“She understood then that memory is not a record of what
happened, but a story we tell ourselves so we can continue. And like all stories, it chooses what to
keep, what to soften, and what to leave unsaid.” The English Patient,
Michael Ondaatje
My mother tells me that déjà vu is simply memories of your
book of life resonating in your soul.
She’s told me this since…forever…and she’s gifted with the power of
knowing. She says that before you are
born, it’s written, and you are shown your book of life by God, and you arrive
ready to live it. My college roommate
Lyndsey knows this story well. It always
makes me think of her. It was even in
her rehearsal dinner speech. It’s part
of me, and her, thanks to my Mom. It’s
not easy to follow, these spiritual and soul lessons, the insensible synchronicities,
the things you pay close attention to in your core as you grow older. I am still managing; I always will be.
But, as I grow older, I find it harder to argue. Déjà vu and synchronicity, the rare palpable
moments of knowing, the ‘couldn’t be so’ moments, or the people you know, but
don’t. It doesn’t make sense. Or is it the only true sense?
For now, let me tell you a story, kept, softened, parts
unsaid, but a record for…memory. This story is intimately important to me on
many levels. I document it live,
unedited and real, nestled at a tiny table in the most beautiful London hotel, as
me, not anyone else I’m trying to be, or writing for, because I think that’s
part of the story. Part of this stage of
life. Part of what I needed to remember
even by being here in London on this destiny trip. Part of the book…Of my life.
In late October, I tried to open a channel in the universe
to my soul. I do this sometimes. It’s
like a spiritual double dog dare with an omniscient superpower, a game I play. “Universe send me a sign, tap into my core,
what do I need to know? Is it true? Am I crazy?
Do I understand what is not sensible?” my mind whispers. I can’t decide if it is a grounding exercise
for my soul, or a lifting, divine one. Maybe
it’s both? What I do know is that it is a
creative and required exercise, this channel that opens, for a story, clarity,
always emerges, whether I like it or not. Many I don’t tell, or don’t listen,
or deny, don’t want to hear, or save as sacred, sometimes wish I never saw even.
The truth does indeed have the power to hurt. But, I decided on this day, I’d listen, come
what may. It was part of this dare.
Feeling my Mom Mom Marge, missing her on this day immensely,
I was called to go down to the basement and open one of her many bins that sit
there, in her collection of things I took from her apartment, that I sort pile
by pile, in puddles of tears. The blue
bin called me on this day and I dared the universe that the top two things on
this bin would tell me something I needed to know, would show me a sign.
Artifact one was a Savoy London hotel receipt from July 3-7,
1969. Artifact two was a photo of me at
age 7, in the 1st grade. I
brought them upstairs like magic tokens.
I made up a story, loose connections I could garner, but it was creative
space, storytelling, I thought. I had no
plan to go to London and hadn’t been since 2019. I was far off from 7, but I did know the girl
in that photo was a girl on fire. And
why did Mom Mom have a hotel receipt from 1969?
That was now with me? I wish I had asked. A recurring theme even after having her for
46 years.
Several weeks passed.
I received a divine invitation out of the sky with aligned rationale to
visit London. The universe, working its synchronicity
in more ways than one. The 46-year-old
version of me would have over-analyzed myself right out of going to London solo
for a few days. My 7-year-old self would
not. I committed. Decision made.
I write this today, in London, staring out over Hyde Park,
with a Savoy receipt and my 7-year-old self on the table, sipping a glass of
wine, certain there is magic in this #OneBeautifulLife, if you let it in, if
you open the channel. A piano player is
playing all my favorites in the background.
Butterflies hang from the ceiling.
It’s divine here today, in the space I’m in, in the steps I walked, in
the corners I wandered. I was pulled through all of it. Mom Mom brought me here. The universe and synchronicity worked for her
to do so. Music has been everywhere
today. Pachelbel’s Cannon in D is on the
piano now. It was on violins in Covent
Garden earlier. She’s everywhere, yet
nowhere. And she’s bringing me
somewhere. I’m letting her.
I arrived on a red eye this morning, coming into town for a
calling for human centered leadership, for a dear friend who trusts me to
represent his mission, our shared mission, as a speaker at an event tomorrow
evening. It was Gian’s invitation that
wielded the response, “Now, I have the reason to go to London,” I said out loud
to him. And without talking myself out
of it for all the reasons, I’m here, to speak, to be in alignment, to be true
to myself, and to support a dear friend.
With no sleep, and the sun shining, I arrived in my room,
washed my face, dropped my bags, laced up my sneakers and went wandering, for a
day. 38 mins to the Savoy Hotel through
beautiful London, step by step – receipt and photo in hand, to follow this
calling of my Mom Mom.
As I approached, the property felt wrapped in a time warp. I just imagined her the entire time, walking
the same street, pushing the circle door, seeing the marble floor and soaring
ceilings for the first time. She would
have handpicked every piece of furniture in the place, I decided. It was antique, timeless, stately, like her. Even
the vanity in the bathroom, it could have been hers. Even the scent was like her perfume. The flowers for my Garden Club doting
grandmother were extraordinary and all in her colors. Before I even entered, the circle drive
centerpiece showed purple and pink. It’s
February, these were spring flowers, but they would have been her pick, and
here they were.
