Hawaii – Barbara Heagy

New Places, New Friends

Traveling not only give us the opportunity to see new places and experience new things, but it also brings new people into our lives. These people add special meaning to a vacation and many of them may remain friends long after the vacation is over. On my recent trip to Kauai, Hawaii, I met several wonderful people who I made immediate connections with.

The first connection was made after a church service in the lovely village of Hanalei. The pastor at the historical and beautiful Wai’oli Hui’ia Church was warm and friendly and eagerly invited any newcomers to stand, announce our names, and tell the congregation where we came from. The members of my family were the only ones who were Canadian.

After the service, a woman approached me and introduced herself as Carol Ann.

“My husband Michael and I are from Ontario too!” she said as she enthusiastically pumped my hand. “We love Hawaii. It’s such a special place.”

Later we ran into them again that same day at a slack-key guitar concert we went to and, this time, we spent a little more time chatting and we took a picture of the two of us for remembrance. We exchanged e-mails and said it would be wonderful if we stayed in touch once we returned home to Canada.

A few days later, my family was in the village of Kapa’a and, upon arrival, we each went our own way to do some shopping. I stopped in to a ladieswear shop called Tropical Tantrum. It was a feast for the eyes! The racks were full of tie-dyed and batik dresses and other clothes and accessories, each one original, each one bursting with colour, each one temptingly beautiful. I was drawn to one dress in deep purple jewel tones, spotted with soft turquoise butterflies. It reminded me so much of Tom, my deceased husband and our special relationship with butterflies. It wasn’t cheap so I decided to go for lunch and think about it. It didn’t take long. After lunch, I immediately returned to the store. This time the clerk, Charlene Wolfe, and I struck up a conversation. I told her about being a widow and that’s what drew me to the dress.

“I’m a widow too,” she said, “but I have remarried.”

I told her my husband’s name was Tom.

“That was the name of my husband too,” she exclaimed.

We both marvelled at the coincidence and I left her my business card and told her about my book “10” and my blog.

Little did I know, later that day she checked out my book on Amazon and was able to read a preview of the book. It told my introductory story of finding dimes everywhere and how the number 10 played such an important part in Tom’s and my life. At the end of the day, she had to count the $300 float and, lo and behold, she found it to be two dimes short. She was astonished at the synchronicity of it all. Barb came into my store two times, we both are widows, both our husbands’ names were Tom. I have to tell her. She immediately tried to call me, then text me but I wasn’t answering. (I wasn’t using my phone on this holiday.) As a last resort, she e-mailed me at the address on the business card.

The next day, my family had gone on a river cruise in the morning but stopped at Kapa’a for lunch. My brother Peter, his wife Sharon and I decided we wanted to try out a shrimp place so we dropped my sister Audrey and her husband Ted off and headed back to the restaurant. When we returned to the heart of the downtown area, it was very busy and parking was at a premium. We circled around once and then finally found a spot – right in front of the Tropical Tantrum Store. Who was in the doorway, talking to her husband, but the beautiful Charlene. She was shocked to see me!

“I’ve been trying to get you all day. Ed, this is the woman I was telling you about,” she said to her husband.

She eagerly shared her story and we both marveled at the magic of it all.

On our last day in Kauai, I dropped my family off at the airport so they could catch their 11 a.m. flight to Oahu. I, on the other hand, was returning to Canada on a much later flight, so I kept the rental car for the day and headed off to Kalapaki Beach in the town of Lihue.

At the end of the day, I was sitting at a picnic table under the trees so I could watch the beach scene and enjoy the scenery and people. One by one, locals started dropping in to sit at and near my table. One of them introduced herself, Monica, and said that she had just finished her work shift as a bus driver and every day she and her friends came down to these tables to just enjoy the sun, some cold beers, some music, a bit of food, and each other’s company. I ended up spending a wonderful two hours with these friendly locals and felt totally welcomed into their group. When I left, I made sure I took a picture of them so I could remember them.

One of them, Raymond, said, “I have something for you.” He dug into a box in the back of his truck and handed me a beautiful purple sarong. “To remember us by,” he said.

