Yesterday evening, Mr. W and I met up with a couple of my coworkers in Seal Beach for another coffeehouse visit with our clairvoyant Rebecca. (If you want to read more on Rebecca, type her name in my “search” box in the sidebar to the right.) First we had a fun, delicious dinner at Cafe Lafayette. Their food is amazing, we happened to hit happy hour so we my raspberry Lambic was nearly 1/3 off, and I now have a new love for string bean fries. Wow, that batter, dipped in their garlic aioli…just, wow. There was something else in the aioli, too. I can’t recall what it was, but it made it kind of green. Curry? Some herb? I guess I’ll have to go back to make sure.

After dinner, we walked down Main Street past the bustling shops, cafes, and restaurant-bars to our little hole in the wall coffee house. The tiny place was ridiculously crowded last night, and there was standing room only inside soon after the four of us sat down. There were already other coworkers there, waiting for our time to take a peek through the veil. Soon Rebecca arrived.

Mr. W asked the question of where she sees us traveling on our upcoming vacation. We’d felt like we were all over the place, first thinking of going on an adventure trip to Australia, but then realizing how difficult that was to plan in our strict 2-week time off window. Rebecca closed her eyes and received information for what seemed like a long time, so of course I got excited. It wasn’t going to be something easy and unexciting like “Vegas again.” She opened her eyes and said, “I keep seeing Greece. If not that, then Europe. The reason I say that is because the two of you like something with more culture, and you seem to like water, something like Aruba, but you don’t like vacations where you just sit somewhere on a beach the whole time, that’s boring for you, and Greece and Europe has more history, there’s more culture and substance there.” We then told her that just earlier that day, we had changed gears and started looking up cruises in the Greek Isles, a dream of mine. We found a cruise that left from Venice to spend a week exploring the waters and islands of Greece, then returned to Venice, and we would still have a week left to discover Italy. We had only that day put Europe on the possibility list. This cruise and itinerary had fit our schedule perfectly (unlike the Aussie cruises we looked into first), but we hadn’t worked out the budget yet to see if it was realistic. As I told Rebecca about our research today, a heard a bunch of “awww”s around me. People approve of Greek Isle cruises, apparently! haha. I think the reason she saw Aruba is because of our recent French Polynesia trip, and Mr. W said earlier yesterday that if we could find another trip with the same cruiseline for that time period for Fiji or something, he’d jump at it. Rebecca then cited us to the crowd as an example of how easy it could be for her to receive specific information if people are open to her and trust her, and she thanked us for our faith in her.

Another spot I’m more and more interested in, but had done no research in, is Ireland. I’ve always kind of felt like I hadn’t been Asian before in a past life (at least not recently), but I had been European. I get overwhelming feelings of nostalgia when I see pictures of certain locations in Europe (strongly in parts of France — so strong I bought a painting when I found I couldn’t walk away from it, parts of Italy), even though with the memories of this life I am unable to identify those places as I have never been to Europe, and for the most post, don’t know much about Europe short of what we learn in a historical context from school. I feel like I was in the US for its Golden Age in the 40s and 50s, and Europe after the Renaissance. So I thought I’d ask. “Why do I feel so drawn to Ireland?” The answer was better than I’d expected with my writer’s heart.

About 3 or 4 lifetimes ago, I was Scottish (hey, like my cat, I just realized!) and there was an Irish man I was involved with. But because of the time period, the strife between Ireland and Scotland made this union very difficult. (When she told me this, I had no idea about any problems between Ireland and Scotland, and Mr. W had told me in the car, “Are you kidding? They had MAJOR problems with each other! That’s what the movie Braveheart was all about!” Well, I couldn’t watch Braveheart cuz I’d kept falling asleep during it. I don’t like violent films.) My love soon left to return to Ireland, and it was expected and talked about that he would come back for me. I waited expectantly; he never returned. I was drawn toward Ireland then, wanting to search it for him, and I am still drawn to Ireland now, although with no clue of what I’m looking for there.
I asked Rebecca when this was, if it was 3-4 lifetimes ago. Hundreds of years, then. She said, 1600s.
I told her I’d always pictured myself there around that time period, but didn’t know if it was just imagination. Thinking back now, it was played out in my little girl’s let’s pretend scenarios (minus the man), and my childhood drawings were full of women drawn from that time, in that period clothing and hairstyle. I guess I’d just assumed it was fairy tale emulation. But I was always more drawn to fairy tales than other girls. Rebecca confirmed that I have vague memories of being there at that time because I WAS there at that time.
I then thought to ask her whether this Irish guy is around me, spiritually or maybe on this plane. Turns out, she says he is. She first asked if I had a brother. I said no. She said he’s a relative with whom I have a sisterly-brotherly relationship. A cousin. He’s 4-5 years younger than me, and it’s someone I’ve had a sense of familiarity with and am comfortable around. She sees a relationship where we playfully kid with each other. I only have 1 younger male cousin. He lives in eastern Canada and we’ve only seen each other in person 3 or 4 times. The second time I met him, I’m not sure how old he was but I was 13. After his family visited us and returned to Canada, I was surprised when I started finding letters in the mailbox from him to me. I still have them somewhere; he was too little to coordinate the pen to paper, so he’d type out his letters to me — long rambling punctuation-less “sentences” mostly listing out the titles of all the Nintendo video games he had, his prized possessions. The envelope was also typed, clearly from a typewriter, so that it was legible for the postman. I’m sure I wrote back, and we were pen pals for awhile. I’d even then thought it strange that my little geek cousin could work a computer word processing program before he could write well, and use that to write to me, and it was also strange that I seem to be closer to him with our big age difference, than I am to his older brother, only a year younger than I am. We “found” each other again once emails and IMs became a regularly available medium, and clicked instantly. We discovered we had a lot of things in common, such as our love for Bill Watterson’s “Calvin & Hobbes.” I’d really enjoyed reminding him of my memories of him and our interactions when he was very young, which he has no memory of and had found to be hilarious. I was always the one who remembered stories to pass on, anyway. Although the regularity of our contact waned or intensified as we both felt the need for, we never really lost touch again. I was pleasantly surprised when years ago, he’d declared me his favorite cousin despite growing up with other cousins closer in proximity to him. I’m definitely most in touch with him than I am with other cousins who live near me and whom I grew up with.
I told Rebecca I could tell my cousin Mark about this and really freak him out. “He’ll think it’s the grossest thing ever,” I laughed. She said to wait a bit before telling him.

I’d always wondered whether relationships feel strange when people incarnate together and go from husband-wife to mother-son, or sister-brother to husband-wife. Now I know. The old relationship doesn’t carry anything with it except for the sense of bond and trust; none of the romantic ties or emotions follow through. I’m sure that would be a relief to Mark, as well. Since he sometimes visits this blog, I’ll let the universe determine whether this is something he should find out about. If he reads this, he does; if he doesn’t, I won’t bring it up. Yet. *snicker*

But, I’ve gotta check on our age difference. My sense is that it’s greater than the 4-5 years Rebecca said. I’ll post the result here in an update.

** Update: Okay, he’s almost exactly 7.5 yrs younger than me. That would make that first letter (the one listing all the video games) typed by a 5 yr old.