Odd things happen in the islands. Today was the first day Darlene cashed in on the Wind Spirit Agreement, in which she can ask for four hours of techno help each week. Tonight up at her sister’s house, she asked me to program the speed dial on Deb’s phone and fax machines to handle a call to the Sam’s Club prepaid phone card number and enter the PIN. I could feel my old pattern asserting itself in pre-grumbling. I’d had a long day selling T-shirts for the St. John Arts Festival, updating Maria’s virus software, swimming, etc. But I remembered the agreement and sensed new terrain. So without a moment’s hesitation, I buckled down with the phone and fax manuals and figured out how to enter the information, wrote up instructions for Deb, and entered the numbers.
Back here at Caribsurf, Darlene tried to explain that my display of no-questions-asked, non-grumbling technical assistance was a really big deal, a significant breakthrough. I’m not getting her words exactly, but I got the drift and was grateful that I had stumbled into a new pattern. “I don’t care how much time you spend on the computer, when you help me with something I need help with that way…” she said, or words to that effect. I basked briefly in her gratitude and then fired up the Vaio to surf literary blogs for an hour, guilt-free. So this odd agreement that we made aboard the Wind Spirit does seem to have legs. It may turn out to be as lasting a shift as the mirroring dialog technique that we learned from Harville Hendricks at an Omega Instute workshop several years ago at Maho. We still use the process to clear the air. So I continue to be a believer in the islands’ ability to keep us moving deeper and deeper into the mystery called marriage.
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