Out of my comfort zone

“I’m a Reiki Master, and animal communicator. I cured my dog from cancer.”

I heard this description in Portland, Oregon while my twin friends and their birth mother met for the first time over brunch.

I had been in Portland for a few days so this did not catch me off guard enough to make me laugh out loud, although I did choke a little on tofurkey kabobs. This well kept business-like woman, in the midst of couch surfers and those in varying levels of homelessness, stood out.

Upon further questioning, she explained that she ran a holistic Reiki healing business, which she described as acupuncture without needles.

When her dog was diagnosed with cancer. She just felt it was the right thing to do to hold her hands over the dog’s chest and think warm colors into him.

When she explained this to one of her local friends they immediately realized she had performed a Reiki healing technique. I sat in this tiny kitchen surrounded by people who experienced this as a normal event. My “logical” Midwestern mentality left me confused at the banal crowd reaction.

Suddenly, I realized I was in an entirely different culture.
In this culture unannounced visitors are given free reign of your house, introductions unnecessary. Here food was to be shared along with life stories, the stranger, the better.

This Reiki master went on to tell us all the intricacies of healing by manipulating the energies in your own and other people’s bodies. She explained how she can communicate basic information with animals she is familiar with. Then she told us her 9 to 5 job was teaching high school because;

“You talk about what you love first.”

Several gluten-free carrot-cake pancakes and a few marionberry waffles later, I had covered the room. I spoke to a yoga instructor who wanted to open his own location downtown. Parents of a toddler who dressed herself that day, in a large yellow parka and pink tutu, told me about their alternative schooling. My personal favorite was the woman who had no problem eating deviled eggs but professed to be a vegan when offered mayonnaise for her sandwich.

The Reiki master told us about some amazing places to eat and thanked us for the time spent in conversation. We called a cab and returned to what I would normally call normal.

On the way back we passed a large piece of graffiti. On the way over it had made me laugh. This large sign spray-painted on the side of a nightclub I now understand and wish to endorse.

“Keep Portland Weird.”