Expecting the Unexpected

By now, I should just trust that when I am being guided, something extraordinary is going to happen. For some crazy reason, I continue to be surprised, sometimes even awe-struck. So it was this afternoon, when I met Alexander.

But first I should share a little back story. My day started with a special docent tour at the National Gallery of nativity art by the Old Masters. I enjoy art but really don't know much about it, so I am like a sponge when I am around someone so knowledgeable. When we finished around noon, though, I was snapped back to my busy to-do list. I had only this afternoon to do most of my holiday shopping, and I really wanted something fresh to wear to a dance this evening. While I could have gone off racing, I didn't. Instead of slipping into high gear, I meandered with ease. I noticed the clever art on the windows of the Starbucks, and I even chuckled outloud at the "To..." label someone had stuck on the outside of a window painted with a gift box and ribbons on the inside.

Then, I started walking by a number of homeless people, who were panhandling. I gave small amounts to two before entering a store. When I came out, I automatically turned right toward the Metro which was just a short distance when I got a clear message: "Walk!" OK: my next destination was just one Metro stop. Then, I was guided very specifically on my route, walking by several more panhandlers.

Then, Alexander asked for money for coffee. (At this point, of course, I didn't know he was Alexander.) I immediately knew that I was to say "yes" to this tall, thin African-American young man with dreadlocks and goatee. Almost as quickly, I knew I was to take him for coffee, not give him money. For the 150 feet to the McDonald's, my conversation was guided. The short version is that I bought Alexander coffee...and lunch, and I stayed to talk with him.

To say this was a most unexpected conversation would be an understatement. Alexander had been in DC for two years, since the death of his mother, to do research at the Library of Congress. He pulled out a stack of papers (2" high) to show me the genealogical research he'd been working on. We talked for at least an hour, a conversation that touched on algebra, genetics/chromosomes, farming, law, etiquette, posture (I straightened mine,) and theology. We also talked about doing good in the world, gratitude, following what Alexander called his "zeal," and helping others be better. His vocabulary was impressive even as he talked about wanting to get his GED.

I say "we" because while I was engaged in the conversation, mostly Alexander was talking like someone starved for someone to listen. Twice he stopped and asked if I didn't have somewhere else I needed to be, and twice I quite honestly said I was enjoying the conversation and learning from him. I learned stuff, but mostly I learned about my judgment. I also learned how grateful I was that I had taken time to listen to the voice that had brought Alexander into my life today. I had totally forgotten my to-do list.

As we parted, I looked Alexander in the eye and sincerely thanked him for allowing me to sit with him during lunch. I asked him to do one thing for me. "Please," I said, "will you do something kind for another person before you sleep?"

He smiled from ear to ear as he said, "I will!" The truth is that he already had. The Grocery Store Game keeps delivering the unexpected.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Love is a Precious Thing

There are so many kinds of love, and so many thing to love.

-The love of an intimate partner
-The love of a friend
-The love of a performance
-The love of a work of art
-The love of nature
-The love of the beach at sunset
-The love of flying a kite so high that I can hard see it or hang on to it
-The love of doing something for which I have passion
-The love of decorating for Christmas
-The love of a favorite movie, play, or book
-The love of an amazing building
-The love of the warmth of the sun on my cheek

They are all precious...as precious as life itself.  I know there have been times when I have squandered love, and I remember moments of total awareness of each kind of love and totally feeling its preciousness with my whole being.  I think really feeling love must be about as close as we get to feeling God or heaven on earth.  Love is joyful--that deep satisfying joy that explodes into life.  Love is a precious thing...a miracle.

Smile!

On my way out of the building after work this evening, I caught a glimpse of someone from the corner of my eye, and I literally turned in place to go back and speak to him.  This man has the best smile in the building.  I know his job is demanding, but I have never once seen him when he wasn't
smiling and pleasant.  He is one of those people who can brighten my day, and those of everyone he sees, without saying a word. 

Since I hadn't talked with him in a while, I decided that I would make a conscious connection.  As I turned to walk into the galley where he stood by a vending machine, I started to say, "Your smile brightens my day!" just about the time he was saying something similar to me.  We laughed and talked briefly about how a good smile could just brighten the day.

Then he said the name of a work colleague, a man with developmental delays, who has a great smile.  He does, and I think the man knows almost all of our 1,000 people.  He always has a pleasant smile and a funny word.  What he may lack in other abilities, he more than gives back with his smile and humor.

The day had evolved differently than I had expected.  A very long meeting that I had expected to be unpleasant played out with humor, and in a group that had been working together for months, we actually got to know each other a bit.  Our work was still onerous, but much more enjoyable than other days during which humor had been absent.

