Monday morning, “time to start again,” I said to myself I as I went to my computer and found the mouse not working. Oops! Given the extreme heat I wasn’t going to walk to nearby Best Buy. I had already walked with puppy Scampi, 6:30 to 7:30 AM. Wanted to both avoid the heat and to get home in time for the new handyman who had promised to take a skinny pine tree down that was brushing the porch roof at 8:00 AM Monday. Great! I had finally found a handyman! Really liked him!
But then he didn’t show up. Nor did he call to cancel He just cancelled — ME!.
Okay. Start over — and try not to be pissed. Who knows what he’s going through?
So I drove to nearby Dollar Store and got more batteries, figuring that was the problem. It was not. So I drove to nearby Best buy with the old mouse and batteries, and the little thingie that plugs it into the computer.
Clerk there very helpful. We spent quite some time trying to figure out the problem. He thought cheap Dollar Store batteries might be the problem. Okay. Bought more expensive batteries there and drove home. His advice: try that before buying another mouse.
Okay. Came home again and put new battery in mouse (or is it “modem”?). Nope. Still does’t work.
Back to Best Buy. This time this same clerk and I focused on maybe it actually was the mouse itself. How long have I had this mouse? Not sure. A year or two. Well “that’s about as long as they last.” Got another mouse to replace the old one and gave the old one plus two little thingies (one from an even older mouse) that plug into the computer and asked him to recycled them). Okay.
Drove home again, got the new mouse out of the box. Where is the little thingie that goes with it! Not in the box! WHAT??? Hard to believe . . .
Third time’s “charm?” Well, on this occasion, third time was a joke. I arrived back at Best Buy, this time hauling my computer with me too — and the same clerk was still available! Good. He was as flummoxed as I over the missing little thingie . . . but then his face suddenly lit up! He opened up the new mouse itself, and noticed that the little thingie was stored inside it.
In the end all I could do was laugh. We both laughed. Problem solved, plus I got to connect with a very decent human being!
That is one story I tell to preface this post that supposedly concentrates on the Dances of Universal Peace weekend. There are two other stories, both also frustrating, even scary, especially the second one, to contrast with the very fruitful experience of the weekend. Fruitful, for me, personally, in terms of processing my recent struggle with my age-old difficulty in accepting, balancing, and integrating the male and female aspects of my own being. Regarding that DUP experience, let me just say that apparently I needed the singing/dancing immersion in communion with others to process all sorts of memories that suddenly rose up, full force, while I was dancing and singing with them. In other words, what was going on inside me was totally antithetic to what we were doing and being together. To some extent, this has always been true for me. Whenever I dance with the DUP I find myself noticing, fighting, and integrating aspects of my own unruly ego. (Is this true for everybody?)
Okay. So here I am. To begin again, on Monday morning after. The story of the modem (mouse?) and the thingie is not the only one I could tell to contrast with the very fruitful experience of this last weekend. Very fruitful for me personally, in terms of integrating parts of myself that always threaten to take me down. Know that there were also huge dramas, both coming and going from Fort Wayne (supposedly less than four hours from Bloomington IN). Both going and coming, I had to slay the dragon on the way.
Here’s what happened on the way back: imagine this scene.
I’m in the car with Melinda, a local woman who had asked to come with me, and who has never used GPS. Before this trip, I had been so wrapped up with other responsibilities that I had asked her to get directions; but she only has a flip phone, so had to write out directions her sister gave her. We did get lost. The four hour trip took closer to six.
Then, on our return, imagine this scene: we are in the car, this time with active GPS, so that problem solved (I had a young woman there set it up on my phone). However, Melinda is leary of GPS, something she has no experience of, and her anxiety runs high.
(Meanwhile, I’m in much better shape now that the weekend is over than I was after our trip up, when I knew that unless I was very very careful, I would get sick.
I did not get sick, and I think largely this has to do with the wonderful frequency field created by the dancers as we wove our way through each others’ arms, gazing through each others’ eyes to the soul , while singing Sufi and other songs and chants to invoke the presence of the divine.)
Okay. The return trip. I was concerned about it due to the forecast of high temps and humidity. But not overly worried. Somehow, our extended group experience had invoked the presence within myself, so that I felt like a forest tree rooted into the ground. Nothing, nothing, would be too much. I could handle anything! I knew that. Though I didn’t know what “anything” would entail.
Okay, picture this: we’re on our way round the east side of Indianapolis in Sunday traffic on a gigantic highway with five lanes in each direction, walled on both sides so that there was no way to get off the road. And the temperature outside was 95°. (Air-conditioning in car working). Traffic slows down, as GPS had warned us it would, though this was supposedly still the fastest route. Slows down more. Slows to a stop. Then, every few minutes, inches forward. Like I imagine all the other drivers, I’m trying to peer around the side, to see how long this will last.
As far as the eye can see.
All in all the traffic was drastically slowed, stopped, etc. for one full hour on a very hot day, during which we crawled forward a total of one half mile.
During this entire time, Melinda was becoming so anxious she thought she was going to throw up. Or that we would run out of gas. (That worry deserves another story, which I don’t have time or energy to tell.) Or that she would need to pee and there was no say to get off the road to do so.
She kept voicing her fears; I kept reassuring her, but meanwhile, sharing the same concerns, even making plans to grab something to put under my butt if I did have to pee — and just do it if necessary.
But here’s the difference: the way up to Fort Wayne disturbed my nervous system to the point of collapse. The way back? Thanks to the Dances, somehow I knew we would be okay, no matter what.
Meanwhile, here are three photos, just to give the vibe.
