Sam was an attractive man.  Tall, dark, and lanky, just was my type.

My roommate had such interesting friends.

She was interesting, herself.  She was a peculiar, shining soul, filled with Buddhist drive and love.

Sam was her schizophrenic homeless friend.

Whom she had not known for long.

I sat, minutely in terror, and mostly with utter fascination.

The things that would fall from his lips reminded me of Andy.

Andy, the classmate who took one too many hits and never came back.

I laid back in my recliner.

Watching Sam.

Allowing Sam to take me on the rollercoaster ride.

The propulsion, the launch that comes from trailing on another person’s emotion.

I began as a drywall ceiling tile.  In the path of a left turn lane in the middle of a busy intersection.

I was the drywall, lying in wait to be crushed.

Dragged into dust.

Minute white clouds, billowing with every lap.

Beaten down, broken up.  I was the tile.

But our dust would swirl up, and I flowed upwards, landing as spider on the grill of a truck turning left through a busy intersection.

I clung for dear life as I went for the ride of my life.

Wind blew me, threatening to pull me into the tunnel of air that flows under the hood, surely burning me up instantly.

Wind blew me, threatening to whisk me away into unknown– but certain– death of free falling onto a busy street.

When I could hold no longer, I let go.

I swirled and grasped and gasped and landed in the drivers seat of a woman in a breaking down sedan.

I became the woman.  But I wasn’t me, I was a different woman.

A woman with unruly curly hair.

A woman with more attention on her side mirrors than the road in front of her.

I was worried.

Worried about my lipstick.

And worried about the party I was going to.

Alone.

When I got to the party, I walked in past a marble door, smoothed my beaded dress against my soft curves, and looked into the fire blazing in the chiminea next to the front door.

I was drawn in.

I became the fire.

The fire that burned deeply, singing my fingertips as I laid back in my recliner, hanging on to the wisp of story that flowed out of Sam’s mouth.

Words tumbled across his teeth and over his lips.

And I rode them away, lost in my own story.

Minutely terrified, and mostly fascinated.

This.

This is why I watch.

My heart, my soul, my grandmother.

This precipitated my relationship with my father.

I knew I had a father, and I knew what he looked like and who he was, generally.

I could pick him from a crowd if I needed to.

And I knew I had a brother and a sister, though I didn’t think at the time that they’d know me if they saw me.

My father lived in my neighborhood.

About a mile away.  I was old enough to ride my bike to his house.

My aunt C met me at his house.  I remember sitting on the curb of the sidewalk.

Or maybe it was on his front porch.

We were in shock.  My grandmother was young.  Vibrant.

I wondered what my grandmother would think of this.

I knew she would want me to know him.

A few days later, I rode my bike to my father’s house.

He wasn’t home, but his girlfriend was there.

She invited me in.  She was a new girlfriend, one who wouldn’t last for long.

She didn’t know that.

It was the first time I ever felt what it was like to have a grown up care what I thought of them.

It was strange.  She tried really hard.  Now I completely understand what it was like to be her in that situation.

We hung out.  We listened to music.  We sang and danced with the mop and the broom.

We slid around on the smooth wooden floors in our socks.

We cleaned the house, a house of a father I didn’t know.

We ordered pizza and made those cute sugar cookies that come in a roll and have fun designs in them.

They must have been Christmas cookies.  Or Halloween cookies.

It was strange.  I was discovering my father, and yet he was nowhere to be found.

Which I suppose was as it would always be.

I called my mom and told her I was going to hang out with my father’s girlfriend that night.

A woman whose name escapes me half my life later.

The rest of my life has been spent learning about my father through other women.

And I suppose that just now, I figured out that I was okay with that.

And I accept this love.

For what it is.

Neither melancholy nor catapulting.

Instead, a simple lull that

I don’t know I could deny

Even if you asked it from me.

Every cell in my being

Sends its joy to you

In a collective love hug

Snug

And eternal

(For your listening pleasure: Shpongle, When Shall I be Free?)

Being grounded is a beautiful tool in creating my experience.

Being aware, being present, it allows me to truly attract into my life that which I am desiring.

I was approached with an idea today, an idea I don’t know that I can turn down.  It involves research and writing.  And it’s a topic for which I have passion.  Now I must select a pseudonym and push forward with self-discipline and dedication.   After all, there’s no test of a writer than their ability to be self-directed and write.

There are some pros and cons.  The pro is that with a pseudonym, I don’t have to actually take the responsibility for my first attempt.  The con is that I can’t tell you I’ve written it.

*smiles*

Today, my drive home was far more entertaining that usual.  I sang at the top of my lungs and danced while driving.

I walked from my office to my car, which is now in a parking garage about ten minutes closer than where I was assigned to park for the last nearly ten months.  I am in the garage, and that’s something to be ecstatic over.  I glanced at my feet.  My socks were darker than my shoes.  I have a secret for you:  I don’t care what your fashion sense tells you I ought to wear.   I know how to look good, and when the right time is.  However, daily fashion is YOUR “rule,” not mine.   And I am free.

I dance.  I don’t dance well, and I don’t care if I have the rhythm of well… someone who doesn’t have rhythm.  If everyone quit moving because they were afraid they couldn’t keep a beat, the world would be a much worse place to be.  If everyone who couldn’t sing quit making noise, we’d never figure out how to exclaim with joy.  I need these things to be happy.

