My fingers felt like they were being individually inflated.

Like tires, they were automatically pumping themselves up, bigger and bigger yet.

Surely, they would explode.

I was positive of that.

I giggled at the image of exploding fingers, my exploding fingers.  

I heard the giggle outside myself, an entity, a thing unto itself.  

It belonged to a little-girl, that giggle; these exploding fingers, too, belonged to a little girl.

A sick-little-girl, young.  

A very young, very-sick-little-girl.

I laughed at the youngness of me, me with my inflated fingers, me squirming and squeaking on this cot, so far from home.

The sound of my laughter seemed an echo in the room, yet another entity, making me guffaw again.  

The cot squeaked beneath my sweaty body.

I tried to bite down on the thermometer, hearing my teeth scraping against it.

She took it from my mouth, squinting in the light to read it.

You have 103.

She looked the thermometer again.  I could almost touch the concern softening her voice.

Yes, 103.

That sounded funny to me.

Another giggle flowed out of me, a giggle at the absurdity of that number, the absurdity of any number, of numbers in general.

103!

She wrung out the washcloth and came closer.

I felt her presence.  

I always felt her presence.

I always wanted her near me.

Now she was.

Don’t feel.

She leaned over, closer, placing the cold compress on my forehead.

It was startling.  She was startling.

My delirium gave me permission to fall headlong into the startle, to slide closer, deeper into the twist and tangle of feelings.

I flung myself to and fro on the cot, the squeaky little cot, my bed, my bed, so far from home, on this island, this hot and muggy and muddy and dusty and lonely island, so far from home, so far from my parents’ tidy home.

9,000.

Another number dashed through me.

The miles home.

9,000.

From this squeaky cot in the Philippines, my Peace Corps dream manifested, helping-others-helping-others-helping-others.

All I ever wanted was to help.

Others.

103.

My father.

His worried, silent disapproval.  

My mother, her remote ferocity of love.

So far from me, yet here, right here, right here.

Don’t feel this.  Don’t love her. Don’t touch her.

Honey.

She leaned over me.  I could smell her shampoo, so deeply embedded in my mind, my heart.

Don’t feel this.

Don’t.

She hovered above me now, close, close enough to feel her breath.

Her breath!

Close enough to feel her warmth.

Her warmth.

She leaned closer, holding my wrists, leaning into me, leaning into, don’t feel, keeping me still.

Her hair, beautiful black never-ending hair, brushed my face.

Don’t feel.

From nowhere, from everywhere, don’t do it, don’t feel this, her lips grazed me.

Grazed my lips.

And from the depth of delirium, from the corner of the madness of fever, came the beacon of clarity, the voice I always knew, the voice I never heard:

THIS FEELS GOOD!

She felt good.  Her lips, her presence, her hair, her caring, her deep eyes, her soft, soft voice.

THIS FEELS GOOD!

And with focused clarity that illuminated every cell in my body, I knew, I knew:

I had to be this far away from home—9,000 miles—I had to be this far out of my conscious mind—103 degrees of fever—this separate from my world—to be able to feel—just for this nanosecond, the touch of a woman’s lips on mine.

The touch on my lips!

Her touch on my lips.

Her lips on mine.

And the memory passes.

And the scene fades.

And Butuan City disappears.

And the feelings go underground.

And Honey recedes.

And five decades pass.

And I will always love her.

Always love her.

For that kiss.

For that first kiss.

Dear Reader-Folk, touch, such a gateway to the heart, love, such a precious commodity.  I continue to find my way forward in these waters, as I practice allowing the preciousness of love, of touch, of standing, legitimized and solid, in my being.  A work in progress. I am a work in progress. How about you? Any memories? Any insights? You can always contact me at aruni@rnetworx.com.

Honoring the journey—
Aruni

So, the Nameless Recovering Person walks into a Twelve Step meeting, sits down, and tries to settle.

The chairperson opens the meeting in the usual way, during which the Nameless Recovering Person (who will remain anonymous, cough-cough), attempts to ignore the positivity flowing around her.  She does her best to shun the warmth being exchanged. This evasive technique, practiced before, is strengthened by arriving just as the meeting begins.

The chairperson offers the topic.  Since it is around Thanksgiving, the topic offered, predictably, is gratitude.

The Nameless Recovering Person, internally and not aloud—there is progress!—responds with an internal flow of the following steamy words:

!@#$%^&pieceofshitgratitude*(&^%$#!@#.

Once the internal cursing subsided, the next layer of interior mumbling begins to unfold:

Gratitude!

Not this again.

Stupid gratitude.

And, as the story unfolds, as the meeting unfolds, sixty minutes later, she, this Nameless Recovering Person, leaves the room, realigned, calmed, reconnected to possibility, softened within herself, her negativity at bay, just a bit.

YES.

This again.

Gratitude, again.

Practice, again and again.

Simply begin again, as Jack Kornfield, the meditation teacher, offers.

Simply begin again.

