Andrea’s Path to Plants

What details of your life could you pay more attention to?

That niggling sense … that little voice inside your head … the aha! that gets pushed aside. Our intuition can be so … well, intuitive.

When I was quite young, my grandparents left from Canada to visit family in South Africa. I remember sitting at the top of the stairs in the entrance of our house, my legs swinging, small enough to fit through the wooden spindles of the railing. I gripped those spindles, and could not stop my tears. There was a welling up inside of me, of something BAD that was going to happen when they left. I didn’t have the words, nor could I stop the feeling of dread. My mother probably chalked it up to my youth and the lateness of the hour, patting my back and saying they would be back before I knew it. But I knew, as they bundled up their coats and Dad took them off to the airport, that they shouldn’t go.

My grandparents did come home from that trip, it wasn’t quite as dramatic as an airplane crash or something like that. But they did end up extending their stay by quite a few weeks. My grandma had wound up in hospital with a severe case of malaria, despite their precautions.

After that, six year old me swore to listen to that oh-so-loud feeling.

A year later, my mom told me she was getting up early the next morning to go sign me up for skating lessons at the local community centre (this is pre-internet days). I experienced that exact same feeling, deep in the pit of my stomach. I worried all evening about it, thoughts racing in my head of wha-ifs. No idea what would happen, just that she shouldn’t go. Finally, at bedtime, I told her I didn’t want lessons anymore. She was confused (I loved figure skating) but I was adamant, and finally told her that I just didn’t like it anymore, that I refused to go. So she didn’t get up at six in the morning (I’m sure she didn’t argue that hard). And then it was just a normal day. I have no idea what would have happened. But I felt relieved, and somehow still do?

Those unforgettable feelings of intuition have been muted over the many years since. Did I miss something when I wrote off my beloved 1995 Mustang due to a poor error of judgement?

Did that tingle when I first met eyes with my husband when I was 16 lead to our marriage many, many oh so many years later? (I really had preconceived notions about him in high school).

Why haven’t I felt such strong gut feelings since? Or if I have, why have I written them off? Would I be someone else, somewhere else, if I learned to listen? I am writing this on my iPhone, and the irony is pretty plain to me.

LISTEN. Learn. Connect.