Magenta orchids were in every corner, accented by a few
well-placed red roses. Her favorites and
mine, all together. The lump in my
throat could not be pushed down by this point. Had she been watching me tend to
my orchids this year? Did she know this,
the delicate devotion I’ve had to them, my sacred orchids? I asked for heavenly
signs, and I got them. I went to the
front desk and approached with my receipt from 1969 and told her my story. Chloe, the beautiful young woman at the desk,
an angel with perfect eyeliner looked upon me with love, as my eyeliner ran
smeared against my cheek from a red eye with no sleep and ugly crying combined.
I told her the flowers were timely. She noted they had just been changed over
this morning, completed just before my arrival.
Of course they were. Of course.
They. Were.
She gave me a pass to the ‘Reading Room’ and a certificate
for a coffee or champagne of my choice.
I wandered my way past the butterfly broaches and necklaces, so Mom Mom,
so much more, and the orchid flowers, and the steps she traveled with my
grandfather in this lobby, imagining I was tracing footsteps to the places they
would have been drawn, and I found my seat on the green velvet couch, past the
fireplace, with my orchids, my notepad, and a book, and my next angel named
Hannah. She listened to my story and she
cried with me. She talked me out of a
coffee and into champagne. There I sat.
I opened the book “Creativity is the British Superpower.” I’ve been deeply entrenched in a creativity
book, so this was timely, of course. If
you knew my grandmother, you know she LOVED the Queen. There she was, with her “Be more Queen” quote
shown below. Who needs this right
now? I sure did. The message speaks for itself. My 7-year-old photo found its match. My 46-year-old soul got the message. It was as if the entire scene was written for
me. The words on the page, the flowers,
the empty walker left in the corner…it was missing my Mom Mom, the vanity, the
smell. It was as close as I could get to
her under these circumstances. Her in
heaven. Me on earth. An open channel for
her to tell me things, to course correct a bit, to remind me who the hell I am,
to tug on me to adventure independently, to listen to the music, to stop and
smell the flowers, to be alone with myself, to know myself….to find and be
joy. To stop hurrying. Her last words to
me. This is earthly magic. In all the
noise, this is what I must listen to, I remember.
A group of women sat across the room from me, chit chatting
and deep in wedding planning in the corner booth, worried about inconsequential
things like the way the potatoes would be cut, and the amount of sauce on the
gnocchi’s that would be served at the reception, not if her husband is gentle
with her, an active listener. I wanted to interject, “Remind the bride that the
people she loves will all be gathered in one place. And they don’t last forever. Tell her to dance with her mother, and grandmother,
and take extra slow sways with her Dad. No one will remember the food! Take
mental snapshots and real photos, with all of them. She’ll cling to the way they looked on the
day she married. Ask the bride if her groom
sees her for who she truly is, if he loves her for it? If she believes he will always tell the
truth? My God. Remind her she’s a
Queen. Read this quote from this book. Forget the damn gnocchi.” I said none of these things. Instead, I cried into my champagne.
After a deep meditation and lingering that caused the hotel flower
shop owner and the bell hops grave concern, I had Chloe take a final photo and
I mustered up the strength to leave. I
felt like I had just been to church. I
had. She cast this for me. I listened.
Magic.
I wandered for hours.
I found more flowers and music in the Covent Garden, across the way from
the Savoy, why they probably stayed here, proximity to lively music and
shopping. There were many butterflies, also
her signs from above, and in the synchronous rhythms of my life. And my walking pace felt light, not hurried,
but at ease. I found my way back to my
hotel, to the piano player, to afternoon tea, that bled into dinner, that still
has me sitting here hours later, writing this, with my angel waiter, first
Viktor, now into late shift, Altay bringing me delicious wine and snacks and choosing
desserts for me.
And this is what unedited flow looks like. This is the creative channel, wide open, for
you dearest gentle readers. This is how
it feels when angels speak to you. When
you remember who the hell you are. When
I imagined Marge and Courtland Michener from their Quaker Acre farmlands of London
Grove Township finding their way to this small corner of London, England, to
the lobby of the Savoy and walking in their path. When your ancestors call you,
when your angels address you, listen to what they have to say. I slowed down today. I’m aligned. I feel like I’m 7, albeit drinking wine with
a sagging chin, but full of joy to be alive and follow every calling within my
realm. To imagine that I am bestowed
with the privilege and gift of reading a hotel receipt from my grandmother that
would open a door to a grand adventure back to myself. I think that’s what this #OneBeautifulLife is
supposed to be made of, if we have the courage to listen. Tomorrow I’ll tell
350 people part of her story and part of mine in beautiful London from a stage
that perhaps has always been set for me to find.
In this book of life,
and yours too, there is magic. This is
the story I tell myself. So that I
may…continue. Xoxo
