I was rummaging through baby clothes at a garage sale and picked up a yellow dress at the same time another woman picked up the same dress. We laughed and decided that whoever had the earliest due date would get the dress. Wouldn't you know our due dates were one day apart. So we compared notes and had so much in common that we forgot about the dress and made a date to have coffee. That was more than 33 years ago. Our daughters were born a day apart (in reverse order) and we have been friends all this time through play dates, losing our mothers, a divorce, several moves, and now retirement. Our daughters stay in touch, but Molly and I are friends to the core. And it all began with a tiny yellow dress.
I LOVE this story! Thank you for sharing. Motherhood really brings out a longing, I have found, to have a kindred spirit close by and to share with, encourage, and support. Beautiful!!
Every night at 8pm, I lock the pool gate for my community. Swimming time is over. I grab Frodo and my walking stick so we can head up the road for our evening walk before bedtime. At the pool tonight a tribe of kids greets me and Frodo. Frodo gets pets and kisses, and he strums his tail and licks their eager hands. The kid chorus says, "We see you walking by our house with your stick." I am surprised. I never dreamed anyone might be watching, and somehow their excitement makes my heart happy. After many hugs and pats, Frodo and I take our leave.
As we walk up the road, we are passed by two cars and the youngest child waves through the window and I wave back. The sky is just starting to darken a bit, mellow dusk-time when the world is gray and enchanted. I hear kids voices from up the road, and I think someone must be in the rental cabin up the way. The voices grow louder, giggling, laughing, and from over the hill emerges a crooked line of kids, each one clinging to a hand-made wooden stick. Ragtag, clamoring, excited, happy, they hold up their sticks for me to admire. One complains his legs hurt, and I laugh and tell him to hang in there. It gets better. The lone woman shepherding the group in short skirt, cowboy boots, and gothic make-up laughs with me. And the band of fellow travellers moves past me to their home. And my heart is full, and I hear God saying, "See. You thought you were invisible."
We were required to have a penpal for my 7th grade Spanish class. When filling out the initial form, there was an option to receive a letter from a "surprise" country. Why not? I thought and checked the box. My Spanish penpal was unremarkable and we exchanged just a letter or two (adios, Cesar!). But Batuhan, my Turkish penpal, and I are in touch to this day.
I flew to Istanbul in 2000 (age 19) and we spent days exploring the mosques and nightclubs and palaces. We dangled our legs over the Bosphorus drinking beer. He was beautiful and cultured and curious. He asked why I believed in Jesus but not in Muhammad. Muhammad who? I thought. My world was so small.
I ate with his family at an outdoor restuarant as Batu played translator—the most joyful (and delicious) meal I've ever experienced. Mezes galore—everything shared. Street musicians approached our table, jolly and drunk with ties askew. We laughed, tears streaming down our cheeks.
His letters (jam-packed with photos, souvenirs, maps, and the occasional mix tape) are in a box in my garage. These days, we use Whatsapp as we check-in post hurricane (me), earthquake (him), terrorist attacks (both). 30 years of expansive friendship because my 12 year old self checked a tiny box.
Sharing an encounter that has stayed with me. It was about 30 years ago and I was living on the upper eastside of Manhattan. Standing in line at a bank ATM, I struck up a conversation with the woman behind me. She began to tell me about her husband, a research scientist who was also significantly bipolar. She told me how he and the people in his life built their schedule around his particular manifestation of the illness. He and his team would sometimes work for 3 or 4 days and nights when he was in his manic phase and when he was in his depressive phase, there were no expectations of engagement. She loved him, his children loved him and so did his research team. So much love and grace planted in my heart in a 5 minute conversation on the corner of 86th and Lex.
Wow, Sarah. What grace! What great love for a beloved man! The fact is we ALL have limitations. Imagine if each of us were so accommodating to one another. What a wonderful world that would be.
Yes to this! Just read my horoscope which includes a line from the late great Leonard Cohen: Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your/perfect offering/There is a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in.
“Human encounter is the essence of cure”. I am a shy musician who hungers to commune with other musicians and those people listening in. Though I have had many amazing opportunities to “pray my music” in the presence of others, it was only a few weeks ago when I joined two other musicians in a ten minute improvisation attended by other listening musicians, that I “found” myself eye to eye, ear to ear, listening to and simultaneously responding to another musician. That moment became huge! Full of love and harmony. No self-consciousness. Awareness of a much greater Self. We-one-were so alive. Best, David 🏮
An encounter with the dead. And orange 🍊. Just this past Friday, I was on the Q train, listening to an old episode of poetry unbound, and I began to tear up, with an achy feeling of longing, a feeling of separation or disconnect from a part of myself, of insufficiency, and a very unhelpful narrative began to replay, of what I am and am not capable of, etc. Then some more helpful part of me, a wiser part, kicked it, and conjured up a recently deceased one, asking her for advice, and hearing her inspiring words. Then, yet another part of my mind, began to question whether I was just “making this whole thing up” in order to make me feel better. So then I did something that a friend had recently described to me, that I had never tried before, and decided “what the hell, let me give this a go.” I said to the deceased one, “if you can hear me, show me an orange.” I gave it a timeline - initially 3 days. Then as the train moved on, I changed it. “Today, show me an orange today!” A few moments later my stop arrived. I exited the subway onto 34th street, and - poof - just like that, a smoothie/juice truck was staring me in the face, with a bright orange fruit painted on it. Then, after perhaps just one blink of the eyes, I noticed a large shiny orange car on the street right in front of me. An orange car?! I don’t think I’d ever seen one before in my life. Yes, right there. Then, I looked up to the sidewalk and there were two women walking by, wearing hijabs, one orange. I was mesmerized. And then, a few steps later, turning my head to the left, I saw another food truck, this one with a bright orange shovel dangling from it.
