Open Heart Surgery in Aldi

Last Sunday I read The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.  The book recommends keeping an open heart in all situations even when the situation seems to be going against you.  By staying open you will see the situation for what it is rather than viewing it through a distorted lens of someone who has been hurt in the past and is operating from a closed heart.  It made sense to me.

 

The following day while driving home from work I remembered I needed potatoes for a fish pie I planned to make for dinner and so I stopped at the Aldi shop in Ballyphehane.

Half way down one particular aisle where you can find anything from skiing underwear to bird feeders, I noticed two women discussing a rugby top.  One of the women was short with long black hair, the other was a tall blonde; both seemed to be aged in their forties. 

A few minutes later with my trolley full, I headed to the checkouts.  After I unloaded my stuff on the conveyor belt and popped a divider at the end, I noticed that the customer in front of me was the small dark haired lady I had seen earlier. Just then her friend squeezed in behind me and with her arms laden with two bottles of wine, three bottles of tonic water, two packets of biscuits and a rugby top she reached across the belt and attempted to pick up a divider from the slot.  With her arms full it wasn't easy and as she fumbled to wrest one free, the cashier asked her what she was doing. 

The woman quickly reassured him, "Oh, we are together but I want to pay for my stuff separately."

The cashier looked at me. I shrugged reminding myself of my new  mantra, 'Open heart, open mind.'

As the cashier checked through the bottles of wine he looked up at the woman and said, "You have ID to show you're old enough to buy this wine?"

She didn't answer.

When the cashier was finished the woman handed him her credit card. It didn't work.  She asked could she sign for it.  The cashier agreed but repeated that he still needed to see her ID. She produced her ID. The cashier was satisfied.  All was well. 

The woman then turned to me and said, "Sorry for delaying you."
I smiled back and said, "No problem."
The woman then scooped up the bottles and biscuits and went to leave.
I called her back, "You're forgetting your rugby top." 
The lady turned back to the till and looked at the rugby top. 

"Would you like a bag?" I said.
"Oh, I couldn't possibly take one of your bags!"
"It's OK, I've got loads."

The woman dumped everything back on the belt.  As she filled the bag, she explained, "I live in Australia you see, and bags over there are free.  In fact, I don't even know how you go about getting a bag in Ireland."
The cashier answered her, "There are under the counter, you have to pay."
I laughed.
The woman turned back to me, "You're laughing at me, aren't you?"
I laughed again.
The woman left. Her friend had already gone ahead.
As I pulled my trolley around to the front of the till the cashier whispered, "You are a nice person."
I whispered back, "I'm learning."
Walking across the car park, I saw the small lady with dark hair driving towards the entrance of the car park yet her friend was walking towards me holding my bag in the air.  She folded the bag several times into a hand-sized lump and stuffing it into one of my bags of shopping said, "I was only trying to buy my friend and her husband a bottle of wine and some things for her children." She paused and then patting me on the arm said, "Well, at least I made you laugh." And she walked away to catch up with her friend.

This open heart stuff is great: you get to meet such interesting people.

Gardening with Brighid

I'm just back from an amazing weekend spent in Galway with my friend, Brighid.  Brighid lives in an old Irish cottage which she has filled with gorgeous fabrics, symbolism and a fabulous collection of indoor plants.  Brighid adores all plants as they too are forms of life just like us manifested on this earth in a different form.  She rescued a limb from a 100 year old cactus plant that had belonged to her grandmother and coaxed it to grow on its own.  It is now over six foot tall. She even has an ivy that broke through from outside the house walls and comes through the kitchen ceiling.  It's as welcome as those in pots.  She waters all her plants regularly with rainwater she saves and not 'chlorine muck from the tap'. 

 

A magnificent geranium sits like an enormous spider in front of a pine dresser; its long, thin branches droop delicately over the edges of its throne almost reaching the floor.   The leaves are a hue of dark green, shimmering velvet edged in purple. The fabric like quality of the leaves are such that if sewn together would make a gown as magnificent as the one worn by Scarlett O'Hara when she visited Rhett Butler in gaol.  I assumed from its size that like the cactus it, too, was an antique plant.  I asked Brighid if I could take a cutting. 

 

 "You know," she said, "plants are like people: if you provide the right environment they will thrive and if you're very lucky the odd one might even flower." Given that I had confessed the night before to buying plants in twos and take at least nine cuttings from a friends' plants in the hope of at least one surviving, her reluctance was understandable. 

 

 Not wishing to spoil its shape I concentrated my search around the back but as it was surrounded by other plants in equally massive pots restricting my access all I could do was paw uselessly at its leaves trying to find the beginning of an offshoot.  Looking for the source of the Nile would've been easier.   Eventually I decided that since this plant was such a monster it wouldn't miss one of its many legs and I simply ripped one out.  However, its long elegant stems was so entangled up with the others it was like trying to unknot a child's hair.  I regretted starting the venture and shoved the gangly leg into the plastic carrier bag from last night's Chinese take-away.

 

That night it poured but we woke to a beautiful sunny morning. We had our breakfast sitting on the patio enjoying the sun trap.  Brighid's house is less than a 100 feet from the sea and I could smell the salt in the breeze as I sipped my coffee.    I noticed a large pink plastic pot filled with rain-water.  I was tempted to tip it out as I do at home: most of my plants die from being waterlogged but just then a car pulled into the driveway. "Ah, it's Ms Moldova," said Brighid.  Brighid hopped up from her chair and ran inside the house.  Ms Moldova got out of her car and as she crossed the yard towards us she stopped at the pink bucket and picking up one of the handles she spilled the contents into the drain beside it.  She beat me to it.  

