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.