Listen to Your Heart

Today is Sunday, the 21st of February, 2016. I am writing this post in a Starbucks across from our hotel on Sutter Street in San Francisco. My wife, Sarah, and I are here just for the weekend. That wouldn't be so unusual except for the fact that our home is across the country on the east coast.

Three weeks ago our daughter, who lives in San Francisco, kiddingly asked in a group family text if anyone wanted to attend a pop-up wedding event at the SF City Club on February 19th, this past Friday. She is getting married in June and her reception will be there. The moment I saw her text, something tugged at me. Tugged at my heart. I had an urge to immediately text back “Absolutely! We’ll be there!” Trust me, she would have been shocked. And thrilled! But I didn’t respond right away. I gave it twenty-four hours before I shared with Sarah that I felt strongly we should go. She was just as certain. She got our flight and made hotel reservations later that day. We couldn't wait for this whirlwind trip just three weeks away. Fly out early on Friday, attend the event that evening, chill with our daughter and future son-in-law Saturday and Sunday, and fly back early Monday morning. Not a leisure travel schedule I would normally choose, but one that I had absolutely no doubt about in this moment. It was spontaneous and it felt right. Totally right.

We arrived in San Francisco around noon on Friday. Plenty of time to settle in. We caught up with our daughter and eventually headed over to the City Club to meet up with her fiancé. The evening event was awesome, leaving us super excited about the upcoming wedding. The next morning we all went to breakfast to fuel up for a day of open houses. That's when this story became a Be Yourself Blog post. That's when the picture was completed for why we were so "compelled," "motivated," "nudged," "inspired," "directed," to come to San Francisco this weekend. We thought it was for the pop-up wedding event. Which it was, of course. But there was far more at play here than attending this event. Far more than any of us consciously knew or imagined. Looking back now, our intuition was keenly tuned, guided, ours and our daughter's, from the time she sent that text weeks ago, to this very moment.

Last night, just one day after the event, our daughter was in an operating room having emergency surgery. She became seriously ill yesterday morning while we waited for our breakfast, and we spent all day at the hospital. They had to pull together an emergency surgical team that converged on UCSF late last night. They were awesome. From the staff in the emergency department, to the docs and the lone nurse in recovery with thirty-six years of experience who exuded compassion and confidence at 2:00am while our daughter recovered from the procedure and anesthesia. We can't say enough about the level of care. Our daughter is home now, up and about this morning, smiling, happy to be on the mend, and so grateful we were there to help and support her and her fiancé through her ordeal.

Recalling our daughter's text three weeks ago, I knew at the time that my intuition was in overdrive. Not an ounce of doubt that we should come out here for this weekend. I just didn't have the complete picture painted as to why. As we sat at breakfast yesterday, seeing our daughter's physical pain and distress and her fiancé's concern, that inner voice clearly told me we were headed to the hospital. As clearly as the intuitive message we received three weeks ago about saying "Yes!" About needing to be right here, right now.

Now, a day later, sitting in this Starbucks putting the final touches on this post, I hear a "clink" as a gentleman walks past and behind me. I turn to my left to see a shiny object dancing on the floor where he'd been. He moves on, oblivious, to get in line. I get up to investigate. It is a shiny new quarter. I pick it up, listen to my heart, and walk up to the fellow now standing in line. "Here," I say, "this hit the floor as you walked by," and hand him the coin. He looks up and beams a smile, "Well! I guess this is my lucky day!" Yes it is. And mine too. Not an ounce of doubt he will reach in his pocket later today, feel that quarter, and smile, thinking "something good's going to happen today." No doubt in his mind it will. And no doubt in mine.

Real for Always

"The Skin Horse Tells His Story"
Illustration by William Nicholson
Excerpted from "The Velveteen Rabbit" or "HOW TOYS BECOME REAL" by Margery Williams.
Many thanks to The University of Pennsylvania and "A celebration of Women Writers" for making this beautiful work available online.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.