HEALER

 HEALER

I remember my first day working in a hospital-based physical therapy clinic. I was so excited. After working in three other departments, I finally scored the job I was after all along.

I'd worked very hard to get the job rehabilitating patients. After spending two years in physical therapy myself as a patient, then studying, shadowing other therapists, reading every Frank Netter anatomy book, devouring all things anatomy related, and teaching schoolchildren through the hospital community outreach department about our bones, it became part of me, our anatomy.

Then I got certified as a personal trainer, though it did take repeating the course two times, because remembering all the exercises and modifications and how to do them correctly proved overwhelming even for an anatomy geek. I knew every bone and muscle, but strengthening them is different than healing them from injury.

Officially a geek about the subject, they finally let me near real patients. I'd been through a rigorous hiring routine and had to prove my knowledge to multiple people at multiple interviews.

I bounded into the clinic with excitement and a wide smile that first day, bringing chocolate for my new boss and co-workers. Always show up with sweets your first day on the job. People like that.

After getting a tour and learning where they kept everything it was time to go to work. Sure I was a little nervous. These were real patients who were really hurting or seriously injured and they expected me to know what to do. I did, but hadn't had my own patients ever and the chatter around the clinic suggested that even the patients knew that I was new.

Mostly knee replacements, that first day were in there. One shoulder replacement lady, one bad back guy, a lady with a stuck neck, an old man that couldn't walk right, and a child who was annoying and I never figured out what was wrong with her.

Taking a deep breath, I jumped in. Adjusting machines for patients, getting and returning equipment, modifying exercises when they couldn't quite do them, and watching everything around me. Then I observed my supervising therapist wrapping kinesiotape intricately around a leg, cutting each strip in a certain pattern and interlacing the strips for support.

She assigned my first knee replacement patient, Patricia, who meekly allowed me to guide her through her flow sheet of rehab protocol. It felt easy for me. Second nature after all my worry. She was kind and had a nice nature and we chatted away while I watched her struggle to get everything right. Only two weeks out of surgery, her scar was huge and swollen and it wasn't easy for her to do things, but she tried and that's all we expect in therapy.

Assigned permanently to me, I worked with Patricia twice a week for several months. Because she was my first patient, we developed a close connection. It felt like I did when I was in therapy myself. That connection between provider and patient is tender and close, especially when real healing is involved.

Meanwhile, my favorite patient was Jaime, who was a prisoner brought over from jail twice a week for a wrist injury. The sheriff escorted him in handcuffed, in front of everybody, removed his cuffs, then sat nearby the whole time while I worked with Jaime, who wore the signature orange jumpsuit prisoner garb. A young man, I felt sorry for Jaime who'd made a bad mistake with drugs and driving. He confided his whole story to me in whispers and was truly sorry for what he'd done, but in Georgia the law is extremely strict and he had to serve his full time for his youthful indiscretions. Meanwhile the sheriff regaled me with the craziest stories about the latest criminals, amazing details that they never report on the news for the gory and salacious nature of those details.

I still looked forward to seeing Patricia. I don't think one ever forgets their first patient. Or their worst, or favorite, or most difficult, etc.

After four long months, she was ready to be discharged. She'd done well and luckily had no issues, because there was and still is a high failure rate for knee replacements. (Remember that before agreeing to one, no matter what a surgeon tells you, and DO try to avoid one as long as possible, because it brutalizes a body.)

Patricia brought me a cake to say thank you. And she filled out the evaluation form about her treatment and about me. It was glowing. She said such nice things, I nearly cried reading it.

But it was what she told me before she left that mattered most of all. She confided that she was scared of me that first day. She heard that I was new, watched me come into the clinic, and admitted that she prayed, PRAYED: please, please, don't let that person treat me. Patricia told me that. She didn't mind admitting to me that she fervently, privately prayed that I didn't come near her, because she wanted an expert, someone with loads of experience.

That's smart, by the way. I wouldn't want a new therapist either, and coach my friends not to accept one.