While my day was enriched by people who smiled, laughed, and connected pleasantly, occasionally someone walks through my life who brings a negative shadow.  They always have an unpleasant word to say, and when I see them coming, I often try to avoid them. No matter how I try to be pleasant, they resist. While the smilers make my day, those who are dour can kill it.  The way I see it, we always have a choice.  If we have the intention of making the world better, then we bring the smile and the laughter.  Why not? It is way more fun than leaving a wake of negativity around us.

This round of the Grocery Store Game (12/1/13) continues to surprise me as I make connections in ways that surprise me.  Today's connections were with people with whom I've been interacting, but today was characterized by humor and interest that usually isn't part of the interaction.   What seems to be a consistent part of The Grocery Store Game is that when I reach out to connect with others to honor them, each person brightens my day.  Give a little with the expectation of giving and surprise! I get a lot back.

Making Time for Intention

A friend who lives across the country and I talk every week or two.  This evening we talked about what gets in the way of living our intentions.  There are many things, but (should we be surprised?) anything that takes us out of the present moment keeps us from living our intentions.

To live with intention implies allowing ourselves to be led to our vision.  Way too often what gets in the way are the demands of the to-do list. If we spend our days racing from one item on the to-do list to the next, following where we are led gets squeezed out.  If we are really open to intention, we frequently stop to ask, "What would you have me do now?" or "Which way should I walk?" or even "Who in this building full of people I don't know should I connect with?"  Allowing ourselves to be led by the answers we receive.  My friend described "the dance between demands of the to-do list and allowing." 

Nearly as often what gets in the way are habits.  I am accustomed to going to the same Metro station, making the same changes, stopping at the store on the way home, and checking the mail before I get home.  Then I start another round of habits.  Empty the dirty dishes from my lunch from my bag, make coffee and lunch for tomorrow, make something for dinner, and sit to watch the Stephen Colbert and John Stewart episodes from the night before while I eat.  Then there is the set of clean-up-after-dinner habits. You get the idea: I move from one set of habits to the next until, eventually, I fall into bed.  Most of this is so totally autopilot that I forget to ask the, "What-would-you-have-me-do?" questions. 

I do better on the weekends, but that means that 5/7 of my life, I am missing the opportunity to follow. 

Of course, the perfect distraction from living with intention is to combine the two: be perpetually overbooked so that we habitually move from one appointment to the next without thinking.

Perhaps one of the reasons that I so enjoy writing this blog is because I just sit and listen.  Living with intention is about listening--listening to what you know in your heart.  Making time for intention is making time to listen and allowing time to follow what you know in your heart.

Just Imagine

I awakened in the middle of the night with a strange smell in my nose.  Instantly, I knew what the pungent odor was, but it wasn't coming from my apartment.  As best I can tell, it came in a dream.  I don't recall any visual images or action from the dream, but I do remember the smell.  I was warmed all over by the unpleasantness.

When I was in grade school and junior high, my father worked as a tool and die maker.  He was highly skilled, and his company's customers sometimes flew him to their locations to solve problems.  On one of those trips, he was recruited for a mid-management company for one of the Big Three American auto makers.  But for all those years before he put on a dress shirt and tie, he would come home with the smell of grease on his clothes.  Despite what might have otherwise been unpleasant, it was wonderful to me.  My father and I were close, and he'd always scoop me up in a big bear hug.  If love has a smell to me, it is the smell of grease from his machine shop.

As I've pondered, I cannot remember any details of the dream, but I've felt love all day.  The consideration, however, has taken me in a different direction.  We as humans have an incredible ability to transcend time and space--you might call us time travelers.  A single thought, smell, picture, or even a phrase can transport us to another time.  For me, it was the smell of grease that reminded me of the warmth of my father's love and hugs.  The smell of fried chicken or a freshly baked pie sends me to my grandma's kitchen.  The crunch of snow under my feet recalls building a snowman as a child.

We also have the ability to travel forward in time, and doing so is something that my coaching clients frequently do as they plan for their futures.  Time travel, they find, is really the foundation of living with intention.  Creating a vision of our future self, which we firmly connect into our being, produces a target of the future.  Of course, then we have to act consistent with the vision to see it explode into our lives, but the time travel is the first step. 

How does this work?  Someone who has problems with a knee because she is over-weight envisions herself as healthy and mobile.  Then working back in time she discovers how she needs to eat and exercise now to deliver that dream. Finally, the hard part, she needs to act on what she has come to know. What do you need to do right now to enable the vision, I ask? The vision of the future healthy her shows the way.  (No matter how much of a picture she has, if she continues eating a pint of super-rich ice cream while she watches TV every evening, the vision will not find life.)

