You don’t have to be Irish to enjoy a day of fun. 

When I'm 64

Send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view…..Indicate precisely what you mean to say….Yours sincerely, wasting away…..Lennon, McCartney, James

My happy birthday is on Saturday and I will be gloriously 64.  On Valentine’s weekend I started my celebration with an overnight trip to Williamsport, PA.  Back in the lumber days, Williamsport bustled and mansions proliferated.  It’s no longer a happening place, but people are friendly and the restaurants excellent.  At 7 degrees, it was too cold to care about anything BUT food. 

If you ever hit that lovely little city, visit their Historical Society.  Spirits inhabit old dresses, work with farm and industrial tools and drive the Model T.  The extensive model train collection beats all.  I stayed at the Genetti Hotel, followed a trail of old photos along its halls and told free fortunes for anyone who crossed my path and wanted one.  I listened to points of view and tried to figure out what they meant to say.  I wasted away and enjoyed every minute of it. 

I look forward to the last third of my life.  Small adventures make big fun.  And sometimes they even beat out good old songs.

Winter Introspection

My least favorite day of the year is December 31.  I prefer to look at the present and the future rather than the past.  Thinking about my mistakes for more than a few minutes…as the song goes…don’t bring me down down down down.

2015.  An odd numbered year, so I will hope for offbeat occurrences.  But now it’s winter and dark, a time to be introspective.  A time to think about what I want and need.  I will give a toss to the unpleasant and ditch those bold blue pants I bought and wore twice.  I will think about my 64^th birthday and pay attention to the opportunities that are open to me as an old gal.  I will try not to be frustrated by what I used to be able to do.  I will enjoy each day, when young women open doors for me with a smile.  Now, children like me more because I look like their grandmas.  Groovy old men don’t leer, they just move close to talk and smile.  My neighbors help me with the snow and the yard because I am the older lady next door. 

I vow to adore the young people who help me read the fine print in the pharmacy, who help me decide on a new sweater because I am color challenged.  I cherish the babies whose own children will take my place when I die.  And oh, I hope to live to 102 and not a minute more.

This year already started differently since I did not make a New Year’s resolution.  Instead, I planned my new year’s dreams.  Good health comes first, the rest, I hope, is gravy.