Sunday, November 30, 2008

Heroic Intuition: A Day In The Life Of A Psychic

My husband George often consults my intuition from the seemingly insignificant to the potentially important. Before I left for the day, he announced that he was expecting deliveries from 9am to 5pm that he might have to sign for but he wanted to take a shower. I replied, "I think the delivery will arrive at 11:40am. Plan your shower around that."

At 11:41am George phoned my mobile and simply said, "You're amazing. The package just arrived." I said, well, it's not me, it's just my intuitive awareness and I could've been wrong. Maybe I'm just lucky." Then I smiled to myself thinking, "Some women impress their partners with food. I impress mine with psychic prowess."

I received the call while I was with my toddler on her weekly play date at the mall. I was standing with my mini mom's group in Target as we were saying our good-byes. Kimi was very pregnant with baby number two. I blurted out, "I think this boy is going to born on Thanksgiving." She looked at me a bit askance saying, "I'm not due until December 6 and I haven't even dropped yet." That voice inside of me was still strong and I stuck to my prediction for the birth of her second child despite that her belly hadn't dropped yet and her due date wasn't for a few more weeks.

I left my gal pals and as my daughter and I were exiting the mall, we passed the escalators and something inside of me said, "Turn around, now." Just as I did I saw a boy, maybe five years of age, sitting on his feet while going down the escalator. I noticed that his shoe lace was untied and dancing with the grips of the escalator teeth.

My daughter was secure in her stroller, thank God, because I didn't even think about her safety in leaving her and rushing to the child who appeared to be in danger. I ran to him and was able to grab him as the escalator began to eat his shoe. I pulled him up with such ferocious velocity his foot came right out of his shoe. He was gripping me tightly with a mixture of fear and gratitude.

Suddenly, his mother appeared from the second floor screaming for her child. All she saw was another woman, one she didn't know, who was grabbing her son. Security arrived and shut down the escalator. I tried to yell up to the woman to explain what had happened but she didn't speak English. The boy hugged me and then ran toward his mother. I looked over to check on my daughter and she was safe.

There were two men at the end of the escalator giving chair massages who just sat and watched. It amazed me that they didn't come to help. In giving them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they just didn't realize what was going on.

Later that evening while taking my nightly walk on the beach, I once again heard a voice say, "Turn around, now!" When I did, I noticed a small fire on the beach blowing in the direction of the waterfront homes. I live south east of the recent Montecito fires and north west of the recent Northridge fires and the smoke and fear those fires incited was still pulsating inside of me.

I ran toward it to survey if it was just a bonfire or the act of an arsonist. It was an intentional fire going strong that someone had left. Surrounding it were environmentally protected dry patches of brush. Each slight gust of wind was picking up sparks from the flames and carrying them into the brush. I felt a sense of panic and immediacy to put this fire out.

I ran to the nearest house on the beach with its lights on, no one answered the door. I ran to the next and saw a couple making dinner trough their large oceanic view of glass. I'm an asthmatic who does not a run but I had never run so fast in my life. My extended family lives at the end of the street that led to the fire on the beach and my own home is just a few blocks from theirs. If I couldn't get help soon, everyone's home in the neighborhood was in jeopardy of being destroyed.

I was so worried about frightening the people in the house who I had never met as I came running, panting up their back porch to tap on their kitchen window. "Hi, I'm your neighbor. There's a fire on the beach. Can you help me put it out?" I said exasperated with a glistening face that inspired the woman to fetch me a glass of water.

She was British and calm as she introduced herself, "I'm Claire. This is my husband Jim." She said as if we were all about to play a game of tennis. "Still mired by dread and alarm I repeated myself. "There is a fire in the sand dune near your home. I think we can put it out but we should really go now." "Let's just call 911…" She quietly quipped. "I'm afraid that by the time they get here it may be too late. If we go now we can bury it." I interrupted. She nodded with her eyes. "Alright Jim, are you coming? Turn off the BBQ and cover the meat so that the cats don't get into it. I'll bring some lanterns." And off we went looking like a trio of Elmer Fudds hunting wabbits.

I hadn't realized how far the fire seemed when walking to it versus how close it felt when running from it. We finally found the flames and with two shovels were able to bury each one. When complete, we were all grateful to each other.

I called George to tell him what had happened and he said, "Kryptonite beware. Superwoman is here!" When I reached my home he had drawn a large red "S" on a piece of paper and taped it to the front door. As I walked through the threshold my family gave me a heroes welcome and I once again gave thanks to my intuition, for all our sakes.

One week and one day later, Kimi had her second baby, a boy, on Thanksgiving.

While I appreciate my intuitive abilities, I can't allow myself to be this aware all the time. I just don't have a cape to match a telephone booth. Motherhood is too demanding to add superhero as a hyphen. Besides that, it's pseudo redundant, don't you think?