Standing in Line

This is amazing!

How is being in a line amazing?  Measurement is funny and we all do it.  "In this country, you always talk about things in the past based on a year.  We (in England) say "I was x-years old when ..."  Measurement by the moon or by the spoonful we all do it.  There's a spot just yards from my writing tray, a nice renewed for me TV tray that holds a renewed for us laptop.  That spot outside, just yards from this Quonset is being dug up and blocked up for a new tiny space soon to be a bath house.  Separate and small, a shower stall that might in time and opportunity morph into a Japanese style soaking tub will bring us from a pan of wash water to a shower of running, hot water.  Measurements we all do it.  I'm thinking "That will be amazing."

So, back to why is being in a line amazing.  Earlier this week I was in town, standing in a line.  I put my feet in my boots in a line with a bunch of other people aiming at ordering and purchasing something to eat.  While standing, in a public space, with people I saw someone I know.

"Hi,' I said when I saw he was done talking with the woman with things in her hands.
"Oh, hi."  We don't know each other very well, but in this small town when you know someone you become congenial ... friendly.  The man asked how things were going 'out there' familiar as he is with where and somewhat how we live. 
"Great!"  There was time enough to move the conversation into bits of detail while in line.  By the time it was my turn to order I saw that the only goodie I'd like was gone.  Something registered in me, while I experienced what I later described as a wrinkle ... Madeline L'Engle is right about the way time can do that. 

I turned to my neighbor and said, "You go ahead, that raspberry-almond scone is not there."  To my surprise he said, "Well, how about that over on the end, that looks yummy."  "Cinnamon roll.  Hmmm....  no I don't think so." 
"I'd be happy to buy you something." 
"No, thank-you."  Time measured forward.  It was but a few seconds.  I sensed something special had happened there.  I touched the friendly man on the elbow and said, "Nice seeing you," or something like it.  I walked out the door and the feeling somewhere between sadness and awesome tried to describe itself to me.

Later that day I wrote an email to my neighbor thanking him for the genuine kindness of his offer.  I described as best I could the wrinkle that happened when I turned down his offer, and said in some future time, we will be in a line and when he makes that offer again I will say, "Thank you, I'd love one of those raspberry-almond scones."  Being in a line, amazing.

Mokihana C.

Author's Note:  This post originated as a piece of writing done on the on-line creative writing group I conjured up during the months, not long ago, when I was lonely for the rooms and gatherings that were once common-place for me.  I am a writer.  I have loved the company of others, and loved being in the company of other writers.  Life changed, I needed a PLAN BE, but didn't know to call it that. 

I wrote this this weekend, and am thrilled with the fun of being able to spread a story through the many voices of blogging:  I'm absolutely sold on this write-and-publish venue.

Multiple Voices: a choir

"I have seven active blogs,"  I told her. 
"Why?"  She asked.
I thought about my answer for a couple seconds, and said, "I've been a writer most of my adult life, and I love to write.  There's so much to write, slightly different voices, same life."  There wasn't much discourse from that point between us, though the question was asked by others in different ways.  Madeline L'Engle wrote, 'But I cannot write just when I feel like it, or I will have nothing to write with.  Like the violin, I must be tuned and practiced on constantly."

A couple people asked what happened to our 'old' blog, and I said the story had been told for three years, and it was time to stop telling that story.
"Do you think others have followed in your footsteps?" One friend asked.
"I'm not sure about that, though at least one couple is building a tiny home, and is in touch with us."
The friend said she had been to our our blog a lot.  I said she would be welcomed to see the archived posts; we could invite her to read them if she asked. 

Pete and I were gathered with a group of people who live with different manifestations of an illness diagnosed as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.  We met these folks three years ago when my physical symptoms were the most difficult to understand, and support for this unravelling came from this group.  We garnered ideas, listened to the stories each shared and enjoyed the company of fragrance-free companions.  We so appreciate the experiences we heard back then.  We have often been, and continue to live a distance away from this Seattle-based group.  Our trek from South Whidbey is made with consciousness and preparedness.  The pollens are in sky-high infusion in mid-May, so my decision to travel is done with Plan Be, once again. 

1. BElieve I can do it.  My desire for the company of these folks is strong.  We  haven't seen these friends for nine months.
2. BE positive.  Knowing what I see as a good-thing and a step toward good-feeling (joyful company, catching up, sharing), I focus on the good and step away from resistence and feelings that distract.
3. BE prepared.  We travel with an oxygen tank, face mask, homeopathic remedies, glass jug of filtered water, and know to keep talking to each other as we pace our way from the woods to the city.  We plan the two hours journey into the city with ease and fun built-in:  ice cream cone for me, a good and healthy lunch even before the late afternoon potluck.

