A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

When I was a kid in St. Augustine, Florida, we used to occasionally make a day trip out to Palatka, about 25 miles away. We'd leave in the morning, have lunch there and do some shopping before returning home. It was a Big Deal.

Now that I live in the Valley—that great hollow between unrelated mountain chains that holds Greater Phoenix—I drive 25 miles just to go to work in the morning. Crossing over to the Other Side Of The Valley has become the Big Deal. We used to live in the West Valley (Peoria) and have many friends there, but now that we live in the East Valley (Mesa) we save up reasons for going to the West side until they become so compelling they cannot be put off any longer.

One of those reasons is delivering Chiropracticals, promotional video tapes I make as a side job, to my chiropractor. They have to be handed over the first business day of the month, which this month was yesterday; and I try to tie it in with getting an adjustment. But while I'm over there, I also visit friends whom I miss and don't get to see often enough since we've moved.

This month, Michael had a massage client to visit on the West side the same day. So I took half the day off; Michael picked me up and we set out to begin with lunch with our dear friends Maurean and Sue, whom we knew from classes we presented when we lived in Peoria.

Maurean is Sue's daughter; they live in a one-story condo on a quiet street in Sun City, with a grass lawn front and back (unusual here in the desert) and more than one cat. (When counting cats in a house, there are only three possibilities: None, one, and more than one. When there are more than one, it doesn't matter if there are two or twenty; no matter where you look there is movement seen from the corner of the eye that vanishes when you try to focus on it.) Sue is afflicted with macular degeneration, which has made it difficult for her to read or even navigate unfamiliar environments without assistance. Nevertheless, when Michael and I invited them to lunch, they were happy to accept.

However, when we arrived, Maurean was upset. Now, you'd have to know Maurean to understand that this utterly kind, capable, and powerful woman is never upset. She has a calming influence that could bring peace to the Middle East if only it could be bottled. So it was quite unusual to see that something had her frazzled.

"It's our next-door neighbor," Maurean explained. "She screams at me. And I was working in the garden just now and she came up and told me I had the butt of a truck driver's wife."

Having been a truck driver, I could assure Maurean that there is no kind of butt that is "typical" of the wife of a driver, but this disturbance went deeper than that. It seems the woman living next door to Sue and Maurean is either crazy or afflicted with Alzheimer's—it's hard to tell, because she's been difficult to be around as long as they've known her. Her own son moved to Hawaii to get away from her, visiting only when he can't avoid it (for example, to attend his father's funeral, at which, rumor has it, his father laid in his casket with a smile of blessed relief; and, during one of those rare after-death spasms, slammed the lid of his coffin shut and locked it from the inside). She's the kind of person who, upon moving to her condo, sent a barrage of nasty letters to all her neighbors complaining about everything—their pets, their cars, their window treatments. She complained so much and so viciously that even the Homeowners' Association was intimidated—and you know homeowners' associations; they were created by God after He invented Nazis for practice. Even the local police were intimidated, as Sue found out after having a restraining order issued against the woman (who had threatened to shoot Sue's cats). The woman violated the order, but the police refused to "get involved". The armory hath no vests good against such a woman's scorn.

So, Maurean's altercation that morning with this Spawn of Satan was only the latest in a long line of psychic attacks that had left the normally unflappable Maurean flapped.

Maurean's problem, I pointed out, was that she was being too nice. Many New Age-type people have this problem. We want to be nice to everyone; we believe—we hope—that the only reason anyone would be mean is that someone was mean to them first; and if only we could be nice enough they would come around. I agree this is often the case—but it isn't always the case; and the next door neighbor did seem, to me, to be a lost cause.

Not that any cause is truly lost in the long term. But, as a reincarnationist, I acknowledge that some causes aren't going to be won in this lifetime. And I'm okay with that. Some people can only gain enlightenment after an incarnation as an extremely low form of life, such as a microbe, or Paris Hilton.

It's a matter of energy exchange. Whenever you say "Hello!" to someone, energy is exchanged. You pass energy to the person when you say hello; and he or she returns it when they reply. This kind of energy isn't like electricity, which resistance diminishes as it is used; instead, mutual greetings increase the energy of both participants, which is why you feel uplifted after exchanging greetings with someone. (A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle, but the available light is doubled.) On the other hand, if the recipient refuses to participate, you lose energy even though the grouch gains a little. Still, the reward for mutual energy gain is great enough to be worth the risk; and most people understand this, even if only subconsciously, which is why (as far as I know) every human culture indulges in mutual greetings, even fundamentalist Christians.

