compassion

I put on my butterfly earrings today and something happened. My earrings have a white butterfly on them and just after I placed the loop through my second ear, I got really dizzy, the room started to spin and I had to sit down quickly.

My eyes closed involuntarily. I didn’t feel in control of my body or state anymore like something had taken possession of me. I sat there trying to open my eyes but they were forced shut. I had to wait.

This was a strangely familiar experience. Sitting on the floor, alone, waiting, wondering, slowly breathing, and then it all came flooding back. I knew what was about to happen.

All of a sudden one yellow butterfly made its way out from inside my left ear. And from there, like follow the leader, more and more butterflies expelled out in swarms from the inside of both of my ears.

I stayed so still as I watched them. I was able to open my eyes as soon as the first butterfly came out. She gave me back my sight. I held out my arms in front of me and the butterflies lined up one by one across them. It tickled and they laughed and I smiled bigger than I had in a while. I started laughing too. Their colours and the feeling of them on my arms filled my mind and my soul with excitement. My brain was being lit up by so many vibrant and detailed wings. I watched them, trying not to disturb the ones on my cheeks with my gaze. There were so many butterflies on my head. I held still but I don’t think it mattered if I moved or not, they weren’t leaving me.

No one was here to see this except the seagulls floating by the window. I think a couple of them did double takes as they flew by. No one would believe me if I told them this anyway. So I won’t, just you I’ll tell. Our secret. You and the seagulls.

Then a truly blissful moment came, where I lay back, legs and arms slightly out to the side and my body transformed, completely covered in butterflies I was.

It felt like a tornado spinning inside my head on both sides, whizzing around in my ears, like a storm, thunder and lightning, booming, crashing, rushing, spinning, and as the butterflies left each ear, it felt like buckets of sand emptying and flowing out in a stream from my head. What a wild feeling.

The sound was just like sand in the ears, crunchy, swirling sand then ejecting out with force. I couldn’t hear anything, only the beauty unfolding from the storm inside me and then around me, in front of me, above me, all over me. I began to cry. It was so beautiful.

Lying on the floor, the tears streamed down the sides of my face. The butterflies started to get wet, some even settled on my tears. They fed on them. I don’t think that they minded because they didn’t move much. Their fluttering wings on my face felt calming, like they were trying to catch the tears and use them as fuel and as nourishment.

I knew eventually I would regain my hearing, but if that meant the butterflies would leave me, I would have happily stayed deaf inside this sandstorm to keep them close and to keep them coming. Butterflies ignited my body with a gentle warmth and a protective layer. My skin was barely visible. I was butterfly skin. Never the same.

These beautiful creatures screamed grace, joy, lightness, purity and peace. What had I done to create that moment, to be blessed by such an event? The last time this happened, I was someone else and I got scared. But this time, this time the joy and surrender and acceptance and trust and welcoming of what was happening was an overwhelming experience I didn’t want to end. Loving this fate. I welcomed every butterfly as they found a spot on my body.

They covered all inches of me, fluttered and then stilled themselves. They kissed every part of me, sucked the pain from my pulsing veins and changed the shape, the sound, and the smell, of all of the things that held me down.

I felt them all working together, giving, giving, giving, filling my heart, filling my heart, filling my heart, protecting my energy and protecting my soul. They worked their wings all across me. I had never felt a force so strong in all my life, and they did not stop until I was given what was desperately needed, replenishment in all of its forms.

I let them stay on me, allowing every moment to unfold just as it was meant to. They kept coming out of my ears, like each one had a very specific purpose, a determination and a job to fulfill. I felt like the butterfly woman. A receptacle for peace and rejuvenation. The soft and delicate power of these wonderful insects soothed my sandy mind and electrified the air around me.

I felt the shield. Each butterfly made an imprint, like the most beautiful parts of all of their souls transferring into mine. I lay there in grateful, astonished tears.

As the last butterfly departed from my ear, the moving sand sound stopped. I could hear. I lay still and hoped they would not leave. My heart felt different, bigger, stronger, truer and like I had a thousand, tiny, sweet singing souls cycling through my bloodstream.

