One Step Back – Two Feet Up!!
At about 1:30 A.M. on Sunday morning, 18 September (2011), I was told that there was glass heard breaking in the back alley, but Life went on, and whomever it was that broke the window in the alley portion of my backyard, made their way into my home to eventually steal the flat screen television that I used as the monitor for my computer, and about three hundred dollars in change left in bowls and vases scattered around my home. I discovered the results on Monday afternoon when returning home to prepare for a workshop presentation later on that day. Needless to say, I did not make that event, with the police report and all, and exploring methods and tools to better secure my ‘property’. Interesting word property, because now after having my ‘home’ violated’ by unwanted scurvy, the sanctity of what I knew as home felt dirty, violated, and like property; “…a house is not a home…” after such an event.
As a result, I have been forced to “prison-ate” the house; all of the windows at the back of the house have custom bars over them. The back door, where the vermin exited after going through my belongings, now has a locked gate in place to thwart escape, should the property be targeted again, I being the fifth, and so far, final victim of an attempted, and in some cases successful, break-in on my narrow street. And though no one knows anything, the finger-pointing was fast and furious in the first several days. I spoke to the potential assailant, and am probably speaking to the actual bandit when I am about my business through the block. The police investigation turned up nothing, and only further enforced my sense that they are often useless when it comes to criminal activity in my neighborhood.
In addition to the very real sense of being barred in/out now, I reluctantly, but circumstantially purchased an alarm system that alerts “Five-O” in the event that there is an unsanctioned breach of the entry points of the house. The reality of a poor economic climate, and living around a majority of persons whose daily activities occur within a five block radius, combined with a myriad of additional psycho-social challenges, and the need to live the American dream at the cost of others, only makes the events that led up to my personal rip-off understandable, predictable, but no less rattling and disturbing.
Yet despite this, there are positive take-aways that show that the Universe has a sense of humor (or highlights the short-comings of those that engage in such behaviors). The flat-screen television was used as my computer monitor. Fortunately, the computer was left on the workstation, unharmed. This was critical, for being in business and not losing the data stored on the computer saved me years of ‘interruptive’ retrieval work; and though much of it is backed up, there is still the little minor annoyance of having to go to the second source for data retrieval. The music system was left alone. Though there was dirt from a defunct bonsai tree poured onto my dry cleaning, most everything was left intact. And finally, while I was actually at home earlier that evening, something compelling drew me out, and may have been the difference between me being merely robbed, rather than maimed, or worse yet, dead.
So, ‘one step back’; financially strained as a result of attempting to avoid such a breach in the future at this physical location. And while this was not a welcomed gala, at the time, I was about three weeks into a training that would give me a new Health and Wellness skill to ply in conjunction with my other dynamic services. The new skill is ‘Therapeutic Foot Manipulation – Reflexology’. In addressing the soles of a client’s feet, it is possible in a glance to assess very general things about the quality of their Health, and provide relief to an exhausted being. In Biblical times, this practice was known as ‘the washing of the feet’, and was usually reserved for worthy travelers that had walked some distance. It was an honor to have the ceremony performed, and depending on the guest, an honor to be chosen to perform the rite. Just as a body massage tends to be rather relieving to the recipient (and often the giver), a foot manipulation is an excellent way to provide absolute relief to the weary. Consider that the way to get from one place to another often requires that One place the whole weight of the body onto the two feet; transport devices.
Having your ‘two feet up’, allowing someone to rub out the kinks and strains of the day is more than just relaxing, but it is beneficial to the Mind, Body, and the Spirit. If done on a regular basis, the strains of the week, month, Life can be minimized, and in many cases erased; it is soothing. Know that if this service is provided on a regular basis (within the space of thirty days) the beneficial effects will become cumulative.) And for its relatively impersonal approach, it is a technique that has very positive effects akin to a full body massage, when done to your liking. Done properly, a therapeutic foot manipulation will make you melt like butter in the hands of the trained practitioner, and ease Life’s strains.
Thus, Life throws you its curves. It tests you in the experience of being Human. As the ‘Earth, Wind, and Fire” lyric instructs, ‘…Life is very fair, but so uncool…’. How you handle the adversities (and the wins) reveals your constitutional nature, as well as what you have learned from the prior experiences, and how you managed them. So for now, as annoyed as I am about the unwanted entry into my home, to move past it as progressively as possible, I have taken the light from the situation and framed it thus:
“One Step Back – Two Feet Up!!”.
