So I spent the night in Flagstaff. I didn’t get in until late and it was dark but the Hampton Inn was super clean and nice and they were totally friendly. I got two bottles of water and they had luggage carts so the unload of the car was much easier! I zipped over to a place called Oregano”s of all things. Kitschy Italian but very clean and spacious which is great because I hardly ever eat out in Covid times. Or rather I should say eat IN (indoors). Since it was only me they asked if I wanted to sit at the bar so I accepted nervously but luckily there were very few people. I got a big draft IPA, something that’s been very absent from my life without going to bars and it was fun to interact with the bartender, another thing I’ve missed! I felt like a pizza was going to be too heavy so I opted for wings and the bartender recommended to do a mix of the dry rub wings with the medium sauce. They were really good and I realized bar wings are also missing from my life lol. They came with homemade potato chips and I chose the blue cheese over Ranch. Soon I was buzzed and full and the hotel was literally across the parking lot so that was a nice perk.
One great Covid perk is that because of distancing there’s no chance that some gross and lecherous guy will sit next to you when every other bar stool is open. How many times on my journeys has that happened and then I need to be extra cautious getting to my hotel room safely. I remember the time in LA when a guy sat down next to me and started in… I love to meet people at bars, but this guy put me immediately on alert. I was always sure to have a book with me so that I could say I was reading, but this didn’t deter him. He told me he was a Teamster (should I have been impressed?) even showed me his watch. Commented on my wedding ring… “Any kids?” I replied no. He kept on… “Must be a problem in your marriage.” I wanted to tell him I was barren to see if that would elicit a reaction. What the hell with people? I find many people very uncomfortable with my decision to not be a mother in this lifetime. I’m a mother in many other ways. And It would not be fair for me to try to mother someone literally with all the things I feel compelled to do with my life. I would not be on this journey.
The next morning I did much better on the load in but had to laugh because I went to sanitize my hands after using the cart and the sanitizer exploded all over the car… I’d forgotten the altitude I’d gone to! There was a lot of debate in my mind as to where to go next. My initial plan was Albuquerque but it was already 10 and my friend out there had an event at 4, so I’d miss her… then I had been told Santa Fe would be amazing, but I’ve been going to these places and getting there too late to enjoy them. And I had a place on the list (stay tuned) that I decided I absolutely wanted to relax at and not roll in at 10 pm exhausted. AND I really wanted to go to Sedona, but it had been too expensive so I stayed in Flagstaff. So I set my sights on a quick Sedona jaunt and then to stay in Las Cruces, NM.
I’d been to Sedona before, once on business with Rubicon Estate, and the second time on vacation while I was working for the estate so I knew folks and got to be fancy out there and stay and eat at Auberge de Sedona. Luxury for sure. Still even after seeing it twice as I rounded the bend to see the greenish mountains suddenly erupt in bright reddish coppery striations was still absolutely breathtaking. I found myself embracing it with childlike awe and again, my eyes welled up with tears. I found myself saying out loud “He painted them.” Sometimes I honestly don’t know where the words come from… I’m just the messenger.
I pulled into the first visitor center to take some photos but there’s no way to capture them properly. The red color too is so unique, I can’t find a word for it. I was surrounded by rocks. I love rocks but these were particularly spectacular. It’s as if they are magnetic how it feels to be in their amphitheater, like the sensation of being within a redwood ring. Majesty and awe even with the throngs of people. I stopped by a few more pullouts and both were completely full! Suddenly I realized it was a Saturday! A bit sad that I couldn’t take a hike (not enough time plus too much stuff in the car) I set out to find a new crystal. The traffic began to build with each and every roundabout to the main part of town. By the time I got to the main drag it was getting brutal. I was at a standstill and then noticed a crystal shop that also offered readings. That would be cool if I had the time I thought, but at least I can look around. So I pulled over.