But Patricia had gone along and she was telling me this now because she wanted me to hear her and to know that she had been afraid of me. She also wanted me to know that she'd never met anyone like me. That she was so glad she'd accepted me and having been there for months and watching everyone around there, she was sure nobody else would've healed her knee better.

"I think you're going to have great success with whatever you choose to do in life," Patricia said. "I can't thank you enough for all you did for me." I smiled and thanked her for saying that.

"I want to tell you something else," she added. "You're really good with people. Really really good. That's why I say that. Whatever you decide to do, you're going to do it well, because you have such a delightful spirit. Thank you again and I left you a very good review. Five stars."

I nearly wept again, hearing her say that to me. What I didn't let her know is that I was scared of her that first day too. I wasn't confident enough yet and I really appreciated her trusting me to treat her knee.

We walked out together, she gave me her phone number and asked me to keep in touch with her and let her know how I was doing. I did that until she died.

We stayed in touch and it's true. We never do forget our first patient and I'll never forget her last words that day in the clinic. Patricia gave me confidence.

I am a healer.

Just Another Lori Story

Shopping With a Ship Captain

 

Shopping With a Ship Captain

I once went shopping with a ship captain. On his ship, where I was working. As an enrichment speaker, I'd traveled aboard cruise ships for more than 20 years, my best dream job ever. I saw the world up close and from the sea, and there is no better way that I can think of to experience everything there is to experience, while not worrying about hotels and cars, or extra travel plans, touring, food, and more.

Life on a cruise ship is so easy. It's all there. A gym, bars, restaurants, reading rooms, a salon, a spa, multiple pools, special events, coffee shops, a promenade with fancy stores, art galleries, so many things to see and do.

I was one of those things “to do”. When at sea, between ports, passengers can pick from a daily newsletter of scheduled events around the ship. Or they can do nothing, which is another glorious reason to sail away. How about a movie? First-run films were always available in the theater or privately streamed to a stateroom upon request. How about origami napkin folding? Carving a watermelon six different ways? Maybe a port shopping review with the guide who will get money from stores you buy from. Or ME! How about me? Interesting “edu-tainment” in the large auditorium, about a multitude of subjects, mostly fun, interesting, comedic presentations about all sorts of subjects picked by the cruise company to present. A favorite is etymology (word origins), probably because our language evolved from sailors at sea long ago. Another area of my expertise is gemology. Passengers like to learn about gems and jewelry and wherever we were headed to determined which stones I'd talk about. Emeralds in South America, opals for Australia, peridot in the Canary Islands, Canada has ammolite, and so on. Jewelry is one of the most popular purchases when cruising. Luxury items to remember a luxurious holiday.

My lectures were very popular and I was pleased to be in high demand from many cruise lines. I started aboard British ships for many years, then finally migrated to American ships too. (But always preferred the smaller British boats to the behemoths that America insists on making even bigger every year.)

One year, I celebrated a BIG birthday aboard a Norwegian ship. My favorite captain at the helm. Weather issues meant missing a couple ports and staying at sea and he asked me to offer some special lectures for high rollers, people that stayed in big suites or those that had spent a lot of money already. Several of us stayed up one night and personally addressed envelopes to these select passengers and they were posted on the doors of these privileged passengers. It was a wonderful presentation. Special because it was intimate, only a couple hundred people instead of the usual huge crowd, with loads of questions and participation, followed by a raffle for a fancy ring that someone gleefully won.

Then the captain rewarded me with a special birthday present, a strand of fine pearls and earrings that matched. Maybe my reaction wasn't the best, because I already owned pearls and earrings and though appreciative and grateful, I think my reaction registered as, well, not really.

He asked and I was delicately honest.

"What would you like that you see here?” He waved his hand over the jewelry cases. I pointed to a gold with diamonds cuff bracelet that I had tried on one evening and really loved, but it was a high-ticket item and we both laughed.

