God-In-Slaw

I was the recipient of a drive by slawing two days ago. It came in the form of a tidy square Ziplock container busting at the seams with coleslaw that a friend of mine wanted to share. This wasn't your average coleslaw though. Amongst the myriad ingredients of celery, sweet onion, vine ripened red pepper, carrots and the cursory green cabbage was a vague semblance of dressing that draped the mixture in a condiment aisle version of a see through nighty...virtually transparent yet enhancing.

Alex, the drive by slawer, breezed into my house, presented me with this gift, wrote down Grandma Quinn's recipe and departed faster than my dog could figure out a way to maneuver himself into her car. Prior to her departure I announced that I didn't intend on sharing it. I kept my word. I couldn't bear the thought of this labor of love being wasted on the tastebuds of my children. I tossed them a carrot.

First off, however, I do need to preface this with the fact that I have grown out of my enjoyment of cooking. My time cooking onboard Schooners and yachts on the coast of Maine in my single years was
Fun-ish when seas were calm but downright torture close to the Bermuda triangle in 25 ft breaking undulations. Now faced with the prospect of having to cook every night as a wife and mom of two, I am done. So when someone delivers food to my doorstep, I cry. But it gets worse. When my father and mother-in-law bring a gourmet meal every time they visit I squelch the urge to tamper with their spark plugs and car battery. My resistance to cooking is becoming pathological.

The Zen of this gift appeared in perfectly diced 3/8" crunchy tidbits. It must have taken all afternoon. Most people in this frantic achievement oriented mindset would have needed to have taken a sedative prior to embarking on this recipe. Alex, creator O' slaw, had an alternative approach. She put God-In-Slaw. She viewed this experience with such infinite gratitude because of the significance the recipe held. For years she tried to recreate this childhood memory of summer BBQ's where this salad's dressing soggied the bottom of everyone's hamburger bun. She thought the recipe had died along with her Grandmother. Yet, low and behold, a cousin carried the torch. Alex rejoiced in the privilege of being able to resurrect this long lost side. Decades of minced fingertips and grated knuckles unlocked a vestige of love that resided in the memories of Grandma Quinn. The love was carried forth in this gift. Love in the vegetables, Love of the process, Love in the memories, Love of the giving, Love of friendship = God-In-Slaw.

The moment I received this salad I gobbed down two cheek-stuffing spoonfuls while I left Alex to watch in delighted horror. The minute following her departure I unleashed a part of me that I had never met before; a passionate slawnivore. By the 3/4 mark something had to give. I could have easily polished off the entire vat but thought it better to save some for the following day. So, later that night in meditation my coleslaw fluid mind coleslaw drifted into the oneness coleslaw of coleslaw being.

I was able to hold off eating the rest until 3pm the next day and felt compelled to commemorate this experience by snapping the last remaining 1/4 cup.  It was nip and tuck as I came close to biting my own hand in the process of taking the picture. My food-stylist professor at CIA would have had heart failure if she proofed this shot. It's a picture only a mother could love, radiant with humility and gratitude.

So, I ask you this...during the course of a month, week, day or hour how does your God-In-Slaw manifest? Excavate it. Own it. Rejoice in it. Share it. Make the world a brighter place by sharing what you love, your  unique skills, your talents, your abundance. You were put here in this space and time to help the world unfold with Love.

Ann Quinn's Coleslaw
(reprinted with the permission of Alex Lagarto)


1 red bell pepper
1 green pepper
1 sweet onion
3 celery stalks
chop above ingredients as small as you can

2 carrots
1 head green cabbage
shred above ingredients

1 t. (no more no less) French's yellow mustard
3 T. Hellman's mayo
1/2 t. onion powder
1/4 t. garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste

Refrigerate overnight, stir and serve.

hot lunch

Friday's were the day that came closest to heaven. Square slices of tangy-sauced, institutionalized pizza thrown on a cold tray and a five cent carton of plain milk. All the bases were covered. Carb, protein, dairy and veggie all in one. Perfect for the 3 minute lunch. On more than one occasion I surpassed all previous heightened sensory inputs when stacks of peanut butter cookies, larger than my head, beckoned me at the register.

