When my dear friend, Linda, was diagnosed with cancer, she didn't me until close to the end.
I recall a few times when she had symptoms she would ask me about. What would I suggest about a black spot in her vision, she asked. I thought she meant she had a floater.
What were the bumps in her neck? I thought she had swollen glands because of a throat infection. Why was she coughing all the time? Asthma, I suggested.
Apparently it was all part of her cancer. I figured that out later. There were other things, too. If I had only known!
She expressed her distress that I had moved five hundred miles away, and I missed her sorely. It would have been so much better had I stayed. Seeing her in person, I would have known sooner. She wouldn't have been able to hide it from me. It would have been obvious.
As it was, I had traveled down to visit her. We sat around the table after dinner when she asked me to read her palm. I hadn't done that for years, and begged off.
But, her husband jumped in and insisted. In fact, he demanded I read his palm first. I was quite surprised at Bob's insistence and I felt a little uncomfortable. I thought those "talents" had gone to rest.
Just for fun, I had taken up palm reading as a teen when I found a book on the subject that had belonged to my grandmother, "How to Tell Fortunes".
It had other methods besides palm reading in it. But, that was what resonated with me. I did it for fun until the readings started to be more seriously accurate.
"Oh, your palm reveals you have eight marriages!" I laughed, but the man across from me stared with mouth open. "How did you know that? No one knows about that!" But, when I accurately predicted the demise of someone, I refused to do any more fortune telling. Certain signs suggest the worst, and I didn't want to see such things.
By the time Linda and Bob were pressing me to read their palms, I had no qualms to keep me from playing along with them.
I must admit, however, that I stuck to the original protocol of observations I had learned, shapes of fingers and hand, how the mounds are formed and the measurement of lines as indicators for translation.
Bob stuck his hand in front of me. I asked to see both, as that was how I learned. One hand for your destiny and the other to see if you live your fate, or change it. I knew Bob had already been married before so I wasn't surprised to see two marriage lines, but I was curious to see the third marriage indicated.
I remembered that Linda only had one marriage line. So, I casually said, "After Linda dies, you will marry again." And to make a joke, I added, "Sorry about that Linda!"
But no one laughed. In fact Bob got an odd look on his face, and frowned at Linda. "What did you tell her?"
Her face was pale and eyes wide open, "Look at mine, tell me what mine says. Maybe it changed!" By this time I was really uncomfortable and tried to beg off from further prognostications.
Then little Andrea, their daughter, who had been eavesdropping on us all along came to me with hand extended. I took hold and kissed her palm. "It says everybody loves you and you will be rich and pretty when you grow up." But, she wasn't buying it. I hadn't actually perused her palm and she stuck it in my face. Then it was my turn to have wide eyes and be pale. There it was as clear as day.
She would face a very tragic episode in her life within a very short time. Of course, I told her no such thing.
But, once Linda sent her out to play, she and Bob plied me for what I saw. Why I didn't just make something up, I will never know.
When I learned from Grandma's book, it seemed the ethics of a respectable palm reader were ingrained in my mind as much as the meanings of the symbols. Integrity was my excuse. I could only hem and haw, with maybes and perhaps's and I'm not sure, but's.
It was pretty clear to me. But, Bob's next marriage and the tragedy in Andrea's future was to be the loss of my very dear friend.
It's odd how I totally blocked that memory until I read about it in my diary a few years after Linda died.
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RIP
Linda Duran Watkins
Nov 1949 - Nov 1982
with hope for freedom,
On the one hand Colin Beaven ( No Impact Man) appears to go to extremes, trying to eliminate ALL .... from his life. It was painful to watch his wife "going along" with the program when obviously it was difficult for her. Or, maybe I was reading her body language incorrectly. I can understand giving up things, but coffee or tea just because it doesn't come from a 250 mile radius. Olive oil? Diapers for the baby?
Doing without A/C or heating in New York city seems extreme. They still used electricity for cooking and telephone in the first few months. Then lived in the dark with candles. How safe is that with a toddler in the house? There were exceptions to the rules, but who decided it? No Impact Man. He got to keep his computer running by using a small solar panel, which I thought was maybe a bit hypocritical. (I wont go into the carbon footprint of creating a solar panel.)Though in this day and age, why do without one's computer, even if there is paper and pen available? Okay. I will give him the computer. After all, he was writing a blog and a book about all this at the same time he was being filmed.
5. Don't use electricity and gas. I like the idea, but find I am not committed enough to do without them entirely. I have made concessions though. I have permanently turned off the pilot in my gas-lit wall furnace. It's a big waste of energy, a very inefficient way of heating the house. In the wintertime, I am able to wear warm clothes in the house just like I did as a kid when I lived in New York. I have noticed, though, when it gets below 55 degrees inside the house I then feel chilled, and my bones get creaky. I think arthritis should be respected, especially when it is my own. I remedy this in one of two ways by using the electric space heater in whatever room I am in, or by using an electric blanket when sleeping. It is not necessary to run a space heater all night when sleeping! I am not being a No Impact Woman, but I am using considerably less energy than I would be if running the furnace throughout cold weather. I've been doing this for about two years.
"Oh, your palm reveals you have eight marriages!" I laughed, but the man across from me stared with mouth open. "How did you know that? No one knows about that!" But, when I accurately predicted the demise of someone, I refused to do any more fortune telling. Certain signs suggest the worst, and I didn't want to see such things. 