Then the captain said, “let's go shopping.” I had no idea what he meant, but I followed him out into the promenade and he laced my arm inside his. OK, I thought, FUN! We went from store to store; everybody moving aside when we came in, excited to see the captain in their store. It was a game. He wanted to do something lovely for me, but also wanted to test his own security system. There was a nervous feel to the shopkeepers, unused to this unusual situation.

The captain would ask me, “what do you like in here?” and I'd point and he'd lift it off the display and I'd try it on, or he'd just take something and give it to me. Then he would wave up at the security cameras and we'd leave and go to the next store. No money was exchanged. No shop workers stopped us. They laughed and let him do whatever he wanted.

A $250 bottle of Chanel No. 5? Mmmmmm, it smelled nice. “I like that,” he said. And it was mine. Swarovski crystal pen? “Beautiful,” he exclaimed and asked for the box to go with it. Then he saw a matching necklace and said, “how about this to match?” I tried it on and Yes! In each shop, he'd reach for the pretty or expensive and as he “lifted” each thing to take, he'd again wave to his security team. The attendants would wrap each thing and hand it over and that was what we did in every single shop. Such fun! My favorite champagne, a bauble here or there, fancy scarf, arms full of birthday gifts and glorious personal time with my favorite ship man at sea.

I had the best time and it was such a surprise that it didn't register until much later what it all meant to me.
Afterward, we went for fancy birthday dinner at the French restaurant and it was my best birthday meal ever. (Except the staff singing to me. I always get embarrassed by that singing stuff, memories of being made to wear a lobster hat at Red Lobster, long ago.)

For days, I admired and sorted through all my goodies. So much better than a single strand of pearls. Real treasure, both the things and the experience.

But it wasn't until a week later that the biggest blessing of all was bestowed on me. Asked yet again to do a presentment for crew and staff only, something special for my shipmates, I set up in the piano lounge and gave a fine performance, first with facts, followed up with comedy, and then played piano for the stunned group. I'd never done anything like that before on a ship and it was nice for me too.

After everyone left, the captain called me over to walk with him. We went through the art gallery and over to the jewelry store and he opened a drawer and pulled out a felt pouch and handed it to me with a “thank you, this is for you. Happy Birthday.”

No wave to the security guys this time. Everyone already knew about it. I opened the red velveteen bag and inside was the gold with diamonds bracelet that I wanted from the beginning.

What a moment. What a cruise. What a birthday.

I am so blessed. 

FIRED! In 45

 

Fired! In 45

Gibby's. Fort Lauderdale. FIRED! It was forever ago, but it is still funny to me. (It wasn't the least bit funny when it happened.)

Gibby's was a well-known, long-established restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I think it lasted something like 40 years or so before weather damage and interior weariness signaled The End.

But I was there in the beginning. Day One.

Never a drinker, I lived by the beach and was still a bar-going 21 year old. Partying and playing and searching for dates while shouting over disco music; these were typical twenties before payphones disappeared and everything electronic took over everything social.

I didn't drink because alcohol tastes terrible and it made me sick. Half a beer and I barf. Very lightweight date, me. A ginger ale and some interesting banter and we might ignite a small spark. Extra small, because I can't get drunk on ginger ale, even with two stemmed cherries.

But who doesn't like the bar atmosphere and I needed night work ( I was a bank teller by day), so I thought it would be fun to be in the bar ambiance where the excitement and laughter and noise made me feel comfortable, but not be obliged to drink. BARTENDER. That's the ticket. How hard could that be? Getting paid to party!

I read a bit about bartending and had certainly watched enough Tom Cruise wannabees behind a bar shaking up a cocktail. I could do it. Mostly, people tell you what they want. Rum and Coke. Gin and tonic. Vodka and orange. It would be easy. Fake it till I make it was my mentality. After a few weeks and having a chance to watch coworkers, I figured I'd learn on the job. After all, there's the trusty Mr. Boston's Bartender Guide hanging on a chain behind the bar. If somebody ordered something too fancy, I'd sneak a peek.

As the world's best interview, I always get the job. I make great first impressions. My last impressions are memorable too. It's the middle impressions that get me in trouble.