The weather was mild and allowed a pleasant few hours with our friends.  The stories and the voices were multiple, but focused mainly around the illness.  A new supplement for one woman aides her to sleep; another friend rests peacefully on a blanket laid on the grass beside our picnic table enjoying the sleep she hasn't been able to get as she wades through a multiple-month challenge of in-her-home invasion; bone-building physical stretches shared just before our 'good-byes' attracts the interest of three of us; a successful search for a new home is a victory shared. 

In one afternoon gathering the voices of experiences are multiple, and each voice and story fueled by a personal decision based on wanting to 'feel good.'  The varied choices and the progress toward good as diverse as is the dozen or so folk who came to the park that spring afternoon.  As Pete and I headed home, we recounted our adventure.  Though it was rush-hour our path along the alternative highway north was easier, fewer banks of the pollen that is most difficult for me made the journey a most down-stream experience.  We had napped earlier, sunning ourselves in the car as we waited for our friends to arrive.  So we had refreshed enough ... pacing ourselves to allow the good into our flow.  We could not share the driving because I needed to use the oxygen from time-to-time, I need to remember to thank Pete and appreciate him more often.

When we got home, we both were glad we adventured, but even more glad to be home.  What a nice feeling to know 'glad to be home.'  Back in the Quonset I stowed away the food and supplies we'd purchased from the city.  JOTS was still out and away in the woods.  Pete was off tending to the ducks and chickens.  When I peeked out the door, I saw him sitting at the nearly built wooden table now so comfortably a part of the orchard.  He and Eileen were chatting.  I turned on the c.d. player, checked to see that the sounds I wanted to hear were there, shut the lid on the player, pressed the PLAY arrow button and listened to the other part of my PLAN BE.  I am newly training myself to turn down-stream for my good news and good feelings.

"Be easy about this. Be playful about it. Don't work so hard at it. Let your dominant intent to be to feel good, and if you don't feel good, then let your dominant intent be to feel relief. Feel your way through it. If you think your way through it, you can get off on all kinds of tangents. If you feel your way through it, you can come quickly to your Core Energy, and when you do that only good can then flow to you."

--- Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Rye, NY on Sunday, October 12th, 1997

My choosing gets better with practice.  I listened to my c.d. and turned to the sink, and the bottles that needed to be refilled with filtered water.  I knew this choice to drive into Seattle was done on an 'Ole Moon when rest was the best choice.  I took a risk, and now I feel the price for extending beyond my reserves.  Before the tape was finished Pete came back, we traded places in front of the laptop. 

"Would you keep an eye on the bottle?  I need to go into the vardo for a lie-down." 
"Sure," Pete said.
"I can turn that tape off," I said before leaving the Quonset.
"No, that's okay, I'll listen."

I walked across the gravel path to the vardo steps, opened up the vardo saying a silent hello of appreciation, changed into my robe, straightened up the covers a bit and climbed in.  Rested from one more adventure in this life,I noted the different choices made by others on their path. I recognized the contrasting examples as research for my bettering-life.Those 'Ole Moons of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar are there for good reason, and when I push my will again the wobble of those resting moons, there are consequences.  My Plan BE, reminds me that I choose to tell a different story and keep deciding consciously.  It takes practice.  My new story is newly sprouted, cultivating a soul takes care.  I'll remember that, and it's my own dear soul over which I can care...mine alone.  Does it take 7 blogs to tell my story?  A choir is multiple voices, I like the sound of that. Here's a video of virtual voices ... a 6 minute 'different musical story'... ready?

MAY DAY ... May Pole Dancing ... More of Plan "Be"

May is a month of many manifestations: May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii ... garlands of flowers everywhere.  May Day is also Laborer's Day ... thank the gods for people who know how to handle a shovel ... a hammer, a pick.  May Day is also May Day and May Pole Dancing.  Our Freed-up Lives of living fragrance free has taught us a lot about some things, and a little about a lot of things.  We know there's a connection between manufactured chemicals and fragrances concocted and not at all good for us, the critters or Earth.  May is also MCS (Multiple Chemical Awareness Month) all over the Earth, and in the state we now call home --- Washington.  So, we are conscious of the slowly moving effort to educate, as we do with this blog about being human without harming. 