Each of them gave me a hug before I left and Monica called out to me as I was walking away. “If you’re ever here in Lihue again, drop in. We’ll be here.”

I smiled and told her I would be sure to do that.

Sitting in the boarding area at the Lihue Airport, I found myself sitting beside a woman and her husband. We got talking and found out that we both were retired teachers, and both our names were Barb. She and her husband had cut their vacation short due to an illness. They were flying back to Vancouver, then Calgary. We exchanged emails. I think of Barb and her husband often and hope they made it home okay.

My final new friendship was totally unexpected and I never did find out her name but we had a very special time together. The five hour flight from Lihue to Vancouver was a red-eye flight. The lights were turned low and most of the passengers slept for the duration. That, at least, was the plan. A few hours into the flight, I was awakened by a baby crying somewhere in the seats behind me. It was wailing, totally distraught, and would not be comforted by its mother at all. One by one, people started waking and lights were turning on. The flight attendants stopped at the parents’ seat and offered assistance but to no avail. The baby kept screaming and was getting more and more wound up. The staff decided to give us some beverages and snacks and for a while, we all were preoccupied with that, as the baby continued to cry. I felt so sorry for first, the baby, as it was so frantic and would not be comforted, and secondly, the parents, who I was sure were trying desperately to comfort their child but nothing was helping. The situation was getting tense. I thought, “Somebody needs to help them. Maybe I can do something.”

Very gently, I approached the parents and said, “Can I help in some way? I’m a gramma. I’ve held a number of babies in my time. Can I hold her? I don’t know if it will help but I’m willing to try.”

The mom looked at her little girl in her arms and said to her, “Do you want to go with this lady?” and, lo and behold, the little girl reached both arms up to me to be held.

I took her into my arms and just started walking up the aisle, shushing the little girl with comforting sounds, stroking her head of golden curls, and singing soft songs to her. I stopped up at the top of the aisle and just stayed there, rocking her and singing to her, as she slowly stopped crying, and began to gulp air in giant hiccups as she settled down. Bit by bit, she relaxed more and more, until I could feel her weight getting heavier and heavier in my arms. Slowly I shifted her to a cradle hold and just continued to hum soft lullabies to her. As she fell deeper and deeper into sleep, the flight attendant asked me if I wanted to sit down in the front seat which was empty. I told her I better not as every time I stopped rocking her she would wake and whimper.

“Would you like a blanket?” she asked.

“She’s pretty hot. She got so worked up. I think she’s okay,” I replied.

She asked me, “Do you know the family?”

I shook my head and said, “No, but I know what it’s like to be holding a baby that won’t be soothed. I can only imagine what that momma felt like, so I stepped in to help.”

The flight attendant shook her head. “Wow. You’re a baby whisperer.”

Finally, I felt the baby was deep enough asleep that I could return her to her parents. Slowly, sidling sideways down the aisle to seat number 10 where they were sitting, I leaned over and gently put the little one in her mother’s arms. She immediately woke up and began to cry, reaching up to me, not wanting to leave my arms. I smiled and took her back and she instantly stopped crying.

“I’ll just sit here behind you in this empty seat,” I said, “and we’ll let her sleep.”

And that’s what I did for the next while until we entered air turbulence and we were told we should all buckle up for safety. I returned her to her parents and she woke out of a dead sleep and began to cry again. This time I just leaned over her, uttering soft shushing sounds and stroked her hair and forehead. She stopped crying every time she heard my voice, so the parents began to imitate my actions and voice. By this time, the plane was bouncing around quite erratically and I decided I better get back to my seat. The little one kept crying but not as badly and we knew that we were very close to landing.

Once we landed, we all disembarked and I thought that was the end of the story. Imagine my surprise, as I headed to my new boarding area for the final jaunt home to Toronto, I saw the family off to the side rearranging carry-on items.

The mom smiled when she saw me and said, “There’s your friend.”

As they walked off in front of me, the little girl looked over her mother’s shoulder and locked eyes with me. As they turned the corner to head off to their boarding area to Edmonton, I gave a final wave to my new little friend — a most precious one.

