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I hardly EVER go in record shops but I was with a friend who collects vinyl so we went in one, and there in front of me was a Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy poster.  I thought it was an original old one, I didn’t realise it was advertising a 30 year anniversary tour.  If I’d said anything out loud the record shop man or my friend might have realised I was confused and put me right, but I didn’t.

Thirty years ago I was fifteen and so desperate to see them, I was at boarding school and not allowed out.  A boy in my year went, his dad made an excuse so he could go, I was so jealous.  They played for fifteen minutes with their backs to the audience and walked off but still, it had been one of life’s big regrets.

But luckily for me the universe gave me another chance.  A few weeks later a patient asked to go to a concert- this is a fairly unusual request- and I also fairly unusually offered to get involved and look up local gig programmes…  I looked up the UEA programme and there it was, Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy 30 year anniversary tour £25.

Oh, thank you, thank you, so much pleasure.  I went on my own to just soak it all up.  A sound bath; the lights red with gun like firing of individual white lights, a wall of dry ice lit white, almost all the stage eclipsed.  Seeing mosh pit kids, a girl with dark hair, her face lit up with happiness.  Images on the screen, a serious, sad looking girl (me, at fifteen, thirty years ago) and then at the end a pair of infrared heat image hands, (me now, healing hands).

I don’t want anything to come between me and this awareness.  The bar tender gives me free sparkling water, a man gives me a token for free car parking.  You don’t need to ask for help to make your path, you have created this life, and it is perfect. 

More Everyday Gratitude:

Swimming pool empty and friendly- two people talked to me.

Car park almost full, spaces looked a bit tight for me but then I find two spaces next to each other and what was more, one also had a space in front of it so I could drive straight through to be facing ready to go.

Two staff at the whole foods shop, astonishingly friendly, talking at length about their cats.

Driving home in the dark, I noticed the pretty pointy silhouette of a chapel; a beautifully illuminated pink neon No Vacancies sign, and a pretty yellow window lit up.

A meeting got postponed so I only have to do one report not two this week.

The secretaries next door offering me biscuits just as I was getting hungry at 4pm.

All falling into place ‘live life as though everything is rigged in your favour.’

Sitting on floor, stapling papers, staples ran out and I remembered I’d found a little chunk of staples the day before and put them by my computer just within arm’s reach.

A member of staff I don’t know being extra nice and friendly, like the staff in the whole foods shop.

Finding some extra pouches of cat food so I don’t need to go shopping today.

Home, stars, little walk.

My stepdaughter saying ‘let’s go home and have hot dogs* and watch Buffy on the sofa with blankets and one cat each, what more  could we want?’ *vegetarian ones

Someone at work introducing me:  ‘this woman is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and you can tell by looking at her that she is just like this at home too’.

Someone else saying that I have the happiest team in the hospital.

One of my staff bought me a posh houseplant ‘because you’d been having a hard time recently, I wanted to give you something happy.’

A moment shared with a member of staff on her last day.  ‘As you go up the ranks it can be, ‘Lonely’’, we both said at the same time.

After going to a friend’s party, John saying, that’s the most relaxed I’ve seen you in company, even making jokes!

An old friend asking, are you still writing and me saying yes, he said I’m glad and me asking, are you still drawing and him saying yes, but it’s just a hobby, I’ve accepted that and me saying me too (except I haven’t, not really).

Massage today, didn’t have the surface niggles, so went deeper.

I ‘woke up’ on the massage table, hair everywhere, enlivened, thinking, what if I just arrived here, what would I observe about myself?  I am hungry for good healthy food, I have a nice job, I am a healer in training, I am married, I have an adult son and two step children, I drive around a lot and go away with work no problem, I sleep well, I exist separately to my thoughts.

Postscript 12.11.19

It took a lot of work to get this happy.  I suppose that’s what all the self help books mean when they say you have to ‘do the work.’  If you’re on this path Please keep going: the rewards are worth it!

Thank you very much for reading!