What did this do to time? It did a big whoa. It slowed it all down. It cracked an opening in a concept where more space and light could get in.... it expanded it immensely. As in, life and death became infinite. Could it be? I could hear my dear brother’s rational voice in my head. I could hear part of my own mind saying “don’t be ridiculous, statistically speaking, orange might be on every block. You’re primed to notice....”. But then, the inner talk fell away, and I felt an overwhelming sense that we know fucking nothing. Mystery, there is so much that is simply mystery! But I do know this, this feeling of connection. This that happened to me in the course of one NYC block. And that is real.
As I continued to walk to the clinic where I was headed, my steps were different, my gaze was different. Seeing all the people to my right and left, in front of and behind me, I just had this feeling, hard to describe, of lifetimes.
I got to the clinic and perhaps it was this encounter with the dead that I carried with me, perhaps what this experience opened up in me, perhaps “coincidence,” but my encounters with both the NP who heard my concerns, and the phlebotomist who drew my blood were among the most memorable to date. AND, unlike most medical encounters they feel rushed and too often coldly clinical, it was as if I was meeting old friends!! (and not just because the NP had electric blue braids woven into her hair and I was brought back to the poem “Blue”! 🌀) .
There was a calling in, and a calling back.
More stories for another time.
Thank you Pádraig for your beautiful airport story!!! I’m being reminded of one of my favorites, “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye. There is so much more possibility in each moment than we typically realize. Thank you for this invitation to go inside and look for them.
Thank you for sharing Mona. I believe mystery is at the heart of human experience and that society, and therefore our “rational” minds, resist that knowing because it is something we cannot control. We can engage with it, which is far more thrilling, but so much of our culture is built on the illusion of control. I have had similar experiences and shared one with a friend once. She said to me - how do you know it isn’t just your mind telling you what you want to hear? I answered with a question which was, if you had cancer and were given a treatment and it cured you and restored your health and someone later told you it had been a placebo would it matter? She responded with a clear and immediate no. These messages land differently in our bodies. What if we decided to radically trust them?
I was not familiar- thank you for sharing. The mind is both awesome and terrible. How powerful Mr. Wright’s was in determining his fate. Real lessons here 🙏
Thank you Mona. I have been thinking about how the dead go on living in us and in a supernatural way. Death is not the end of a life. It is just no longer being carried out in what we call "living."
I am sorry that you no longer have your brother here living, breathing, and moving with you in this world AND I am so happy for you that you had this encounter with him. What a gift.
Thank you, Catherine! I too think it’s a kind of continuum/continuation.. a note, my brother is thankfully very much alive :) (it was another being who died/crossed the veil recently, who I encountered and related about in this story), but your words make me want to hug my brother even tighter the next time I see him (which he will not like at all, though!).
Yes. Please hug your brother real tight. I am so glad you still have him. My younger brother died less than 2 years ago from complication with COVID. I miss him everyday and I know that he is with me.
Oh Catherine, I’m so so sorry to hear about your brother. 🙏🏾. I’m reminded of an older friend of mine, in her late 70s, who told me once, “oh, Mona! When I cross over, I’ll be more available to you! None of this scheduling of dates, time zone coordination nonsense. You can call upon me any time. I’ll be available to you all the time.”
I love that thought of your older friend, "When I cross over, I'll be more available to you!" I am going to carry that with me. Now in my 50's, I seem to be attending more and more funerals. It is a peace and comfort to think of my brother actively resting in peace.
I spent the morning noticing 'wind'. I know that isn't an unusual encounter but For the morning, I did my meditation outside and I noticed all these blessings from air flow, the birds' songs, the breeze in the trees, how the dandelions were spread, how the ferns just magically appeared in the moss garden, even my breath. All morning I noticed the breath of the universe and I smiled and thought of you. Thank you so much for sharing your story and thank you so much, Padraig, for inviting us to.
LuAnne - this is so gorgeous. The breath of the universe. The wind…. and all the blessings it carries. So beautiful. I’m going to remember this the next time I feel gusts of wind wash through me, or see the wind move the water, leaves on the trees, all. Thank you!!!
Such an enchanting practice. I'm adding it to my choices of things to do while walking the dog. I realize in reading your account that I do not think often on my ancestors nor do i think often (enough?) on my beloved departed. I will change that. Thank-you.
Mona!! I love reading your comments. You are a beautiful Soul, my friend!! Synchronicity is what happened. I am not a believer in coincidence. The deceased one...mmmm. It sounds like you are saying all the parts of our inner selves, even the ones we don't love so much or not at all, are still a part of us and have something to unveil to us. You invited that to happen, Mona, so that's amazing!!
And PS, I met the author of Blue, Sasha, a few weeks ago at a book reading and she was amazing!!!! I loved her.
Thank you Danielle! And how amazing you met Sasha. A few weeks ago and again last week I met Haleh Liza Gafori (translator of Rūmī, another one that Pádraig shared on the podcast), at her incredible performances and she was both on fire 🔥 singing, reading, metaphorically whirling with these words, and, so down to earth, warm and kind too.