I took a deep breath, then, the butterflies took flight away from my body. All together at once they lifted up and away from me. Their sudden absence drew me to grasp out and plead for them to stay. But instead, I sat up, smiled, thanked them for coming and then watched them float away.

They held me, blessed me, repleted me, heightened me, gifted me, sang to me… then flew out the window.

Thank you dear butterflies for choosing me. I will share your gifts and never forget what you gave me.

There is a glitch with my iPhone and my Mom’s iPhone. We are green and no longer blue when we text each other. With everyone else who has an iPhone we are blue, but the two of us…we are now green.

Lots of explanations for this the sweet guy at Fido said. He and a lovely other guy took a lot of time fussing with all sorts of settings, trying different things to get us back to blue. Two very smart, tech savvy guys and two iPhones, now green instead of blue.

I Googled this before going to Fido and tried endless things yesterday with no luck. It happened at around 2:30pm. I watched it happen. One minute we are blue then the next, boom, green.

If you have an iPhone then you understand the slight stress here. Just slight. A mystery, what just happened? Why are we green and not blue? Three seconds ago we were blue. My Mom and I texting back and forth our attention now locked in on this “issue” that’s come into our lives. Green and not blue. It’s actually ridiculous thinking that this is a problem. It’s not a problem, just a minor annoyance because things are not like they used to be.

I secretly think Steve Jobs had this in mind. To screw with everyone. Just continually keep pissing people off even from his grave. Software updates throwing us off every couple months, imposing upon us new things to learn and adapt to, how dare he! Messing with our emotions. No thing or person or device will be in control of my emotions. I will handle this in the way that I’m sure Steve would want me to. And that is, to search high and low, talk to everybody, ask all the bots, Google, to find an answer as to how I can get me and my Mom back to BLUE!

My first stop was the Fido store where I got my phone. I love the guys there. They are so kind and knowledgeable and helpful, the employees at this specific Fido store on Davie street are just next level. I won’t go anywhere else (except the Apple store if necessary, which in this case it was, I’ll get to that next). And the conclusion that we came to after trying all sorts of things was, that, this is just a system glitch and we would need to wait for the next software update whenever that may be, another mystery, in order for things to reset. Or, he said, to try a factory reset but backup everything first and see if that fixes it.

“Factory reset” two terms that really scare the crap out of me. I love my phone factory. My factory is very special. If I need to wipe it and my Mom’s I just, I’m just, not prepared for this level of panic today. I can’t afford to lose anything else at this point. Reset my factory? I’d rather have a root canal. Two. Being green is enough stress for today. I’ll happily stay green, just don’t touch my Factory.

So, with that information, I bust down to the beautiful glass encased Apple store that beams with white calming light at the corner of Howe and Georgia street. When you walk towards the store, there are lovely concrete steps outside leading you towards the big glass revolving doors. It’s got this heaven like feel as you approach it. I wonder if Steve had that in mind too when he saw the actual stores infrastructure in his mind. Probably. Maybe he thinks or thought he was God? Or maybe he wasn’t involved in this aspect at all. It doesn’t matter really. Don’t even get me started on the staircase that leads from the Sales floor up to the second floor where the “Fixers” are. It’s like the second your foot touches the first step of this staircase, the ability to overthink gets wiped from your Universe, the ability to think period, becomes a challenge. You just start feeling and imagining, and everything else goes quiet as you take each step. Exactly what the Apple Gods envisioned I think.

And when you’re inside Apple it’s like another planet where people speak a different language and they know how to bring a sense of calm back to your world just with their smiles and attitude of “we can fix this, no problem,” it’s like you know that, all your life’s problems will be taken care of in here and the second you leave the store, the world and your life will be righted and a lot brighter somehow.

My phone is like my kid. I don’t have any actual human children so I use devices and animals as my kids and when something is up with one of them, they’re green instead of blue, holy hell I’m going to use every inch and ounce of my healing power, my wisdom, my ruthlessness to nurse my baby back into action. We all have glitches and it’s the kindness of other people and our own willingness to breathe love and compassion into our experience of these glitches, ours and other people’s, that makes life so beautiful.

