Angels – Page 2 – Karen Creamer Author, Coach, Speaker

We joined them

June 26, 2015June 27, 2015 by Karen, posted in Angels, family, local fun, Metaphysical healing, teens

We saw the sign last week, inviting us to join them for a concert, and after some maneuvering of the work schedule, join them we did.

What a good decision my daughter and I made.

The performances were amazing. Men and women of all different ages and backgrounds took turn standing up on the stage and sang most beautifully the songs they had chosen for us.

Their voices were accompanied by quite accomplished musicians, which elevated their songs just a little bit more.

Many of the songs we knew, but some we heard for the first time.

There were several people who I have been casually acquainted with for years who possess incredible voices and until tonight, I had no idea.

We may not really know the people we see every day as well as we think we do. We all have something shining inside us. What a gift these men and women gave us tonight by sharing their talents with us.

Thank you!! 😊❤️

Missing my mother

May 10, 2015May 10, 2015 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief

It’s Mother’s Day, and I am missing my mother.

My mother died. Nineteen years ago. Sometimes I am embarrassed by the tears that can suddenly overtake me when I realize that I am still missing her so much. Really? At almost 53 years old?

Really.

Sometimes the emotion sneaks up on me so fast and is so strong that it takes my breath away. But it’s been so long, I think. I shouldn’t still feel so bad, I think.

The truth is that I didn’t appreciate her enough while she was still alive. I left her in a million ways before she left me.

Now that I am the mother in this complicated mother-daughter algorithm, I have insights that I lacked then. It wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized all the ways that my mother was there for me that I didn’t even know about.

We are connected forever to our mothers. My mother carried me inside of her, and now I carry her inside of me. Whenever I wonder if she is still with me, I get a huge rush of feeling-love?- that assures me of her continued presence in my life. Just like when she was still alive, she is always as close as I will allow her to be.

The Song of Karen (or whoever)

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief

I went to the Crystal Harp Healing Session at The LoveLight Center with an open mind. I wasn’t sure what the ‘healing’ part was about, but I have heard Cheryl play that instrument before, and that was worth going back for.

There were about 9 of us seated in a circle. Shoes were shed at the door. The sequence was this:
1. She played for the group.
2. She then played an individual melody for each person present.
3. She closed with another song for the group.

It took about half an hour. It was free.

What was it like? Well, you know how when you have a massage or acupuncture session, sometimes there is an emotional release? It was like that for me (full disclosure: so okay, I was crying).
Right before Cheryl said that she was guided to play ‘my’ song first, I was sitting there thinking:

I wonder if my mother is here?

One moment before the music began, I suddenly felt like she was standing right behind me.

Is that you, Ma?

My mother Mary died in February 1996 on Leap Day. She was only about two years older then than I am now.
Then the music started.
Then the tears.
Yep. It was her.
Thanks, Cheryl.

Dear Coffee, I love you

February 1, 2015February 1, 2015 by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, Life in the cube, Work from Home

“Before coffee, I’m up, I’m moving around, but I’m not awake,” said some wise soul somewhere. Until I typed the words, I actually couldn’t remember where I’d heard it but I just did. Peter Falk uttered this truism in one of his Columbo episodes.

Truer words (about me) were never spoken.

How did I get here?
College.

My other favorite coffee quote is from a Tom Hanks in You’ve Got Mail:

“I love Patricia. Patricia’s amazing. Patricia makes coffee nervous.”

🙂

I have surrounded my coffee drinking with cool stuff. (Why should the tea drinkers have all the fun rituals?)

A Keurig, so that I never have to wait more than 30 seconds for my coffee.
Coffee straws (see picture), just because I like them.
Cute mugs, like the Dunkin Donuts one pictured here. I have several of these because they remind me of my Dad (who was a doughnut maker once) and my friend Sheri (who bought me one I really wanted one year for my cubicle at work when I really didn’t need another coffee mug).
My little coffee warmer. Okay, so I have two of these: one in my home office and one next to my bed. They make me happy.

My current favorite coffee is Green Mountain’s Spicy Eggnog, about which I often wax rhapsodic. Alas, it is a seasonal flavor.

So, I buy it by the case. My friend Traci told me about Big Cat Coffees and the pricing there is FAB.U.LOUS.