When a woman like Maurean's next-door neighbor makes one of her attacks, she projects negative energy. Psychic energy comes in positive and negative forms, but large amounts of either make the possessor feel good (or, at least, better). So a negative person wants to increase their energy charge as much as anyone else. She's hoping for Maurean to react in kind, to either attack back in anger, or to retreat in fear. (Fear is a particularly potent form of negative energy, as the leaders of the Republican party well know.) It's a difficult situation to be in, because almost anything you do will feed the woman's insatiable craving for more negative energy, thus encouraging her to continue her destructive and anti-social behavior. The only thing that can break this pattern is to send the person large amounts of positive energy, that is, Love; but this isn't easy to do while someone is screaming insults regarding your butt.

I encouraged Maurean to react with Love, and with that Love to aim the garden hose at the woman. But if not done with Love even wetting her from head to foot will not really solve the problem. And I admit that spraying the woman would be difficult to not do without letting feelings of self-righteous satisfaction creep in. Especially if you had one of those fire-hose nozzles on the hose that projects enough pressure to skin a buffalo at ten yards.

In any case, Michael and I reminded Maurean that, as a student of metaphysics, she has become an extremely powerful Being and it is thus extra-important that she not suppress the anger the neighbor engenders, because it will then simply backfire on Maurean. There is a very big difference between suppressing anger and rising above it.—And it can be a difficult difference to perceive when it's your anger you're talking about.

So we got into our SUV to leave for lunch. That is, we began to. But the moment we were out of the house, Maurean realized she had locked her keys in it. That wouldn't prevent us from going to lunch, but it would keep Sue and Maurean from returning home.

It's started, I thought. Maurean so hated going home she had created locking her keys inside so she couldn't. But I didn't say anything, since Maurean was so pissed at herself already.

"Where would you like to eat?" I asked when we were in the car and driving down the road. I suggested Village Inn, Long John Silver's, Fuddruckers—none of which were particularly close by, but all of which I could find.

"How about that place on Grand, I can't think of the name of it—" Sue began.

"Coco's?" Maurean suggested.

"That's it," Sue agreed. So that's where we went.

The place was quiet, with only a couple of other parties dining. Michael and I found they had corn chowder and eagerly ordered that; I had a Philly cheese steak, Maurean and Sue both ordered salads. Sue's was a Cobb salad without the turkey, because she is a vegetarian who only makes an exception for bacon. (Something I understand completely: If I were a vegetarian, I would also make an exception for bacon. In fact, I have considered becoming a baconarian, because I so hate to take the life of an innocent vegetable.)

We talked for a bit, which became a challenge when one of the waitresses brought an electric broom to the occupied table near ours and started vacuuming. Apparently the electric broom was new and the staff was eager to play with it. But it did make conversation tricky.

Then our waitress brought bread to the table with little cups of margarine to put on it. When I asked if we could have some real butter, her reply was, "That's not for you anyway!" It was spoken in what was supposed to be that mock rude tone used by waitresses trying to increase their tip by feigning a long-term, jokingly light-hearted relationship; but it took me aback. "We don't have actual butter in the restaurant, anyway."

Since Coco's is a "bakery restaurant" that prides itself on its pies, that didn't bode well for dessert.

So we sat and talked awhile longer. Actually, quite a while. Most of the other customers left. Finally, our waitress reappeared with Michael's and my plates. "I thought I'd go ahead and bring yours, since they were ready," she explained, avoiding eye contact with Maurean and Sue (who couldn't see her, anyway). She then scuttled away before we could enquire about the ladies' salads.

While we continued to wait, I offered everyone a sample of my sweet potato fries—which were overdone, but Maurean and Sue had never had them before—and Michael, who hadn't eaten breakfast, apologetically began working on his food. I wondered out loud if they were growing the lettuce for the salads; and Michael began asking in a loud voice if the ladies weren't starving and where were their orders, anyway?