Gibby's was making a grand splash in papers and around town about opening. They interviewed new hires on TV and picked me! They had big interview events and getting a job there was pretty spectacular for loads of people. The restaurant defined luxury. During interviews, there were group tours, uniform and food samplings, all kinds of unusual excitement and corporate involvement that goes with these sorts of upcoming grand openings. I remember a super seminar we had with a wine company after I got hired and before we opened, where we sampled wines, learned all about them and how to recommend them and got gifts from the winery and a personal fancy corkscrew.

Anyway, The Interview. I applied to be a bartender. I'd had enough waitress jobs to last a lifetime and Bartender was my new goal. We didn't have resumes back then, we filled out applications. Remember those? I might have lied a little bit on mine. I had nearly been a career cocktail waitress and switched up a couple of those jobs to behind the bar experience. Employers didn't check back then. Especially if they liked you. I wouldn't be doing brain surgery … other than in liquid form, so hey, hire me! 

But I made my great first impression. We had a good interview and I knew that they would hire me and they did. I was going to work at Gibby's! I told all my friends. And I was going to BE A BARTENDER!

Oh to be 21 again and know everything there is to know. Considerably older now, I look back on that girl with warm affection and astonishment simultaneously.

Day One. Boy was I excited in my fancy Gibby's uniform with the black and white bartender's look and red bow tie. Very crisp and sharp. Oh yes, I felt that I'd made it. After a brief meeting with the whole staff and a scrumptious introductory meal on our bosses, we OPENED!

Customers poured in opening night. They were lined up waiting. The bar filled fast. The service bar cranked quickly too. Luckily, I wasn't on service bar, because those orders pop fast with no time to think and waitresses waiting impatiently.

A man ordered a Jack & 7. I knew what that was! See? Piece of cake. Somebody else ordered straight up bourbon, another asked for a house brand. A glass of wine. A shot. A beer. Nothing hard at all. This was fun! They were lining up. I got a TIP! Everyone was laughing and cutting up and I couldn't believe I would get paid to pour and party like this.

And. Then. It. Happened. A business man in a high thread count custom suit sat down and asked for a Brandy Alexander. 

A WHAT? Not even an hour on the job and somebody wants a drink I've never heard of. My heart raced. I was too embarrassed to ask him what was in it and I didn't want to get caught not knowing, so I sort of pivoted around a bit and bent down to sneak at look in my little book.

Mr. Boston's got me in trouble. My boss saw me look. Panic. I lost my fake it till you make it in my frantic search for an Alexander. Whew. I finally found it. Brandy, Creme de Cacao, and cream. I dropped the book, picked up a skipped heartbeat, and perspired in my new fancy uniform, but made the dang drink. It actually looked like the little picture from the book when I set it down. The man took a sip and nodded. 

But ... it was too late. My cover was broken. My “experience” listed on my application was a lie and my boss called me to his office and asked me what just happened at the bar and why did I not know how to make a basic drink?

Basic? How is it basic if I've never heard of it and I know I know everything? My mind was racing in an effort to bail me out of my brandy blunder.

Dejected and not yet savvy enough to spin his head with any fast stories, I mumbled something about having forgotten or just wanting to make sure. He wasn't buying it and he fired me. Just like that. 45 minutes on the job and I was well done. Fired.

Gibby's was there in that spot for 40 plus years, but I never went back. The only meal I ever ate there was that before opening employee meal. What happened there, completely my fault, nevertheless stung me hard. That I couldn't just fool my way into a skilled service job. 

Do you know what I did? Not taking kindly to not knowing everything about something I was interested in, I went to Bartender School and I became a Master Bartender. The International School of Bartending. International. That's right, Tom Cruise has nothing on me. Well, that's not exactly true... he has a lot on me. But can he curl napkins with a bar glass? Can Tom slice lemons and oranges into fancy curls? Bet he can't make a perfectly blended Long Island Iced Tea either.

Trading my bow tie for my famed Mai Tai, my favorite mixologist jobs were in comedy clubs, because nothing goes better with flavorful Spirits like funny comedians.

