The crossfire of his erratic presence and all the information rolling through my brain froze me next to the bananas. I held my position, not saying anything, knowing I probably had a funny look on my face. I was internally grasping for straws, trying to decide if I would slug him or bolt. Both options felt appropriate and ridiculous. Fortunately, I did neither. My pause gave him just the amount of room he needed to ask, “You look smart. What’s oregano? Where’s oregano?”
I felt my inner psyche shake off the PTSD rolling around inside me like a dog shaking off a bath, and I returned to the present moment in the grocery store. This time, I arrived into our space, realizing I was with a completely disarmed old man merely asking me where he could find seasonings.
I nodded and said, “Absolutely, let’s go find oregano.” I told him it was an herb and we’d find it in the baking aisle. During our short ramble to the baking ingredients, he described the meatball recipe he wanted to try and the ingredient he was missing — oregano. He was very excited about his culinary adventure. It was not lost on me that I was a guide in his journey of exploring his feminine. And he was a grounding agent to give me perspective in the national storm and bring me back to my own reality.[
We found the bottle of oregano. It was on sale. He was happy. I was relieved. As I walked away and around the corner of the aisle, I could not help but shed a couple of tears and thank God for a simple search for oregano in the grocery store with my fellow human being.
Thank God for that bottle of oregano.
Dana Stovern is founder and coach of The Magic of Somatic Money, and author of the blog Along the Learning Curve of Life. Even though her profession is body-based money relationship coaching, her first love is words, writing and exploring the depths of the human conscious (or unconscious) condition in body and soul development.