Setting the largest cookie in my site from three kids ahead, I'd pull out my prepaid meal ticket and pray; pray that the other three kids wouldn't see my cookie. The cashier's hair net and white apron conjured a  comfortingly similar appearance to my grandmother. I think she helped protect my cookie just by the sheer advantage of remarkable resemblance. There was no German accent like Muma but her stature and warm smile always helped calm my proprietary anxiety. Two kids to go...one kid to go...Ahhh sweet relief!  The patty of delectable peanut buttery confection resting safely in my possession, I'd relinquish my light blue stub and find my table facing the door to the playground. It was always a tentative moment finding a seat amidst the sea of faces, but with my peanut butter cookie I was invincible; my heart swelled with love, confidence and sweet anticipation. On those days, I was happy.

I would be happy just expecting Pizza. Pizza and p.b. cookie? Totally awesome.

So, because I believed my children were direct extensions of me I gave them the same privileges. Every Friday they got to by hot lunch. Every Friday it was, and still is, the same pizza I loved as a child. (wow - really?) Just until recently, however, I learned that my kids hated that pizza? WHAT?! How can you dislike something I cherished so intensely? Something in which I found so much solace? OK fine...I am flexible right...I am not 9 anymore...right....check...got it. My children are not me.

Now they have the ability to scan the weekly menu and choose the day they want to buy. Tatum was so vested in her choice that she waited a whole two weeks for Beefy-Cheezy Nachos to rotate through again. Surprisingly, my son's equal enthusiasm was not thwarted. From the experience two weeks prior, I had expected the agonizing discomfort of boiling cheeze application to the roof of his mouth to sway his decision. Apparently Beefy-Cheezy Nachos is my Pizza.

They each crumpled the three, one dollar bills into their left pants pocket with heightened anticipation. I attempted a coaching session at the bus stop so as not to replicate the need for beefy-cheezy band-aids.  With nary a wave, the effusive excitement eclipsed my suggestions as they climbed up the stairs of bus number six towards the land of nacho heaven.

Later the wheels on the bus chuffed up the hill around 3:07. The dog stood en point as the flashers flashed and the safety bar slowly extended. Eyes as wide as saucers, they hurdled over the bar and lept with joy to tell me about their day. Their lunch, more precisely.

Tortilla chips smothered in LOTs of beef and LOTs of cheeze sat in queue. The copious amount of toppings that dressed each mountain of chips set their hearts a flutter. "I've been waiting for you..." they whispered from underneath the heat lamp. The membrane of dehydrated cheeziness indicated that it had been sitting long enough so as not to blister the roof of one's mouth. It was hot lunch perfection. Expectations exceeded by the sheer enormity of the portions got me to thinking. Their delight was heightened by the oozy plethora of cheeze and beef - more than they expected.

How often do we set ourselves up for despair when we expect more? We are barraged with advertisements that condition us to this state of constant disappointment. Why not spend more time giving more and expecting less?  Why not give unconditionally...give just to give? Why not spend more time seeing how we can serve than to be served? Have you ever given, witnessed or received a random act of kindness? I guarantee that if we all jumped onboard with this idea, the world would smile. So my question to you is how beefy and cheezy can you become?

dirty laundry

We have it so easy. Pretreat, cram the dirty whites in the metal box, a cuppa detergent, close the lid, rotate the dial to hot, pull the knob and away it goes. The water fills, the soap bubbles and ...presto...thirty minutes ...all clean. I look towards these modern conveniences with such gratitude. I am entirely too lazy to hang my laundry on a line as I had to do as a child. I cringe at the thought of having to wash all of this by hand. My one day blitzkrieg of laundry would equate to a lifetime of daily washboards and basins. I welcome the ripe smell of baked elastic sets that sets me in motion to rescue the finished load of cooked waistbands. Barring any kamikaze dog rampage there is a satisfied sense of completion and quiet pleasure derived from the tidy towers of warm, sweet smelling clothes.

