Karmic Nectar

I stayed in for most of the weekend for 2 reasons…. First of all, I got the stuffy/runny nose, congested, sneeezy, headache-y thing going on…. and it snowed like 6 inches on Saturday and most of the area came to a standstill for a while. I watched, “Burn After Reading” OnDEMAND. It’s a Coen Brothers’ movie that stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Francis McDormand and John Malkovich. It’s dark, twisted and hilarious in a not-obviously hilarious way and it takes place in D.C. – which is a few miles from here. I love movies like this that start off one way and through a series of events that take you on a roller coaster ride, you end up not where you thought you would be…

I found another movie like this that took me on another ride today. “The Opposite Of Sex”, with Christina Ricci, Lisa Kudrow and Lyle Lovett. I LOVED this movie. I am not even going to describe it. Just see it. And, if you don’t like this movie then I guess we have totally different palates.

Anyway, back to Friday…. I have a friend, Pascale, that I met after college when I was working at Bloomingdales selling skin care. I worked at the Payot/Lancaster counter and she worked right across from me at the Janet Sartin counter. We hit it off immediately… She was hilarious and so much fun. We became great friends. Over the years we lost touch, but I knew she still lived in the area and I would run into her once in a great while. And, through Facebook we found each other again…  When the earthquake struck Haiti I immediately thought of her. She was from Haiti and had many friends and family there. I wrote to her asking if everyone was ok. She sent me the following email on Friday:

As many of you may know, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake two weeks ago. This journal entry was sent to me by my cousin, Vanessa Cassagnol Sossa. I have chills from reading this…. Yet, it is only one survivor’s tale. Surviving the quake is just the first step, surviving the aftermath will be quite another…..

Pass this forward,

Pascale

hello all-glad to be around to write to you. after having taken all of this in i took some time to write things as i remember – although i hope to soon forget the darkest day i have ever seen.
january 12.
i woke up with a special prayer on my mind that day asked for  for protection that my children would be particularly guarded,watched over and kept safe guess my soul knew what would happen later on-how could my conscious self ever know.
i planned the day saying i would stop at the montana and drop off some artwork, then stop at the tennis club and tell them i would be returning very soon and then stop at the caribbean market to pick up some goodies. when the time came i refused to go with a hell no reaction and decided instead to take the kids to the shop and patiently wait for closing time to go home.
4:52 the kids were playing horse and trainer in the yard i was swept away by their joy when exactly three minutes later the earth turned to jello under my feet and then the earth started rocking uncontrollably. chairs and garden pots slamming down to the ground the sound of cracking ,popping. breaking , slamming and a thunderous roar. the kids were looking at me petrified-all i could say was “oh my God, oh my God ,get under a table!” and then it was over., as quickly as it began. when we got up i thought wow! that was a real earthquake-a big one!!and then i looked around. the wall surrounding the property was pulverized destroying my garden business,and as i am taking it all in-the employees came running saying the building next door had collapsed with everyone inside-i chalked it up to shoddy construction. her were screams coming from everywhere.and then it dawned on me -this was something much greater than what i thought.we worked our way home though immense traffic just praying my house would be o.k..we finally get home-ompossible to get the car inside-the propeties walls had been smashed as well-no way to get it-but my home was still standing.we worked our way over a mountain of rubble-so far so goodbut inside broken glasses and plates everywhere.my friderator doors wide open with all of it’s contents violently thrown to the ground.where would i start -this is a horribble mess where do i start? and then i looked at the walls. keep in my mind that this is a bugalow built in the 1920’s out of stucco-the walls were completely cracked straight through-no room was spared i knew that this could’nt possibly be code and with the fist after shock it only got worse ,no sleeping in this  house tonight or any night for that matter .the after shocks grew stronger and more frequent.wth each shake the kids asked is it ever going to stop???-yes-when?- i don’t know. no telephones no t.v.no radio no internet. cut off from the rest of the world.how will they ever know what has happend to us?? paco gets home and hands me his cell phone-here watch cnn-i know you are going crazy. the world knew!! yes-but how will they ever know that we are o.k. they must be worried sick-just as worried as we are.cnn showing pictires of the palace-THE NATIONAL PALACE HAS BEEN DESTROYED!!!!!!! Carribbean supermarket with all it’s clients and employes-the montana and the bellevue club destroyed, dissappeared!!how can this be???? it’s the end of the world.how fricking strong was this thing?????the list went on and on. cnnsays that port-au-prince was leveled-i think thats an understatement.and then the streets wre filled with people-all kinds-camping out -running for cover from the dreaded aftershocks-and i am trying to conincea handful that the trembling was norma-the plates needed to get back into place-they were’nt having it-they were almost as strong as the first one. babies criying everywhe.trul;y a scene from th apocalpse it was p[ithchblack at 6:30 and sound seemed to be sucked in a vacuum-and more aftershocks-and with eack trempor more wails,and more prayers.we never slept that night-wishing that day would come quickly.day finally came with news that so many friends had been killed under collapsed houses and so many more had dissappeared.but with all of this horror around me a look at yself and say”thank youGod “for taking care of us-we are all safe and sound.God heard my prayer that morning and took special care of me and my loved ones.i will never stop being grateful and i will never take anything for granted ever again.the outpouring of love and concern is such an immense comfort and i am confident that we will all come out stonger and better from all of this. thank you all for caring .we love you all very much

I assume there are a lot of  typos because she is probably writing from a Blackberry or some other type of handheld device that is hard to write on. Another incredible story from Haiti… We donated money to Haiti through Plan USA. We sponsor a child in Columbia through Plan USA. I found that this is a tremendous and legitimate organization. They actually have PlanUSA workers on the ground in Haiti helping with the aftermath. You can donate to help Haiti through their website:  www.planusa.org .

I woke up Saturday morning to snow showers! Big, fluffy, silent-falling flakes…. The farrier was due out to the barn at 11:00. There weren’t a lot of cars on the road as we drove to Poolesville. The snow made for some tricky driving. Of course, the trip was well worth it as the barn and horses looked magical all covered in white.

And of course, our boy Riley ….

I am amazed by the Internet. I have connected to some exceptional websites and Facebook profiles through Karmic Nectar. Five people friended me this weekend on Facebook. One from South Africa on from the UK, and while I was on my computer today my new ”friend” Myriam popped up on Facebook chat. She is from Argentina. We both have 2 kids almost the same age, have been married 20 years, love yoga (she is actually a professor of yoga) and we couldn’t stop chatting… I actually got to peek into her life as I looked at her Facebook profile and pictures of her life so far away….She asked where Maryland was, as she has never been to the states before. She wanted to know if it was near New York and Connecticut. I told her I lived outside of D.C., and that it had snowed 6 inches here yesterday. Myriam said it was summer in Argentina… We both agreed that if we lived close to each other that we would be friends. She proclaimed, ”the Internet is like an energy portal!”.

I pulled out the Leap Frog Talking Globe from the closet (The one toy I never gave away when the kids grew up) to see where Patagonia, Argentina was located. 5,800 miles from here….