hold on

I was at a hospital with a friend yesterday and my dead friend Brenda was making her presence known over and over (more about that later, maybe. I took lots of pix, she was being so persistent.)

But this morning, a Brenda-related Facebook memory popped up and struck me for a different reason. It reminded me that having effectively seen my friend in the flesh two years after her death in such a way that her presence in my life as spirit was made obvious, I was on a high at the airport. And then POW! (as described in the original post, below this one).

Life right now feels like that. Such extremes. The purest joy and also such devastating lows.

I’ve been obsessed for 2-3 years now with the yin/yang symbol. Dark, light, with elements of the “other” in each one, and yet both, equally, making up the whole held in the perfection of a circle.

With all that occurs in human life on any given day, there is no safety in clinging to what is at any particular moment. But having said that, hell yes! Enjoy the magical times! Or pray for the other stuff to be gone. (Holler at me. I’ll pray with you.)

Avoidance and denial are never a lasting answer, though useful protective features of our brains. It feels safe to cling to the good stuff, to see happy events as of our own making. But life rolls on, despite our grasping. “I will affirm and vision board and never think negative thoughts and so I will be forever in this joyous state.”***

If the Power of the Universe were the mean, cruel being I was terrorized with in my tender years, there would be uproarious laughter at that.

Instead, the Universe gently supports us, knowing any day filled with joy — or its opposite — will always pass. And then it will come again. The only real safety, or so it seems in my meditations on the whole of the yin/yang thing, is in that sinuous central line dividing the two sides.

Life, like that line, flows. It’s uneven, not hard and fast, not black or white. Peace and safety is found in the inhabitable space between the highs of bliss and the lows of not-that. And it is never purely one thing or the other: white side, black dot and vice versa.

Which is not to say numb out and don’t go full tilt for those delicious highs (or lows, if that’s your thing). Just be aware that all states are only for now. All of them.

What I’m feeling today is the peace that comes in embracing, or maybe just allowing, all things. All of the light, all of the dark, all of the flashes and dark spots in each.

Many people I know and love are weeping and some are rejoicing. We *are* the yin-yang symbol being expressed in this human realm. And in each of us, elements of the other, and all of us making up the whole.

The thing that struck me in that old post on Facebook was this:

“So that’s life in a nutshell, yeah? The joyful lift of hellos from heaven followed by a blow from behind and crunch of metal on metal … Life is a roller coaster ride on a good day, soaring to the sky, sunshine and wind in your hair, and it can be a house of horrors a moment later.

So here’s that old post, a day of joy and not-that. Like most of our days. Definitely these days…

I left ATL Monday and arrived in Tarpon Springs that night. I invited my road dogs, Mike and Brenda to come along. “Send me something you two. Let me know you’re here.”

And of course they did. First up: Brenda’s little Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible right in front of me (I would see four more in the next two days and I swear, I’ve not seen one since moving to Georgia). Then CLY (my husband’s last name) pops out at me on the side of a truck. Hello sweetie. There were two shiny bright pennies courtesy of Mike, and a song out of nowhere.

Tuesday I headed to the Tampa airport to pick up a friend (who actually wasn’t arriving until Wednesday, goddess help me). As I drove over the gorgeous bridge into Tampa, I was thinking of my dear friend Grace Cadwell Lafferty who died two weeks after Brenda. We used to joke about needing a trip to Mexico for a dose of Vitamin Sea. And no sooner had I thought that, when my music switched to a song I’ve never heard before. Vitamin C. Well done, Graciella. Thanks for dropping in. It’s taken her a while, but she’s getting the hang of it.

And then, as I turned in to the cell phone lot, THIS WOMAN, swear to the heavens, she WAS Brenda sitting right there. She was looking right at me as I pulled in and the sight of her just took my breath away.

If I’d had the nerve to take her photo head on, you’d see it. As it was, I positioned myself next to her and pretended to be yacking on the phone while I snapped her picture. The first time I saw Brenda in person at Unity Village, her hair was cut like this. She was wearing her sparklies and had the deepest tan. She looked marvelous. Truly, this woman could have been BBB in June of 2015.

Leaving to hunt for Laura, I headed out of the cell phone lot, stopped at a stop sign, and was rammed — hard — seven times from behind. Whaaaat? Over and over and over, shoving me forward 50 feet. This couldn’t be a simple fender bender. Who does that? Must be a carjacker or something dire. But in broad daylight?

He finally stopped hitting me and I got out to confront the would-be thief. The giant door on that tank of a Mercury Marquis opened and out stepped a tiny little man. I couldn’t help myself. “WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU DOING??”

He said (kind of hatefully, I have to say), “well you stopped!” I did. At the flipping stop sign. I demanded his information, took photos of everything, then looked closely at his license for the expiration date.

And saw his birthdate at the same time: 1930.

Old boy was NINETY.

Ninety years old, picking up people at the airport. And hitting innocent women at stop signs because he confused his gas and brake pedals. Only in Florida.

So that’s life in a nutshell, yeah? The joyful lift of hellos from heaven followed by a blow from behind and crunch of metal on metal (or metal on fiberglass, but there was a crunch). Life is a roller coaster ride on a good day, soaring to the sky, sunshine and wind in your hair, and it can be a house of horrors a moment later.

My dead people speaking — and sending so many delicious signs — assure me that all is well no matter what. I’m peaceful with the ride, whether it’s soaring or not, because everything’s okay in the end. It’s such a gift to know. I hope you feel it too.

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***I’m not denigrating these wonderful tools. Only the idea that they are laws ~ which are very black and white ~ rather than helpful practices. Everything’s beautiful until life runs us into a ditch. And in climbing out of the ditch, we may come to know that everything is always beautiful, even when it doesn’t seem like it. “Even in the hard times, my soul was rejoicing,” as my lovely mother said from the other side. “My father has died and I am weeping, yet there is peace in my heart.” Some Buddhist master whose name, I’ve forgotten, but whose words have stayed with me forever.