Here's a bunch of 4th Graders doing a choreographed version of the May Pole Dance.  

So, multiple reasons to celebrate and dance around a May Pole on May 1st!  A short drive out of the woods where we live is one of the gardens where we love to be:  be planting dirt-hills seeded with squash soon; be with neighbors who sell their vegetables and goodies (cookies and home-made delightful things and some not-too-great-for-me scented things); be enjoying the lovely sun, and company of others.  At the So Whidbey Tilth where the wind and open space allows me plenty of room to navigate the not-too-great-for-me scented things and people, there was a MAY POLE.  That MAY POLE made from a recently alive alder was hung with 12 colorful ribbons.  In my fondest, and newest plan "Be"  I was dancing in that May Pole Dance.  Before I was cast into the role of old dear woman with many, many chemical sensitivities, I have been a child-at-heart who loved to be at glee.  I have had a life as a clown, taught and told stories to wee children, and love dancing unconsciously losing all cause for resistence in the process.

This Noon at the So Whidbey Tilth, my plan "Be" continued to be the best possible example of living more and more in a down-stream flow of believing before I see it reality.  The twelve volunteer May Pole Dancers surrounded the alder May Pole, children and not so young stood ready for instruction.  Not yet among them, I was none the less, in bliss, in the sunshine with my honey, Pete.  At the very last minute the gal in charge of the 'art installation' looked at me, and said, "You!"  "Would you help him!"  It was not really a question ... it was my plan "Be"  kickin' in.  Him was a tiny dark-haired, gray-sweatshirted boy in need of a guide person.  I was perfectly suited for the volunteer position.  We were given 2 minutes of instructions, and then we moved to the music of tin whistles, and string instruments played by a wonderful group of neighboring musicians.

15 minutes of over and under, which took a while to get synchronized, became a jolly, joyful, all colors of love and fun-time.  The ribbons at first wobbled, and our attention was mostly a query of consciousness ... apparent in our intense faces.  But, gradually, with each over and under of the ribbons, our consciousness lost itself in the fun of the dance and we were in the vibe.  May Pole Vibe!  I could smell the not-so-great-for-me fragrances, but they were not as  powerful as the unself-conscious plan "Be" that was guiding both the wee boy in gray and old dear with the colorful cap. 

I have waited 58 years for this May Pole Dance, and guess what?  It was worth the wait!  May your Plan "Be" include a May Pole Dance with your neighbors sometime, and maybe, year after year those May Pole Dances become fragrance free by 2023. 

Happy May Day!

Plan "Be" Part II ... BELIEVE it BEFORE you see it

Wonderful, positive steps are now part of our 'visible' reality ... that "I can see it, they can see it" reality that we humans often mistake for the ONLY reality.  The New Moon in Aries, the sign and potent energy new moon of new beginnings and new stories is half-way through its month-long cycle of action Jackson.  I've taken to deciding to choose better-feeling thoughts consciously and consistently.  Deciding that I could believe the Earth Day Celebration was some thing I COULD do is a wowser example of 'Believe it BEFORE you see it!"  We have been on a long journey of swhirling and disconnected reality and more than enough suffering.  Other blogs, now at rest, have filled with those stories.  They served us by finding out in oh so many ways what we did not want.  Today, I am in a different place and appreciation and believing is fueling our good news.  Our good news today will gear us for the expanded good we can't yet see.

So ... this post is Plan "Be"  Part II ... BELIEVE it BEFORE you see it.

Where is she going with this?  (I often wonder myself) 


First, to believe it before yah see it. Start with what I do see as BEAUTIFUL, 'AS I DREAMED IT COULD and IS' stuff. 

