Best Valentines Day Ever – It’s Not What You Think

Most people think that Valentines Day is all about flowers and chocolates and fancy dinners and Valentines and Galentines from your friends and red hearts.  My Valentines Day looked very different this year - and was my favorite so far in this lifetime.

Valentines Day has always been my favorite holiday, not for the aforementioned, but because it’s a holiday based upon love, light, sparkles, glitter, pink and red!  What could be better? 😊 😊  My HH and I have always been really into the Valentines Day cards and our Chickens on Valentines Day, not the traditional stuff - not that there’s anything wrong with any of that.  Remember it’s a trinity, not a polarity - so it’s this and that -  not this or that.  So there’s one side and another side and all of it is "allowed" to be there and also btw, if you resist it, it just makes it bigger.   (Whatever you shout "NO!" at gets bigger.)

On this Valentines Day I was given three of the most amazing gifts ever:  a couple happy surprises and miracles, time with my beloved chicken Dakota and a beautiful opportunity to walk my talk and practice equanimity.

Last summer we were blessed to meet our now friend and house cleaner Amalia who helped us one weekend before overnight guests arrived, after we had not had help cleaning our house for four years and four months.  She now comes every two weeks with her friend Hercilia and every time they come they fill the house with light, love, joy and laughter - and also make it clean and sparkly.  They leave with many bags of things from me because I love love love to give stuff away.  In fact whenever my sister gives me something, the first thing she says is, “Don’t give it away!”  😊  

When Amalia cleans my room/office I move my laptop into another room so I can work, and also so it's “safe,” meaning computers are fragile and have lotsa stuff on them we want/need and who knows what might happen when a person is dusting?  😊  Hint:  That is a harbinger of a lesson, and miracle, to come….

So I moved my laptop and went on with picking up my chickens from the bus.  When I returned and opened my laptop, the screen was black (!!).  I did various things I thought might fix it and nothing worked so I called in Dakota, age 13, aka my IT Guru.  He also could not fix it.  He tried.  And tried.  And tried.  Since I believe that IT stuff is one of the “themes” I am exploring in my current stint in Earth School, I was happy to note that I was remaining calm.   I told Dakota I had noticed a mysterious teeny tiny crack on the upper right of the screen and asked, “Could that be it?”  It looked like a crack on your windshield.  We were puzzled. How did that crack get there?  Dakota then looked down on the right of the mouse and said “Mom, the red heart!  It was this heart!” 

Sure enough, there was a teeny tiny red bubble heart 3D sticker to the right of the mouse on my Macbook Air - as big as your pinkie fingernail.  “Did you put that there?” asked Dakota.

A valid question LOL.  I have been known to put glitter, sparkles, cupcakes, hearts, magic wands and other such magical things here and there in the happy white pineapple (our home).

“I did not,” I answered smiling.  “Why would I put that heart there?” I asked, laughing.  This was the first happy miracle - and walking of my talk.  I was laughing in what appeared to be a dire IT situation, something which in past IT situations of the same flavor would have caused me a feeling of panic.  Every morning I ask the Universe and my team of angels, guides and nonphysical family for laughter - and I was receiving it – at a quite unexpected time indeed. 

Sure enough the little red bubble heart had punctured the screen when I moved my Mac to “be safe.”  Another magical lesson delivered in style - and with irony - on Valentine’s Day.  Dakota kept adorably trying everything to fix it and soon it became clear that a trip to the Apple store was in our near future. And that means a trip to the mall.  The mall is a place with which I do not resonate.  😊

In record time, Dakota made an Apple Genius Bar appointment for 7:05 pm, Valentines night.  Just 3 hours away. This in and of itself is a happy miracle because usually it’s difficult to navigate their genius bar appointment schedule and/but this time it was easy peasy.

After I finished my LIVE at five on the Academy (check out the recording if you weren't there!) the chickens and I ate a quick dinner – my HH was teaching at Brandeis – and off Dakota and I went to the Apple Store in the mall in PVD.  We left Barrington with plenty of time to arrive, park and get settled.

Think again.

The Universe had something else in store for us.  The traffic was bumper to bumper and I mean - not moving - on the highway, because of course, it was Valentines Day after all and everyone was going to the mall to eat drink and be merry!  Or buy stuff…who knows? 

I kept soothing Dakota (really myself 😊), saying “They’ll understand, they know it can get really congested on the highway…they’ll totally take us even if we’re a little late.”  Just as I was saying that, something appeared out of nowhere - actually I never saw it…we hit something on the highway that had to have been very big and made of metal and for the next ten minutes we both wondered if Sparky (our car) would make it to the mall. 

Everything seemed to be fine and we arrived at the PVD Place Mall and parked.  Dakota got out to look at Sparky and exclaimed, “Mom!  The tire is fine!  There’s no damage!”  Another happy miracle.  The noise was really loud when I hit that UO (Unidentified Object).

Turns out our parking spot was right next to Apple - like right there - and the nicest guy greeted us.  This was not planned, I had no idea where we were parking as the whole mall situation is very disorienting for me.  The tech had left because we were late and there was not a Mac specialist in the house and Apple was closing soon.  One time I received a free iPhone when I cried in an Apple store with a broken screen.  I didn’t cry because of the broken screen I cried because my Mom had died unexpectedly the day before and the Apple store employee wouldn’t let Dakota then age 5 - go potty in their bathroom and so he tinkled in his pants, poor little chicken.  The fellow Apple store customers (many of whom were also students at our Prana Power Yoga studio in Newton) gathered around me (crying) and Dakota (pants wet), and were so horrified by the employee’s lack of compassion that the manager quicky read the situation and stepped in and gave me a new phone on the spot to get me the hell out of that store.  Wise move.  😊

This was not going to be the case, clearly.  No new Macbook Air for me and there was nothing to cry about.  So here is another happy miracle. I was able to see this and know this and remain calm in a difficult moment. Equanimity. I was able to put a black screen and no access to my computer for an undetermined amount of time in perspective and let it go and schedule an appointment for the next day. 

Off we went to Auntie Anne’s, the best doughiest cinnamon pretzels in the land, and then drove home recounting all the things we were appreciative of and how the Universe had taken care of us and how I was excited to learn why we were meant to be at the mall and the Apple store again the next day.  I knew there was a reason and surrendered to it.

This is boots on the ground spirituality.  It’s the everyday stuff that we choose to either react to - or embrace.  To either resist or allow.  Then we get to see the amazing positive results, or not.  We can choose to feel how we want to feel, regardless of what is happening.  We can choose the emotion we want to feel regardless of what happens it the physical, and that is true freedom, the biggest gift of all. 

And if we don’t choose equanimity?  If we have a meltdown?  If we don't even know the definition of equanimity (lol)?  All good.  Every moment is a new beginning.  A chance to begin again.  Since we are eternal beings (my Mom in Heaven is more with me now, than ever), we never get it done, so we can’t get it wrong.

 

e·qua·nim·i·ty

/ˌekwəˈnimədē,ˌēkwəˈnimədē/