Oh my! That sounds so lovely!! I can imagine what an incredible person she must be. How did you feel after?
I felt inspired and exhilarated upon meeting Sasha. I loved how she was just so infectious and beautifully awkward (so she says), but I just saw charming and sweet.
My chance encounter was only yesterday and it made a cycle ride home pleasurable with hills not so noticeable. Both myself and another cyclist were turning into the same road but from opposite directions. He asked me how far I was going. We realised we were going to follow the same route for about 15 minutes. It is amazing how much we shared in that short time. I arrived home really buzzing due to this very friendly and welcome encounter. May there be many more for all of us.
I sat in front row next to a terrified woman on on flight home to visit family. We held hands and prayed during take off. It was such a gift to be present with her during the flight
When my son was newly diagnosed with Fragile X Syndrome during pre-school it soon became clear he needed lots of extra support. To get kids like Jack ready for kindergarten the superintendent required a wonderful thing. That the special education director from the new school attend a year of meetings leading up to get to know the needs of the child who would attend the next year
I came to call this person, the sped director from the upcoming school named Beverly, the "no" person because she seemed so negative about everything. She said no to everything or found a way for something not to work. Towards the end of the year it became clear the Director of the pre-school and other staff felt Jack's needs could only be accommodated in a residential setting. This was not even a thought in our head. Even back then in our relative inexperience my husband and I knew we wanted our child included and accommodated for in his own community as was his Civil right. This was an awkward meeting with great silences. Then the "no" lady spoke up and said "what about 2 on 1 support for Jack?" This changed the entire course of his life and our lives. Jack went to school with his peers and today works in his/our community.
And to this day over 20 years later the "no" lady is a dear friend and I have never looked at naysayers the same since
I read all these comments with tears in my eyes on this foggy Sunday morning. Gianni, my sweet, beautiful 13-year-old cat, had surgery on Thursday to remove a mass on his side. The vet said it all went well. On Friday he was dopey, but seemed to be recovering. He purred and ate a little tuna, he sat on our laps, a turn for each of us. Yesterday he was not right, wouldn't eat a thing, progressively more lethargic, threw up violently. We called the emergency vet, who said it's not unusual after surgery, watch and wait, bring him in the next day if he wasn't better. By evening he could barely stand, wouldn't swallow the water we reied to give him. We bundled him in a towel and drove to the 24-hour emergency vet. The young woman at the counter immediatly took him from me and carried him to the back and didn't return. A large empty waiting room, yellow walls and a tile floor in an intricate pattern I could draw. I paced it for 5 minutes, 10, 15. I finally sat, knowing this silent wait was not good. My husband leaned against the counter. We didn't talk, but locked eyes every 5 minutes or so. After about 45 minutes the emergency vet came out, a tall, middle-aged, tired woman. I'm so sorry, she said, he just passed.
Why do I tell you this long story that none of you want to read? Partly because I need to cry. But also because of the vet, whose name I don't remember even though it was stitched on her green lab coat. She led us back to our dear kitty, lying on a soft blanket, still warm, his thick black fur still lusterous. As we stroked him and my husband wept she told us how hard they'd worked to save him, how he was healthy and obviously well cared for, how it must have been a blood clot from the surgery, how there was nothing we could have done that we didn't do. She was patient and kind and helped hold the world together in the surreal scene it had tilted to.
I am too well acquainted with grief. Beloved animals, parents, a niece. A son. Today I grieve for sweet, silly Gianni.
Thank you all for this community. Thank you for reading this.
Ahhhh...condolences to you Kathryn on your recent grief and past griefs too...."Sweet silly Gianni" is a beautiful poem of essence all of itself. "......we love the things we love for what they are"-Robert Frost❤
I was doing errands one town over, because the grocery store there carries Wasa gluten free crispbread , while our little market doesn’t. I also had some books for the Little Free Library there. Hikers pass through on the Appalachian Trail and I think it’s a good place to leave books. Even though this town is only 15 minutes away, it feels foreign and big. I still mask due to a medical condition, but this is definitely not the local norm. So, I was a bit taken aback when a woman standing in front of me asked, “Do you think I should mask too?” We are both women of a certain age and I instantly felt kinship. We chatted for a minute and I provided her my explanation why masking is important for me. When she had paid and was ready to leave, she turned and said, “Bye now. Thank you. I’m going home and order some new masks.” It’s hard to explain, but this moment of connection seemed to affect what had gone before as well. The unexpected positive connection over something people often give me a hard time about provided a kind of glow that extended backward on the whole time in the next town over.
Our family still masks too for medical reasons so when someone truly seeks to understand and accommodate it makes an encounter such a different experience!
What a lovely story. I loved the "unexpected positive connection" that casts a wonderful glow over the day. Especially when one feels self-conscious and that gets turned around. Thank you for that.
The other day I was sitting on my patio reading from the book Anchored in the Current: Discovering Howard Thurman, edited by Gregory C Ellison II. I had just read this passage, "For Thurman, the theme of kinship of all living things extends even into the realm of communication between animals, plants and human beings." At that very instant a hummingbird came to the feeder just in front of me and lingered for longer than the half second they usually stay. Then a few minutes later another came and did the same lingering. Hummingbirds seem a greeting from my mother who died 6 years ago at age 97 and who loved them with a passion. Those extended moments of hummingbird feeding/watching made time stop as my heart skipped a beat, uniting me across time with Thurman who died many years ago, my mother, the magical hummingbirds, and all of creation. It was a totally unexpected and welcome encounter.