I never learned to like liquor myself and I never tasted a Brandy Alexander in my life just on purpose. I got fired in 45 minutes, but I learned a good lesson at Gibby's and humility is never served on ice. It is always served straight up.

I got to keep the personal fancy corkscrew.

Just Another Lori Story

Confessions From a Colonoscopy

 

Confessions From a Colonoscopy

I was one of Those. Don't judge me. Yes, one of those. I was someone who was never going to get a colonoscopy. I'd thought about it. (They make you think about it.) Doctors had prescribed it. Friends had insisted too. I even went so far as to go see a friend who is “that kind” of doctor, because I knew I could trust him and he went so far as to offer his services for free, so I only had to pay for the facility fee; where they look up there to see what you've done down there.

That's as close as I came to a colonoscopy. He gave me the prep (you've all heard) and I went home, fully equipped to go forward, then promptly backed out. Canceled my colonoscopy.

It's not fear that makes me this way, rather, well, maybe there is a little fear in there. But mostly, I just didn't believe I needed a colonoscopy yet and that YET kept up year after year. Eventually, I needed a CT scan for something else and they had a look around and I decided (with my advanced Google medical degree) that the scan sufficed for the thus far avoided colonoscopy. They saw nothing out of the ordinary.

I skirted the issue at every medical appointment along with the weight scale, an unfortunate habit I picked up a decade ago. The numbers annoy me. It doesn't matter what they are, I don't like them, nor the cheery nurse announcement that comes with stepping off the scale – me, with all my clothes on, a coat, 2 pound pair of shoes, and the 4 pound neck scarf. Nobody ever deducts for the scarf. So I stopped doing that and I stopped discussing tests I didn't need or want, including anything related to my colon, which is my veritable insides. No, they're tender, leave them alone. Like any aging goddess, goodness knows there is enough real stuff falling apart to pay attention to.

Then I ended up in an ER. In the middle of a pandemic. I had put up with a few pains and unrelated issues for a long time, waiting for the dang Covid to give it a rest when I ran out of time. I dragged my sorry self to a doctor who said I had to go to the hospital right away. Not something I expected to hear and not feeling very compliant (that part is normal for me), I went home. But the next morning I put on the big-girl pants and drove myself to the ER for some answers. Whatever it was that kept hurting me had hurt me for a long time, so I wasn't overly worried about it. I worried more about the Virus and I already know that the best place to catch anything sickly is in a hospital. That's the part that scared me.

I don't know where everything went wrong, but I do know it started when they snatched my weight from the bed in the ER. They just WEIGH YOU. No stepping up on anything, no asking, no telling, and thank goodness, no scarf (since they'd already removed everything from me but the backless gown). No cheery announcement either, but I should have known from there that I had entered some kind of relinquish control cosmos. 

I also didn't plan to stay. I only came for a diagnosis and because the doctor said I needed to be seen. But too bad. They kept me.

Basically, the doctors decided I needed the “ultimate car wash”, you know, the one with the prewash, the bubbly scrubs, the fancy sprays, and the after kick, followed by the wind tunnel air dryer --- or is it fryer? ---- because I went through every test I've ever heard of for days on end and with no food. They starved me. Really. Oh sure, I got broth and juice and tea, and NO FOOD for days. Only IV for nutrients and test after test.

I got my first Covid test ever and since I hadn't been anywhere since March 2020, I knew it would be fine. No Covid found and they knew that in less than 5 minutes and I wondered why everyone couldn't get Covid tested without resorting to my ploy of an ER visit.

They were watching my heart, but I assured them that my heart is broken, not defective. My pleas fell flat and a stress test came next. Stress? Check. I have stress and I need food. Nope. No food. One good thing about Covid is that they didn't want me on a treadmill (heavy-breathing all my awful aerosols around), so they injected me with poison instead to make my heart more miserable than its starved self already was.

