The Two Whos

Yun and Cece had not actually seen each other for what seemed like a very long time.   They decided to meet for tea and to catch up.    But, they could not find each other and they were even  sitting 2 seats away from each other!  Cece had her hair long and down,  and there is  something in her that sparks the youthfulness of life …

So, when the Whos  finally sat down to chat over the tea, they began to explore the amazement of  how a person looks beautiful and feels joyful.   Life has not been easy for the Whos.   Yun commented , though, that she has never looked or  felt better herself!   Her face is restful, her eyes spark delight and she appears much younger than she did 10 years ago!  She attributes this to the fact that she knows and likes who she is.  Her beliefs and attitudes are in alignment with who she is and what she is doing.   For the Whos,  the long continuing journey into  self discovery has been beautiful,  painful and heavenly rewarding.

But what is beauty?  For women,  there can be so much pressure to remain externally youthful and beautiful.  Thus, the rise of multi million dollar  cosmetics and plastic surgery industries that promote face lifts, tummy tucks and much much more.

So, one day,unexpectedly, Cece found her self in the middle of a conversation, before class on the yoga mat.   A  beautiful woman in  class is thinking about the idea of getting Botox  injections.  Cece learns from her that because the toxins freeze the face,  a person can only have partial  emotional expression.

Many get shots between the eyebrows and Cece wonders what effect this  will have on the light that shines through the eyes…. When  she  meets people, Cece looks to see if there is  light, life and inner beauty  in their eyes rather than emptiness.

The idea of light and inner beauty  is described by the great Egyptian  aesthetic  Isaac Luria.

He believes that every particle in the universe is  a shell that contains sparks of holiness that is light.  Our task according to him is to release these sparks of light and holiness into the world to illuminate the darkness.  This is done by acts of loving kindness, being in harmony with the universe and through higher awareness.  Each moment we have the potential to raise up these holy sparks.  The choices we  make,  the activities we chose,the interactions we have with families and friends and even strangers…everything in life provides opportunity.

Luria  believes that we can mend the world by raising these holy sparks and that we are responsible for doing this.  He believes that this  is the fundamental reason for our being.  He advises that we mend our own souls  by avoiding negativity and gossip,jealousy, chewing on anger…. and much more ….so that we do not create a dark shell over our own hearts.

So, when  Cece hears about Botox…she thinks this is not the way toward beauty..it is through  our actions and interactions…it is by doing beautiful things and by throwing up that light into the darkness that creates healing for ourselves ,  our neighbors and and our planet.

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

How often do you find yourself explaining  to people who you are or what decisions you have made ?   This is how it goes:

You are walking down the aisle  at the grocery store in a pair of unflattering house pants and you are picking up a heavy cream for the pie you are making.  All of a sudden you see an acquaintance  from work whose name you cannot remember.    Her eyes widen as she glances at  your pants.  You quickly explain: “I am taking today off to cook a dinner for a party tonight. I have not had  a chance to shower yet.”  What you are really explaining is,  “I dress nice and neat.  What you see this moment is not the real me.”

You take your kids for a long trip and stop by the gas station to refuel. The  kids want to taste a“monster drink”.  You say,  “Go ahead get one.”   At the register, as your child hands the drink to the cashier, you hear a voice behind you that  says to your child,  “You know, this drink is really not good for you.”   You turn around to explain,  “They normally do not get it.  This is the first time.”  What you are really explaining is, ”I am a sensible mother. I do not do this on a regular basis.”

Your children are acting up in a party, and you call them forth in front of your friends.  It  so happens there is a child psychologist near by.   You start to talk to your children in a patient voice that you hardly recognize for yourself!   What you are really doing is explaining and demonstrating to the child psychologist that,  “I am a good parent.”

At a party, you strike a conversation with a stranger.  He/she talks and brags about his/her charity work and how disturbing it is to see people suffering.  You explain and share,  “I volunteer at xxx, and what I see is heartbreaking too.   I always donate money to help out.”  What you are really explaining is,  “I am a very sensitive, kind and generous person and I want to you to know that.”

So much explaining  can get very tiring and it comes in an elaborated format when it comes to “proving ” and “explaining ” ourselves  at work or  in a relationship.  We put our best foot forward hoping people will ‘perceive’ our  best side…. the better  side we want people to see.  Poet David Whyte calls this constant explaining of  self to others an “utter despair!”  We are constantly on alert  to “protect” our image by explaining  ourselves.

So, what does it matter if a total stranger does not know about  “how nice I am, how kind I am,  how smart I am?”   Even more so, what if our friends and family do not understand us?   Does constantly explaining ourselves tell people how worthy we are?    Maybe the better approach is to know and trust who we  are.  Would that eliminate the  need to explain ourselves  to others?

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

What a title! What a perspective on life’s challenges! We are often bounded by our ‘common’ ways of thinking about what’s good and what’s bad.  When we do this,  we limit ourselves in our ‘common senses’. Let us look at this video with the idea of  ”from no limbs to no limits!”

“Bye for Now” from the Two Whos.  A Special thank you to Stephanie for sending us this powerful video! 

As you may remember, Cece has trouble  opening certain packaging.  Remember her 4 hour attempt to open the packaging on her new GPS? Here is a summary of the first 2 hours:

“  ……I contemplated calling the bomb squad to blow it open…but I kept telling myself to be a big girl and struggle through it…to take some cleansing breaths….and that this packaging would not get the best of me! I contemplated using my teeth, but my mother told me never to use my teeth as a tool! I tried knives,…both serrated and regular, a screw driver, scissors, a butter knife to try to pry it open and finally after several attempts with a serrated mega shear….I was able to almost sheer it open,…and glory be, I did not cut myself in the process!”

