Christina Harbridge – Inspiration

Christmas 1973

Christmas 1973
- written by Robert Harbridge in 1973 *

Christmas this year
Should cost at least
A thousand dollars.

It should be In the Ideal Bar & Grill
On 163rd and St. Nicholas
Waiting for the first
Tattered little boy
To come in selling
Tomorrow’s morning papers
Roughing up his hair,
Giving all his papers away
And giving him
A hundred dollar bill

9:23 am - December 24, 2011 Posted by Christina 0 Comments

Happy 79 Dad

Today is the birthday of am amazing human who is now in every Liquid Amber seed I see.

“Is an eye an eye because you see it.. or because it sees you.”-un

Â Happy birthday Dad. Â Miss you madly.

11:58 am - June 2, 2010 Posted by Christina 0 Comments

Jeremy the Lion

If you have read my book, you know about Tara my niece.Â She is an incredible human.

I decide to spoil her a little last month.Â We got a hotel with a pool, hot tub, a wheelchair accessible room, room service and a restaurant.Â My plan:Â To pamper the heck out of her.

We arrive.Â Steve, at the front desk, is awesome.Â When para-transit arrives, he helps her find the room.Â He gives us free breakfast coupons. Â Sebastian hangs in the hot tub. Â Things are good.Â Sebastian rides on her wheelchair in such a ginger gentle way.Â It is really cute how he acts around her.

We decide it is just a little to sketchy to stroll from our hotel to the Cheesecake Factory, so we decide to eat in the hotel restaurant.Â It opens at 3pm we are told.

We sit in the waiting area and play musical chairs with my son.Â I guy walks by with 3 plates of food on a tray and we ask him if the restaurant is opening at 3pm.Â Â He keeps walking and says over his shoulder, I dunno.

I watch him walk to the bar.Â I quickly surmise he must be the bartender.

We wait another 10 minutes and I ask him if we can….he keeps walking sorta saying something about he isn’t part of the restaurant.Â It was WEIRD.

So, we figure we will eat in the bar.Â A little weird with the TV blaring sports (i hate television) and a 4 year old in tow.Â Oh well.Â When we go in (Red Lion Inn, Sacramento STUNNING dance floor y’all) we notice ALL of the tables are high bar style tables.Â A wheelchair won’t work at all.Â There are also steps so there is just no way to eat in there.Â The restaurant is right next to the bar.Â The bartender has to walk through it to get to the kitchen.Â He sees us and hears my niece say my wheelchair won’t work her Aunt.Â Still, he does nothing.

My niece starts to get mad.Â I don’t.Â I tell her getting mad only ruins our evening.Â There is a solution, let’s go to the front desk.

Steve is there on the phone, and a guy I haven’t met yet, Jeremy.Â I tell him the situation and he seems to be off work.Â He mentions it is okay for Sebastian to be in the bar.Â I explain about the bar not working for the wheelchair.Â I ask him if he knows how far a restaurant is that we could stroll to.Â He looks at me, Sebastian and Tara and says, “I don’t think that is safe.Â Have a seat in the restaurant and we will serve you.”

Jeremy becomes our server.Â This is not his normal job it is clear.Â He takes such great care of us.Â He overhears Tara talking about the champagne we will have in the room later.Â I tell her I forgot to bring it and that I’ll walk to a store.Â Â He brings over a wine list and helps us find something for the room.Â He returns to the table with the bottle on ice and two glasses.Â He talks to Tara, looks her in the eye and makes sure Sebastian has crayons and is having the time of his life.Â (clearly someone with kids)

Such a simple thing to do.Â There was a risk that other people would want to sit in the restaurant too.Â He didn’t seem to mind.

Jeremy made the weekend.Â Without him we would have focused on what we didn’t have.Â Instead, one individual chose to see us and treat us like family.Â Bravo.

Little noble acts in the world that make all of the newspaper headlines disappear for a moment.Â They are happening all around and are not talked about enough.

I’m one lucky girl to have Tara in my life – she is such an inspiration and tends to attract some beautiful transformations in people.

6:53 am - February 14, 2010 Posted by Christina 1 Comments

intended consequences

A story on the radio
A restaurant in Haiti, Munchies Pizza (spelling?), too expensive for most Haitians, realized all of their food was going to spoil. They opened their doors and started feeding people until the food ran out. Local businesses, started bringing food to the restaurant and they kept feeding until that food ran out. The owner’s brother in law, Bailey, packed a truck full of food in the Dominican Republic and drove it over. The restaurant is now feeding 1000 people a day. There is now a facebook page to continue to feed people.Â The business owners says he didn’t intend for this to happen from his food decision and it is giving him hope. A new purpose in life.
Unintended consequence of being pragmatic. Beautiful.