Eventually, the doctor nobody wants to see appeared at the foot of my bed. “Tomorrow, you're having a colonoscopy,” he said. “No, thanks,” I said. “I don't want one. I had a CT scan and they found nothing.” We discussed. He stated his reasons and I stated mine. Then this doctor mentioned the “Michael Jackson drug”, Propofol. Hmmmmm, I thought …. they'd already humiliated me and starved me and I do enjoy a waltz with Propofol (my old friend from my broken leg trauma surgeries) so I accepted the doctor's deal.

Furthermore, in a hospital, the nasty prep that everyone jokes about isn't nasty at all. It's Gatorade. Two tons of it, but it's still just Gatorade. No bad taste or consistency involved. Those of you who have had a colonoscopy know what my night-before was like. Those of you who have not had a colonoscopy, you don't need details. Your day is coming.

Suffice to say, although the Gatorade did not taste bad, I was still hooked up AND plugged in, and unplugging and wheeling an IV stand with you while you're prepping for a colonoscopy is not for the slow or the uninformed. Doing that every few minutes for hours makes one Olympic worthy for the Colonoscopy Relay. I wasn't even trying to unplug those machines nicely like I'd done the first few times. I was yanking cords fiercely from the walls exactly the way my mother taught me never to do. I didn't have time. How do people everywhere survive this?

The anesthesiologist had beautiful eyes. They were warm and conversational, with an edge of laughter, and I like comedians. Especially comics who knock me out. He was double masked and double shielded and covered all over so that only his eyes peered out at me in the operating room. Room number 4. They'd all just had lunch. I hadn't eaten for four days. They were jovial. I was weakened. He came over and huddled close and promised me he'd announce the Propofol and that it would be a breeze. He was so nice, or maybe my memory of him is oiled by the Propofol that I saw dripping into my hand and the lovely dream I had, which was so long and only 10 minutes. I remembered what I saw in my dream and they saw nothing but an exquisitely clean colon, which was my reward for running through the night with an IV pole and a flood of Gatorade.

All this to say:  Get Your Colonoscopy. Get it before it gets you. You don't want something like that creeping up on you the way that it stealthily crept up on me. 

And I hope that you get a really nice anesthesiologist.

Just Another Lori Story

HOPE

 Hope For Help

Hollering "Help!" oddly didn't help. Crying wasted precious salt reserves that my ocular system struggled to save. Disjointed thoughts battled each other on the overcrowded battlefield of my warped brain. Pain on top of pain promised only more pain on top of more pain.

Going beneath the bottom of the bottoms brought the resignation that there was nothing more that I could do, think or try. In the distance shone a tiny ray of (dare I think it?) H.O.P.E. Actually hope is all that is left when everything else packs up and leaves.

Hope is the last life-preserver before the ship slips beneath view. Hope is the friend I thought I lost that calls from out of the blue with a joke or a jingle. Hope is the knot untied that threatened to remain a tangled mess forever. Hope is help that waits quietly inside where it's always waited ... quiet, unobtrusive, steadfast, loyal. It's the seed of survival waiting to be watered into full bloom.

Hope is FAITH.

Many people "wish". Wishing differs from hope in that wishing indicates lack of probability. Wishing is dreaming.

We wish to win the lottery. We wish the job of our dreams to magically appear via a networking event full of other wishful bores. We wish for the car of our dreams, a mate who is loyal (and gorgeous), tall wonderful children who will support us when they become astronauts or doctors, and that our Oscar speech will be the viral video of show business for decades. We wish. And we rub the genie lamps of our dreams with those wishes.

Hope is different.

While wishes hold fantasy and imagination, hope wagers with reality and possibility. With hope comes conquering strength. Hope gets support from Will and Effort. Hope lifts impossibility. Hope finds a way.

Tears dry up, leaving residue, resolve and resolution along a well-worn path. Hope is a can-do call for action.

Hope means survival and most of all, hope means all of our wishes and dreams can come true.

That is my wish for you.

Hope is Faith and Faith is forever. 