Please participate in the poll below:

Comment below with your favorite coffee flavor!

New kid in town

January 16, 2015January 16, 2015 by Karen, posted in Angels, local fun, my one word

Maybe you, like me, have wondered about the new signage in front of a house on Rt 1 in Wells, the one that says The LoveLight Center.

What’s up with that?

I saw a flag waving “OPEN” at me yesterday so I took a chance (remember, I’m brave in 2015!) and ran in. I met the most lovely woman, Emily Karparis, who mentioned that the interior is still evolving, but then she took some time to introduce me to the space and invited me to come again.

Which I did. Today.

🙂

I have so many good things to say about The LoveLight Center! The little shop inside, Abionesa, has so many of my favorite things on display! Every one of women that I met who work there are so welcoming! The playing of the crystal harp for which I was lucky enough to be present was very powerful!

In this post, I’m going to tell you about the Angel Room. For ten bucks, you can sit in the Angel Room for (up to) fifteen minutes. And do what? Think. Meditate. Pray. Listen. Ignore the pleading bleats of your cell phone. Appreciate the beautiful blue color of the walls. Contemplate the enormous crystal (like, ‘as big as your head’) on the table in the center of the room. Watch the vortex of swirling snow outside the window.

I did all of these things.

It was worth every cent.

Before you enter the room, you can pick up a typed affirmation from the basket, or choose a stone to hold, or just ‘come as you are’. I chose the affirmation-if the universe had something to say to me, I wanted to hear it.

Here’s what it said:

Done.

There are pictures of the Angel Room on their Facebook page. Check it out. Oh, and stop by and say, Hi!

Telling our story

December 8, 2014December 14, 2014 by Karen, posted in Adult children, Angels, family, good grief, knitting, The write words at the write time

I was at a craft show a couple of weekends ago. The weather was awful–freezing rain coating the icy snow on the ground that fell overnight. As soon as I got through the door, I stopped to shake it off of me. The first thing I saw was a table of scarves and hats, and the small dark-eyed woman standing behind it caught my eye.

I took a minute to look at the items on the table. I noticed a black and white scarf that I knew would make a great gift for a number of the people on my list.

I asked, “How much is this?”

“Fifteen dollars,” she replied, “and you can pick a free cookbook from the box,” she added, hopeful, hands clasped in front of her.

I looked down. The ‘cookbooks’ were some old cooking magazines from 2008.

Well, all-righty then.

As she was wrapping it up, I was looking through my bag for my checkbook (note to self: Clean this damn thing out!).

I asked, “Did you make these?”

“Yes. Well, me and my daughter did. And then after she died, I made some more myself,” she told me.

What? Oh, no.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her, and suddenly found myself hugging her. “Yes, it was hard,” she said, and proceeded to tell me about how her diabetic daughter who couldn’t feel her feel very well had a blood sugar drop that caused her to get into a car accident. “She went through the windshield and died instantly, the…the….” she trailed off.

“Medical examiner?” I offered.

“Yes! Yes, the medical examiner said. She didn’t feel anything, he said, and that made me feel a little better, but I was still pretty sad. Until my birthday,” she said.

This is what happened on her birthday: She and her husband were having lunch, feeling the feelings only parents who have lost their child feel. Suddenly, her glass of water slid across the table. About four inches. By itself. “I said, ‘Did you see that?’ to my husband. “‘That’s her wishing you a Happy Birthday,’ he told me, and we both teared up. Then I felt much better. I knew she was okay.”

Sometimes, people just need to tell their story.

Even if they aren’t writers.

Smooth sailing-not

October 12, 2014October 12, 2014 by Karen, posted in Angels, friends

You know how they say you know when you are on the right path? That doors fly open? The road rises up to meet you? Well, when I decided to knit a prayer shawl for my friend, this is what I expected to happen.

I was wrong.

First, I couldn’t find my knitting (note: expensive) needles anywhere. Any. Where. I looked for hours, then days. When praying to the patron saint of lost things didn’t work, and time was a-wastin’, I decided to order a set from Amazon, thereby saving myself the time it would take to drive to the yarn store and back (where I had already driven to buy the yarn). After a week the package came and, although there was something in the box, the required needles were not. Now time was really getting short, so I did drive (again) to the yarn shop and bought new needles.

