I found this written in a journal from the early days of waking up and asking questions:
“Deja vu last nite, packing stuff to move: In the background a movie I’d never seen before was on TV, about a coach trying to convince this chubby, insecure little boy that he would be able to be the emergency goalie they needed to win in soccer. I was packing the breakables off the coffee table, when very subtly it seeped into my conscious that I’d ‘done this before’—the exact same words, doing the exact same thing. That wispy, curious thing—not even a thing, a feeling—called a Deja vu. Then the follow-up thought: of course I couldn’t have done this thing ‘before’ to recognize it. Never saw that movie before. Never packed these breakables on this coffee table in this house before.”
Okay, you know I ask a lot of questions of Life, so for me, doing mindless physical labor like wadding newspaper around breakables is excuse enough for my mind to grab its freedom to think about the important things, like: What is a Deja vu? What causes a Deja vu? Do they mean something? What could they mean, then? I wasn’t necessarily in a rush to pin down an answer. No, I like to do that flow thing, collect more data or at least experiences, and live some long day into, if not an answer, at least a theory I can believe in.
Usually a Deja vu has been thought of as, “done this before,” and, yes, scientists have offered up some cerebral gymnastics, but I chose to formulate my own theory after lots of mind-time given to the above questions (and a lot of soul-searching for meanings to this life).
I will interject for transparency and full-disclosure that I am wont to (and feel comfortable) taking small samplings and extrapolating big theories about things that haven’t been proven yet and are, therefore, still open to the presentation of a well-thought out theory. Be it also known that my theories are always amenable to further proof and/or evolution.
Trying on Possibilities.
I like theorizing, offering up a Life Possibility. Why bother, you ask? I’ve been blessed-and-cursed with this recurring feeling in my existence of “there has to be more.” Somewhere after The Catalyst, (Post 6 and Post 7), life got past the lower case ‘life’ to the upper case ‘Life.’ Possibilities were pieces of a puzzle that just might fit together for The Big Picture of Life. You know when you do picture puzzles how you try different pieces to see if they fit? Why not try some possibilities that might fit? Plus, there was a nagging Dot that I retained from Mrs. True, my counsellor, who said to me, “At some time, you have to name ‘It.’” (‘It’ being what I truly believed in. I’d tried a dogmatized religion at an early age and saw past that but had never quite formulated what I did believe in. That became my challenge for finding The Big Picture.)
My theorizing is taking a small sampling of pertinent dots, seeing a pattern, and possibly connecting them into a logical and resonant theory. It doesn’t cost me (or you) anything to try it on for size. It doesn’t get me (or you) lost down a drutty rabbit hole. It’s just a possibility, and one that might fit into The Big Picture.
I remember making the same observation when I chose to leave the reward/punishment job at the major record label: “There has to be more than this.” When more job titles, more money, and more acquisitions didn’t sate the hole of ‘more,’ the search turned from outside to inside. Those Dots that I retained in my “pertinent pocket” without my even knowing they were being retained? Well, at some point, they seemed to connect. Why shouldn’t I try to connect some?
So here’s my theory of Deja vu’s.
I believe a Deja vu is a ‘rending or renting of the veil.’ The veil being that inexplicable mask that hides from us the “what-was-before-this-life” and “what-will-be-after-this-life.” In that wavery watery instant of Deja vu, you recognize in-this-life what you planned before-this-life.
Yes, I said, “what you planned before-this-life.” People have always joked about needing a manual for Life—they really have one. Remember The Schematic of Life (Post 8)?
We have one. We just can’t remember it without a whole heck of a lot of concentration, introspection, inquisitiveness, yea, questioning—which is hard to do in our harried lives. Along comes a Deja vu, and in that femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) that it takes for a Deja vu to seep through—your physical life has overlaid your Schematic. A Schematic so detailed with all the possibilities of your life that you were wrapping those same breakables, or your butt was seated in that exact seat on a production line. You saw behind the veil! Wow!
Deja vu is a wisp of what is locked behind the veil, seeping through the ethers and into the conscious. It is a ZAP connection to that Unknown of “where-we-were-before-we-were-born and will-be-when-we-die.” I’m also prepared to hazard the theory that a déjà vu may also be a checkmark that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, no matter the triviality of the moment. A Deja vu is a freeze-moment that gives me pause. Stop and marvel at the wonder of it. Staple this one femtosecond to the storyboard of my Life. And emerge with renewed energy to keep on keeping on.
