The Transformers: Close to Home from Home

All our life we spend looking for the “place for us,… Somewhere… Someday…”. The search of our soul leads us to absolutely new places and experiences. And then one day we realize that our real Home is within. Through our bright, sometimes frightening; full of events, contacts with people and other dimensional, roller-coaster like experiences we learn the power of being within. We learn to become fearless through being full of different fears, we learn to become really powerful and self-centered through being broke into pieces by the hammer of life. We come to the point where no walls can protect us from anything destructive coming our way better than those invisible walls of our Faith into Higher Power; no planes can take us higher than strong wings of our own Spirit.

All the understanding comes later. But at first…
At first I had to buy an airplane ticket to unknown, not-yet-tasted and untested by me (though I’ve been here before for a very short time) place, called New York City just to escape from my past experience. (It seems like grass is always greener on the other side behind the fence.) Not that it was so bad. I’d say it was much more arranged, comfortable and well-known. But it was dying experience. Those fears, I wanted to leave behind, were deep-rooted and not-quite explainable. Yes, it is difficult to explain the fear of growing into some kind of plant-flower, when your life doesn’t demand from you any major decisions. You just have to be “nice” to somebody and you’ll never worry about what to eat for breakfast and you’ll always have comfortable bed to sleep in, maybe with horrifying nightmares of losing yourself, but still the linen will be perfect. How many of us called or still call such place “Home”? I guess I couldn’t do it anymore. And I chose… troubles!

What do you think you might feel jumping with your parachute not-quite-prepared to open? It was my feeling from the beginning of my journey into my “new” life. 500 hundred dollars in my pocket, one-month visa in my passport and somebody’s small sofa in a living room for a short period of time, just enough to find a low-paid job of a care-giver or a baby-sitter at some well-established Long Island neighborhood. Not too many and not too bright choices of going ahead… It makes you wanting to run back to a “comfort-zone”, as they call something known from the past. It is challenge of all beginners! The bigger project the more temptation to escape back! The fear of losing is stronger. You bet your whole life on winning. If you lose they will always remind you, the little corner in the room is your place and you might never get back the power and strength to start again… Yes, I know how it feels. Terrible! Though it’s a BS. Who told you that you can’t have breakfast today, if you had it yesterday? Every new day, while you are alive, gives you chance to start everything from the beginning and maybe make it even much better, as you know now from your mistakes what not to do. But better not to risk and keep going if you already started. So, use the Law of Inertia and push yourself as hard as possible at the beginning. And don’t look back if you don’t want to turn into a statue of salt from the Bible story.

OK. I started my journey of endless exploration and discoveries. I felt myself like Alice in Wonderland (only instead of cards there was a crazy-windy flow of American dollars flying-twisting around me.) At that moment my eyes were wide opened (from any kind of fears) and my mouth shut (my life position didn’t allow to be talkative, plus nobody was really interested in my opinion). Sometimes though I closed my eyes (just not to look at anything happening around) and I was screaming deep in my soul from negative experiences I had to deal with at some moments. (If you ever saw a famous, icon-like painting by a Norwegian artist Edvard Munch The Scream (1893), you know what I am taking about. It seems to be very modern and recognizable to me!) The whole experience of mine was rather horrifying but I decided to be a brave girl and to learn in a hard way the literacy of life, so I kept going. Two things come to my mind when I look back at that period of my life: it was not so bad the situation, fear painted it in darker colors, many worries might be avoided by better understanding and calmer acceptance of things; and I am grateful to myself that I never turned back, I never compromised my feelings, I never made easy-cheesy choices (though not just once was tempted to do all this). I’d say I made it my way.
Though at that moment I had to find something to hold on to. Faith is a perfect solution, but sometimes it is too illusive for a normal human being (I consider myself half-normal, cause I am a dreamer). Other people’s advices might be suitable, but you don’t want to end up in their life situation, and that’s what might happen if you follow these “from the bottom of the heart” advices. What else left? My intuition told me: “If you want to learn from something or somebody, look for the things and people you like and accept already the way they are.” So, I found this way my teachers, though they never knew about my existence. For several years the life example of these ten unique women I am going to tell you about in my book kept me strong and never-give-upper in my life adventures. (Part I will be dedicated to five of them.) So, are you ready to hear these wonderful life stories in my interpretation? OK. Get comfortable, make yourself a cup of tea with honey (or anything you like) and listen… Here is the first story.

The First Story. Is it RED LIPSTICK or BLOOD on TV screen?

It was only few days later since I stepped out of my plane on the “promised land of unlimited opportunities”. I was sitting on my little couch in somebody else’s living room, which was the only expression of stability in my rather shaking Universe at that moment. I was sitting there stuck in my gloomy thoughts on the topic: “Where all these promised opportunities are? I cannot see a damn!” when suddenly…
Yeah, I couldn’t figure out what direction to hit to find a success in this new life (somebody should tell me at that time it may take few years of hard work, some tears into a pillow and lots of efforts to taste it) and what’s the hell all these “opportunities” rumors, spread world-wide, were about? I needed a message from outside to understand what this entire story, I involved myself in, was about. The only “great opportunity” I was offered then, just to survive – cleaning of somebody else’s bathrooms. Not that it was the best option for a person with a Master’s degree in the pocket, but to survive… (By the way, did I mention before that those “nice” people didn’t allow anybody to clean their wonderful, sparkling-white toilet-seats with a special toilet brush? Those pure-white toilet seats deserved care of human hands only, at that time they happened to be my hands. Indeed “wonderful” people inhabit the planet of Earth sometimes! I am kind of grateful to them and I mean it. Can you imagine how many long months and maybe years I’d have spent improving my “cleaning” abilities if they’d provided me with a comfortable brush?). Again it was poor-me sitting on the little my-island-of-safety-couch, breaking my head trying to figure out how better to clean those toilet seats to finish this life-task faster and forever, when suddenly I was caught by the bright-colored performance on the TV screen. This TV-story became the first brick in the creation of a new Home-world I was trying to build for myself on American land.

Eight years later I remember this show, as if it were yesterday. The colors are so bright, vital and the story is so clearly-pictured in my mind. The TV screen is full of action, jumping, life, great energy. Beautiful face with sparkling dark eyes. She is all smiles, this young happy model. You’ll remember those plump crimson red lips forever. The most memorable advertisement of lipstick I ever saw! You feel so much life energy, that it is difficult to imagine that the joyful, beautiful performer is deadly sick and only few days recovering after a serious surgery. The message was pretty clear. This land expects you to be and behave alive if you are not dead yet! Never give up! Smile, even if it hurts like hell!
It was lesson one from a super-model Karen Duffy…