Similarly, a client who envisioned herself inspiring young women in her profession saw herself on stage giving funny speeches.  What does she need to do right now to start bringing life to the intention, I ask?  An artist who has a commission but has the artist equivalent of writer's block imagines a wonderful painting that touches the audience.  What does she need to do right now to allow that painting to move through her?  My desire to have a warm relationship with neighbors (12/9/13) started coming to life when I knocked on my neighbor's door last night with chocolate cake in hand. 

Our ability to imagine something that hasn't yet existed is as powerful as our ability to time travel backward. The vision provides those in the invisible realm that assist us to live our dreams to know what we want.  In many ways much of what I've written about in this blog has been about bringing intention to what we want to create in our lives--bringing to live what we know in our hearts.  Just imagine what we dream to start it being so.

Being neighborly

Just before 1 a.m. this morning a very loud siren and voice went off in my apartment, informing me that there had been a fire emergency in the building and that I was to evacuate immediately.  It repeated over and over again. I struggled to pull myself out of a deep sleep.  Not likely that this was a fire drill at 1 a.m., so I'd better treat this seriously...as soon as I could wake up.

We were in the middle of a winter storm, so if I was going to be outside for a while, I should dress for it.  Problem is that we haven't really had winter weather, and I moved last winter. I had to hunt for gloves and boots.  I never found a hat, which I haven't worn since I moved. Purse and checkbook.  As I was about to leave the apartment, I remembered the fire preparation information I received recently had informed me that I should close interior doors before leaving.  (I forgot the part about leaving my apartment unlocked.)

After traipsing down several flights of stairs and a hall to the lobby, my neighbors and I were told we could stay inside.  The source of the alarm couldn't be found.  Shortly afterward, the fire truck and firemen arrived.  We could stay inside, but we couldn't go back to bed until the building had been cleared. 

There we stood and sat in the lobby.  Very old people, babies, and almost every combination in between: a microcosm of the city under one roof. A few of the older residents chatted, but most of us didn't really know each other.  While I would like to meet my neighbors, doing so in the middle of the night, when I am half asleep and in my pajamas wasn't exactly when I wanted to reach and touch someone. For almost an hour, we waited, and I pondered that I've lived here just over a year and could only spot four people that I vaguely knew.

I don't know if it has been the places I've lived over the last 20 years, or if times have been changing, but each place I've lived, I've usually known only one or two neighbors--very unlike when I'd been a child and young adult when we knew everyone in the neighborhood.  There was a time in my twenties when all the couples in our neighborhood would gravitate to someone's front porch late Saturday afternoon for popcorn, chips, and libations. 

In the lovely home and neighborhood in which I lived in North Carolina, I recalled reflecting that many of my neighbors had automatic garage door openers and managed to escape any contact with the rest of us by opening and closing the door without even getting out of the car.

So, today, I decided to be neighborly.  I'd baked a cake yesterday.  I cut portions and put on paper plates, covered with Saran Wrap, and rang door bells.  Today I played The Grocery Store Game (12/1/13) with my neighbors.  I had met them, but mostly just speaking in the hall or at the door.  Today, I went in for brief visits and actually started to get to know them. There is something about crossing into someone's home that is intimate: there is a sense that you know something about them from the artwork and furniture that they've chosen.  As I head to bed this evening, I feel the warmth of my neighbors in my heart as I go to bed.

Like Water for Chocolate And Such Things

Twenty years ago, "Like Water for Chocolate" was a popular movie about a young woman--Tita--who was a wonderful cook, and she had the magical ability to infuse whatever she was cooking with the feelings she had when she was preparing the food.  On days when she was sad, the sadness went into the food, and guests would cry when they ate.  When she was joyful, they felt the joy in what she had cooked.

I love to cook.  I had a lot of things to do on this afternoon of "winter mix"--snow and sleet.  I did almost none of them and cooked instead.  A friend, who has a wonderful Christmas party, has asked me to bring a cake.  I set about to test recipes to find one suitable for the occasion and for my seriously chocoholic friend. 

When I bake, I get lost in time.  I am so connected to what I am doing that everything else drops away.  The technical term for what happens is the "flow" state.  Those who study such things say that a person in the flow state has developed enough competence that they don't really have to think about what they are doing.  My term for it is passion: a deep connection between gift and a love of what I am doing. I think that is probably what happened to Tita, and why her feelings became part of what she cooked. 

Being in the flow state is a gift, almost an out-of-body experience. I feel it most of the time when I write or dance with a great partner, as well as when I cook. I've even felt it when I was speaking. To use one's passions and gifts in this way is a responsibility. Surrender totally to a gift and passion transforms one to a truly heaven on earth.  Over the last few months, writing this blog has transformed me in the same way, and I am keenly aware how critical being in flow is for my happiness and sense of purpose.

I hope that those, who partake of the fruits of my labor at my friend's party, will feel my passion in each bite.  Sharing with them is my gift to her, them, and me.