 

Suddenly an anguished "No" howled from inside the house.  Ms Moldova and I froze.  Brighid appeared at the backdoor holding a large plastic bowl and cried, "What have you done with my rainwater.....?" 

 

After breakfast we went for a walk.  Brighid drove a short distance before parking the car on a Boreen lined with stone walls beyond which lay fields filled with cows, some horses and hordes of golden, healthy daffodils in their prime.   It brought to mind Cork's version of Wordsworth's famous poem and I shared it with Brighid.

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

I wandered over vale and hill

When all at once I heard a shout

"Get off me fucking daffodils."

 

We came across a row of horse chestnut trees, their fat, sticky buds ready to burst.  "They would look amazing opening up in my home," said Brighid.   Scanning the line of trees she spotted a fallen branch which miraculously had new buds on it.  She marched into the bramble patch several yards wide that stood between us and the buds.  I plunged right in after her.  I joined her at the fallen branch and enthusiastically helped rip several short branches handing the best ones to Brighid.  Armed with a bouquet of toffee coloured buds, Brighid re-traced her steps effortlessly crossing the bramble patch again to safety.      I was not so lucky.  At every step my feet sank into booby traps of criss-crossed branches; strings of bramble snaked around my legs and wouldn't let me pass without first snagging my jeans tearing, small holes into the fabric and leaving behind little thorns which I could feel but not see. 

 

When I finally broke free I ran to catch up with the waiting Brighid.  In slightly panicky tones I told her, "That was harder to get out of than it was going in."    She agreed smiling at me,  "That could be a metaphor for life." 

 

By the time we got back to the house it was mid-afternoon and time for me to go home.  There was one more plant I wanted; Brighid had a large aloe vera on the window sill of her kitchen with a healthy offshoot at the base; perfect for re rooting in a new home.   I read somewhere that aloe vera is one of five plants that are ideal for bedrooms as they readily absorb negative energy. 

 

"Could I have some of that?"  I asked Brighid.  She looked at the plant doubtfully. "Yes, but let me do it."

Brighid stood in front of the aloe vera, "This is Geraldine.  She's going to take very good care of you so don't worry.  She's going to put you on a window sill as soon as she gets home so that you get as much sunlight as possible."   She then plucked the offshoot from the mother plant and looked around for something to put it into. 

"Here," I said holding up the bag with the geranium cutting I had taken the previous day.

"Absolutely not," she said, "it needs something much more sacred than that," and walked past me into the dining area.  She opened several cupboards and pulled out a tall glass cup the kind in which you would serve an Irish Coffee.

I protested, "Brighid that's too good, a plastic bottle will do."

"Not at all," she said and holding it up to me continued, "look, it's got a Celtic symbol on it, that's a good sign."

Overwhelmed yet again by her generosity, I followed her to the sink and stood beside her as she filled the glass with water from the tap.  She filled it right to the top and then realised it was too much.  She tilted the glass sideways and shook it.   The infant plant shot out and landed in a frying pan that was soaking in the sink. 

Oh, how we laughed.

Brighid rescued it from the sudsy water and stuck it back in the glass. 

 

 I've named him Horace.  Horace survived the journey to Cork and sits on the sunniest windowsill I have.  

 

 

 

Bed Wetting and Divorce

I'm a great sleeper.  I never have dreams or if I do, I don't remember them.  I'm love going to bed; I love being in bed and my dream job would involve never getting out of bed.  I sleep under two quilts  and with two hot water bottles.  I treat the bottles like lovers: moving them around the bed to warm up my side of the bed and then shoving them aside to enjoy their warm spots.  And like all lovers I abuse them: filling them with water too hot from the kettle.  I paid for my abuse three nights ago when one of them sprung a leak.  I felt a vague sense of dampness around my feet but assumed I was imagining it and just nudged the bottle further down the bed.   Some minutes later there was no imagining it: the bed was definitely wet.  I responded by recoiling my feet from the damp patch hoping the problem would go away.  The bottle continued to leak and, as the damp patch spread, I continued to edge away.  My bed however, is only so big and I soon ran out of places to hide.    I had no choice but to get out of the bed and deal with the problem. I put two bath towels over the damp patch and snuggled back in.   Then the alarm went off:  time to get up for work.

Then the following night, I dreamt that my husband told me he had met someone new, Henrietta is her name, and he wanted to marry her.  I shrugged and said, "That's grand, work away."  He replied smiling, with one arm around Henrietta, "You don't understand, I want a divorce."  The shock woke me up and I was immediately overcome by feelings of loss and sorrow which I stayed with me for the morning.

Are these two disturbed nights a metaphor for my life?  Is this part of menopause?  When my husband woke up I asked him did he know anyone called Henrietta.  He looked surprised and said no.  I told him about my dream and he assured me sleepily, as he dragged himself to the bathroom, that he was not looking to end the marriage anytime soon. 

Later that day at work - during my lunch break of course - I googled dream interpretations.  Aside from the most obvious possible meaning - getting out of a bad relationship - one website, the Dream Dictionary suggested it was a sign 'to break bad habits and to shed old ways.'

What old ways? This well is dry.  I've done so much soul searching and read so many self help books these last twenty years I don't have any habits left to break.  I meditate every morning, do yoga and pilates twice a week and I'm almost vegetarian.  I gave up Facebook for Lent so that I could clear my mind of distraction and so increase my attention span.  I am so boring to be around I can't stand my own company.