Many years ago while sitting in a bar listening to live music, the couple next to me suddenly began telling me about a new album they loved. It was Jennifer Warnes singing a collection of Leonard Cohen songs. I was abjectly lonely at that time in my life and almost never interacted with people I didn't know outside work. But something about this couples' enthusiasm for this music and for what it could mean to me made an impression. "Famous Blue Raincoat" is the wondrous album, my new friend, and "Song of Bernadette" was salve for wounds I didn't know I had.
When I was newly married, my husband was scheduled for a medical procedure and I had to wait to drive him home. I remember thinking that this could be the beginning of the ‘in sickness’ part of my freshly vowed promises. I had brought a book with me, but because I was worried, I couldn’t concentrate on it. I was alone in the room with a couple in their 80s. When I put my book away, the husband started talking to me. He was charming and witty and a very accomplished flirt! We had a great conversation which his wife followed and she chimed in occasionally. The nurse came to call him in and as he got up, he said to me, ‘Your lovely smile was so distracting that I forgot I was waiting for a colonoscopy!’ He went through the door and I was left with his wife. Grinning, I said, ‘Your husband is such a flirt.’ She laughed and said, ‘Absolutely! We’ve been married more than 50 years and I have never worried about how he works up his appetite because he always comes home for dinner.’ We spoke about marriage and families and medical procedures until I was called in to see my husband. Thankfully, Nick’s tests were negative. But 23 years later, I realise that that couple modelled many things for me: perspective, humour, generosity over a long marriage and how healing and distracting reaching out to those around you can be. Writing this I realise what a gift they were to my newlywed self. It is an encounter that has reverberated through my life and marriage ever since.
For this week, I’d be interested to hear about a small encounter that did something to time.
I went to a 70th birthday celebration for a man I hadn’t been in touch with for 15 years. He had moved back to Washington state and I was busy with a family, returning to school at 30, and then working full time as a psychiatric RN back in Illinois.
We drifted apart.
When I flew out for the celebration, I had been divorced for 2 years and he was unattached. I went to Washington feeling like if nothing else, I could renew a lost friendship.
I was in his daughter’s kitchen cutting up vegetables for a chicken curry with his ex-wife when he came into the house. When we embraced and held each other and he whispered “Oh, you” in my ear, it was like time stopped and we both knew that we would be together.
I can feel my whole body shiver (in a good way!) reading your story, and the whisper in your ear “Oh, you.” What a love story! I’m so very sorry for the loss of this man with whom you shared this encounter, and all the years that followed. ❤️🩹
"I felt your heart still beating under my hand. Faint and thready, still there as we brought you back from the brink. This miracle of life within you when it might not have been. A rhythm you could no longer bear, a beat you thought you needed to stop.
I thought it would be my heart I would be watching this morning. Out on a bike ride to a destination I never arrived at. Instead it is your heart I’m watching, Your heart I’m holding. You’d just been pulled over the railings above the turbulent brown waters below. I held you. You will be my child today. I didn’t know your name so I called you ‘darling’. Intimate in this encounter, though we’d only just met. You couldn’t stop crying. You whole life in pieces. I held you so that you could fall apart. My left arm around your cold body, your poor, thin shoulders, my right hand over your heart. I knew I needed to place my hand right there. You sobbed and you sobbed. I could feel your heart breaking just under my hand. You couldn’t look up. You were trapped in that dark, dark place unable to see what we could see, the sun still there, the blue of the sky, the storm clouds passing.
A small congregation of us, brought together by you. We moved together into deep, timeless time. A chance encounter on this London bridge on a Sunday morning. This will be our church. We will hold you until you can hold yourself again.
We love you
We love you
We held you in that place, in our embrace until the ambulance arrived"
I wrote the above in order to process an unexpected encounter that happened this morning and left me shaken. I then scrolled to my inbox and 'On encountering encounter' was there. Such serendipity and holding after all that happened this morning. So I wanted to express the huge gratitude I feel towards you not just for this but for all you offer in your work and your writing. Human encounter is truly the essence of cure.
I was rummaging through baby clothes at a garage sale and picked up a yellow dress at the same time another woman picked up the same dress. We laughed and decided that whoever had the earliest due date would get the dress. Wouldn't you know our due dates were one day apart. So we compared notes and had so much in common that we forgot about the dress and made a date to have coffee. That was more than 33 years ago. Our daughters were born a day apart (in reverse order) and we have been friends all this time through play dates, losing our mothers, a divorce, several moves, and now retirement. Our daughters stay in touch, but Molly and I are friends to the core. And it all began with a tiny yellow dress.
What a lovely tale of a friendship!
Beautiful story
What a marvelous story-- and friendship. Thank you for sharing.
I LOVE this story! Thank you for sharing. Motherhood really brings out a longing, I have found, to have a kindred spirit close by and to share with, encourage, and support. Beautiful!!
Every night at 8pm, I lock the pool gate for my community. Swimming time is over. I grab Frodo and my walking stick so we can head up the road for our evening walk before bedtime. At the pool tonight a tribe of kids greets me and Frodo. Frodo gets pets and kisses, and he strums his tail and licks their eager hands. The kid chorus says, "We see you walking by our house with your stick." I am surprised. I never dreamed anyone might be watching, and somehow their excitement makes my heart happy. After many hugs and pats, Frodo and I take our leave.