As I walked to Apple though, I thought how non big of a deal this is. We are green now when we used to be blue. There is absolutely no difference or change in anything else, just the colour of our text bubbles and it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong. We are communicating just fine now in green as we always did when we were blue. But something is different now and it’s up to us to choose how we handle this glitch for however long it decides to stay in our lives, staring at us every day.

I kept thinking, maybe we’re not supposed to be blue anymore, we are being set apart just the two of us for some reason and that maybe this means something else? The Universe sending us a message (in green not blue obviously) and that, according to my last post about mystery, that, we should start paddling towards it, accept it, believe in it, and not search so hard to solve it when it’s not causing us harm or changing anything in our lives for the worse. Maybe this mystery is supposed to sit there with us and it will resolve when it’s supposed to and I shouldn’t be running around to Fido and Apple asking questions and searching to get back to blue. Except my curiosity gets peaked with technology and I love learning things about my phone, my kid, so, I still wanted to do a bit of investigation because it was, odd, that it is just us and with everyone else we are blue. The Fido guys were at a loss, and they know, A LOT. So, a trip to Apple was important for my brain.

I am currently sitting in my hallway typing this in my Notes because I had this blog post in my head all day going from store to store and it was busting out through my ears and nose, so I’m sitting here on my rug with my jacket and boots still on typing away. When this happens, when stuff swirls in my mind I have to stop everything that I am doing, sit down, cross my legs, breathe and let it rip. I’m grateful I’m not holding a pen and a notebook right now and that my wonderful phone has this writing feature. There should be more writing features, for people who, like to write and type, a lot. I bet there are, I just haven’t discovered them yet. I should have asked the Apple guys, oh well, doesn’t matter really, the Notes app is great and works just fine.

The consensus, after much prodding and three different geniuses thinking and fussing with both of our phones was, that I needed to make an appointment and come back in a day or two, they were not about to give up, and it was almost closing time. I scheduled a time to return in two days and for now, we remain green. Will we revert back to blue ever again? Who knows but they reassured me that this has happened before and that they are certain that in two days me and my Mom, will be back to blue.

I had an inkling that this is what they would say and I was prepared for it and my Mom will be ok too, we are resilient the two of us. Just bring it on. But just like any glitch that throws your system slightly off kilter and remains a mystery, how you choose to understand it and allow it to affect you is what matters. Steve knew what he was doing, taking over the emotional health of the world. Nah. You’re always in charge of your own internal mess, chaos, calm and beauty, it would be nice though, if Apple dished out less glitches. I guess I could surrender my iPhone for an Android, but, I’m very loyal, and there’s glitches with anything, so I’ll stick with this kid, she’s been a blessing so far, glitches and all.

Welcoming her glitches and loving them and learning from them, enhancing my mental attitude, maybe that’s what Steve had in mind. I do believe the Universe threw this glitch at us for a reason. The timing is comical. Here’s something else you sweet resilient souls, will you let it burn or let it dissolve? I’m ok with being green. I’ve always felt more green than blue anyway. I love green. Kermit the Frog would argue with me however, as he says, “It’s not easy being green.”

I’m coming to like them, these glitches. Forcing me to orient my thoughts and feelings and even a little bit faster too. And the more glitches that happen, the better.

Thanks Apple and thanks Steve! Keep the glitches coming, watch me love them, welcome them. I am fireproof. And so is my Mom and so are YOU. You can handle it all and more and the more that comes at you, glitches here and there, don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Does. This. Actually. Matter? No.

What mattered today and what will always matter is the great conversation and funny discussion I had at the Fido store with two very nice and amusing guys. We even gave each other a high five before I left the store. (Initiated by me of course, I thought hugging it out might be a bit much, but, I thought about it).

What matters is the warm, kind, patient, honest, determined and friendly humans at Apple who just want to make your experience with your phone and thus your life, better.

I have shelter, food, running water, a bed to sleep in, clean air, sturdy healthy legs to get me from A to B, healthcare, my eyesight, safety, and love. I am grateful for these and never take them for granted.

What matters is that my Mom is here, I am here, and we can text each other any day, any time, from anywhere, whether we are blue or green, makes no lick of a difference.

Happy Glitching!

(Ok time to get off the floor)