With Both Hands

A few months ago, I was holding a blue crystal pendulum between my pointer finger and thumb for the very first time. I had just loaded up on coffee, so the persistent shake in my right hand was pronounced.

“It’s okay, Katherine,” the teacher said gently, “You can hold it with both hands.”

Like a magnet, my left hand rose to meet my right, steadying the chain—and my embarrassment.

“Please show me my Yes,” I whispered.

When the little pointed crystal at the bottom began swaying left to right, I gulped in disbelief. When I said Please show me my No, I kid you not, the little rock changed direction and began moving north to south.

You’re not going to believe what ‘Maybe’ looked like so I’m not going to even tell you.

For over thirty years, I've been asking guiding questions to help people find the truth that already lives inside of them. And all it takes is asking yes/no questions to a tiny formation dangling from a chain?

Maybe I’ve been overcomplicating things.

Now listen, friends, I’m not swinging from the rafters trying to convince you to start a pendulum practice. I barely have one. But I was introduced to this little gem, pardon the pun, last fall and this morning I found myself reaching for it again.

I was sitting at my game table wrapped in my swim overcoat, letting the chill of my treasured morning practice of plunging into the San Francisco Bay settle into my bones.

My love for cold water dipping still confounds me, because I never liked getting wet. In fact, the day my youngest, Kate, could swim across the pool on her own, I announced to the family, “That’s it. I’m never getting in the water again.”

Of all things, it was the vulnerable act of sharing my story more than a decade later that lured me back, this time to the calming clarity that emerges from a salty water dip with incredible people.

But here I was back at home my myself faced with a micro-decision: whether to go to the middle of ‘somewhere’ Wisconsin to watch my college-aged son compete in a championship game this weekend.

I felt true happiness for Joey but felt no compulsion to travel trains, planes and automobiles to watch the game in person. Cost, time, he’s an adult, the list goes on.

As the messages started rolling through the parents’ WhatsApp thread–flight plans, hotel bookings, excitement–it became increasingly clear that my desire not to go wasn’t exactly shared.

What’s wrong with me?

My rational brain knew that was just shame talking, that nothing is wrong with me and that, most importantly, Joey knows I love him.

But the should got louder and louder. So I called my mom. I called my sister. I talked it over with my husband. 

Heck, I even pulled out that little blue crystal. My intuition was loud and clear but I felt uneasy.

Still overcomplicating things, I guess.

And then it dawned on me. Do what I ask of others. I moved over to my low-to-the-ground chair, and I picked up my blue pen.

I wrote what pisses me off.
What felt true for me.
What I wanted.

I sat there and dumped every thought and feeling out onto the page. Good God it didn't even take that long–six maybe seven minutes–to find the answer.

The one I already knew.

As I stood at the water’s edge later that evening waiting for some gals to show up for a special full moon dip, I called my son, the one I had been in conversation with all day, unbeknownst to him. (Although let’s face it, all the back and forth was really with myself.)

I heard Joey’s voice and smiled as I sat down on the sand.

I then told him the truth.
That I loved him deeply. 
That I was super proud of him.
And that I wasn’t coming.

I couldn’t tell if the pause I heard was his relief or mine.

And then he said, “The optics will never convey the depth of our relationship, Mom,” adding, “And I don’t know why you would travel so far when you can livestream it anyway.”

As I step into this new era–-my kids grown, creating their own lives-–I’m reminded again and again, and again, that I need to keep creating mine.

And yeah, maybe I’ll overcomplicate things.

But I’ll be learning, loving, and showing up in my own way, with both hands.