And so, it was with great trepidation, that Cece contemplated opening up her fresh coconut. Did you know that coconut water is a wonderful source of electrolytes? It is the purest liquid second only to water.  It is chock full of calcium, potassium and magnesium and can be used in an emergency to replace IV fluid for hydration.  It can be used to break up kidney stones, can replace blood plasma,  is antibacterial and can kill HIV, herpes, the flu and other forms of bacteria.  It also controls vomiting.  WHEW!  What  a super food!

Believe it or not, there are directions on Cece’s coconut!  It tells her in several different languages to “insert a straw at the indicated place.”  She keeps looking for the X.  She is not sure where that indicated place is!  She imagines it is those dark “eyes” the coconut has!  Then step two tells her how to open it.  It says to “put the coconut in a plastic  bag and throw it on the floor.”    Cece is laughing out loud hysterically…. thinking of her downstairs neighbor  who has trouble enough with her early rising and her flamenco dancing…never mind coconut throwing.

OH Well, it looks like she will have to wield a screwdriver and a hammer.  A very scary prospect on a round object!    OH.  She forgot step 3:  Get the pieces out of the bag and take the pulp off the bounced coconut with the proper tool.”    She will try.

PS.  Yes!  She did try organic coconut water that comes pre-packaged, but it tasted horrible.  Cece will attempt the fresh!

Post Script: Cece was able to open up the coconut without incident!  There was a lot of water in the coc0nut…about 16 ounces….AND it was absolutely delicious!  There was NO comparison between the organic coconut water in a container  and the fresh.  The fresh was sweet and coconutty…..very refreshing! The organic in the container was undrinkable.

This is a good “back to basics”  lesson.  Whole foods are always better…they may  take a little more time, but whole foods are usually better for you and more tasty than processed.

Cece waited until about 9am to put the coconut into a bag.  Then she went  onto her landing outdoors with her hammer to finish up the job!

Post Post Script: Well on Wednesday, Step 3 above got the best of Cece!  What IS the proper tool?  She  just finished applying first aid and a butterfly bandage to her thumb which she sliced across the joint with a serrated knife…you guessed it…cutting the fleshy pulp of the coconut off the hard  nut part.  Coconut with blood on it is not a pretty sight…the white and red….NOT!  She thinks that she will revert to using her teeth as a tool !  Much safer!

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

When someone consents to teach you, and you are a serious student…it is a precious moment in life.   And whether the instruction is in fly fishing, anatomy and physiology, life skills for adults, English for troubled youth,  yoga or running… “to be taught” is a joy,  an honor…and also a responsibility.

And so when Cece met Ayoub Touil at the Santa Fe Triathlon packet pickup on Thursday night, she could immediately tell that his joy was over flowing! His eyes were twinkling and there was a great deal of light in them that illuminated his face….from the inside out!  Cece asked him what was new and exciting because she could tell  that he was very happy!

Just a bit of background…Ayoub is an elite athlete born in Morocco and has lived in Belgium with his family most of his life.  He moved to the US to train and live under better running conditions so he could work to gain  a spot on the Olympic Team..  Cece’s friend Barry Stone is Ayoub’s “American father”.

So, Cece was curious about the over flowing joy….

It turns out that all his life, Ayoub has hoped that one day he would meet a famous Moroccan elite runner named Khalid Khannouchi.  Ayoub had a poster of him on his wall and had him as a screensaver on his computer…he was  a role model…his inspiration and hero.  Khannouchi was the first man to run a sub 2:06 marathon.  To make a long story short, Khannouchi just arrived in Albuquerque to train for a few weeks and Ayoud was introduced and they have been training and working out together.    Ayoub is  so joyful because  his role model is mentoring him and advising him and teaching him lots of new things.   ” One week with Khannouchi is like 2 months  of my own training regime,”   says  Ayoub.

Ayoub is the runner on the Triathlon team.  He will be running 5K but has been training for 10K,  1/2 marathon and marathon.

Here is another person full of joy!  Meet Monique Stone. When she and Cece met and talked, Monique looked at her and said, “You’re from Long  Island.,  I can hear your “a.”  Of course she was right!  But Cece was flabbergasted because she also has the  Bronx, the Queens and upstate NY in her accent….perhaps Monique studies dialects   too?

Monique is a swimmer and has done an Olympic distance triathlon.  She loves the challenge of it all.  She is a teacher and teaches English  and social justice at the Caesar Chavez Community High School. This is  an alternative school where kids can go when they are unable to succeed in traditional schools.  Monique is also an animal lover and she says that dogs in need of rescue just cross her path!    She has a flair for rescuing them.  Cece can imagine (seeing a Far Side  cartoon in her mind ) all the dogs taking over Monique’ s house!  Tongue in cheek, she asks Monique how she manages all the dogs.  She names them “Not My Shepherd” …or “Not My Husky.”  She names them the breed of the dog.    Then,when she calls it,  she keeps telling herself it is not her dog!   She reasons that she cannot  fall in love with it because she has not  given it a name.   She  then adopts it out to a good family and then they can name the dog!  Monique loves salted caramel.  Cece does not know what that  is!

 Being a teacher or a learner is an awesome responsibility. When you are in tune and in touch with what you love and what motivates you , joy will surely flow!

Here we are the joyful team!

Cece thinks we just might smile our way to the finish line!

More to Come!

Bye for Now ” from The Two

Whos.

For the race report click here.