Do you ever talk to yourself in the car? I do all the time, but just the other day I think I redefined this experience and took it to a whole new level. Let me explain…
I am into finding psychic messages where ever they come along and I am not above using whatever technology I have with me. Sometimes I get good psychic hits by asking a question and then playing my ipod on shuffle. I did that in the car the other day, and took a walk down memory lane. It was a beautiful day, sunny with just a hint of the spring in the air when Roxy Music’s Avalon came on.
This is a all time favorite of mine and it’s so completely evocative of a certain period of time in my life. It was 1985, I was twenty years old, and living in France in Aix-en-Provence. I was there on exchange with my university, studying French language, art history and literature. I had a minor in French food and wine. I was having the time of my life.
Do you ever have those moments when you feel like you are totally connected to the past? It’s not just remembering the past, since we do that all the time, it’s more like time travel. Your past merges with the present. That is what happened to me, driving in my car on March 4th, 2011 in a small and boring New England town. (Sorry, Small and Boring New England Town. You do have your charms, but it’s tough to stand up to Aix-en-Provence in a straight comparison, I am just saying…)
Then suddenly I felt like I was actually looking through the eyes of my twenty year old self.
I FELT like what it was to be that me, not just a memory, but a complete re-experiencing of me from that time. In the car, the air shimmered and I saw a flash of light and suddenly, like an apparition, my twenty year old self was sitting in the car with me in the passenger seat, slouched on the seat.
Dang, I was cute! She had very short, punky hair and a pixie face. There was my old favorite leather jacket with all the zippers, plus a pair of tight black jeans and some serious attitude.
“Dude,” my younger self said, “You look exactly like MOM.” It’s true. Right now, I look like the spitting image of my mother when she was forty six years old. “Good to know how I am going to turn out,” she said, pulling a packet of Gauloises’s out of her pocket.
Blech! “I am sorry,” I said to her, “But in 2011, no one smokes anymore. Especially not nasty French cigarettes. Yuck.”
“Killjoy,” she huffed and put the smokes away. “You are driving a mom van. Four kids? Really?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Four kids. Two husbands, one past and one present. House in the burbs.”
“Wow. Should I just kill myself now? I always thought that I would be living in France. My dream was to live there and be a writer. To travel around everywhere and be a professional ex-patriot.” When I was that age, my policy was “When in doubt, leave the country.” Words that I did indeed live by.
“Nope. Not France. Central Massachusetts, which is really nothing at all like France.”
How depressing. In fact, it’s anti-France, which is sort of like anti-matter. Living here actually sucks anything remotely continental, cool or funky out of the atmosphere.
“Are you disappointed with our life now?” I asked her. It was a big question. Huge. I had been worried about that. Feeling the edges of a midlife crises. Did I make the right choices? Should I be disappointed for not living up to HER dreams? Was this really all my life was going to be?
She put her feet up on the dashboard. Beat up black Doc Martens with rainbow colored socks. She looked small and fragile in a way, and fresh, almost innocent. All her choices still before her, except that I had already made them. My forty six year old self felt tougher, wiser and stronger. I had been through the school of hard knocks and come out the other side.
She thought about it. “Nah, it would be more glamourous, I guess, but what you are doing feels real. You have a healing center. And a cool job as a psychic, that is very groovy. You really help people. You have awesome kids and good marriage. That is a life worth living.”
The ipod shuffled. Steely Dan, Aja. The journey through the past continued.
“You are definitely having a mid life crisis,” my twenty year old self commented blithely. Oh crap. She was right. Here I am at forty six years old, re-evaluating my life, and listening to old tunes while I am talking to myself in my car. Geeze Louise.
“You need to get a grip and let go of the past. I am telling you right now, that you made all the right decisions as you went through the past twenty five years. You always choose from your heart and with a spirit of adventure, even if it didn’t turn out the way you thought it was going to. You don’t have to apologize to me for anything, you know.”
That is what I had been holding onto. I had made mistakes. I was disappointed with my life in someways. It really wasn’t the traveling, romantic, wealthy life I had dreamed about in my twenty’s. I was supposed to have a full passport, plenty of intellectual achievements, maybe some books published. I was definitely not supposed to get divorced, drive a mom van or live somewhere as plebeian as Hopedale, MA.
“I know what will cure your middle age funk,” my twenty years old say said. “Check this out. And by the way, you still look pretty good for an middle aged chick…”
The music changed. Earth, Wind and Fire form the 70’s, with it’s funky base back beat. “That’s the way, of the world, you plant the flowers and they grow…” Then in the car next to me was my seven year old self. We were really time traveling now. She had on cut off jean shorts, black converse low tops with no socks and a dusty Red Sox tee shirt. Back then, I had long pig tails and goofy tortoise shell glasses. Eeek. The 70’s was one big, scary fashion statement, but somehow it still looked like me.
