Exposed

“So, what’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me to come and meet you at nearly midnight and you look awful.” He looks directly into her eyes intently, “So, what’s wrong?”

She flinches and sits back in the wooden chair in the back room of Soma Coffeehouse. “You really are intense aren’t you? No small talk, no how is work or anything, just ‘So, what’s wrong?’ She says mimicking him and what she thinks is austere facial and body expressions. “Fine. I am miserable, are you happy?”

“Why on earth would I be happy about you being miserable? OK, so what’s going on lately? Have you been practicing Reiki, Yoga, meditation? What have you been eating and drinking? Let’s start with the basics and we can go from there.”

She sighs heavily and Miho notices her hesitation and her face drooping with shame. He decides that they need to go another route, Natalie is not ready to jump right in. “Natalie, how about we take a moment to do some breathing and get connected to the Reiki lineage. Maybe that will get us both in a place where we can move forward without the ego and emotions in the way.”

“Thanks Miho. I am mess and really need some help. What should I do?”

“Let’s just take a few deep breathes, relax and let our brain rhythms slow down a bit.” They both close their eyes while sitting in a public coffee house and take some deep breathes, hers are deeper and heavier than his. His are gentle; hers are weighted and carry a lifetime of exhaustion in each breath. He notices her relaxing just enough to move forward, “Now. Ask to connect to the Usui Reiki lineage. Let the lineage strengthen you and get you aligned. Feel the lineage and its Presence fill you up. Allow Reiki to expand in you and become you. Ask the Higher Self to be present, in charge of you and this whole process. Just your Higher Self and mine connecting and working together. No more Miho or Natalie, just the Higher Selves doing their thing. When you feel it, slowly open your eyes enough to see but not enough to let the whole world in. Take your time, we do not want to force or manufacture anything. Reiki is about genuine experiences and no pretending or letting imaginations have a field day with us.” She barely opens her eyes enough to see out and make eye contact with Miho. They both share a gentle and unintended smile. “How are you doing?”

She smiles softly and barely moves her lips to speak, her voice is still, gentle and without any of the drama and attitude that was present just a few minutes ago. Her face has a nice blush tone to it and her eyes are clear. “I feel good. It is the first time I have really felt Reiki in a while, too long. Miho, I need to get back to where I was just a few months ago. I miss feeling this way, being this way and being of service to others. I have become very self-centered, selfish and fragmented. What happened?”

“It feels good to see you this way again. This other Natalie is not needed or helpful to you or anybody else. The real Natalie is calm, focused, committed and cares deeply for others and their well being. You are needed Natalie and we need you to do what your Higher Self signed up for you to do.” He slows down even more, “You can’t do this if you are all caught up in your personal dramas and letting the ego run your life. Why have you been so fragmented?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. There are no victims here and you have been trained in inner discernment through Reiki. Why are you so fragmented? Can you feel your body?”

“Yes, I can now. I have not felt my body in a while.” A small but visual hesitation before she continues allows her to slow down, “I have been doing some things I didn’t used to do when I felt connected and grounded. For one, I have started drinking coffee again in the morning and sometimes at night when out with friends. Of course, now I don’t sleep as well either. Which makes me want to drink coffee the next morning even more. Miho, my life is moving so fast these days, I never stop to slow down and barely do any Reiki or meditation in the mornings anymore. I have not been to the Yoga studio since May and my body is cramping and stiff a lot. There is very little energy flow and I feel it.”

“I am not surprised, caffeine pokes holes in the energy field and allows all kinds of stuff to latch onto us. I experience the same thing with sugar products, I get wired, anxiety, ungrounded and my field becomes like Swiss cheese. Who knows who and what I drag home with me after some ice cream and a cup of coffee?”

“OK, so I have been eating a lot of sugar too. And, when my friends and me go out, I drink a couple of glasses of wine. I rarely get drunk so I convince myself it is OK. What is the big deal right? If everybody else can, why can’t I? Of course, I know better. I have worked with enough folks to see just how dramatic alcohol in the bloodstream does to the energy field, digestion and mood. Then, the next morning, I need coffee to get started and some sweats to eat so I can get going. No wonder I don’t sleep anymore. That is another thing. Since adding all this stuff back into my life, my dreams have changed dramatically, they are darker too. I have gone from Reiki Teaching dreams to dreams filled with violent sex, fighting with everybody and I feel like the whole world is in bed with me now while sleeping. I can feel everybody’s thoughts and emotions, as if I am connected right to them.”

“Well you are! That is what happens when we let our field get open like that. And you are right, you do know better. I do too, but every now and then I convince myself like you that I can do it, somehow it will be different this time. And we actually buy this crap and ignore the Inner Voice that knows where it will lead us. I am so glad that I have been away form that stuff for a while now. Sleep is better and I don’t have that feeling like being spaghetti with all kinds of cords knotted and twisted inside of me from every person I come in contact with. The good news is that Reiki can help you get back to being Natalie again. But like everything else, it is not free. You will need to recommit yourself to doing your work. You are needed and matter. We have work to do and don’t have time to keep buying the crap that the ego sells us. We have to let the Higher Self be in charge and stop playing all these games.” He pauses long enough to make sure they have solid eye contact, “Are you ready to do your work, or do you still want to play around?”

Natalie’s eyes and focus are still and unwavering. She does not move anything in her body, as if she is sleeping while completely alert and aware of what is going on inside and outside of her. Her strength and courage are visible in her face, posture and tone, “Yes I am ready. I want to be of service again. I miss being me and the way I feel when connected up with Reiki. What do I have to do?” Natalie’s voice is steady and firm.