Just Another Lori Story

The Blue Dress

The Blue Dress

I found this pretty blue and white dress at a small shop in Cancun. It fit. I liked it a lot. The shopkeeper complimented me in it and I twirled around from one mirror to another, deciding if I really needed it. Of course not. I didn’t “need” another dress or any clothes. Like most ladies, I just like to shop and buy something new.

But this something cost a bit more than I wanted to spend. Talking myself out of it, especially since the saleslady wouldn’t stop chattering, I hung it back on the rack and left without buying anything. That felt good.

After looking around in the other shops, I went back to the beach and rented a horse. Wearing nothing but a yellow bathing suit, I rode bareback along the shore and after galloping miles away, rode right into the water for a mutual cool down, horse and rider. The horse couldn’t wait for the refreshing water and swam far out with me still on his back. Hanging on to his mane for balance, here I was, in the Gulf of Mexico, happy as I’ve ever been.

We rode back and dipped into the water here and there for cool downs. It was just me and the horse and the ocean. At the stables, the horse kept nudging me. The groom said it was unusual, because he didn’t want his oats. He still wanted to play.

I still wanted the blue dress.

But I put it out of my mind and went on to dinner, dancing, a night’s barbecue by the beach, some swimming, the usual celebrations at the resort.

Exhausted, I fell asleep as soon as head hit pillow.

Did I dream about the fun? The horse? The gorgeous azure waters of Cancun? NO. I dreamed about the dang dress.

When I woke up the next morning, keenly aware that I had dreamed about that stupid dress, I decided it would be OK to go and get it. If it preoccupied my thoughts that much, maybe it was meant to be mine. So what that it was too expensive. So what that I didn’t need it. I wanted it. And it did look nice on me. Better to get it and regret it than to pass it and want it later, I justified.

After breakfast, I went to town again and back to the same shop. My dress was gone. Someone had bought it. The end. I looked and looked, hoping somebody had put it back on a different rack, but no. It was gone and the saleslady was a different person, so I couldn’t even ask about it.

Sad that I had passed it by, I looked around at some of the other choices, but I knew I didn’t want anything else.

The bell on the door chimed as another woman came in. I overheard her tell the clerk she wanted to return a dress. From behind a row of clothes, I watched from afar as she pulled my dress from out of her bag and handed it to the clerk. My heart thumped hard. How is this even possible?

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Yes, it’s only a silly dress. But still…. What kind of timing did I have to have to be there at that very moment; to happen into the store at exactly the same time a lady comes to return what I wanted to buy? It’s a different day. It’s a tiny wish I carried along a beach on the back of a horse and into the night within a dream. Small miracles become bigger wonders when they personalize so smoothly, and fall into place after a dream. Five minutes before or after and I would have missed this moment. These sorts of events do not escape my notice. Synchronicity. It’s weird and wonderful, simultaneously, and I never miss an opportunity to be grateful for the unexpected or the unexplainable, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

I hid behind the racks, not wanting to interrupt the transaction. The clerk asked if she’d worn it and the lady said, “No, I bought it yesterday and decided it’s not really for me.”  Indeed! I thought. It’s not for you, because it’s supposed to be mine.

After the customer left, I popped up unremembered from the rear of the store. The dress was hanging alone on a rack behind the counter, just waiting for me.

Without any undue fuss or emotion, I walked up to the register, asked for the dress and bought it. All the lady said to me was, “Wow, that’s funny… another lady just returned this.” I nodded without a word, keeping my story to myself.

I still love that little dress. I’m glad I got it. And I love the story too.

Just Another Lori Story

Happy Easter 2020

Tons of Nuns

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of northwest Spain's Galicia region. The cathedral in the main square centers the town and is the ultimate destination for those completing the popular route of the Camino de Santiago from France to Spain. A grueling journey, pilgrims have been determined to conquer the winding route for centuries. The walk takes about a month, if you walk endlessly every day. I arrived in Vigo, Spain, by cruise ship, because walking endlessly on any day disrupts my preassigned pampering schedule, prearranged by an onboard concierge. Cruise ships are more comfortable than gravel roads through tiny towns.

