My mom, sister and I did an early Holiday gift exchange. It was spontaneous because I wasn’t planning on buying actual gifts, virtual was all I could manage. I happened to have a few hours of downtime in LA and went to Joans on Third to get their amazing ficelle sandwich. It’s perfect combination of melty brie between a skinny mini-baguette with a delicate sheet of mystery ham folded in. I dont know where that ham comes from but it is beyond.
Go there. Get one. You'll see.
Third Street in LA is a perfect shopping street with great restaurants, a travel book store and several unique gift stores. I tried to explore the always packed OK store but two days before christmas is the wrong time to ponder all of their wonderful artisan objects, so I wandered into New Stone Age (less packed) and found a giant coffee table book by an illustrator that my sister loves and got it for her. Later that day after a very successful shop at Fred Segals (another LA landmark experience) i went by my moms to hand off the gifts. It was hectic there, phones ringing, dog barking, messengers coming and going, xmas tunes blaring how “its the most wonderful time of the year,” a blur of work and holiday madness. My sister had been on the phone for hours with Blue Cross trying to get her insurance on the day of the deadline when i handed her the gift. (By the end of the half hour i was there - and with the help of a local Blue Cross agent - she had gotten insurance! Am I the only person who says Thank You Obamacare? He’s 3 for 3 in my book! )
Third Street Shopping
Anyway, a few days earlier my sister K, was showing me her prized Mark Ryden inspired ornament on the christmas tree and now she had a book of his complete illustrative works in her hands. She was thrilled. Christmas can be a stressed out time when the pressure to buy gifts outweighs the joy of finding just the right thing for someone. This was it. I was getting ready to leave when K caught me off guard, “Hey, I want you to do something for me…” She had opened the book - a giant spread of bubble gum pink dotted with fuscia spot illustrations. She placed the book on the back of the couch and rifled through her purse for a pen which she held out for me. “I want you to sign it for me.” she said. At that moment an intense blend of panic, hot fear and knowingness burst into my stomach so intensely that i flattened my hand there trying to supress it. “I can’t” came out of my mouth without my knowing I would even say it. A message associated with the feeling also appeared in my brain. I didnt hear it or see it I just suddenly knew that ‘If i sign that book I will not be coming back.’
I was trying to process this information in a weird personal void. “Fine!” she said, angry that i wouldnt sign it. I explained that its not that I wouldn’t sign it, I couldn’t sign it. She stopped and looked at me. She could see that I was panicked, upset, on the verge of tears with now both hands holding my stomach. Then she reacted, the message transferred to her and gave her ‘the chills’ and suddenly she understood. She reiterated a version of the thought that appeared in my head. “Oh, I get it, if you signed this book, then this would be the last gift I would have from you, with your last words to me.” It sounded so cliché when she said it outloud. But it did NOT feel that way. I shook my head yes, still reeling from the intensity of being broadsided by an unknown part of myself.
Now I was worried, scared almost about leaving the country. Where did that just come from? While Mark Rydens’ illustrations were indeed playfully creepy, it wasn’t enough to invoke this. It was an undeniable and completely clear expression that my subconcious needed to push through to my conscious brain. But why? What did it mean? I was trying to find a rational explanation. Was it supressed fear about traveling to the Middle East that had been amassing for 6 months? Was it a message, a warning that I shouldn’t go? As I went over and over it, it seemed to be more about the book than the trip. More about last words and signing than traveling. There was a seriousness to it, I had been slapped by a feeling and now needed to deal with it, but how? As much as i would like to get to the bottom of it, the only person i could really ask about it was me and i just didnt have access to the place that it came from. I wondered if meditation could give me the answer? In my limited experience, meditation is a place where you clear the mind of all thought, you dont go there for answers. I recently listened to a CD series called The Law Of Attraction. They maintain that feelings are your guidence system from your higher self and that there are really only two feelings : good or bad. We have a million adjectives for each of them but at the basic level, its good or bad.
The Endpaper. Thats what the inside of a book is called. Maybe I was responding to' The End' part?
It shook me, spooked me even and worse? it stayed with me. When i got home I told A about the experience. A is amazing, he will consider any thought, experience or issue you bring to him with complete seriousness. If i told him I was just visited by an alien he wouldn’t laugh it off, he would ask me questions to get me to the heart of the experience, to understand what I went through. After I told him what had happened he felt that it had more to do with the book, or signing the book, and then he said he thought it could have more to do with my sister. But what if it didnt? Here we were two days before we were to leave and I get a stop-in-my-tracks feeling like this. I have definitely had these feelings before but they are rare. Thirteen years ago was the last time i felt one. That was knowing that the person who’s hand I had just shook will be in my life forever (meeting A). Then there was the feeling that I didnt want to go to the Silent Movie Theater 17 years ago with a bunch of friends (a shooting and a murder took place that night). The feeling is either really good or really bad. Phew! I almost feel so much better about it.
I decided to call a trusted friend who is an amazing Tarot card reader, D. We played phone tag for 36 hours before I could ask D about it. Then she did a reading. These are the key points:
• I am between lives - experiencing a transition betwen the old me and the new me - a sort of non physical death.
• It’s a time of growth, opportunity and the unknown - it’s a good thing - although scary and unnerving.
• The thing with my sister was an ending of old pain of younger times - let it go.
• The trip will be a good experiece and a lot to experience.
So I am changing, growing, letting go and looking forward. Sounds good to me, then why did it feel so bad? I guess there is a comfort in living a life that includes old patterns, behaviors and attitudes. Since we are on the eve of a New Year, why not leap into the New Me and leave the other one in the past?