The Joy of Uber Driving

by Yamini Redewill

  She tentatively broached the subject, saying she’d made the mistake of having a drink of wine at eleven in the morning while the child was at school and then felt she had to be honest and tell the parents. That caused them to think she was an alcoholic, having wine so early in the day, and decided to let her go. She knew she did the wrong thing and said this was a pattern of self-sabotage she was very familiar with in her life. To me, she was very self-observant and wise for a girl just out of high school. She told me her big dream was to be an actress in live theater and to be a professional singer. I automatically went into a monologue about my life and was able to impart some wisdom that may help steer her in the right direction in that extremely misogynistic and vulnerable vocation. When we arrived at her destination, I gave her my phone number and told her to call anytime she needed someone to talk to.

  In lieu of a failed attempt at making a movie to empower women, I came up with the idea of creating a Festival of Goddesses in Laguna Beach in 2009. I envisioned a full day of speeches and panel discussions by role-model women around feminine issues and live music, ecstatic dancing, catered food, boutique vendors, and a fashion show. I decided to add one important element: handsome male servers to honor the women as goddesses. This proved to be very transforming for both the men and the women.

  Our first festival, in 2010, was held in Bridge Hall at the Neighborhood Congregational Church with over one hundred in attendance and was so well received that the following year we decided to expand to the Festival of Arts grounds, which can hold up to one thousand people with spaces for 180 vendors. It also includes a theater house with a seating capacity of 230. This was a huge undertaking and required a full year of planning and soliciting enough vendors and possible sponsors up front to pay for the venue. We expanded the program for both 2011 and 2012 to include a full day of live entertainment on the grounds, along with ecstatic (free-form) dancing, a fashion show, and a silent auction. Inside the theater we had four panel discussions by well-known authors on women’s issues and later a video of men making heartfelt apologies to the female gender for all their transgressions. After the video, we invited the men in the audience to come up to the front and make their own apologies. There was not a dry eye in the house as the men themselves broke down and cried while apologizing for their own bad behavior toward women. Each festival ended with a kirtan concert by Larisa Stow and Shakti Tribe in the theater, which rocked with high vibrations.

  We lost money the first year at that venue with only three hundred or so in attendance, but we gained a reputation that brought a breakthrough turnout and success the following year. The following year we broke even and expanded on everything and also brought in Laura’s House, a safe house for abused women, as our live auction charity project.

  I was exhausted after three full years of planning and producing these festivals. Although we were successful, I personally had no income after expenses from the event. I decided to pull out and either sell it to another event producer or let someone on the team take over. After a few people showed interest but not enough to buy, the festival became just another beautiful memory. However, it’s quite possible it will be resurrected in this age of #MeToo, as I’ve heard from quite a few women wishing for it to happen again.

  For now, it’s clear that my successes aren’t measured quantifiably in dollars but in the quality of personal impacts on people’s lives. It’s also clear that I’m not done yet.

  During that time, I had no interest in the opposite sex, as I was driven and focused primarily on the festival for three consecutive years. Consequently, my pheromones were not activated, and there was nothing and no one to distract me from my purpose.

  FINDING MY WAY BACK HOME

  Who Knew It Would Be in Marin?

  With the completion of the 2012 Festival of Goddesses, it was time to pull my Natural Goddess book off the shelf and finish it. At the same time, my landlord suggested I start looking for another place to live, as they were now contemplating selling the duplex and/or raising the rent. They said the rent would go up one thousand dollars, so they left me no choice but to move. I had lived there eighteen years, with Hercules seventeen of those years, and in Laguna altogether for twenty-eight years.

  My dear friend and soul sister VJ, an Ayurvedic doctor who lived next door to me in Laguna, drove up the coast to Ukiah with me for a wedding. We stopped at the Good Earth market and café in Fairfax on the way. There I had a revelation that Marin was to be my new home. She had the same idea, as she comes there once a month for certain clients. We were giddy with excitement over our mutual decision to move up there. We spent the next month scouring the Internet for available houses for rent and drove up once to check out two or three we liked. We came to the conclusion that we should go our separate ways since I had a cat, which she could not see as a fit for her lifestyle. As luck would have it, I found the perfect one-bedroom granny apartment in Novato, just fifteen minutes north of San Rafael. She found a small apartment for almost nothing in a friend’s house in Corte Madera. This allowed her to keep her place in Laguna as well, but she didn’t move in until three or four months later.

  What followed, exactly four years ago, was having a huge garage sale, packing a large truck and my car with Hercules on board, and driving to our new location in Novato. Before leaving, I went to my last kirtan with my friends in Laguna and was honored with a farewell celebration and a new djembe drum of my own. I had been drumming and singing every week with them for over ten years. I broke down and cried when we sang a Sufi song to each other called “All I Ask of You Is to Always Remember Me as Loving You.” I realized then the full extent of what I had chosen to do by leaving Laguna forever. VJ was in this group as one of the lead singers.

  Hercules and I crossed the Richmond Bridge around 7:30 p.m. and saw a very unusual cloud formation, like one long tube across the entire sky. I have never seen such a phenomenon before or since. After meeting my really wonderful landlords and settling in, my first inclination was to explore the area and hike some of the many beautiful forested trails. My next task was to meet as many people as possible and begin to form a new tribe in Marin.

