by John P. Morgan | Special to the Courier

For almost three months now I’ve been doing something every morning I’ve only told a few people about, and they all had the same response, that I’m crazy: showering in super cold water. Not tepid water. Not lukewarm water. Cold, cold water.

Why am I purposely putting myself through something uncomfortable? To prove to myself I can do whatever I put my mind and heart to, despite what appear to be uncomfortable situations.

Do I need an ice shower to prove this? Well, for me (because it’s me) I chose an extreme metaphor because I hate cold water. I tiptoe into cold pools and prance around like a little baby man until I acclimate. It’s always been an issue for me, so I read up on the benefits of showering in cold water and I decided to do it.

Now after almost 90 days I have developed a kind of mental toughness. It’s not that I’m extremely rigid or unyielding, but I am relentless in knowing I can get through anything uncomfortable or painful, gracefully and wonderfully. I can get really stuck in a belief that I just can’t get through, and the cold shower therapy followed by intense meditation has really opened up my mind.

Now what about the pretty girl holding the weird painting? [See photo]

Photo/courtesy John P. Morgan

That’s my friend, Mandy. What has struck me about Mandy is every time she comes to pick something up, she has a smile that can’t be faked. I know immediately the thing she wanted is going to a home where it is going to be loved.

Why should I be concerned about that? Because I want my business to not be about “things” as much as it is about the love I believe is in everything. I have to literally feel love for something before I get it. It could be a little twinge, or it could be an overflowing gust of pure emotion, which is what I felt for the painting she is holding.

I found it at a Girl Scout fundraiser. Painted by David Silvah, whose paintings typically go for $1,700 to $4,000, it’s as close to a work of art as I’ve ever come. I had dreams of hanging it in the office of my envisioned antique store. I also wanted my daughter Helena to have it when she got older.

Mandy came to my recent “junkapoolooza” sale to say hi and to get a few things. She asked me the price of the painting, I told her, she quickly accepted, and I quickly retracted. Again, I envisioned it hanging in my imaginary office and imagined 75 year-old me handing it to 25 year-old Helena as a present.

It’s not that I didn’t believe in those visions, but I knew this painting was not really being loved now, and all love is in the now moment, so I texted her that I would sell her the painting.

She has since contacted Silvah to learn the name of the piece and when it was painted. Turns out it’s called, “Beso Loco” or “Crazy Kiss,” and when I first saw it, I felt “kissed” by the passion the artist felt while painting it. I wanted it to be in my office because I wanted to remind myself of that passion.

Like stepping into an ice cold shower, selling this painting was uncomfortable. But the sheer exhilaration that comes while in the process and after it’s done makes the whole experience worth it, and worth doing over and over and over again.

Just because something hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t; I don’t yet have my physical antique store, but I have my own store in the ethereal realms of spirit, where everything exists as a state of love.

And sometimes I just sit there in a meditative state reveling in that love and feeling the truer reality that is behind the temporary form, and it’s more than enough for me to keep doing what I do. Being uncomfortable is but a blip in time. True fulfillment is where we come from and where we shall return once it is all said and done.

John P. Morgan is a 15-year Pomona resident and a retired elementary school teacher and counselor turned vintage dealer at Steamjunk Vintage Oddities.