As we walk up the road, we are passed by two cars and the youngest child waves through the window and I wave back. The sky is just starting to darken a bit, mellow dusk-time when the world is gray and enchanted. I hear kids voices from up the road, and I think someone must be in the rental cabin up the way. The voices grow louder, giggling, laughing, and from over the hill emerges a crooked line of kids, each one clinging to a hand-made wooden stick. Ragtag, clamoring, excited, happy, they hold up their sticks for me to admire. One complains his legs hurt, and I laugh and tell him to hang in there. It gets better. The lone woman shepherding the group in short skirt, cowboy boots, and gothic make-up laughs with me. And the band of fellow travellers moves past me to their home. And my heart is full, and I hear God saying, "See. You thought you were invisible."
I love this story, Nancy, and all because you took the time to notice, they took the time to notice and everyone was more joyous for the noticing. :)
Thank you, LuAnne. You are right - there is such joy in the noticing and the being noticed.
Mmm, I love the whisper at the end and the story. Great story! Thanks for sharing, Nancy!
Thank you, Danielle. Another noticing :)
Such a reminder that our words can welcome people and remind them they are not alone
Gorgeous. Thank you, Nancy. 🙏🏾
Thank you, Mona!
We were required to have a penpal for my 7th grade Spanish class. When filling out the initial form, there was an option to receive a letter from a "surprise" country. Why not? I thought and checked the box. My Spanish penpal was unremarkable and we exchanged just a letter or two (adios, Cesar!). But Batuhan, my Turkish penpal, and I are in touch to this day.
I flew to Istanbul in 2000 (age 19) and we spent days exploring the mosques and nightclubs and palaces. We dangled our legs over the Bosphorus drinking beer. He was beautiful and cultured and curious. He asked why I believed in Jesus but not in Muhammad. Muhammad who? I thought. My world was so small.
I ate with his family at an outdoor restuarant as Batu played translator—the most joyful (and delicious) meal I've ever experienced. Mezes galore—everything shared. Street musicians approached our table, jolly and drunk with ties askew. We laughed, tears streaming down our cheeks.
His letters (jam-packed with photos, souvenirs, maps, and the occasional mix tape) are in a box in my garage. These days, we use Whatsapp as we check-in post hurricane (me), earthquake (him), terrorist attacks (both). 30 years of expansive friendship because my 12 year old self checked a tiny box.
What a beautiful friendship - and story.
SOOO lovely!!!
Sharing an encounter that has stayed with me. It was about 30 years ago and I was living on the upper eastside of Manhattan. Standing in line at a bank ATM, I struck up a conversation with the woman behind me. She began to tell me about her husband, a research scientist who was also significantly bipolar. She told me how he and the people in his life built their schedule around his particular manifestation of the illness. He and his team would sometimes work for 3 or 4 days and nights when he was in his manic phase and when he was in his depressive phase, there were no expectations of engagement. She loved him, his children loved him and so did his research team. So much love and grace planted in my heart in a 5 minute conversation on the corner of 86th and Lex.
Wow, Sarah. What grace! What great love for a beloved man! The fact is we ALL have limitations. Imagine if each of us were so accommodating to one another. What a wonderful world that would be.
Yes to this! Just read my horoscope which includes a line from the late great Leonard Cohen: Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your/perfect offering/There is a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in.
“Human encounter is the essence of cure”. I am a shy musician who hungers to commune with other musicians and those people listening in. Though I have had many amazing opportunities to “pray my music” in the presence of others, it was only a few weeks ago when I joined two other musicians in a ten minute improvisation attended by other listening musicians, that I “found” myself eye to eye, ear to ear, listening to and simultaneously responding to another musician. That moment became huge! Full of love and harmony. No self-consciousness. Awareness of a much greater Self. We-one-were so alive. Best, David 🏮
Music does that. You kind of merge with the people you're playing with.
I loved this story. I know the hunger and this was such a beautiful, affirming moment. Thank you for sharing.
Pray my music - what a gorgeous phrase!
An encounter with the dead. And orange 🍊. Just this past Friday, I was on the Q train, listening to an old episode of poetry unbound, and I began to tear up, with an achy feeling of longing, a feeling of separation or disconnect from a part of myself, of insufficiency, and a very unhelpful narrative began to replay, of what I am and am not capable of, etc. Then some more helpful part of me, a wiser part, kicked it, and conjured up a recently deceased one, asking her for advice, and hearing her inspiring words. Then, yet another part of my mind, began to question whether I was just “making this whole thing up” in order to make me feel better. So then I did something that a friend had recently described to me, that I had never tried before, and decided “what the hell, let me give this a go.” I said to the deceased one, “if you can hear me, show me an orange.” I gave it a timeline - initially 3 days. Then as the train moved on, I changed it. “Today, show me an orange today!” A few moments later my stop arrived. I exited the subway onto 34th street, and - poof - just like that, a smoothie/juice truck was staring me in the face, with a bright orange fruit painted on it. Then, after perhaps just one blink of the eyes, I noticed a large shiny orange car on the street right in front of me. An orange car?! I don’t think I’d ever seen one before in my life. Yes, right there. Then, I looked up to the sidewalk and there were two women walking by, wearing hijabs, one orange. I was mesmerized. And then, a few steps later, turning my head to the left, I saw another food truck, this one with a bright orange shovel dangling from it.