In the work I do, I often have unintended consequence that are seeds for my inner critic.Â I so wish there was some drug out there that would REMOVE my inner critic from my head for just 10 minutes.Â Unintended consequences aren’t always bad.. they just sometimes feel bad when they happen.

ps: No matter how much I google the story, I can’t find it. If you do – let me know.

6:31 am - January 27, 2010 Posted by Christina 4 Comments

Taking Grandpa for a ride

If you now me, you know I had the most incredible father imaginable. He died in 2004 before I was pregnant and knew Sebastian was coming. I often imagine the joy my son would have brought to my dad had he met him.

Friday night, Sebastian was hitting the couch with a stick. He was making quite a raucous and I thought about asking him to stop. Then I thought, heck, I was gone for 2 days.. let the kid beat the couch.

Suddenly, the house was silent.Â I looked over at Sebastian.Â We have this funny look we do to each other across a crowded room.Â He returns the look and says, “Grandpa told me it was too loud so I stopped.”

Oh, is grandpa here Sebastian?

“Yes, he is just invisible.”

Sebastian has said this before.Â It gives me tingles every time he says it.Â I so hope it is true.Â That somehow my dad is here holding my little boy.Â (and disciplining him on annoying noises… Dad, coach him to eat more vegetables while you are at it.)

If you know me.. you likely know the story about the liquid amber seeds.

Last week in a lonely hotel in New Jersey, I found another one. My dad works in mysterious ways.

I showed it to my son today. He asked if he could put it in his pocket. I hesitated for a second, not wanting to lose it.Â It has been worn down by the vacuum or traveling through a worm hole to get here so it is comfortable in his pocket.Â He smiles and rides away on his scooter.

Moments later we adventure out into the light drizzle for a scooter ride. There is this great car-less path in Brisbane with a slight downhill on the way back.

I hear Sebastian talking… I catch up with him and ask him what he was saying.

“I’m not talking to you momma, I’m talking to grandpa.”
Oh, what were you saying.
“Well, I’m taking grandpa on his first scooter ride. He wants me to do it from the top of that turn over there. You wait here momma.Â Really Momma. You wait here.”
Tears now, I nod.
“Don’t worry momma, we will be safe.Â I’ll take care of grandpa.”
He runs up to the top of the turn talking all the way there. In the sweetest little hushed voice.
He squeals as he races to the bottom of the hill. I can barely catch him with my knee issue. He is laughing and talking and it is such bliss.
We fall to the bottom and we are both laughing and rolling on the ground. Sebastian looks at me and said, “Uh oh.. grandpa wants to do it AGAIN momma!”

Life is so sweet.Â I just hope my dad didn’t see me throw a hand size peace sign at the cat last night when he tried to take the table cloth off the table…..I want him to remember me as NOT an incongruent 40ish year old.

6:19 am - November 25, 2009 Posted by Christina 0 Comments

Flaming unicycles

Scare Grove. Nice.
Jeremy: performer
Picked an 8 year old out of the audience. Handed her a torch that was 1/3 as tall as the kid.
Lit the torch.
The parents in the audience looking at each other. A mixture of, is this safe and how neat.
She lit his juggling batons and he lit is unicycle on fire.
I’m hoping we are taking a turn in our society. Allowing a little more risk and less fear of lawsuits.
I asked him about it after… “I trust kids more than adults.”
Me too.

5:01 am - October 24, 2009 Posted by Christina 0 Comments

hobbling

When I was a kid,Â I read a book about the future.Â A future when we hobbled brilliant dancers with bricks and brilliant thinkers with loud sounds, so we would all be equal.
Lately, I’ve felt a wee bit hobbled–my own doing… up late… most nights… wanting to unhobble… unclear on how to do it.
One of my mentors sent me a link to a movie. 9 minutes into it I’m feeling annoyed by it’s emotional obviousness.
Then
nice. Beautiful. A story about how we see things. How our belief about something makes it so.
Enjoy

http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/The%20Butterfly%20Circus/

10:08 pm - September 21, 2009 Posted by Christina 0 Comments

Flat Mason

I most admire humans who do weird things to make the day of a child. Standing in front of a group of 70 entrepreneurs last month a speaker (and friend) stopped what he was doing and asked someone to pull out a camera.
He mentioned that a friend of his has a son named Mason. Mason made a paper version of himself and called it “Flat Mason.” He asked the speaker to take Flat Mason with him since he traveled the world.
The speaker took out the paper Mason and stopped in the middle of his gig to take the photo. Tears in the eyes of many in the room.
Makes me think about how busy I always say I am. Years from now, Mason will have a photo album of all these places that someone cared enough to create for him.
Nice.

Category Archives: Inspiration

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intended consequences

Taking Grandpa for a ride

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