“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, and you arrive ready to live
into it. My 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 familiarities. 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 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, 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. 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. “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 day written rules to myself.
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 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 my once familiar London and hadn’t been since 2019. I was far off from 7, but I did know that
girl was on fire. And why did Mom Mom have
a hotel receipt from 1969? I wish I had
asked. A recurring theme.
Several weeks passed.
I unbelievably received an invitation 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. The universe door opens itself, sometimes,
when we accept.
I write this today, in London, staring out on 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, 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 to 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, at an event tomorrow evening. It was his 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.
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 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 actually just imagined her the entire time,
walking the same street, pushing the circle door, loving the marble floor and
soaring ceilings. She would have
handpicked every piece of furniture in the place. 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.
When I entered, it was clear. 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 was not able to 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, complete 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 places she traveled with my grandfather, 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, and 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 a 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. 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, or the amount of sauce on the
gnocchi’s that would be served at the reception, not if her husband to be was
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
husband sees her for who she truly is, is she being herself and does he love
her for it? Remind her she’s a
Queen. Read this quote from this book. Make sure she knows what his eyes look like
when they’re telling the truth, so she lets no small lie turn into a bigger
one, that will steal her soul because she loves him so and was deceived. It
will steal years from her, inspecting her soul for what she could have done
better. She will lose herself in it. Forget
the damn gnocchi.” I said none of these
things. I cried into my champagne and
read Queen Elizabeth quotes. Life and love
are real breathing organisms. And so it goes.
After a deep meditation and lingering that caused the flower
shop owner, a lovely London hotel thing, 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. Mom Mom 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 waiter Viktor bringing
me delicious wine and snacks and selling the dessert menu.
And this is what unedited flow looks like. This is the creative channel, wide open, for
you dearest gentle readers (huge props to Shonda Rhimes) . 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, and telling my children about it! I think that’s what this #OneBeautifulLife
is supposed to be made of, if we have the courage to listen. In this book of life, and yours too, there is
magic. This is the story I tell
myself. So that I may…continue. Xoxo