“You just did it. Remember, what we say and do matters. They are not just words and thoughts. They are real and hold an imprint. Everything we think and feel affects others. We are all connected and we all need to do out part, even though it may seem small or irrelevant, it natters. We matter.” Miho reaches across the Maple table and takes Natalie’s hands in his. His gaze does not budge, nor does hers. They stay locked in this moment for what seems like all of time but in linear time, just a moment. That is all it took, just that moment of connection and acknowledgement. What else is needed?

TV Dinners

“Mom. Why can’t we have TV dinners like everybody else? Are they too expensive?” David asked in his typical demanding manners that never really felt like a question.

“Yeah. Why can’t we have TV dinners mom?” I was only eleven but was q quick learner; if it worked for David for fifteen years, why not try it myself?

Her face turned red, her head tilted a little like it does when she doesn’t like the conversation or people. This time it was the conversation. “Because they’re no good, that’s why.”

“But we want them! Why can’t we have them just once to try them?” Again he used the question that was a demand more than a question. “Just one time and then we won’t ask again.” Not remembering when “we” became a “we” in this plan of his but I sat there silent to see if it would work.

Mom hesitated for a moment. Her face got redder, her forehead got all squished up and she was shrugging her shoulders, “OK. You want TV diners, we’ll have TV dinners tomorrow night for supper.”

“YAY!” We both yelled in harmony.

Thanks mom,” I said as David walked away with that smirk he has after successfully bullying somebody, especially adults.

All day in school all I could think about was having TV dinners tonight. What are TV dinners I wondered? Do you eat them while watching TV? Why would anybody want to eat while watching TV? Do you eat them differently than regular food?

When it started getting dark, I stopped playing kickball at the cul-de-sac at the bottom of Berkeley Terrace with my friends to see what a TV dinner looked like. I had already three times seen commercials on TV about them, since I really only watch Saturday morning cartoons on TV, three times was a lot. And, we were going to have one for dinner tonight.

I threw open the front door, ran up the steps through the living room to the kitchen and asked out of breathe, “Are the TV dinners done yet mom?”

“Don’t run through the living room, use the steps from the hallway! David will be home any minute and the TV dinners are almost done. Go wash your hands and set up the den for dinner.”

I ran down the hallway steps to the bathroom on the right past the laundry room before the den and washed my hands. I noticed the only book we ever had in the bathroom was Race Riots, which was jokes about everybody from Micks to Spics, whatever that meant. I ran back up the steps to the kitchen and asked, “How do you get ready to eat TV dinners in the den mom?”

She handed me three plastic trays with cups, forks, knifes and spoons for the three of us. I guess dad isn’t coming home for dinner again tonight, too bad he’ll miss out on TV dinners. I slowly walk down the steps to not drop and break anything and through the hallway to the den with the colorful, shag flowered carpet and black leather couch. We had a color TV, so the TV dinners will probably even taste better than when we had just a black and white TV.

David came barreling through the front door slamming it as he ran up the living room steps to the kitchen and again my mom yells, “David, don’t go through the living room to the kitchen, use the hallway steps!”

“Are the TV dinners done yet?” not even acknowledging mom spoke.

“Yes, we were just waiting for you.” She opens the door to the oven with both of us staring wide-eyed, grabs her oven pads and takes out these little bendable metal trays with three little compartments that separated the Eggplant Parmigiana from the Linguine with Marinara Sauce and applesauce in the left hand corner compartment. “Go get the three trays your brother left in the den and bring them back with you, hurry.”

David was back in a jiffy. We each carried our own TV dinner down to the den and sat on the black leather couch that had the Afghan my mother crotched last winter. We were so excited we didn’t even notice the TV wasn’t on for our TV dinner. My mom turned on the TV with its cool remote control device she held in her hand that was able to turn the TV on and off, and change channels without even getting up. She put on the evening news with Walter Cronkite on CBS but we didn’t care because we were eating our TV dinners. After a few minutes, I noticed that our TV dinner was identical to what we ate last night and most nights in our home. Eventually David got mom to confess that she borrowed the little metal trays from The Graifmans and just put last night’s leftovers in the three little compartments and heated them up in the oven. “I just can’t feed my children frozen TV dinners!” she said.

Like with everything and everybody else in life then and till the day he died in 1997, David wore her out and she gave in and bought “real” TV dinners for us the next night. We had Swanson Hungry Man Turkey Dinner with dried out turkey with a boring gravy, fake mashed potatoes and awful peach cobbler. They sucked. We all went up to the kitchen, threw them in the garbage and raided the fridge for some Rigatoni in the white Corner Ware dish and my mom made some fresh salad in the big dark brown wooden bowl we always ate salad in.

It turned out David was telling the truth when he said if she would let us try them once we would never ask again, we didn’t. But my mom wanted us to feel like we were like the other kids in the neighborhood, so she would make a real meal in the soft metal trays with three little compartments about once a week and eat in front of the TV in the den together as a family. It was the only time we didn’t talk, laugh and have fun during dinner in my family because the TV was on.

She filled up the big downstairs freezer with these TV dinners for “Whenever I am too busy or tired to make a fresh dinner.” They lasted in that freezer for quite a while until my mom got breast cancer, whatever “cancer” was and my grandmother stayed with us while she was in the hospital getting “chemo”. My mom wanted to be sure we still had her food even while she was on the verge of death herself. My grandmother used to walk around complaining, “I don’t know why your mother wasted all that time making you kids these frozen dinners when I can make you dinner myself.” That was my mom, always seeing dinner as how you show and share love. It worked