Let's all now imagine how this procedure would look 100 years ago, 200 years ago; long dresses and mud would create current day material for a nightmare. My mind wanders to this subject as my kids gravitate (under duress) towards the rivers and streams that run full this time of the year. I welcome muddy clothes and shoes as it is the clear indicator that they have engaged in the natural world. Pink cheeks and dirt = two thumbs up. 

Typically, I do our laundry in a one shot, full-on day devoted to the task. For one brief moment in time all the hampers are empty and I breathe into the illusion that I have control over my domain. It amazes me that with four people, the loads are evenly distributed. My daughter's wardrobe selection is the load called the box of melted crayons, my husband is all the darks and the white load is my bathrobe covered in brown dog fur and soot. There is a separate pile that falls in between the normal range. The color I could never comprehend as a child and why there where would ever be a need for it. Beige. Beige is better classified as a shade. Apparently I must have cast such a severe judgement on this "color" as a child I now have subconsciously and inadvertently surrounded myself with it. My most intimate textiles happen to be beige. In my mind, beige has equated itself with the illusion of peaceful invisibility. If I climb into my beige colored bed linens maybe I will disappear into my dreams? If I dry myself off with my beige colored towel my aura will be cleansed? If I wear my beige/gray t-shirt I feel at one with the nonchalant hipness of flow? If I put on my beige bra and panties my boobs don't sag? Beige is mystic. Beige makes me happy. Go figure.

My husband's black work pants need to be dry cleaned. For years I'd drop them off to Dot, the owner of the local dry cleaners. We'd smile and say in unison, "Another boring black pair of pants." But now after 10 years of raising kids, damn if these pants lead a more exciting life than I! Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Africa, Egypt are a mere fraction of destinations these pants have visited. Now I drop them off with the new owner of the dry cleaners named Barrie who shares the space with the owner of Happy Rainbows (best store in town) and who also goes by the same name (!) and we all say in Unison, "Another kick-ass pair of pants."

My son's laundry takes on an entirely different approach. His weeks worth of clothes miraculously fits into one hot load with homemade laundry soap. His vortex of laundry includes precisely seven pairs of khaki pants, seven short sleeved soft shirts, seven pairs of socks, seven pairs of boxers and seven pairs of pajama bottoms. Yes, and I am the lazy advocate of the t-shirt he sleeps in that he wears to school the next day.

What piques my interest in doing his laundry, however,  is seeing how many plastic bags, candy wrappers and plastic toys emerge from this heap of soggy clothes.  The double pointed micro ninja pencils are my favorite. They have been loved, nurtured, sculpted into their live role as companion in homework, boredom and imaginary weaponry. Sometimes they surface. Sometimes they don't. What I learned this weekend is that sometimes they make their way back to the timed vault with the lint. The sentence in the dryer vent repository, for this batch of pencils, lasted for years.

There are opportunities to illuminate gratitude in everything. In your course of life and the choices you make it is your privilege to mine, mold and excavate your Soul. Air out your dirty laundry; wash it, dry it, fold it, stack it, forgive it, release it, allow yourself to move through it.  Now my random question to you is this:  How much of your micro Ninja Being is inadvertently stuck in the dryer vent?

barf

As is customary for this time of the year, the stomach bug is sweeping through school. Normally we experience lock down a month earlier. Perhaps the 11 snow days we enjoyed played a part in this delay.

Around 6pm when I inventoried every one's hunger meter, signals flared in preparation for a rapid decent; the meter's needle was buried in the category labeled : "abort mission".

As the flight attendant on this airliner I rapidly dispensed a bucket and box of Kleenex by my son's side. The oxygen masks deployed and as we fastened our safety belts to preparefor imminent impact. Whimpers of panic set in as he felt this consuming visceral dispair. His face lost all semblance of life just prior to projectile vomit.