The shop was mesmerizing. Rooms and rooms of crystals from cheap and small to enormous and pricey but gorgeous. I was drawn to a stone that was bluish in color and doesn’t need clearing and is good for intuition, manifesting and such. I thought it was called Kryolite but can’t find that spelling online so I may be confused! But anyway, got a few postcards and then was observing where people sign up for readings. Some younger girls were getting their auras read, seemed loud and boisterous and kind of bachelorette party like attitude, I wasn’t interested in that. Then some elderly ladies booked a reading, just for one of them, but she didn’t want to give her last name.
I sidled up to the counter and they slipped me a binder with plastic covers sheets that covered headshots of each medium or reader, John, Sheila, Stephanie, Maurice, and then on the back was information on their specialities. Reiki, past life regressions, Chakra cleansing, manifestation practice, Tarot. Whatever you could want. I began to peruse the book, turns out you could absolutely do a mini reading, 15 mins for $35-$45. It struck me that although I’ve never been to a brothel perhaps this is the way that works too… a list of expertise, a nice photo, make sure your comfortable with this person you’re about to become intimate with, in a different way of course…
I must admit my first choice had something to do with manifesting but she was with a client already so I went for Jasmine. She had a really open face kind and caring and friendly and I just got a good feeling that the timing was once again right and Jasmine was there waiting to guide me. So they held my crystal at the cash register and guided me to the staircase. As she escorted me and I handed off my crystal, the girl said “Ooh Kryolite, great choice. Jasmine’s room is up and to the right and she will meet you there.”
So I climbed the stairs and Jasmine happened to be trans! Not exactly what I had expected! I have absolutely no issue, and I was concerned about , I considered not even writing it here, because it shouldn’t be a thing right? But I did notice it… and honestly it’s the reality, and a truly beautiful thing in my opinion. I just wasn’t expecting it. I was immediately put at ease because I took the fact that Jasmine was able to embrace her true self as a sign of honesty and integrity and soulfulness. I was very happy with my choice!
Jasmine took my temperature and then took hers and we sat on two sides of a plexiglass barrier. She asked me if I had specifics I needed to know… I said I wasn’t sure, that I’m on a journey and wanted a little guidance. She shuffled the deck and instead of cutting it I was instructed to point to where I would have cut it with a wooden skewer as she fanned it out. She then reworked the deck and I was instructed to pick 6 cards. I’ve had Tarot maybe once before not too often so it was really fun, it was also really accurate and in fact she did say that primarily it’s her telling me what I know but need to hear.
She had me tape it on my iPhone voice memo, and what I heard was pretty cool. First thing “You’re on quite a ride! A rollercoaster!”
She started in with, “You know how you breathe?” My ears perked up because I’ve been doing breath work in the Wim Hof method every morning for over a year. “Well, breathing in is the plan and breathing out is completion and revising the plan, but in between there is a pause with no in or out, you skip the pause. If you skip the pause then someone you’re trying to teach or mentor can’t catch up, so you need to extend the pause.”
She then asked if I mentor or teach and I smiled inside not wanting to offer much to twist her reading I merely said I used to teach and I mentor in an untraditional way.
On the next card she said “Damn! You think ALL the time, a thinking machine.” She told me I need to not let intellect rule but instead let my intuition and knowing come first. Trust intuition first. So this seemed to really be apropos when I was trying to logic away the visit to Cesar’s grave the day before, making logical excuses to skip it, yet I knew I must go.
She spoke of me being a creative, visionary inventor.
She asked if there was any other business I’d been toying with starting. I said writing, songwriting, healing. She told me I should consider teaching mindfulness through my writing!
She told me “We gotta be careful of you being distracted.” Mostly by friends. So this is when I’m gonna apologize for breezing through Clovis and Albuquerque, I’m probably gonna miss you folks in Texas. Don’t worry NOLA, you’ll be my day off, but this trip is tough and long and grueling. Not the hours on the highway but afterwards I’m depleted, because like Jasmine said, I don’t take time to “not” breathe, I don’t pause, and I’m always thinking. I’ve realized here a good deal of the way through that all these pie-eyed destinations were too ambitious and if you drive 8 hours you want to go to bed, or just be alone, and in days of Covid everything is closed earlier than normal.