• A GOOD dentist appointment HAPPENED.  Yeh, anyone can relate to that statement!  Who loves dentists?  Well, folks with MCS often can't do dentists.  I haven't been to a dentist I could afford; in an office that was not impossible to breathe in; with a chair-side manner that spoke "kind and caring" for many years.  Yesterday I met, sat in a chair and was engaged with a young dentist and his assistant who spoke that "kind and caring" language.  I can afford to pay for some of the treatment I need, with due diligence and wise decisions.  THIS IS A VERY MAJOR 'Beautiful' thing.  I will need to decide the next steps and dates for work, and I get to have options, I believed it before I met young Kenneth Killpack DDS and his assistant Tom, and front desk woman Angela.  Now, it's happening. 
• MASSAGE.  I had my first massage of the year.  Another MAJOR 'Beautiful' thing.  I met "M" last summer.  Over the months Pete and I have gotten to know her more and more.  Pete does fix'ems for "M" and in return, there is $ and trades ... like this massage.  "M's" home is a mostly-benign alternative to 'usual' structure and her willingness to make adustments to the conditions I need to stay in her presence and her home add to the 'BEAUTIFUL' thing experience.  A long, slow and loving chat and massage (while she used my organic coconut oil) added to my "Plan 'BE'" ... I believed I could get a massage.  Armed as I was with my own sheet, air-out yoga mat and my mask ... I was able to be massaged and cared for withOUT using any of my arm-full of 'Be Prepared' stuff.
• DINNER INVITATION FOR EASTER.  This is another big step in my Plan 'Be"  Part II.  Easter Sunday Dinner is something we haven't celebrated or expected to be 'able' to enjoy for many years.  Things are changing.  We're been invited.  Pete and I talked about it.  We accepted.  We're going to do some more talking and preparing for the inside-event, and then the next experience in our Plan "Be" will unfold.

BE-4 TIME(this expression is something I haven't heard in my head for a very long time.  But, in Hawaii, my grandpa and the elders often talked about 'before time', times they remember and that we young kids couldn't see)

 ... My Journey here to a place where positive healing experiences happen more often began (and continues) with knowing what I don't want.  Here is a short, but potent piece of a letter written by a woman living with MCS.  I received it through the grapevine and offer it as a gift of education.  A beginning for some, a continuation for others.  BELIEVE IT BEFORE you see it!  Becoming Fragrance Free in 2023 will mean attending to this kind of education from folks living with the affects of a world that's not FF. 'TAKING 5' Steps in your own dear life will include Noticing things like this kind of request from a friend, or a friend yet to be.  Read this and see where it fits into your journey:

B R  writes

...which leads me to my final point about this: most folks with MCS are in a constant struggle to navigate our daily lives. if we are able to go out, we face a continuous barrage of life-threatening chemical exposures. because MCS affects not only our bodies but our cognitive abilities and emotions, we often cannot express or identify that we are being made sick by one particular product someone is using. so if we do take the time to let you know that something you’re doing is making us sick, please respect that and don’t make us tell you twice, or g-d forbid, more than twice. it’s incredibly painful for us to find that people who purport to be our friends or allies, who express the desire to be near us, do not take our basic needs seriously and even cause us harm after we have expressed that there is a problem. if you are struggling with a solution, please let us know so we can help you resolve it, or if that’s not possible, so we can stay a safe distance from you until you get it resolved...

Thank you JT and DP and DR for extending the grapevine :)))

PLAN "Be" ... Believe, Be Positive, Be Prepared

BELIEVE

It's EARTH DAY CELEBRATION Saturday on Whidbey Island and the April showers and fog  are here. It's still early here on Whidbey and there's a chance the showers and fog will clear enough to set up our FRAGRANCE FREE IN23 Table outside.   This table is our first venture BACK into the public with our 'Freedup Life'.  My recent history has included the Dance of Avoidance as the one action to refuel from years of survival mode.  Nearly a year of recovery in the woods of South Whidbey has really made believers out of us:  healing is believING!

BE POSITIVE

I spent the last few days getting ready for this celebration:  FUN STUFF and involvement.  This blog was launched, a visit to the celebration sight gave us an idea and a visual scene of 'YEAH, THIS COULD HAPPEN HERE.' 

BE PREPARED

Life happens and we co-create it.  I believe both of these beliefs.  What I know about being out in the public is I have no control over what others wear, how they ouclean themselves or their clothes.  We also know that the inside venue is a building diffiult for me to experience. No blame!  I just know in past experience that I have diffiulty breathing in the old Bayview Hall.  Can't breathe?  Can't be.

So ... our PLAN "Be" is to have this post for you in case we (my family ... Pete and me) cannot be at the celebration.  Instead of us in the flesh, there is supposed to be a bunch of postcards with our blogspot address to get you HERE.

If we happen not to be at the Bayview EARTH DAY Celebration we'll  be HERE ... That's us outside our QUONSET IN THE WOODS.

If we miss you at the EARTH DAY CELEBRATION ... don't let that stop you from TAKING 5 Steps to FRAGRANCE FREEDupness IN 23.  Read on from this post and check out  the rest of this blog.  

Believing, Being Positive, and Being Prepared it ought to be Earth Day Everyday.  It's all right.

Mokihana and Pete