You think maybe, even if you were able to swallow a Schematic of Life, can you swallow one so detailed that it would have you wrapping breakables from a coffee table? Or seated on a Whirlpool production line? Yeah, may be hard to imagine. BUT, if your plans for this life were made on ‘the other side,’ can’t you also entertain the probability that the abilities and capabilities on ‘the other side’ are beyond our comprehension? Yes, if you have given any thought to The Creator of us, however you have named It, you know It is not comprehensible to us. Hence we just keep updating our myths in our efforts to comprehend It.
Too deep? Ok, back to daily life. While the Deja vu I wrote about breakables on a coffee table was, on the Richter scale, say, about a 2 or 3, I had one during a very rough time in my life that hit a 7 or 8! I literally felt as if my head were swimming, my body physically swaying!
It was a tough time in my life. I was making the transition to freelance writing. I had clients, but the jobs were not enough to keep bills paid, home intact, and my two daughters in college. What do I do when times are getting tight? I lament aka whine. So in a lamenting phone conversation with my friend MG, she mentioned her company was hiring temps for their busy season of 3-4 months. I could apply for a second shift position so I could still see clients and write during the day. This would offer a modicum of base pay security as I built my clientele. Thank heavens I’ve almost always had the hutzpah to do what has to be done. So I did it.
I found myself on a production line at Whirlpool in T & A (Tests and Analysis—not the other T&A). While I was forlorn that my life had come to this ’at my age’, I took up the mantle I’d worn for every job I’d ever had:
“Whatever your hands find to do…Do that with all your might.” ‘
On to the training period for us second-shift temps: the dayshift would stay late and night shift came in early. The line would start and stop and stop for long periods because the newbie temps back up the line were being trained to do tedious and exacting work. I was at the end of the line, in the testing phase, after all the building was done. During these lulls, for some reason, seems the dayshift group leader, Big Ron, found the new person (me) on Wattage Tests a willing listener tethered to a production line.
Me? I was fighting dismay and forlornness, trying hard not to feel just a complete failure that I was back on a production line. Me, who had achieved a lot—I ticked them off: carpeted office (with couch and end tables, no less), personalized parking spot (up front), national advertising for a major record label, written for television, writing award from SESAC, even attained VP title. Me? On a production line again?
All those ‘accomplishments,’ yet I couldn’t help but note that a production line was where I’d started. Shortly after high school and an aborted carhop job in Indianapolis, I ended up living with grandparents in southern Indiana driving the 45-minutes to a job ‘on the line’ as a cookie-sacker and cracker-packer. Had my life come full-circle? Was this where I was to end up? Why? “Why, oh, why, indeed,” I woed!
I’m not sure how many days or even weeks it might have been that Big Ron would stay over from his shift, come sit and tell me about the wiles and woes of his girlfriend—who also had the same first name as I did. (Synchronicity aka a sign?) One day, well into my increasing dismay at the current status of my life, Big Ron started telling me the tale of how his girlfriend had turned down a date with him, only to find out she had a tennis date with another guy. He went to confront her on the tennis court. The tale went on…he ended up hitting the other fellow with a tennis racket, breaking his nose. W hooooaaaaa! I started swaying. I stopped him.
I said, “I’ve never met you before coming to work here, right?
He, dumbfoundedly: “No.”
Me: “And you’ve never told me this story before, right?”
He: “No.”
Me: “I’m having the biggest Deja vu I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
He: “What does that mean?”
Me, as calmly and serene and resigned as I’ve ever been: “It means my butt is exactly where it’s supposed to be. My butt is supposed to be right here in this seat.”
I didn’t know why I had to come to Whirlpool; I didn’t know why I was reliving my beginnings. Was I getting some sort of do-over? I didn’t know what was expected of me at this point, to be here. Yet a tsunami Deja vu and I was instantly reassured I was exactly where I was supposed to be, for whatever reason that might unfold. I was able to let go of all my dismay and woebegottenness. In washed curiosity instead. Why did I have to be here, in this seat, in this department, at this time of my life?
There’s a lot more to tell about my connection with Big Ron. I’m not sure if I found him or if I created all the events for him to find me.
It would take a series of dreams and an Auto Therapy weekend to reveal exactly why I had to find Big Ron at Whirlpool.