What did this do to time? It did a big whoa. It slowed it all down. It cracked an opening in a concept where more space and light could get in.... it expanded it immensely. As in, life and death became infinite. Could it be? I could hear my dear brother’s rational voice in my head. I could hear part of my own mind saying “don’t be ridiculous, statistically speaking, orange might be on every block. You’re primed to notice....”. But then, the inner talk fell away, and I felt an overwhelming sense that we know fucking nothing. Mystery, there is so much that is simply mystery! But I do know this, this feeling of connection. This that happened to me in the course of one NYC block. And that is real.
As I continued to walk to the clinic where I was headed, my steps were different, my gaze was different. Seeing all the people to my right and left, in front of and behind me, I just had this feeling, hard to describe, of lifetimes.
I got to the clinic and perhaps it was this encounter with the dead that I carried with me, perhaps what this experience opened up in me, perhaps “coincidence,” but my encounters with both the NP who heard my concerns, and the phlebotomist who drew my blood were among the most memorable to date. AND, unlike most medical encounters they feel rushed and too often coldly clinical, it was as if I was meeting old friends!! (and not just because the NP had electric blue braids woven into her hair and I was brought back to the poem “Blue”! 🌀) .
There was a calling in, and a calling back.
More stories for another time.
Thank you Pádraig for your beautiful airport story!!! I’m being reminded of one of my favorites, “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye. There is so much more possibility in each moment than we typically realize. Thank you for this invitation to go inside and look for them.
Hi Mona. IMHO, ancestors are an often undervalued and untapped resource. Peace.
Thank you for sharing Mona. I believe mystery is at the heart of human experience and that society, and therefore our “rational” minds, resist that knowing because it is something we cannot control. We can engage with it, which is far more thrilling, but so much of our culture is built on the illusion of control. I have had similar experiences and shared one with a friend once. She said to me - how do you know it isn’t just your mind telling you what you want to hear? I answered with a question which was, if you had cancer and were given a treatment and it cured you and restored your health and someone later told you it had been a placebo would it matter? She responded with a clear and immediate no. These messages land differently in our bodies. What if we decided to radically trust them?
Radical trust! Yesss. 🙏🏾. And what a wonderful question you ask, as an analogy. (Also it makes me think of the story of “Mr. Wright” from the medical literature:.. are you familiar? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/placebo-effect-a-cure-in-the-mind/#:~:text=Wright%20was%20bedridden%20and%20fighting,was%20discharged%20from%20the%20hospital.) sharing as it’s an interesting case of faith, and doubt...
I was not familiar- thank you for sharing. The mind is both awesome and terrible. How powerful Mr. Wright’s was in determining his fate. Real lessons here 🙏
Thank you Mona. I have been thinking about how the dead go on living in us and in a supernatural way. Death is not the end of a life. It is just no longer being carried out in what we call "living."
I am sorry that you no longer have your brother here living, breathing, and moving with you in this world AND I am so happy for you that you had this encounter with him. What a gift.
Peace to you, Catherine
Thank you, Catherine! I too think it’s a kind of continuum/continuation.. a note, my brother is thankfully very much alive :) (it was another being who died/crossed the veil recently, who I encountered and related about in this story), but your words make me want to hug my brother even tighter the next time I see him (which he will not like at all, though!).
Yes. Please hug your brother real tight. I am so glad you still have him. My younger brother died less than 2 years ago from complication with COVID. I miss him everyday and I know that he is with me.
Oh Catherine, I’m so so sorry to hear about your brother. 🙏🏾. I’m reminded of an older friend of mine, in her late 70s, who told me once, “oh, Mona! When I cross over, I’ll be more available to you! None of this scheduling of dates, time zone coordination nonsense. You can call upon me any time. I’ll be available to you all the time.”
Thank you Mona 🤲🏽
I love that thought of your older friend, "When I cross over, I'll be more available to you!" I am going to carry that with me. Now in my 50's, I seem to be attending more and more funerals. It is a peace and comfort to think of my brother actively resting in peace.
💞🙏🏾
What a wonderful idea, Mona. I want to try this out today!
I’ll be curious to hear how it goes!
I spent the morning noticing 'wind'. I know that isn't an unusual encounter but For the morning, I did my meditation outside and I noticed all these blessings from air flow, the birds' songs, the breeze in the trees, how the dandelions were spread, how the ferns just magically appeared in the moss garden, even my breath. All morning I noticed the breath of the universe and I smiled and thought of you. Thank you so much for sharing your story and thank you so much, Padraig, for inviting us to.
LuAnne - this is so gorgeous. The breath of the universe. The wind…. and all the blessings it carries. So beautiful. I’m going to remember this the next time I feel gusts of wind wash through me, or see the wind move the water, leaves on the trees, all. Thank you!!!
Such an enchanting practice. I'm adding it to my choices of things to do while walking the dog. I realize in reading your account that I do not think often on my ancestors nor do i think often (enough?) on my beloved departed. I will change that. Thank-you.
Mona!! I love reading your comments. You are a beautiful Soul, my friend!! Synchronicity is what happened. I am not a believer in coincidence. The deceased one...mmmm. It sounds like you are saying all the parts of our inner selves, even the ones we don't love so much or not at all, are still a part of us and have something to unveil to us. You invited that to happen, Mona, so that's amazing!!