The power of practice lies in the forgetting.

Noticing the lapse, recognizing the forgetting, recognizing becomes a doorway to a more authentic, deepening practice.

No matter how many times you fall down, get up again, says the Buddhists.

Fall down 100 times?

Get up 101.

Have you lost perspective and become terrified about the driveway not being plowed?

Whenever you notice the fear, lean toward faith without judgment.

From fear to faith.

From forgetting to remembering.

The power of the practice lies in the lapse.  

That is the time, the moment, to lean toward the new behavior.

Without judgment.

We can change our brain, our bodies, and our behavior.  Through noticing with radical compassion, through leaning toward, through returning to the new behavior without judgment, we change.

How many 12 Step meetings have I been in, with gratitude as the topic?  How many times have I reacted negatively to the topic? And how many times have I received exactly what I have needed, from that topic?  And how many times did the meeting return me to the practice of gratitude?

Heading toward a 100% success rate, I do believe.

Okay!  Gratitude.  Here we go again.  ‘Tis the season.

Let’s consider. We know gratitude changes the chemistry of the brain.  When we focus on what isn’t happening, on what is missing, we constrict.  We tighten. We hunker down in the sympathetic nervous system, the fight/flight/freeze response.  We put our foot on the brake, rather than giving the process a little gas, a little fuel.

The fuel is the breath.  The gas is the relaxing, the softening around.

Gratitude takes us back to the parasympathetic nervous system, the response of rest/and/digest.

Let’s return to the practice of gratitude again.

I have two offerings of visual gratitude.

The first, the rainbow picture above, is from a few weeks ago. Mumbling to myself, driving down the road, turning onto Alford Road, there it was, just waiting for me.

It took away my breath.  It changed the moment! I remembered how beautiful life is.

Check it out.

My second offer of gratitude is this short video, some thirty-some seconds.  

Check it out.

 

It’s a memory so deeply tucked into my body, so accessible this time of year.  

It’s a memory of smell.

It’s a memory of warmth.

It’s a memory of mother, of home.

It’s an unconflicted memory.

In our town, Scranton, Pa., the traditional Thanksgiving high school football game brought together our high school, Central, the more academic, against Technical High, the non-college-bound.  The outcome was universally inevitable. No matter what, the academic yet less mighty Golden Eagles (us!) were annually pulverized by the more working-class Red Raiders. Perhaps this was an issue of class?  Before that concept, there was simply the traditional rivalry born of this Thanksgiving game.

And Thanksgiving itself.

My memory is way-pre-high-school.  Maybe I was ten? My dad took me to the game.  This was a total anomaly and a heavenly gift. Throughout our lives, my dad was either working in his grocery store, the Colfax Market on Linden Street, or recovering from his endless chest pains.  

Being with him was heaven, ease, safety on earth.  Fearing his leaving, his dying, that was my personal hell.

How did my dad manage to take me to the game?

I have no memory of that miracle.

I have no memory of the game.

But I remember returning, ah, returning.  How I love returning.

I remember opening the door to my childhood house—207 Arthur Avenue.

I love doors!  

Opening the door.

Walking through.

Walking into my home.

Returning.

I remember entering the house and being bathed in warmth.

With the specificity and the clarity of a superhero, I remember.

I remember walking into the house and being bathed in warm scent, the yummy, the delicious, the sublime:

Turkey!  

Absolutely and totally, a smell like none other—turkey.

The air was delicious and heavy with the scent of yum, the scent of the beyond-scrumptious.

Dancing within the smells of turkey, the floating, the remarkable, the smell of pumpkin.

Cinnamon.

And

Stuffing!  

Slight hints of sage waft through the air.

The combination, the interface, the dance of each smell creating a whole that held me, that warmed me, that welcomed me home.

I remember being held in the warmth, the deliciousness, the abundance, the possibility of it, all.

I remember standing transfixed, unable, unwilling to move.  

Perhaps the bundling of my clothes—this was way before the days of fleece and thin warm fibers—perhaps I was wearing that curse of childhood, the dreaded snow-pants?  The ones that prohibited movement? Perhaps I was frozen to the rug? Perhaps I was frozen to myself? Perhaps I had reached my bliss tolerance level, without the capacity to move forward toward the delicious bounty that awaited?

I stood, perhaps forever, breathing in the love of my mother, the width and depth of the container that supported me.

And of course, so many were the conflicts behind me, so many to come, the heartbreaks of dysfunction, the endless ghosts of miscommunication and disappointment.

So many behind.  So many yet to come.

But not in that moment.

In that moment, I stood, one with this perfect moment of love.

Perhaps a part of me still stands there today?

Dear Friends, what holiday memories live in you?  As the holidays churn toward us, let’s choose to remember the positive, the loving, the life-giving blessings we have received, not to override or to deny the struggles, but to live more wholly, more fully, and with more gratitude.  For what are you grateful? Please do let me know. I am aruni@rnetworx.com.

Blessings and love to you and yours,
Aruni