Broken Open How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

What Einstein Knew No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it. Albert Einstein When Route 25 leaves the mountains of northern New Mexico, the city of Albuquerque appears suddenly like a miragea slice of strip-mall America shimmering on a flat shelf of ancient desert. In all my years of visiting friends in New Mexico, I had not ventured into Albuquerque. I had passed by it many times, on my way to and from the airport, but never had a reason to turn off the highway until one afternoon, when I went looking for a psychic whose card had been given to me by a friend in Santa Fe. This was during the first difficult days of being separated from my husband of fourteen years, a time when people who tried to help me would eventually give up, too frustrated to continue following me around a maze with no exit. The day before I left my friend's house, she handed me the business card of a psychic and said, "Don't ask. Just go." The front side of the card read, Name: The Mouthpiece of Spirit Location: The Road of Truth I found more helpful directions on the other side, where three rules were printed: 1. Pay Only in Cash. 2. Bring a Blank Tape. 3. Do Not Hold Me Responsible for Your Life. And then the address, which led me through dusty, treeless streets, past a few warehouses and truck lots, to a trailer park on a forlorn road a couple of miles from the airport. The place looked like a bad movie setseveral old trailers and dilapidated outbuildings, discarded automobiles, and a dog tied to a clothesline. At a dead end I came upon the last trailer in the park, set off under a gnarled tree strung with flashing Christmas lights. Rechecking the directions, I was alarmed to discover that this indeed was The Road of Truth, the home of The Mouthpiece of Spirit. On the steps of the trailer things got even weirder. The psychic met me at the door. She had the most hair I had ever seenpiles of bleached blond tresses arranged in a beehive on top of her head. She was wearing a red-and-white-checked cowgirl shirt, white stretch pants, and high-heeled sandals. Her eyes were clear and blue, and her nails were painted bright red to match her dangling, heart-shaped earrings. She seemed surprised to see me, as if I hadn't called earlier in the morning to confirm the appointment, as if she wasn't a psychic at all. After I established what I was doing on the steps of her trailer, she invited me in, asking me to excuse the mess. We stepped over boxes, books, magazines, and bags of pet food and potato chips. On the couch, watching TV, was a manperhaps the psychic's husbandand a big white poodle with plastic barrettes in its hair. Neither seemed to notice me as the psychic led us to her bedroom. The psychic sat on a king-size bed that took up most of the space in the room. She motioned to me to sit on a folding chair in the corner. I could still get out of this, I thought, as I squeezed behind the bed to sit on the chair. But before I could say anything, the psychic announced in a no-nonsense tone, "You have something in your purse for me. Something from your husband. A letter." Her voice was duskya smoker's voicebut it also had a regional twang, making her sound like a Texas Mae West. In fact she reminded me of Mae West, and I wondered what the hell I was doing, in a trailer near the Albuquerque airport, asking for life direction from Mae West. "So, do you have a letter in your purse or not?" demanded the psychic. "No, I don't," I stammered, defensively. "I don't usually carry letters in my purse." "I am quite sure you have something, something from your husband, in your purse.Lesser, Elizabeth is the author of 'Broken Open How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow', published 2004 under ISBN 9780375508066 and ISBN 0375508066.