Kai & Christine: A Love Story

Two different people, that live together in a shared existence.  Living discordantly amongst each other like oil and vinegar. Separating when left to their own devices but magic when whisked to emulsification;  incorporating, infusing, balancing.  Spectacular when flavored with just the right spices from life’s experiences.  The Goddess that woke me up.  I named her Kai.  I love her.  This is me.  Hello, my name is Christine, the story that was created by my past.  By my parents.  By my teachers.   By my friends, and even by my enemies. Everyone except me.  I love her. Christine was living someone else’s idea of life.  Someone else’s story.   A little confusing.  Yes.  Maybe to some, but not me.  What’s in a name  you ask?  Everything.  His-story, expectations, old paradigms, untruths, half-truths, old burdens, unfinished business.  I mean, the family name carries weight like no other. Especially within the family.  Locking you into a version of your self that you had no choice in.  A perfect example of this is me and cooking.  My mother is a marvelous cook.  She taught cooking classes in the burbs the whole time I grew up.  Italian, German and even Japanese cooking.   She had her own cake & candy business for many years.  She is the ultimate foodie who loves to eat as much as she loves to cook.  As a child,  I HATED cooking.  Grocery shopping was the worst, second to cooking.  When my mother called,  “Chrissie, make the salad”, my blood would boil.  If you know me today, I am an amateur gourmet cook that loves every dance step I have with a menu.  From the planning and  shopping, to the creation and first bite.   This is where I flow.  My mana lives in the experience of creating the perfect meal.  It’s what I have built my shared business,  Goddess Getaway, on.  Recently, I was refered to by a family member as “Chrissie”, the one who does not like to cook”.  No one says that about Kai.    What’s in a name?  Expectation.  I was taught the “right” way to live, eat, participate and even express joy.  All from the narrow lens of my teachers who were taught from a much narrower lens.   “Right” is such a relative word.  according to some, it’s NOT right to be gay, or to love a person from a different race or to like a different baseball team.  We are taught from the beginning by those who only know what they know.  Take a moment with that statement.  We only know what we know, everything else we simply do not know.  Its our responsibility once we see this to explore our boundaries, be provocative, ask questions and live a life more than you know.  Kai & Gipsy has built a business on this motto.   Since re-naming my self, I have made many people uncomfortable.  Good.  When we are uncomfortable we grow.  That’s what I know.  Am I right?  To me I am.  To others, maybe not.  Is it my intention that my children question what I taught them? – ABSOLUTELY – I don’t have all the answers – quite the opposite and the answers I do have are relative to and important to me.  Even these answers are temporary, evolving as different people and perspectives shape the questions I learn to ask.  My upbringing did not allow for such disobedience.  You did what you were told, unquestioned.  Does it make parenting for me confusing. Yes. Does it make it easy? No.  Does it make it authentic.  Yes.  More times than I was ever given the grace of,  I’ve apologized to my daughter for being a hypocrite as I parented her through my own lens without first asking what her vision of a succesful life looked like.  Sometimes I have to get hit between both eyes before I can see. As said in The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran:  ” They come through you but not from you,  and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts“.  My children see that I am human and make mistakes. Plenty.  However, they also see me own my mistakes so that I may become wiser and keep the power of evolution within.  As a woman, a  daughter and a mother,  Kai is a conduit to deeper knowledge.  A  collective conscience of empowered women.  Christine & Kai are two main ingredients of my her-story that will  continue to seek new answers and evolved living… ~kai