A fancy air-conditioned limo bus whisked me from the ship to the church. The countryside of Spain, mesmerizing enough, is nothing compared to the first glimpse of the Cathedral de Santiago. I wasn't prepared for the magnificence.

I'd been given instructions. I'd been told by the ship's crew who knew: what to wear, how to behave, even who to light a candle for and what to pray. But the splendor of this church, the size and significance it carries within the Catholic religion, the crowds gathered ... something about the atmosphere signaled that this church might be the Mother Church. It is knock-you-over stunning at first sight, and though I'd seen pictures and been coached about everything (because I was leading a passenger group tour), the initial entrance into the square and the first glimpse of the enormous church caught me more than off guard.

The traditional first thing one does is stretch out flat on the several thousand year old pavement stones in front of the church and look backwards up and over your head. Literally, lie down on the dirty pavement and look upside down at the church. Not keen to do this, nor did I believe most people would do it (except lemmings, of course), or that there was anything to see. But there they were. Throngs of people, every shape and age and size, rows of them. Lying on the ground in every manner of clothing, flexing in all kinds of contorted positions to stare up, over and backwards at the church. They looked locked on something.

OK, I thought. I can do that too. Then I did. It made me giggle. There is something to see. But I won't spoil it for you and tell you what, because like me, you'll want to experience that moment for yourself if you ever get to Santiago.

Time to go inside. As ours was a prearranged tour, we had access to a special side door, and I'd been instructed to enter through that different door to check in. The front door to the church had lines that stretched for blocks around the town square. It moved slowly. Worshippers threaded in through the huge, oddly slender front doors, and walked the length of the long church, with their mouths held agape at the majesty and sheer expansiveness inside the towered church, which is filled with relics and color and smells and older set back sections, unseen splendors everywhere an eye lands, even above. Especially above.

I went to the side entrance exclusively used for VIP visitors or clergy of the church. This early afternoon, clergy clogged that side door portal into Santiago. There were tons of nuns. I never saw so many nuns at one time, indistinguishable from one another, except for the different color wimples worn on their heads.

I looked out of place. Gathering my headscarf tight, covering every hair on my head, I tied it up as Marcus had instructed. He said I had to be covered up completely to go in with the nuns.

As if I were going to innocently blend in with tons of nuns. My sins smelled. I felt so out of place. But I stood there, all swaddled in my secret sanctity.

Meanwhile, it was warm. Getting hotter by the minute, as I stood solemnly, waddling side-by-side along with the line, perspiring nervously, moving inch by inch, quietly ahead, all wrapped up like the only person who didn't belong in the nun line.

As we approached the arched entrance, I saw each group of nuns enter and then go off into their own groups or disappear deep into the church to pray. Looking around, the red glass of the hundreds of lit candles cast an eerie glow over the entire church. A smell of old and holy mixed with man-made fabrics and tourists from everywhere and new candles being lit flooded my nose, right before I saw two priests swing the largest incense burner I've ever seen, filled with fiery incense, across the entire length of the church. Intense! Both the incense and the scented assault, not necessarily unpleasant, just too much at once on my various senses. There were many sights and sounds and smells all at once. My covered head needed to burst forth and experience all these surreal scenes. Icons and saints and windows and throngs of people and tons of nuns. Nuns were everywhere. Praying filled the sanctuary with a buzz, words in every tongue imaginable.

But only one tourist was covered up like a nun. Only one looked completely out of place in Santiago de Compostela that sunny Monday afternoon.

Me.

It was a joke. Marcus and the others had set me up to look like a religious zealot, but there are no official dress codes to come into Santiago de Compostela. I took off the scarf that covered my malleable brain.

My group laughed. Strangers laughed. I freed my hair and my soul at the same time. With a laugh, of course.

And among those tons of smiling nuns, I hope at least one of them offered up a prayer for hapless me.

We are all just struggling to make it. To do the best that we can. It's good to have fun. I know. Because I asked a nun. 

Just Another Lori Story