Most importantly Jasmine told me to defend my passion. Be present. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t outthink yourself.
And ultimately she said, “Whatever you wanna do is gonna be available to you.”
So all my dreams can come true. My dream of living bicoastal is not elusive. My dream of touring across country may be ambitious but I can do it. I’m so blessed.
I bid adieu to my new friend whose reading on tape was actually more than 19 minutes as she told me that she knew I had a dog, an old one in pain and he should come to Sedona for healing or at least to help him transition peacefully. I paid for my crystal and postcards and was back on the road.
By this time traffic was so bad that I actually saw Jasmine walking faster down the road than I could drive in her flowy purple dress with a thigh revealing cut to get lunch. It was gridlock. I would have liked to visit a vortex or whatnot but I was just ready to get the bell out so I veered down a road that looked familiar from ages ago that leads out to strip mall land. I thought I needed to eat and considered that a greasy spoon diner would be ideal so I set out the intention and in less than three minutes the coffee Pot Restaurant appeared on the right.
The place is old school! So comfy, dark woods but has a skylight. Strange handmade pottery mugs that are made to stack on a dowel. If you order coffee they bring you a full pot, water a full pitcher, even me solo. They have a ridiculous menu of 101 omelets. I get it as a restaurant person because it’s all about mis en place, but I also wonder how annoying it must be to work there. The endless combinations! I ordered smoked salmon eggs Benedict. So good, great home fries with charred chilies and onions in there.
A table nearby got their food before me and one woman was griping. She ordered the tuna sandwich, which on the menu is basically a tuna melt. But she was astonished to see cheese on her sandwich as it arrived. “This is NOT at all what I wanted.” She harped. “Where’s the tomato?” Because in her mind there’d be a mind reader psychic medium like Jasmine in the kitchen to say, “hmm I think Karen wants tomato!”
Hey lady no one puts tomato and lettuce on a tuna melt Mm-Kay? Her friends all started throwing tomatoes off their garnishes to her because they knew how this was gonna go down.
In her passive aggressive stance the woman kept trying to be ok with it but as soon as the server would leave she’d again reiterate to her friends, “This is NOT at all what I wanted. This really is not what I wanted.”
Eventually the server got the rest of the table’s food down and was able to address the issue. Super professional and kind, yet I was on the sidelines seething! Wtff! Finally the sandwich which had been basically raped, all torn apart with it’s innards all naked and exposed, was thrust back to the waitress and to be rushed to the kitchen for triage. The woman specified exactly what she wanted. Tuna on Sourdough with lettuce and tomato. Wait actually GRILLED sourdough! The server calmly took the filthy mangled plate back to the kitchen.
Suddenly in writing this all down, clarity is seeping in. I was wondering why I was so invested in the interaction but upon writing about it I do see!
Whilst the petty push and pull of the customer vs the server has always been fascinating to me mostly because I’ve played that game so many years, suddenly I see so clearly a different lesson from what I observed.
This “Karen” (sorry Karen’s everywhere) knew what she wanted but could not adequately convey that to her server, so how can she be so entitled to think she’d be satisfied with what she got. The server had every intention of providing what she wanted! She wasn’t trying to ruin her day or vacation…
So the same holds true in the rest of our lives, in bigger things than an errant piece of cheese on a sandwich. So if you want something for your life you must be brutally honest and specific. You must really know what you want. You must articulate that to the universe and be clear so that your request is valid. And you must find yourself worthy of receiving that gift. Deserving.
So many lessons and teachings being downloaded to me. The hardest part will be being honest about what you want. The unfortunate part is that sometimes in order to get what you want you need to relinquish your former paradigms. You might need to change. Could be a job, a habit, but it’s a radical shift in mind frame and not everyone will be ok with it.
Overall I’m not even done with this crazy description of one day and the days keep flowing and I keep trying to catch up! But I think this is a good place to take a pause!
RebeccaChapa.com 