And PS, I met the author of Blue, Sasha, a few weeks ago at a book reading and she was amazing!!!! I loved her.
Thank you Danielle! And how amazing you met Sasha. A few weeks ago and again last week I met Haleh Liza Gafori (translator of Rūmī, another one that Pádraig shared on the podcast), at her incredible performances and she was both on fire 🔥 singing, reading, metaphorically whirling with these words, and, so down to earth, warm and kind too.
Oh my! That sounds so lovely!! I can imagine what an incredible person she must be. How did you feel after?
I felt inspired and exhilarated upon meeting Sasha. I loved how she was just so infectious and beautifully awkward (so she says), but I just saw charming and sweet.
inspired and exhilarated would describe it well on this end too!
Inside - you describe what's inside you so vividly and wonderously!
So kind, Amy! 🙏🏾 Thank you.
My chance encounter was only yesterday and it made a cycle ride home pleasurable with hills not so noticeable. Both myself and another cyclist were turning into the same road but from opposite directions. He asked me how far I was going. We realised we were going to follow the same route for about 15 minutes. It is amazing how much we shared in that short time. I arrived home really buzzing due to this very friendly and welcome encounter. May there be many more for all of us.
That's the kind of thing I think every cyclist dreams of! Unless they absolutely hate people.
Thanks Jack, totally agree. Cyclists of the world should unite
I sat in front row next to a terrified woman on on flight home to visit family. We held hands and prayed during take off. It was such a gift to be present with her during the flight
Holding hands is prayer.
That was so kind, Elaine! Thank you for looking out for others.
If we can all be so kind. May it be so among us.
When my son was newly diagnosed with Fragile X Syndrome during pre-school it soon became clear he needed lots of extra support. To get kids like Jack ready for kindergarten the superintendent required a wonderful thing. That the special education director from the new school attend a year of meetings leading up to get to know the needs of the child who would attend the next year
I came to call this person, the sped director from the upcoming school named Beverly, the "no" person because she seemed so negative about everything. She said no to everything or found a way for something not to work. Towards the end of the year it became clear the Director of the pre-school and other staff felt Jack's needs could only be accommodated in a residential setting. This was not even a thought in our head. Even back then in our relative inexperience my husband and I knew we wanted our child included and accommodated for in his own community as was his Civil right. This was an awkward meeting with great silences. Then the "no" lady spoke up and said "what about 2 on 1 support for Jack?" This changed the entire course of his life and our lives. Jack went to school with his peers and today works in his/our community.
And to this day over 20 years later the "no" lady is a dear friend and I have never looked at naysayers the same since
Amy, this is beautiful.
Wow ❤️
I read all these comments with tears in my eyes on this foggy Sunday morning. Gianni, my sweet, beautiful 13-year-old cat, had surgery on Thursday to remove a mass on his side. The vet said it all went well. On Friday he was dopey, but seemed to be recovering. He purred and ate a little tuna, he sat on our laps, a turn for each of us. Yesterday he was not right, wouldn't eat a thing, progressively more lethargic, threw up violently. We called the emergency vet, who said it's not unusual after surgery, watch and wait, bring him in the next day if he wasn't better. By evening he could barely stand, wouldn't swallow the water we reied to give him. We bundled him in a towel and drove to the 24-hour emergency vet. The young woman at the counter immediatly took him from me and carried him to the back and didn't return. A large empty waiting room, yellow walls and a tile floor in an intricate pattern I could draw. I paced it for 5 minutes, 10, 15. I finally sat, knowing this silent wait was not good. My husband leaned against the counter. We didn't talk, but locked eyes every 5 minutes or so. After about 45 minutes the emergency vet came out, a tall, middle-aged, tired woman. I'm so sorry, she said, he just passed.
Why do I tell you this long story that none of you want to read? Partly because I need to cry. But also because of the vet, whose name I don't remember even though it was stitched on her green lab coat. She led us back to our dear kitty, lying on a soft blanket, still warm, his thick black fur still lusterous. As we stroked him and my husband wept she told us how hard they'd worked to save him, how he was healthy and obviously well cared for, how it must have been a blood clot from the surgery, how there was nothing we could have done that we didn't do. She was patient and kind and helped hold the world together in the surreal scene it had tilted to.
I am too well acquainted with grief. Beloved animals, parents, a niece. A son. Today I grieve for sweet, silly Gianni.
Thank you all for this community. Thank you for reading this.
Thanks for your "interruption " and allowing me to experience a small part of your deep grief. Peace.
Ahhhh...condolences to you Kathryn on your recent grief and past griefs too...."Sweet silly Gianni" is a beautiful poem of essence all of itself. "......we love the things we love for what they are"-Robert Frost❤
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Hugs. It's hard to lose our furry friends.
I was doing errands one town over, because the grocery store there carries Wasa gluten free crispbread , while our little market doesn’t. I also had some books for the Little Free Library there. Hikers pass through on the Appalachian Trail and I think it’s a good place to leave books. Even though this town is only 15 minutes away, it feels foreign and big. I still mask due to a medical condition, but this is definitely not the local norm. So, I was a bit taken aback when a woman standing in front of me asked, “Do you think I should mask too?” We are both women of a certain age and I instantly felt kinship. We chatted for a minute and I provided her my explanation why masking is important for me. When she had paid and was ready to leave, she turned and said, “Bye now. Thank you. I’m going home and order some new masks.” It’s hard to explain, but this moment of connection seemed to affect what had gone before as well. The unexpected positive connection over something people often give me a hard time about provided a kind of glow that extended backward on the whole time in the next town over.
