Royalty for All

I made a tube of vanilla lavender! Look and it attracted a Stevie Bird! He fluttered away after this picture was taken- I hope he comes back!

I love luscious scents! It makes me feel like royalty! And we are. Now we have running water and toilets, baths and showers and such. Remember how in the Middle Ages we had to watch where we were going on the street for fear of a chamber pot being sloshed over our head? And how everyone smelled waaaaay worse than body odor, and how there were insects in everyone's hair? Eww!

When I was living in a place I was embarassed to be living in I pretended I was a princess! I pretended I was the only person in the world that had running water. I pretended that when I woke up to the sun it was the sun that was coming to wake me up. "Wake up, Shani, I'm here!" I would walk past beautiful houses and smell other people's roses and talk to the rose and tell it how lovely it smelled. Sometimes I'd put my feet in the river and fall asleep, knowing there were cars rushing by... and one voice would say... maybe there is a job for me... and another voice would say.. but I am a princess someone has to smell all these roses when people go to work...

Once when I was two my parents couldn't find me. Eventually I was discovered in a closet eating a tub of butter. My Dad said, "Shani! Shani, what are you doing in here?" And I told him, "I'm bein' sneaky."

In kindergarten I had a role in the school play as a snowflake! My Mom and Dad got me a pretty silk and lace nightgown for ladies and Mom tied it up in a sash so that it fit and flowed around. After the play the school guidance counselor saw me in the halls and said, "Ooo! There you are, snowflake! What a beautiful dancing snowflake you are!" The amazing thing is that she kept saying it! Years later I fell down on my bicycle. I sat all skinned up on the sidewalk, and who should pull over but her, and remembering me somehow she said, "Come on, dancing snowflake, I will give you a ride home." As Steve and I have been cooking I've been thinking about the visions of life that other friends have held for me, held with me. I feel so glad to have been called a dancing snowflake. I feel so grateful for that man in the kitchen whose eyes sparkle and who says, "I'll get the dishes, you go say what you want to say." And for all the special people around, you know, us holding our visions for each other. Feeling so much for what is, what we are, and I want to say Thank You!