I thought it was odd to encounter so many obstacles to getting my project started, but once it was underway I was relieved and no longer worried that I wouldn’t finish in time.

Until I made a mistake. A huge mistake. A mistake I have never, ever made when knitting. I somehow put a row on going in the opposite direction. I have no idea how this happened, other than that it was my first row that I added after getting up that morning. The only way to fix it was to rip it out and re-knit it. Now, I have never ripped out any part of a knitting project without someone standing next to me (more often than not, it was my friend Sheri, who died last year), ready to save the day.

This was a perfect example of ‘feeling the fear and doing it anyway’. I called on Sheri to help me. I ripped. I somehow got all the stitches back onto a contrasting piece of yarn. Then I somehow got all of the stitches back on the needles. Then I somehow was able to recognize which ones weren’t facing the right way and I turned them around as I went.

I completed the project on time so all was well, but still…I cannot think why there were so many obstacles toward doing the a nice thing for someone else. I guess the message here is: no matter what, persevere. And, I get by with a little help from my friend(s). 🙂

Long time no see

May 30, 2014 by Karen, posted in Angels, family, good grief, Midlife Crisis, no fear

I went to see Melissa at Deep Blue Truth in Kennebunk today. I go every year (at least once) near my birthday as a present to myself. I always get messages from one or more of my friends and relatives that have died, and today was no exception.
When they come through, they always talk about something that is personal to me and to them. Something that helps me know that it is really them. Something that no one else would know. They give some kind of a sign.

Today, someone named John came through. Okay, so John is my dad, so that’s a no brainer. Melissa told me that he kept telling her to say ‘matches’, to talk about striking matches.

Last night, I was talking to my husband, telling him I needed to get some more matches to light candles, that I was down to my last 2 books. I joked that I was just coming to the end of my dad’s stockpile of boxes of matchbooks that we found in his house after he died…in 1998.

Pass the kleenex.

Faith, Hope, and Charity

February 15, 2014 by Karen, posted in Angels, family

My grandmother Emily, my mother’s mother, was the only girl in her family of five. Yep; she had four, count ’em, four brothers. At least, that was what I thought when I was a girl. When I got older, she told me that she actually had three sisters. Triplets. They were named Faith, Hope, and Charity. Whether it was because they were so little when they were born, or that the family lacked enough cradles to accommodate three infants at the same time, they were bedded in three bureau drawers.

Unfortunately, their lives were short. They only lived about three months, I believe, when they succumbed to pneumonia. When she told me the story, I thought: Oh! that is so sad! Oh! There were really four boys and four girls in her family!

I also thought: Oh! I would have so many more cousins if they had lived!

Anyway, I thought a lot about those three short lives. I loved their names. I loved the story about the bureau drawers. I wanted to honor them in some way. Here’s what I do: Every time I knit something, I knit “Faith, Hope, and Charity” into the piece by repeating their names as I knit or purl, so that many times over I have wished these thoughts for the recipient of whatever I am knitting. I hope it makes them feel amazing when they wear it. I hope my triplet grand-aunts in heaven know that even though their lives were brief, all these years later, I am thinking of them and they are making a difference in my life, as well as (this is my hope) in the lives of the people who wear the FHC articles.

The kindness of strangers

February 1, 2014February 1, 2014 by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, teens

My daughter was working in a project for her history class that required her to do a Jackie Chan impersonation. This required her to wear a gi ( full disclosure: until I googled it I was spelling it ‘gee’-my bad). Izzy did take karate years ago…for about 5 minutes. Needless to say, we did not own a gi.

So first, I put the word out to the Wells Women Facebook page but got no responses.
Next, I called my brother, who took judo and/or karate for years. “Sure, I have one,” he told me, “but I have no idea where it is,” he finished. “I know I didn’t throw it away,” he added, helpfully. No good. We needed it right away.
Then I had a sudden impulse to ask my friend Teresa. I don’t know why. I just did. And although Teresa didn’t have one, she knew someone who did.
Angela was willing to let my daughter borrow her gi, no questions asked. Because of the kindness of one friend and one stranger, my daughter’s Jackie Chan rocked!
Thank you Teresa. Thank you Angela.
🙂