Our family still masks too for medical reasons so when someone truly seeks to understand and accommodate it makes an encounter such a different experience!
What a lovely story. I loved the "unexpected positive connection" that casts a wonderful glow over the day. Especially when one feels self-conscious and that gets turned around. Thank you for that.
The other day I was sitting on my patio reading from the book Anchored in the Current: Discovering Howard Thurman, edited by Gregory C Ellison II. I had just read this passage, "For Thurman, the theme of kinship of all living things extends even into the realm of communication between animals, plants and human beings." At that very instant a hummingbird came to the feeder just in front of me and lingered for longer than the half second they usually stay. Then a few minutes later another came and did the same lingering. Hummingbirds seem a greeting from my mother who died 6 years ago at age 97 and who loved them with a passion. Those extended moments of hummingbird feeding/watching made time stop as my heart skipped a beat, uniting me across time with Thurman who died many years ago, my mother, the magical hummingbirds, and all of creation. It was a totally unexpected and welcome encounter.
Many years ago while sitting in a bar listening to live music, the couple next to me suddenly began telling me about a new album they loved. It was Jennifer Warnes singing a collection of Leonard Cohen songs. I was abjectly lonely at that time in my life and almost never interacted with people I didn't know outside work. But something about this couples' enthusiasm for this music and for what it could mean to me made an impression. "Famous Blue Raincoat" is the wondrous album, my new friend, and "Song of Bernadette" was salve for wounds I didn't know I had.
When I was newly married, my husband was scheduled for a medical procedure and I had to wait to drive him home. I remember thinking that this could be the beginning of the ‘in sickness’ part of my freshly vowed promises. I had brought a book with me, but because I was worried, I couldn’t concentrate on it. I was alone in the room with a couple in their 80s. When I put my book away, the husband started talking to me. He was charming and witty and a very accomplished flirt! We had a great conversation which his wife followed and she chimed in occasionally. The nurse came to call him in and as he got up, he said to me, ‘Your lovely smile was so distracting that I forgot I was waiting for a colonoscopy!’ He went through the door and I was left with his wife. Grinning, I said, ‘Your husband is such a flirt.’ She laughed and said, ‘Absolutely! We’ve been married more than 50 years and I have never worried about how he works up his appetite because he always comes home for dinner.’ We spoke about marriage and families and medical procedures until I was called in to see my husband. Thankfully, Nick’s tests were negative. But 23 years later, I realise that that couple modelled many things for me: perspective, humour, generosity over a long marriage and how healing and distracting reaching out to those around you can be. Writing this I realise what a gift they were to my newlywed self. It is an encounter that has reverberated through my life and marriage ever since.
For this week, I’d be interested to hear about a small encounter that did something to time.
I went to a 70th birthday celebration for a man I hadn’t been in touch with for 15 years. He had moved back to Washington state and I was busy with a family, returning to school at 30, and then working full time as a psychiatric RN back in Illinois.
We drifted apart.
When I flew out for the celebration, I had been divorced for 2 years and he was unattached. I went to Washington feeling like if nothing else, I could renew a lost friendship.
I was in his daughter’s kitchen cutting up vegetables for a chicken curry with his ex-wife when he came into the house. When we embraced and held each other and he whispered “Oh, you” in my ear, it was like time stopped and we both knew that we would be together.
And we were for 17 years until his death in 2021.
I can feel my whole body shiver (in a good way!) reading your story, and the whisper in your ear “Oh, you.” What a love story! I’m so very sorry for the loss of this man with whom you shared this encounter, and all the years that followed. ❤️🩹
What a story! I’m sorry for your loss.
A chance encounter
"I felt your heart still beating under my hand. Faint and thready, still there as we brought you back from the brink. This miracle of life within you when it might not have been. A rhythm you could no longer bear, a beat you thought you needed to stop.
I thought it would be my heart I would be watching this morning. Out on a bike ride to a destination I never arrived at. Instead it is your heart I’m watching, Your heart I’m holding. You’d just been pulled over the railings above the turbulent brown waters below. I held you. You will be my child today. I didn’t know your name so I called you ‘darling’. Intimate in this encounter, though we’d only just met. You couldn’t stop crying. You whole life in pieces. I held you so that you could fall apart. My left arm around your cold body, your poor, thin shoulders, my right hand over your heart. I knew I needed to place my hand right there. You sobbed and you sobbed. I could feel your heart breaking just under my hand. You couldn’t look up. You were trapped in that dark, dark place unable to see what we could see, the sun still there, the blue of the sky, the storm clouds passing.
A small congregation of us, brought together by you. We moved together into deep, timeless time. A chance encounter on this London bridge on a Sunday morning. This will be our church. We will hold you until you can hold yourself again.
We love you
We love you
We held you in that place, in our embrace until the ambulance arrived"
I wrote the above in order to process an unexpected encounter that happened this morning and left me shaken. I then scrolled to my inbox and 'On encountering encounter' was there. Such serendipity and holding after all that happened this morning. So I wanted to express the huge gratitude I feel towards you not just for this but for all you offer in your work and your writing. Human encounter is truly the essence of cure.
I had an encounter on a bridge once with a stranger. Hugs to you!
🙏🏽♥️🙏🏽