So — two weeks in Kauai, many new friendly encounters, and good memories. Travel offers us not only a change of scenery but an opportunity to form new bonds and widen our circle of friendship. That alone makes it so beneficial.

Rain Makes Rainbows

I was thinking about my recent trip to Hawaii where I went to dance at a week- long event called One Dance Tribe. After spending almost a year co-authoring a book about grief, I was looking for some pure joy in my life. And I did find it.

The first day, the first dance session, I was invited to dance with a complete stranger, and as we circled, and swooped and jumped around each other, I found myself smiling and then laughing out loud. Pure play. I felt the freedom of a young barn-bound colt let out to romp in the grassy meadow on the first warm, sunny spring day.

I also experienced pain, my own as well as others. On the dance floor, we were invited to consider the pain in the world, our own as well as others, and express it in movement, gesture and dance. No words. I cried in the arms of a stranger, as tears spilled down my cheeks over the death of my brother-in-law, who I had just found out the night before, via text, that the cancer he had been fighting for years, won. I wasn’t going to be there for his funeral.

Several times, after dinner, or at a quiet moment, someone would approach me and sit across from me and slowly start telling me about their lives, often being moved to tears. I just listened. It was an international dance event and, early in the week-

long event, most of these people were strangers to me. I felt honoured that they would share their lives so intimately with me.

Every day, it rained for some time, usually just a quick blast of warm drops and it was over. But the sun was always back. And with it, came some of the most beautiful, vividly-colored rainbows that I had ever seen. And there was usually more than one throughout the day. As one of the participants said, “Hawaii is a rainbow machine.”

So yes, I did find joy. But I also found pain. I found they exist on the same plate. It rained almost every day, and every day we had an abundance of rainbows. Rain and rainbows danced in the sky, side-by-side.

One Dance Tribe

I am a dancer. There have been times in my life that it was my passion and it fed my spirit. Then I danced every day. I became a full-time elementary school teacher in my late 30’s. Shortly after I stopped dancing and left it behind.

But it wouldn’t leave me.

Throughout the years, I kept returning to my dance, finding new ways to check in with my body and spirit; a weekly stretch/strength/free dance class, NIA dance workshops and retreats, yoga, sacred circle dancing and even ballroom dancing.

Last year I saw online an ad for a dance event in Maui, Hawaii called One Dance Tribe. I was intrigued. For months, I waffled back and forth about going. I began the registration procedure four separate times, but it wasn’t until the fourth time, that I persevered and hit the final ‘send’ button. Now I was committed!

In January, 2017, I flew to Maui for the One Dance Tribe, an international dance event with 80 other like-minded souls from all over the world.

The camp, rustic and simple, sat on the clifftop of the beautiful Keanae Peninsula, overlooking the Pacific Ocean on all three sides. Home for me for the week was a small 4 X 4 tent set back among the towering trees of a tropical forest, where the constant sound of the ocean waves on the cliffs lulled me to sleep each night and gentle birdsong woke me just after sunrise each morning.

We danced from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. Six different teachers presented their styles and approaches to conscious dance, sometimes working independently, sometimes together in one common spirit. Spiritual teachers and healers helped us to integrate our dancing experiences through massage, body healing techniques, voice exercises, chanting, music and ceremony.

At One Dance Tribe, I immersed myself in new – a new land, wild and beautiful and a new dance experience where I, once again, began to listen to my body and learn from its wisdom. I learned to be spontaneous, authentic, and trustful of the process. I became deeply aware of my chi body energy and flow. Joy, laughter and freedom naturally flowed as I allowed my instincts to respond to the music and the teacher’s promptings. I began to test my strengths and my limitations and became aware of knots of pain, both physical and emotional, learning to see and understand them with honesty and clarity. For me, the Feldenkrais healing sessions and various moving meditations aided me even further in this deep awareness.

I learned of the truth that is revealed through movement by observing others move. By watching others, with focus and intent, I ‘listened’ to their ‘movementspeak.’ As assuredly as if they had used spoken words, their movements told me their story. I danced for them, capturing their essence with a movement response. “This is what I hear you say” became “This is what I see you say.” We spoke in a new language, one without words, the language of the body with its energy and flow.

