Misc

I was not Marilyn Monroe


… in a past life. Though I had a dress like the one she’s wearing in that photo of the subway ruffling her. Except it was navy with white polka-dots. And it never wafted up on me though it attracted a bit of attention.

And I only just recalled that right this minute, which is why a post from me on my past lives is such an oxymoron. I can barely recall events that happened in my current life.

Though I defy most people to remember any piece of their college wardrobe twenty-five years after the fact.

I have a friend whose past lives currently beckon.

She’s writing a book with a reincarnation theme and in her research found Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls. This led her to past lives regression therapist and to the idea of virtual time traveling via hypnosis herself.

My self’s past incarnations aren’t that personally alluring. I know I’ve existed before, but I don’t need to know the details. They are for the times when I am “offline” and have the leisure and guidance to reflect. When I am engaged in a life, I am afraid that knowledge of my former selves might distract me or mislead me.

You wouldn’t find me lurking in the pages of history at any rate. I was never notable. I was just a girl. Always a girl though why that sticks out, I can’t say. Never a queen or adventuress or the woman behind the man as most people with claims to past lives seem to always be.

Being famous in a past life, in my opinion, is a sign that one needed remediation of some kind. Why else throw a soul into high profile, larger than life should be situations that require so much support staff? I think the bigger your soul-tourage; the more lessons you might have not mastered the last time around. Something to ponder the next time you’re envying Lady Gaga or Prince William.

Abby is in consultation with the regression therapist. You can’t just stare at an open flame and 1, 2, 3, find yourself at Hampton Court celebrating Mid-summer’s Night with the Tudor court. It’s a bit more work than that. And now you know.

Newton’s book struck a chord and clarified some of my thoughts on the subject of living and re-living. I didn’t pick the book up looking for that however. I was looking for a more plausible afterlife in the wake of my first husband’s death.

Curlicue clouds and fluffy robes? I had a difficult time imaging my flannel-clad, shaggy bearded man in wings and a white starched choir robe.

What I found was not heaven in my reading. I’m from Iowa, which is not heaven either but a portal,* so I know of what I speak**.

Newton talks of soul groups, debriefings, and lesson/life plans. It’s work. Not the alluring stuff of the salvation vs damnation lottery.

I am following Abby’s adventure with interest however. I’ll keep you apprised.

*FYI/dumb fact: My cousin’s daughter’s in-laws own part of the Field of Dreams.

** Over the course of 12 years of Catholic school, the subject of heaven comes up a lot.

Starting Over – Three Years On


Three years ago this last weekend, we finished packing the U-haul and headed for Canada.

Three years.

People thought we were crazy, but most of them were polite enough not to say so. After all, I was leaving my country of birth to be an email-order bride to a Canadian fellow I’d known for barely six months and whose first wife hadn’t been dead for even a year yet.

I was barely widowed myself. Just shy of a year and a half since the passing of my late husband.

I quit my teaching job of twenty years just when I was beginning to make what most people would call “good money”, sold my house, pretty much gave away all my possessions – just an aside, people were actually begging me to take money from them for things but it didn’t feel right. The payment I did agree to was minimal and even that felt “off”.

I’ve never claimed that it was easy-peasy. Relocating. Remarrying. Starting life over from scratch in many respects. Though I didn’t share the bumps. Potholes and such are private and there are limits to what even I will share online. But I’ve never regretted, barely questioned and have been amply rewarded for my efforts.

Rob’s efforts too.

We drove forever to get here. Dee and I were not seasoned Canadian road warriors then and it was painful.

And I wouldn’t say that we are completely moved in yet. It’s not easy combining lives and four people’s stuff plus three children’s is a lot for an 1100-ish square foot house. The ghosts alone take up most of the upstairs and large chunks of the basement.

Not kidding about the ghosts. *

And we are not rooted yet. Oh, the family part has dug in tendrils that expand continually but the physical adjustments continue. Twice we’ve come close to relocating outside Canada and Texas still looms, casting its shadow periodically over the future.

But three years ago, people were betting against us and we were just stubborn enough and sure enough of ourselves to ignore them. Good on us.

*The lights on the night-stands are up to their old tricks again. Lights usually mean illness or a death is in the offing. I find my light on as I rushed about getting ready to camp this last weekend. Fully expected to come home to a message that someone had died. Thankfully, no. But I really wish our dearly departed were not so intent on this early warning system they’ve come up with.

Barely Writing


After a blockbuster run on the keyboard, words trickled grudgingly this week. I managed two post for Care2, though one was nixed for not being “newsy” enough.  My assistant editor really liked it, however, which is a slight consolation.  The civil rights piece was a first for me, but I worry about writing stuff like that for this audience.  Many of them are a hair’s breadth step from being Fox Mulder and don’t need paranoia-feeding.  Oh, and I turned in a lame mommy thing to 50 Something which goes up next week, I think.

It was spring yoga cleanse at the studio. Yang-yin every morning. Yang in honor of the spring. In the fall and winter, yin rises. Coming off a training weekend, I had my doubts about energy levels, but I surprised myself, dug down and found quite a bit of strength and vigor.

Back to running too on the treadmill.  Intervals.  Pounded out 35 minutes without breathing heavy which is an encouraging commentary on my core fitness, but it made yoga a bit tricky.

I hadn’t thought about it before last weekend, but running undoes my yoga.

We were standing about after a practice teaching lab with Kat, the instructor, and discussing the various fitness routines – in addition to yoga – that we had and someone asked her what she did.

“Um, I do yoga,” she said, in a tone and with an expression that implied that the question itself hardly needed to be asked*.

“You don’t run or bike?” Puzzled looks all around.

“Well,” she said, “friends ask me to hike or bike and I usually don’t because those things ruin my yoga. They tighten my hamstrings and glute’s and quads. Too much could undo all my work.”

I ran this by my regular teacher, Jade, and she concurred.

“You’d need a good thirty minute post run stretch to counter the tightening, ” she said. “Also, you were a runner, so your body has learned to be tight and will want to go back to that more readily than it wants to loosen and lengthen.”

Yikes.

But I think I will keep on with intervals at the very least, just need to balance.  And I am so all about the balance.

*Kat is an uber-yogina. She told us the story of a guy she worked with in L.A. who told her she had a fierce “game face” when she practiced – ashtanga – which she hadn’t realized. Our faces are supposed to be relaxed, no tension.

“Yeah,” he told her “it’s like – fuck off, I’m doing yoga.”

I love that.  It should be on a t-shirt, integrated into a lotus design. Patanjali would not approve though.