A full hour after our arrival, the waitress appeared with Sue's Cobb salad. Except—it wasn't what Sue had ordered; there was a pile of sliced turkey meat on top. The waitress offered to take it back; but Sue was so hungry at this point that she said she'd just eat around the meat—a neat feat for a woman who is legally blind.

And Maurean's salad was still nowhere to be found. "I'll explain what happened," the waitress said. "See those people over there?"—The only other customers. "The other waitress stole your salads and gave them to those people."

"And they were happy with a Cobb salad without the turkey?" I questioned.

"Shhh!" she hissed. "They haven't noticed." Or you got it wrong then, too, I thought. "Anyway, I'll have your salad right away," she added to Maurean.

"You'd better," Maurean growled, then quickly apologized. "I'm so sorry," she said. "It's been a rough day. I got into a fight with my next door neighbor this morning, so we went to lunch…with my blind mother…after locking myself out of the house…and now my salad's been stolen…"

By now we were all laughing hysterically at how preposterous Maurean's day had become. Well, except the waitress, who'd been a major contributor.

She eventually returned with Maurean's salad, just as a bus boy or waiter came out with the electric broom and began vacuuming directly behind Sue.

"Would you please stop that?" Sue asked, turning around.

"What?" the boy replied.

"Would you please stop that vacuuming?" Sue repeated.

"Sorry," he said, "I can't hear you over the vacuum."

"TURN IT OFF!" I yelled, loud enough for him to hear. "This may surprise you, but many people prefer not to lunch right next to an operating vacuum. Or an non-operating vacuum, for that matter. Perhaps you can clean up after we leave."

He retreated.

Five minutes later, the manager—we could tell she was the manager because she was wearing street clothes instead of a uniform—came out. Was it to apologize to us for the burnt sweet potato fries, the stolen salads, the shoddy service? No, she now had the new electric broom and began to vacuum around the table of the people, now gone, who'd been the beneficiaries of Maurean and Sue's Grand Theft Salad.

As the waitress gathered up our plates, she asked if the manager had spoken with us yet.

"No," we replied in unison. Apparently I wasn't the only one in our party who thought it might have been a good idea.

"Well, we're sorry about the salads and we're going to give you each a piece of pie for dessert, on the house, to make up for it. What will you have?"

The last thing in the world I needed after a Philly cheese steak and a plate of sweet potato fries, even burned ones, was pie. But now it was free so I couldn't refuse. "Dutch apple," I requested. Maurean asked for the same, while Michael and Sue ordered some kind of creamy things piled high with strawberries.

When the desserts arrived, Maurean's and my Dutch apple pies were shapeless masses of crumbs, crust and apples. "I'm sorry," the waitress apologized, for the umpteenth time. "They just seemed to fall apart when I cut them."

"That's because you don't cook with butter," I pointed out tartly.

Maurean called for a locksmith as we left; he arrived shortly after we returned Sue and Maurean to their home, which is fortunate because by now the temperature was running in triple digits and my car air conditioner can't keep up with such heat when the car isn't moving. The locksmith opened Maurean's door in five seconds flat, for which he charged $60—obviously, I'm in the wrong business—and we helped Sue out of the SUV and into her home.

And just to make sure the rest of their afternoon went more pleasantly, I re-wired their VCR so they could watch videos. The cable guy had connected it incorrectly, so Sue had been unable to play her special videos for the blind in which a voice-over describes the action on the screen. For example, from When Harry Met Sally:

Voiceover: "Sally fakes an orgasm in the restaurant, writhing and moaning in apparent ecstasy. Harry looks on in embarrassment."

Customer: "I'll have what she's having."

Had we all, indeed, had what Maurean was having? Powerful creators such as she have to keep constantly alert, because, like everyone, they create what's in their deepest thoughts—but, unlike the average Joe, they create things faster, more immediately, almost as they think of them. And suppressed thoughts are even more potent than conscious ones.

Later that evening, as I was talking with my friend Ann on the phone, she offered a suggestion I passed on to Maurean immediately after: "Maurean, Ann recommends the next time your next door neighbor screams at you, just bark at her. Like a dog. Ann says the key to dealing with crazy people is to appear crazier than they are." Ann should know; she lives in Washington state where there are, according to Ann, a great many crazy people.

And, unlike drowning someone with a garden hose, it's hard to fall into the self-righteousness trap while barking like a dog.

But much easier to do it with Love.