Soulful Knowledge

He looked up from his drink at the bar and saw her.  At that exact point he became the leading man in an old black and white movie. His peripheral vision blurred.  The noise from the band became muffled in his ears.  As if  his brain became a camera with a zoom feature, he focused solely on the girl across the room.  Without thinking, he touched his hand to his heart to massage his chest because he felt a sweet pain there. He saw her red lips, her dark hair, and her vividly green eyes.  He knew he would never ever ever be able to erase the memory of his first glance at her.  What he didn't know was if he would ever want to.

His thigh muscle jumped as he fought the urge to get up and run over to her.  He knew he had never seen her before but there was something so familiar about her.  Is this what love at first sight felt like? He stopped to think.  While she was very attractive, it wasn't lust that was making his head spin.  The powerful draw to this woman was coming from somewhere deep inside him.  He felt off balance and it took a concerted effort to settle himself again.  He adjusted himself in his chair.  The music was back and so was the swirl of activity.  Think, man.  Don't screw this up.

***

She was used to having men look at her.  Around her 13th birthday she started noticing it and as time progressed, so did she.  She had been heady with her new-found power and made stupid mistakes, as teenagers will.  At least she had learned from them and now what she wanted wasn't just attention.  Today she turned 30 and this very morning she had made a promise to herself.  No more casual hook-ups.  She wanted the real deal.

She felt a shiver run up her spine as if someone took their finger touching her lower back up to the base of her skull.  Her scalp prickled as she turned to her left and found the source of her agitation.  He was staring at her from across the room but this was different from everything she had known before.  There wasn't anything lascivious in his eyes or demeanor.  She swallowed and breathed in deeply.  It was as if time froze for everyone but them.  Without realizing it, she reached up and brushed her lips with her fingertips.  She watched as he wiggled in his chair, unfolded himself, stood up and started walking over.  

Pedicures and the church

I took my Veteran's Holiday on Friday because of work obligations on Tuesday.  I did something nice for myself.  I got a pedicure.  Best Nails is where I go and it is a rather large establishment with a lot of friendly employees.  Manicures, pedicures, waxing, etc.  They do it all.  I normally go on a Saturday or Sunday when it is really busy so I was looking forward to being there during the week when I hoped it would be less so.  I was not disappointed.

I walked in and looked around.  They had a comfortable number of customers sprinkled about and the atmosphere was not as chaotic. I was greeted by the owner, asked what I needed, and picked a nail polish color.  Same as always.

Like every other salon, the pedicure chairs are lined up against the wall facing the center of the room. If any of your chair neighbors are loud, you are privy to phone conversations, text messaging, and conversations between them and their nail technician or one of their neighbors.  It won't come as a shock to any of you that I don't like idle chit-chat so I keep my communications to a minimum.  I go there to relax, not be stressed out thinking about what other stupid shit will come out of my mouth.  Not everyone feels the same as I and it was my awesome pleasure to be treated to one of my neighbor's non-stop verbal diarrhea.

She was probably in her fifties and wore her make-up less on the natural side but not quite clown. Her bottled blond hair looked nice but from two chairs down I thought it could use a good dose of conditioning to help with the dryness.  Just observations, folks.  No judgment here.

She never stopped talking.  Really.  Occasionally the long suffering nail tech would interject one thought or sentence but it was pretty much a soliloquy.  A one woman show.  Besides being fascinated that one person could talk so much without a script or input from anyone else, I was handling it up to the point when these words carried over to me, "God will help you but you have to believe.  You have to believe 100% because if you don't, it won't happen.  He will provide you the money you lost before.  We all makes mistakes in the past but if we believe, He will make up the difference."

This is one of the reasons I don't attend church anymore.  Yes, I 'm Jewish.  I have been since birth and will always define myself as Jew no matter where my spiritual journey takes me.  As a freshman in college I discovered Jesus and for about fifteen years I was active in the church.  It's a whole other mile long blog topic as to why I left the church but suffice it to say this is one of reasons.  Is God really not big enough to make things happen if we have a moment of doubt?  Is God that heartless that He would not want to give us what we want and/or need if we don't believe 100%?  Does our heart and behavior have that much power because that is what this says to us.  It tells us that God can only move if we do something that can be next to impossible.  It is this way of thinking that pushed me away.  God is love is also preached.  Really?  Is this a good representation of love?  Is this how love works?  If it is, I don't want any part of it.  I can't believe in a God that will only help me if I first believe 100%.

After leaving the church and rejecting the traditional idea of God, my spiritual journey continues to this day.  I still believe in some kind of higher power.  One of my theories is that this is all a huge experiment.  I liken when the asteroid hit the earth and the dinosaurs were destroyed to when a kid messes up his Lincoln Log creation to start again.

So, after I heard this lady preaching to a captive audience, I put on my make believe ear muffs and tuned out.  You know what that is.  You've done it yourself.  I went to my Happy Place.  I dialed down the present and got comfy with my imagination.  I got so comfy that I found the bravery to have my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever!  I am a movie star, people.

They are Watching

I still haven't bought a new used car so this morning it was time once again to take the Taurus in for an oil change and tire rotation.  So far it is still holding itself together probably through my own sheer will power.  Happy thoughts!  Happy thoughts!

While sitting in the waiting area for my turn to check out, ahead of me was a woman with a Russian accent and her daughter that was probably around 5 years old.  The petite little girl with dark hair and eyes was very well behaved.  Her mother stepped up to the counter to pay for the service while she sat in a nearby chair playing with her fuzzy stuffed toy talking to it so quietly her voice couldn't be heard.  Her mother sounded a lot like Natasha from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show but more melodic.

The discussion became a little louder between the service representative and the mother.  There was a disagreement over how many dollars were on her dealership member account.  She thought there were way more than what he found.  It was about a $50 difference so the mom had to pay more out-of-pocket than she previously thought.  While they did get a bit louder, it was still respectful on both sides and amicably resolved.  What neither of them knew was that the little girl, perched in the chair behind them, watched and listened to the whole conservation.

This quiet little girl looked from Mom to Rep back and forth.  As I watched her watching them, I could tell she was calculating their emotional statuses.  Should she be uneasy or is everything okay?  What is Mom doing?  How is Mom talking?  Will this get worse or should she remain calm?  As her mother and the service rep worked it out, the girl stayed status quo.  Neither of the parties were agitated so neither was the girl.  She continued to feel safe throughout and when the mother turned around to gather her daughter and leave all continued to be well.

What the mother couldn't know was that she had just given her daughter an excellent example of how one behaves in circumstances of differing opinions.  Her daughter watched intently as both parties talked through the issue. While neither one backed down from their realities, there was compromise.  No yelling. No name calling.  No finger pointing.  The mother, just by being herself, showed her daughter how to properly handle oneself.  It was okay to disagree.  Nothing bad will happen.

Children learn by example.

Every day we are examples to others whether we realize it or not.  How we handle ourselves, what we say, our body language.  There are people watching us including little children calculating whether they should model themselves after us or not.