“Hi Mom,” my seven year old self giggled.
“Haha.” I said. “What is the one thing you wanted to do in the world more then anything?” I asked her.
“That’s easy. Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to be a psychic and a writer. You are so lucky that you get to do both and it’s easy for you. Plus in this age, being a psychic is cool. Back in my day, I had to hide it and try so hard to fit in. Remember?” Poor thing. I remembered how hard it was to pretend to be “normal” and how isolating it was being me, being different. I glanced at her. Even though she was trying, there was probably not much actual fitting in going on.
“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “It was all warrior training, all research. Mostly we only learn by falling on our butts and doing things the hard way. There were great moments in our childhood too.” Her skinned and band-aided knees where a testament to both sides of this. I thought about my grandmother whom I adored and some very precious moments. There was a lot of sweetness in my life then.
“We all get our schooling in different ways,” she continued, sounding pretty mature for the rip old age of seven. “There was always someone there to show me the way and a lot of magic too. Cool wheels, by the way. Good to know that mom’s graduated from the station wagons with the fake wood on the side.” It was true. My child hood was fairly magical. Also my 20 year old self had one of those station wagons, minus the fake wood. It was bitchin.
The B-52’s came on with Love Shack. “I got me a car, it’s a big as a whale and it’s about to set sail…”
“Hey!” twenty year old me said from the back seat, “that was a great car!”
In my heart, a tense place that I hadn’t even been aware of began to relax. “So I haven’t totally blown my life? I feel so disappointed these days. I don’t live anywhere cool. I work my butt off. I am not rich or famous. I am just sort of in the middle. Ordinary.”
They both snorted, and the air in the car shimmered again.
“Hunny, you are a lot of things, but ordinary is not one of them.”
A new figure materialized in the front seat. She hadsilver white hair, cut short and punky. She was wearing a long skirt, granny boots and a tee shirt covered by warm looking sweater. She had lots of rings on her fingers and a big funky neckless. Her face was a little wrinkled by smile lines, but she was warm looking and wise. And there was a glow of light around her. She was me, twenty years from now.
“You have no idea what is coming,” she said. “I could tell you but you wouldn’t even believe me and knowing it in advance would ruin all the fun. But because you are psychic anyways, here is a peek.”
I caught a glimpse of grandchildren and of me holding a new grand baby. I could see my own children grown up, gorgeous and strong. There were books, articles and websites. Many of them. The books were on a desk in a library with a fire place and a big desk. My office somewhere.
I could see myself in flash sitting on a lounge chair in a beautiful garden, writing. Then I was walking on a tropical beach with my husband holding hands. In the next flash, I was speaking in front of a group of people, teaching. All the while, there was this light shinning through me, in me and around me. There was a big group of people around me, students, friends, colleagues. The most prevalent feeling was love. There I was at the center of a web of love.
“The best is yet to come. Have a little faith. Trust yourself and know that there is a great mystery at work here that you are only seeing a part of.”
The last of the tight place in me eased up. She was glowing in the passenger seat, radiating warmth, wisdom and love.
Another song came on, The Cure, Just Like Heaven. I was almost home. The party was about to break up.
“Thanks,” I said to my older self as she faded out. “Will you guide me?”
She chuckled. “I always have.”
To my seven year old self I said, “Stay away from Scott Smith* in eighth grade and study more, ok?” She rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue out and disappeared.
“And you,” I said to my twenty year old self. “Let me tell you about compound interest…”
(*Name changed to protect the guilty.)
Addendum-
I wrote this on Friday afternoon, March 4th. On Friday evening that same day Roland Comtois came to Solstice to do a workshop. He talks to spirits of those that have crossed over. At one point in evening he looked at me and said, “The angels are all around you. They have been walking with you since you started this journey eleven years ago. They want you to know that you made the right decision that this place, this healing center you made and your practice and your school is exactly where you should be. Your Grandmother here is here. The one with the dog. (That was my Nanny.) She said to tell you that you made the right decision this is where you need to be right now.”
I was crying tears of joy when he said that, my heart felt so light. I had never met Roland before that night, never even spoken to him before. But he also validated me and told me that he worked in a lot places and felt that the energy in my place was very special.
It was one more piece of confirmation that I needed. One more piece of magic. Thanks all my selves, my angels and my grandmother for the magic. That was one heck of a magical cure for my mid life crisis.
1985 the summer I came back from France…
Thanks!