I breathed through my mouth and grinned. In no way was I choosing to mock his passage - I was choosing to love mine. I loved the fact that he called out for me. I loved it that in between pukes he was telling me about the new Lego themes that are being developed. I loved it that the next sentence after his beloved toys he said, "Mom, I really love my sister." ...with the attached caveat that ,"Sometimes she can be really annoying though." How great it was that in the middle of this release he could summon such joy and love!

And so, as I remember my mom doing with me when I was young, we slept in the same room together - the bathroom light left ablaze as a beacon of safety. My mom ears stayed on alert the whole night without incident; yet periodic affirmations buoyed the bond of care and nurturing as we checked in with one another over the whirrr of his fan.

On the appearance of morning light he hopped into the shower to defumigate and sterilize. I met him somewhere in the middle of the kitchen after I had stuffed all his bedding into the washing machine. We embraced in a good-morning-thank-god-that's-over-but-we-made-it-through hug. Relieved, he buried his face into my bathrobe and said to me, "Mom, you smell like barf." And you know something? I woudn't want it any other way.

We have a choice to embrace these conditions in love or run away in fear. The same goes for every other "unsavory" that sweeps across our daily radar. By having had the privilege to assist him in his time of suffering allowed me to hear the gifts, to help alleviate his fear AND to smell like barf. In my sense of Universal appreciation, I offer no resistance.

Do you think I am crazy? Take a look at mundane moments in your life that present themselves with an essence of resistance. How do they make you feel? Angry, overwhelmed, burdened, fearful? Do these feelings make you happy? (If you said yes then YOU are the crazy one.) Perspective is crucial to how we experience life. It applies to doing the dishes that someone else left in the sink (leave them for the person who made them), to emptying the cat box (come back to it when you feel less resistant) or to unavoidable train wrecks like vomit (must rally NOW!). When you realize that these situations are bestowed upon you to advance your perspective in this physical world...in this human game...you will be gifted with elevated and better feeling experiences on a more frequent schedule.

Open yourself up to feeling good - no matter what. And as you tunnel your way every moment towards what feels good and makes you happy the Universe will conspire with you to answer every desire. Barf happens, but I can guarantee that you will never regret breathing and grinning into love.

conduit

For some reason I was not OK with my daughter wearing her hot pink, fleece bathrobe to Home Depot. As I stated with firm insistence, I recognized my ego. Why the heck not? Is it because I am afraid that people are going to judge me through the appearance of my child?

"Fine!" she huffed as she shed her robe to the kitchen floor in exchange for her box that I had just helped her cover in foil. I am thrilled to report that this made me so happy. It girl-slapped my Ego right back into its rightful place. It made Tatum joyous to show off her "new look" that morphed in between a robot and blunt nose aircraft fuselage. It made the numerous 40 hour/week countenances sparkle with delight at an errant piece of ducting-with-legs that they weren't responsible for inventorying. It made me happy because right as she made a wide, arms-extended, running swoop into aisle two, it occurred to me that in her state of engaged imagination she was happy and "on purpose". One of the employees said, "Heck, she looks just like a piece of electrical conduit!"

This simple observation by the woman in the orange smock was such an afterburner of illumination. Yes, Tatum IS a conduit. She is the only child I have even known to readily portion off her cache of candy so that everyone can take ownership in her happiness, thereby making it their own. She shares her prized possessions or newly acquired toys with her brother without hesitation. She runs with the dog in endless circles of delight. She says, "Mom, the best thing God gave me in my toolbox is LOVE."

We are all conduits. By allowing yourself to feel good, to share with others that which brings you joy, to feel the freedom to express yourself through inspiration fueled by love and light we can all experience the essence of Source, of the Universe. For as you find your core intention, your inspired energy activates those around you calling on their souls truth.

Heaven on Earth awaits all those who wish to plug into themselves.

thermal lifts

I have a theory. I believe that the physiological response to a smile allows the wings of your heart to ride the thermals lifts of gratitude. By engaging your facial muscles even in a faint uplift of the corners of your mouth, even the most dreaded task (mine happens to be a toss up between doing taxes and scooping cat crap) doesn't deplete energetic fields as readily as if your brow was furrowed by burden of a mundane chore. Choosing a gentle grin as often as possible softens the tension of a task driven existence.

