Indigo

April 7th, 2010

When I was sixteen, I began working as a barista at a Christian coffee shop called The Glory Cafe.   It was my first pay-checked position, and soon the woman who owned the shop began calling me a manager and giving me more responsibilities.

It was there that I began to bloom.  Of course, I was still at that time a representative of Christ, and I had a gay ole time recruiting Christian and cover-artist bands to play on Friday nights while I ran the bar. I appreciated any religious conversation and began to hear words of beliefs besides my own.  I began to spend time with adults on a level that required them to tell me their problems, and I to listen.

One morning one of my regulars, a woman in her early fifties with long straight hair and Boulder granola styled jewelry on her fingers, up her biceps, and along the lobes of her ears, caught me alone behind the bar.   She had a family member pass away recently, and I told her I understood the pain.  She stopped cold, looked me in the face, and told me I was an old soul.  She touched the side of my jaw, gasped a little, smiled, and left the shop with her coffee.

While the details of our encounter are fuzzy, and perhaps a little embellished, I have never forgotten the curiosity that kindled inside of me after that single incident.

Years later, in a situation I can’t remember, I discovered the term “Indigo” used to describe someone who is special.  Much like realizing that other women suffer from the same sedentary-lifestyle ailments as I do, or that other women have the same bodily issues as I do, I became aware that the “alien-in-this-world” feeling is not as unusual as I had thought.  In fact it is so common that they (who?) have even given it a name.  And the color is lovely.

I’m not going to describe an Indigo to you because if you’re curious, you will look into it.  However, I do think it’s worth noting that identifying that connection in another human being is like meeting a fellow American in a foreign country when you are feeling lonely, uncultured, and misunderstood.  You notice them at first.  Your eyes meet, and instead of the awkward slipping away of the gaze, something rises within your chest.  In your mind, your fingertips rise to meet theirs, and the chorale of the universe raises its voice just the tiniest bit.  You might smile.  You might approach them.   You might strike a conversation with them.  Within a brief dialog you will know.   And when you find one so much like yourself, you find two.  You will begin to create a like-minded army.  Or support group, if you will.

And support is a magnificent thing.

Indigos are everywhere.  You just have to know what you’re looking for.

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Today brings you two very special posts from two very special writers:

Crack Pipes and Concrete Rainbows by Ordinary Art (possibly my favorite blog writer ever)

and Movement Equals Growth by The Smiling Spirit, El (possibly my favorite person ever).