  First stop was the MLK gym in Sausalito on Sunday mornings, where there is an 8:30 a.m. and an 11 a.m. Sweat Your Prayers ecstatic dance meditation with 150 participants in each session. I connected with one guy in particular, named David, who turned out to be the perfect connector to dozens of Marin’s finest. He and his wife Andrea invited me to a Jewish Shabbat at their home, where I met some of the people I would be hanging with in the future. I found that many, like me, were gentile but resonated with their Jewish friends.

  I was never exposed to anything remotely Jewish until I was on my own and was employed in the garment industry and later in showbiz. But even then, I never attended a Hanukah celebration or a Bar Mitzvah and had never even heard of a Shabbat. But I have to say my father and everyone on his side look extremely Jewish. In his desperation to hide the fact, my father even had a nose job done in the sixties because some people had commented that he looked Jewish because of his big nose. I imagine his fear of looking Jewish came from the impact World War II had on him when he joined the army.

  When VJ moved to Marin, I was able to introduce her to some of my new friends. She also had a few of her own, and we often took trips to Sonoma for shopping and café breaks or hung out at various restaurants, including the Sweetwater Restaurant and Bar in Mill Valley, where dance bands played and we danced. Often, there were one or two of our friends from SoCal visiting and joining us in our Bay Area adventures.

  PING! Three forty-something women piled into my car and were in high gear—highly animated, very chatty, and very loud, trying to outdo each other in rhapsodic exclamations. They were going to a Dave Matthews concert at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, which meant I would be trapped in my car with them for the next hour or so. Sometimes I’m in their kind of a mood, and sometimes I’m not. This was one of those “not” moments. I was in more of a Yo-Yo
Ma mood, but you don’t get to choose your riders. So I zoned out at first, just focusing on the flow of traffic and putting the chitchat noise in the background of my mind. Eventually their energy began to seep through my self-imposed wall, and I started to relate to them in an open and friendly way. They reminded me of Sex in the City, and I secretly attributed a certain character from that series to each one. At the end of the ride, the Carrie Bradshaw character said she would give me a five-star rating. I felt amply rewarded.

  VJ and I also took long walks on trails in Mill Valley and Novato and had in-depth conversations, mostly about her relationships with men. Not only was VJ inherently wise and together as a woman, she was a stunning blond with extremely good taste in clothes and interior décor. She had a propensity for gray and white in both areas. I admired her casually elegant style and later took on her example by supplying my closet with numerous gray-and-white outfits. She had a white Prius, and I later bought a white Prius.

  I refused to believe that I had given my power away until one day I realized that I had. It reminded me of my time decades earlier with Patti and Dick. So BAM, without thinking, I emailed a long goodbye letter to her saying I needed to find my own center away from her for a while, as I felt she didn’t support me emotionally and that all the focus was on her. This erupted into a vicious email battle back and forth until she slammed the door shut on our relationship forever. I was devastated. I couldn’t believe what I had done to myself again, only this time with a soul sister.

  With only two more years left to talk about, I realize that perhaps I may not reach my goal of unconditional self-love before the last chapter. Realistically, it may take a major satori (spiritual awakening) or many more lifetimes. However, there’s always a possibility that a Hollywood ending could show up, but I’m not sure that is what this book is about.

  Besides working on the publication of my first book, my time in Marin has been embellished with the inclusion of a weekly book club for A Course in Miracles and other like-minded books channeled by ascended masters—most notably, the I Am the Word series by Paul Selig. I have found this to be one of the most profound, life-changing teachings I have experienced.

  My prayer of intention originated from this book, and when I recite it every day before driving, it helps me to remember who I really am as an aspect of the Creator and that everyone we encounter are likewise aspects of God. One of my closest friends in the group has done a 180-degree flip from being a pushover for men who would exploit her sexually to finally being in a healthy, mutually loving relationship at the age of sixty-four. The Word has also given me a fresh new perspective of who I am, and it shows up with the warm, loving friendships I’m enjoying in my new community as well as with my fabulous Uber passengers.

  However, I have not gone to a meeting in over four months because it’s always on a Friday night, which is my biggest Uber driving time besides Saturday evening. Lately I have been feeling called to come back, and a series of events took place that drove that thought home. I was driving a client on Magnolia in Corte Madera and suddenly noticed that the license plate of the car in front of me read, “I AM WORD.” I wanted to honk and pull the woman over, but I had a paying passenger and couldn’t. The car was in front of me for a good twenty minutes. I couldn’t shake her, couldn’t pass or turn as we both were going in the same direction on a two-lane street. I later discovered the owner of that car is the woman who transcribed Paul Selig’s I Am Word books.

  Two days later I picked up a passenger in Sausalito who was headed for the bus station in San Francisco, and I noticed he had beautiful eyes like Osho and told him so. He said, “Oh, I’ve read many of his books. But the book I’m reading now by Paul Selig called I Am the Word has really impacted me powerfully.”