I learned to care for others, to relate to them through movement. Through dance, we shared our lives, experiences and energies in a spontaneous dialogue. We played and laughed together. We cried together and held each other up.

I learned I didn’t have to know all your story to help you embrace your path. All I had to do was be there for you; to listen, hold, and love you, so that you were not alone in your pain. I learned I didn’t have to give you my whole life. It was enough to be there for just the moment that we were placed together – to be authentic, supportive and sharing of THIS moment.

I learned to show up daily; to ‘be here now’ with others. My presence mattered and contributed to the group process.

I learned to persevere and push my physical, emotional, and spiritual levels, in spite of discomfort. As I moved inward, I tested and revealed my own inner energy and spirit. As I moved outward, I shared more of myself with others, as partners and as a group.

Through all these experiences, I felt and understood my place in a greater world as part of a kindred population of people. As an equal member of creation, I realized my connection to the vast, powerful energy of our natural world.
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On our last day, we sat with a partner and repeatedly asked each other a question.

“What does your heart know?”

My heart has deep gratitude for this unique experience where I retreated from my everyday world to this movement sanctuary. Here I was encouraged to be my true self. I have gratitude for the teachers and healers who offered their skills to teach me that body awareness and authenticity. I have loving gratitude for my body – its energy, its flow and its truth.

“What does your heart know?”

It knows a deeper awareness and understanding of the revealing power of movement. I learn about you and you learn about me by sharing our unspoken dialogue through movement and dance. The body doesn’t lie.

“What does your heart know?”

I know that I am part of a greater natural world. I am powerful, fierce, and flowing as the gifts of the ocean, the cliffs and towering vegetation. I learned to be at one with it, to yield to its power and beauty, rather than dominate and separate myself from it.

“What does your heart know?”

I can share your pain without it binding me up and swallowing me in over-empathy. I don’t need to know all the details. It is enough to just be there for you in your moment of need. I don’t have to solve it for you. All I have to do is be open, loving, and supportive, as you work through it. I don’t need to be afraid of your pain. I don’t need to eradicate your pain. It does not need to overwhelm me.

“What does your heart know?”

I am learning to ‘go with the flow’ – to not fight it. I became aware of the knots and blocks in my body and psyche that I am avoiding because they are too painful or too fearful.

“What does your heart know?”

I am learning to be ‘me’, not the ‘me’ that has been molded by a society of rules and expectations. I am learning to be authentic. I am learning how to love better, myself as well as others. I am better loving my natural world which I am a part of.

“What does your heart know?”

I am learning the power of the group, of community. When we all join together in a spirit of love, non-judgement, open acceptance and support, there is power in that.

We are One.
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Thank you to all who contributed to the One Dance Tribe event.

I thank you for the opportunity to retreat and learn. I was fed, housed, taught, and healed.

Thank you for the physical setting of the camp on Keanae Peninsula on the winding Hana Highway, a place of raw, wild, untamed beauty; a place where nature rules and man is a visitor. With honour, I danced the hula to the sun, moon, wind, clouds, rain, cliffs, ocean and shore. How magical was the appearance of a brilliant, glowing rainbow as it offered its gift to bless our dance to it.

Thank you for the blessing of the inner dance sanctuary which invited us in with its openness and beautiful flowing fabric, carpets, cushions, flowers and ferns. It was a space created with love and a sense of beauty and sanctity.

Thank you for the music, so carefully chosen to inspire, stimulate and feed our senses.

Thank you to each of the teachers for your individuality and uniqueness. As leaders, you gave us your best through sensitive offerings and guidance. Thank you for the union of your skills as teachers. We truly became One Dance Tribe with no competition, no judgement, a true union of a dancing people.

Thank you for all who made this event such a special and unique experience – the cooks, the cleaning staff, the grounds people, administrators, guests and volunteers. We fed and cared for each other, contributing bits of ourselves to a greater community.

Thank you. Grazie. Mahalo.