When I smile it is as if my cheeks raise the marionette strings of my wing'ed heart. I soar on the thermals of gratitude in complete understanding that I am present for what is. The quality of job I do is dependent on this mindset. Even if I have to hold my breath, cringe, squint and scoop (how many of you are trying this...?) I can still smile. There will always be less savory tasks. The trick is to do them at a time where ones resistence is minimal. The greatest disservice you can do to your soul is to undertake a task while your soul is kicking and screaming, "NO F****** WAY!" By stepping back and recognizing this state of discust honors your core emotional guidance system...it allows a breathe of  peace and creates a space. Leave the task. Just walk away and by doing so you either allow for someone else to do it who doesn't harbor such resistence OR you return to the task later without the barbs and hackles raised. Really, it is the first step in respecting YOU from the inside out.

By recognizing that at each and every moment we have the choice to appreciate the journey, your soul takes a sigh of relief. I am soothed by the effortless flight of these thermal lifts as life's circumstances gift me daily opportunities to breathe into Being. By aligning with Source I am able to give my thanks back to the Universe by smiling and soaring into the unknown with an open, wing'ed heart.

cord wood

My husband is an electrical engineer and a pilot. He measures things precisely - and you can believe it - they always work. His dimensions and calculations are always right when embarking on a project whether that be rewiring a circuit, building a tree house or making the main course for the Christmas feast. Impeccable in his preparedness however, there is always a bubble in the line prior to the delivery of cord wood. Apparently the guys cutting and loading cord wood don't use calipers. Jeff knows it, he expects it and it makes him madder than a hornet even before they materialize. It's called the Law of Attraction; like attracts like.
So in my endless quest to introduce Jeff to this friendly and abundant Universe and living through the heart...and the benefits thereof, I ordered three cords of wood. I made the call, scheduled the date and caressed this interaction through an open heart the entire way. My reputation was on the line. I had taken my life into my own hands because if, gosh-forbid, the three cords that we pay for fell short I'd never hear the end of it. The day of the delivery arrives and I am already hearing mumblings...the wood arrives and my husband says, "this doesn't look like three cords." The transaction has airs like that you'd watch in a back alley drug deal. Their truck bed is filled with wood but until they have the cash in their hand they are leery to dump. A cheque puts the entire exchange on edge.  Then my husband proceeds to ask the guy who is covered in sawdust and wood chips, "Do you know what the measurement of a cord of wood is?" (4x4x8)
If the wood engineers knew who they were delivering to they'd never answer their phone. As I mentioned, my husband, who I affectionately refer to as Mr. Micrometer, has constructed a wood bin that measures the wood by half-cords. Wood is taken seriously around here. But then again, so is my insistence on illuminating the connection with the Universal Heart. I am shedding as much love over this situation as I can muster.
So, the wood guy leaves and we spend the next day stacking and...of course, of the three cords ordered we received 2.25 cords. This is not good. Not good at all. I am afraid. Am I more afraid for me...or the wood guy? However...now is not the time to fear the reaction of my husband....it is the time to love him...to love the wood guy and to envelop myself and all involved participants in white loving light purifying this whole situation and knowing without a fraction of a doubt that it is a friendly and abundant Universe!!!
Each of the two calls I made to Wood R Us I received an answering machine and with the most love in my heart I issued my request to complete the three cords for which we had paid. A week went by...omg. Pressure of this friendly and abundant world thing was starting to make me twitch. I just couldn't bear the thought of enduring several months of dissatisfaction. But then...as the rumbling noise permeated the interior of the home I peaked outside to witness the most beautiful sight of the remaining wood being dumped in our driveway. I was so happy, I sobbed. Yes, sobbed with gratitude. Grateful that my love surmounted fear. Grateful that I don't have to listen to complaining. Grateful that it truly is a friendly and abundant Universe. And grateful that I held it together until after the wood guy pulled away. Grateful that my husband is becoming a believer of the Universal Heart and that my faith delivered.