  I said, “You’re kidding!’” and inwardly I groaned, OK, God, I get it. You want me to go back to the book club. So I made the commitment to go that Friday evening. On Friday afternoon, I turned on my app to see how much I had earned so far that week, knowing it had been a very light week and would be lighter still with no Friday earnings. It so happened I’d received a six-hundred-dollar bonus for referring someone to be a driver, whose name I did not recognize and didn’t remember ever referring. All my defenses were down. I couldn’t back out now.

  Besides feeling a strong connection to Source when reading the book aloud in the group, I’ve discovered it is a powerful way to know others and to know ourselves more deeply in relation to others. I feel blessed being in this process of evolvement with such a beautiful group of people.

  PING! A stocky LGBT woman of about seventy entered my car, and immediately I recognized her as the facilitator of A Course in Miracles when I took it two years ago. I remembered her as brilliant, knowing how to direct the discussion and being on point with her interpretation of the text. It was truly an honor to be her Uber driver that day. I told her I was on my last chapter of my book and that I had just written about the course—and here she was in my car! She laughed and said, “There are no accidents!”

  I blithely remarked, “That’s good to know, so now I can drive you to your destination with that in mind.” We both laughed, and it was good seeing her again.

  I think the main objective of these book clubs is to get together with others in a meaningful way and to express ourselves more openly and affirmatively. The exchange of ideas and the sharing of one’s life experiences as they relate to the teachings are invigorating and not only bring us closer to an understanding of ourselves but help to build friendships. Many times, during the discussions at the book clubs, we have great “aha” moments that are momentary and fleeting but, taken together over a certain period of time, may bring us to a lasting transcendence. I’ve noticed a significant rise in the vibration at the meetings after being away for several months. Certain individuals seemed to have attained a higher level of awareness and ability to articulate their newly found wisdom.

  I also noticed a new feeling of belonging and expressions of admiration and love being directed my way by everyone there. Perhaps my using the proclamations of “I am the Word” and “I know who I am” as an Uber driver has raised my vibration as well. In essence I am affirming divine self-love every day. Could it be I am closer to my goal than I thought?

  BE

  A Light unto Yourself

  A huge turning point occurred last year when I drove home from a trip to Laguna to find my beloved Hercules in critical condition from a failing heart. He was twenty years old and my best buddy, my baby. I knew he wasn’t well, but he was stable and being taken care of by two wonderful women, so I took a chance and went to Laguna for a few days, which I had been planning for over a month. I told him to please wait for me. On my third day there, I suddenly felt that I had to go home, and so I left a day early. Sure enough, he was panting, unable to breathe normally. He let out a soft cry as I kissed him and held him close and then took him to the pet hospital. Hours after giving him oxygen and a shot to clear his lungs, he hadn’t gotten any better. They sadly informed me that there was nothing left but to put him down to relieve him of his suffering. His time had come. At 4:40 a.m. on July 17, I held him in my arms as they delivered the serum through an IV. It didn’t hit me until I got home that he was truly gone from my life forever.

  Four years ago he had been diagnosed with lymphoma and had only three months to live. Somehow I was able to save him through the laying on of hands each time he had episodic bouts of the sickness. I concentrated with all my might on sending healing energy into his body. The fifth time I gave him my “Super Love” energy, he jumped up and was never sick from cancer again. I think we are all capable of healing our loved ones if we truly believe it. This reminds me of when I was nine years old, obsessed with acquiring three new dresses. With that same high level of intention and belief, I was able to transform reality. I also remember how it felt to walk on burning coals. I tell people that after some mental preparation using chants and prayers, when my time came, it felt like walking on Styr
ofoam popcorn. No one, including myself, suffered the slightest burn. That experience reminded me of how powerful the mind is and how anything is possible. But still, why haven’t I been able to apply that kind of energy to manifesting a relationship?

  My laying on of hands didn’t work this time. I somehow knew it was his time and couldn’t change that. Heartbroken, I cried that whole day, feeling the emptiness in my house. None of the reassuring sounds he made were there to remind me of his loving presence. I no longer woke up with his whiskers tickling my nose or his wet nose poking my closed eye with a lick or two. However, the next morning I awoke at five with a loud purring in my ear. I turned and patted the bed beside me to see if anything was there. Nothing. When I awoke later, I suddenly felt as if all sadness had been washed away. I was perfectly normal and couldn’t believe it, so I tried recalling the most poignant memories of him, and it felt as though I had been anesthetized. The memories were like a faded photograph and had no effect on my emotions. This was a miracle, and I knew that he had somehow healed my grief, possibly as payback for the time I healed him or, more probably, because of our unconditional love for each other. He is in my heart forever.

  This had to have been the ultimate test. Take away the only object of affection left in my life and see how I manage my emotions. At first I struggled and felt desperate to find a replacement. After two failed attempts to adopt a cat, I finally just let it go. Now it doesn’t seem to matter if I get another cat or dog or not. I feel the same about a relationship. The door is open and the welcome mat is out, but the table is set for only one at the moment. To be honest, my longing for companionship has been diminished almost to the point of nonexistence, as I get so much juice every day with my friends and Uber connections. I meet the most extraordinary people who inspire me.