Becoming Crow Lady: Ice cream shop and tapping tales from Maine last month

Back from yoga in the big community building that is all post and beam. It feels like you’re in an old boat.

Love it. The class is a three minute walk away on Mondays and Wednesdays and I have been able to sneak once, sometimes twice, to class each of the 5 years we’ve come to Bayside.

Vacation involves so much together time. The cottage’s walls are so thin and the neighbors so close I feel thrilled to just be alone for an hour with no one talking to me. Delightful. Now on day 6 of vacation I am really noticing and seeing how good it is to be away. How quickly the things that seemed so bad; crazy co-workers, overdrawn bank accounts, short nights of sleep and railings pulling off the walls at home seem unfocused and trivial, like something seen from far far away.

I am reading about Meridian Tapping, which has fun and has been helpful for me dealing with Georgia’s strong moods. Tapping is a method where you touch of certain spots on your upper body while thinking and feeling something you’re dealing with and it helps to release blockages. Rob is skeptical but I keep trying to get him to do the process on his knee pain. I heard about it on one of the online lectures I try to listen to once or twice or a week. Here’s a link on how to do it.

I watched the quick youtube video

http://www.thetappingsolution.com/how-to-tap.php

and tried it the other day when I was feeling especially dumpy. I usually wander around not thinking much about how I look and feeling pretty happy with who I am, but the other night I went out with some lady friends to a sort-of fancy restaurant and I couldn’t find anything to wear that wasn’t stretched out old and/ or stained. I felt like a teenager again trying to find an outfit, finally I uncovered a tank top with a shelf bra that was a bit droopy but my ride was waiting patiently for me while the girls showed her the chickens. I went down to say goodbye to Rob who said, kindly, "It’s a pretty fancy restaurant Kat." "It is? I can’t go bra-less in a tank top?" ACKKK. I ran upstairs and picked out a shirt I have worn millions of times and I’m really really sick of it. I put in on went out the door and had a really nice time and drinking an enormous blood-orange margarita, which tasted fantastic! Good funny night, but then I got home and looked in the mirror and got that disturbing disconnect that I’ve gotten before when I look at myself when I am inebriated, "Who is that?? What is up with her hair?? (very frizzy in summer heat.) Oh my gosh she’s getting old. Look at all that gray!” (In just the last few months gray hairs have been really sprouting and I am going to turn 40 in December, all of which would be fine and I would be getting ready to move on to a gracious and fun next stage of life except, except I want another sweet baby. So the gray hair is like a stomach-turning reminder of a ticking fertility clock and the springy harmless hairs fill me with doom, Doom.)

So I went to bed and when I woke up I had a regular morning with the girls but after the babysitter had come and I was driving to my prework yoga class on Thursdays I tried the tapping on, "Even though I feel homely, old and plump I love and accept myself completely" and I did it the three times like you are supposed to and then I tapped the spots and felt a bit better. A bit lighter and a bit of energy thrumming through me, but nothing that noticeable.

I went to yoga and tried to be loving to myself when my belly poked out of my tank top and I had to pull the shirt back down again. or when my tank top with the one missing underwire that I have been wearing for years, but can't quite afford to replace, didn’t quite hold my bosom correctly.

On the way out of class, a friend who usually bustles right out stopped and whispered, “Katherine, I have to run, but I just had to tell you; you are so beautiful. So Beautiful. When you were doing that twist. I don’t know. It was so beautiful.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and was speechless.

She finally asked, “What? What are you thinking?”

I stumbled an answer

“It's just so funny, because I have been feeling the opposite and then noticing it and trying to shift...never mind-it’s just funny.”

Then, interrupting two different conversations, (her own and mine) my sweet friend and yoga teacher said, actually hollered, above everyone’s head, “You look so pretty in that blue, Katherine. So pretty.”

“You have got to be kidding me!”

“What, did Mindy already tell you that?”

And I said, “No. Yes. It’s just funny how things work.”

Mindy looked at me again and said, “SO beautiful!”

I went to work and was still feeling amused.

Maybe it was coincidence, but people don’t usually say that to me. Especially not twice in ten minutes. Had I broken down resistance and blockages that I didn’t know were there? I also felt like I wasn’t down on myself anymore and felt fine about how I looked.

I sat down at the computer in my polyester pale blue scrubs and got to work looking up my patient’s meds. The grumpy wise midwife I work with, who is dry and sort of fake miserable most of the time, made her way over to me and leaned on the counter above me.

“Hey gorgeous, how’s it going?”

I shook my head and said, "You have got to be kidding me!"

“What! Why do you say that?” She responded.
And I answered, “I think the universe is playing a trick on me. I am trying to figure out what it means."

And she replied, “Oh I gave up on that years ago!”

It was funny. It made me want to keep trying the tapping, but like mediation it requires a bit of focus and time alone, which I make very little time for in my life.

But I am trying it out on things and feeling interested.

I got another chance to try the tapping just before vacation.

Georgia has been trying my patience on this trip. Lots of deep breathing has been needed. I had thought all the Mommy access would fill her up and make her content but she has been wild and angry. I don't know if she is still coming off the weird virus she had last week. She had a fever and then her legs were so sore she couldn’t walk down the stairs. I got her a doctor’s appointment the day before we left because the doctor wanted to get a look at her, but it meant I was an hour late for work. It is very rare that we do that sort of thing at my job because it counts as a sick day which we get precious few and it means one of my co-workers from days has to stay overtime., Not pretty, but I had to do it. I was worried and my vacation started the next day and the doctor had her day off. SO I took a big breathe and called into work to say I would be one hour late. Almost everyone I work with would have been at least grudgingly polite but not B and of course she had to answer the phone. I told her the situation as clearly as I could but she didn’t understand I told her again. I will be one hour late because my child is sick with a fever and weird joint pain and this is the only time she could be seen. Once she finally got it. “I should be there around four. One hour late. “ She hung up on me. Just silence. No basic kindnesses like, “We’ll see you soon. I hope your daughters OK.” None of it. I was so angry. I let all of my anger get directed at her. The frustration and fear of Georgia’s sickness, the last minute crazy packing of the trip, the fact that I had to do some very creative banking to get everything paid for while I was away when we have been keeping our vow of no debt, the anxiety of getting someone really really reliable to let the chickens in every night or we’d get a call they were dead. All of it. All that anxiety was directed at B. Damn B. I was furious; steaming, filled with justified rage.

After fuming a bit I realized I wouldn't get to see B and tell her off today. She most certainly would not be the one who offered to stay. I wouldn’t see her for at least 12 days. I also realized I wasn’t paying attention to sick Georgia in the back seat who was nervous about going to the doctor. So I tried the tapping on my anger at B. Tap Tap tap. "How dare she? What’s wrong with her?" After 2 rounds I didn't care anymore. No more fury. Realized it was doing me more damage than anything else. It was gone. I went back to dealing with the doctor, the issues at hand.