Landon often makes fun of me for having no rhythm.  I think he misses out on an appreciation of me that he might otherwise have if he could see why I’m moving.  (You’ll figure it out, baby, I’m not worried.)  *wink*

I heard wind rustling through the grass today.  I turned my head and cocked my ear and said a thank you to the grass for playing in its own musical band while my feet tapped on the drum of this concrete earth.   I see now why it is that children skip when they’re happy.

What it comes down to is that life is meant for living.  If you refuse to move, if you refuse to listen to the beats of your heart and your feet, you lose out on a major part of the experience. Being grounded means getting in the catapult and waiting to fly across the universe.

Some folks might sigh and say, “Another Holy Grail Book?”  But I?  I love esoteric stories such as this.  There’s a beautiful undercurrent in life that is rejuvenated by the thrill of ancient secrets, historic stories, and mysterious adventure.  And if anyone can write about this subject and keep it spell-binding, it is Kate Mosse.

While I was reading this book, I was compelled to research a little about Kate Mosse. As it turns out, she’s a creative writing teacher at West Dean College in Sussex; she also writes a blog, and while writing this book, she blogged regularly about its progress.  And if you go to her website for this book, you might be as thrilled as I was that she has a section of advice for writers.  Not only is it inspirational that she wants to help other writers, the advice is brilliant and has helped me to refocus.

In The Labyrinth, Kate masterfully intertwines two stories.  One is of a present-day woman who stumbles upon a hidden cave while helping a girlfriend out at an archeological dig.  Alice, the unsuspecting, intelligent, courageous and sensitive woman, is on leave in France because she has eerily inherited a house from an aunt she had never known about. The second story is of Alais, a young woman in thirteenth century France, who has been sent on a mission by her father to protect the trilogy of esoteric texts, from the Crusaders and those evil-doers who want to steal them.

As the mystery unfolds, one discovers the direct lineage between Alais and Alice.  The wicked web unfolds, and those of us who are curious readers begin to see the links throughout all of the characters between past and present.

This is a beautifully written magical story that leaves me wishing I owned this book in print.  One day, when I have it in my hands again, I will re-read it with bliss and an even greater understanding.

I am attempting to be more aware.  This is a constant struggle, some days it seems.

This morning, I listened to music on my drive to work.  MY music.

My hand-picked music.

My soul.

I sang at the top of my lungs.

And danced.  Driver danced.

And I realized today that who I am, and who I’ve been, is a dance.  The songs that represent my history, they are movements in the same crescendo of spirit.  Those movements represent who I’ve been, who I am, and who I am becoming.  And in light or darkness, in melody or dissonance, this song, this dance, is perfect.  In tune, out of tune, out of rhythm, it does not matter.  It is as perfect as the cycle of a blossoming flower, whether or not there is another consciousness to observe it.  This is faith.

Today, I walked without wearing my head phones.

And in the atrium of my administrative building, there is a foyer that shoots up for five stories, with glass windows that come to a peak in the middle.  While walking through the silent, empty corridor, I looked up and marveled.

I realized in that moment that what movements I make are meaningful.  What steps I take, regardless of whether I know my destination, are worth the effort.  These spurts of energy that force my muscles to contract and release are intentionally pushing me towards where I’m going.  My watchful eyes that sit on the front of my face are here for the adventure.  My legs and core are taking me for a ride.  Fasten your seat belts, because this is going to be a good one!  This is freedom.

One of the doctors brought back rum fudge from Carribean.

Today I actually savored it, and became drunk with anticipation.

I normally rush through my food.  This is part of a terrible habit I created for myself when I was younger.  I’ve recently learned something about habits, though.  I’ve learned that I can break them if I want.  My next intentional habitual change will address my relationship with food.  I have already observed my ability to quit addictions like caffeine and cigarettes.  Why wouldn’t the next step for me logically be about my relationship with nutrition?

_________________________________________________

To be filled with wonder is to allow yourself the opportunity to see it for yourself.

And to know that what and how you see it will not always be the way that another person experiences.

A unique perspective.  And an appreciation… for what there was, is, and can be.

Mousy.
I suppose there are worse things you could be referred to as.  Slutty.  Stupid.  Bitchy.
Forever mousy.  I’ll never get that out of my head.
I suppose I *am* a little mousy.

One day, the mousy girl (me) found herself at his house.  No, not the mousy-girl commenting guy, I mean Dan.  Dan’s house.
Dan was a beautiful, slender, sandy-haired man who walked right out of my my sister’s Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. Of course it wasn’t my catalog.  Are you crazy?

Dan played Lacrosse in college.
And studied things like The Humanities and Engineering and other pretty-boy stuff like that.
Dan was perfect.  Submissive, yet cocky.  It was a nice mix.

I found myself mingling at Dan’s house one evening.  He and a few buddies had stopped at my bus stop.
I had been waiting for the 16 to take me home.
Dan wasn’t a stranger.  He had taken me out a few times before.

One of those dates was at this restaurant that shimmered with rainbow glass and pink champagne.
Every meal with pink champagne.
And basil.  I love basil.
He tucked his pinkie behind my short black hair, settling it behind my right ear.  It was sweet.  And delicate. And terribly out of the ordinary for men who were out on dates with me.
Dan refused to sleep with me.
Which was fine, I guess.
Maybe I was too mousy, after all.

Dan and his friends saw me standing on the side of the road, waiting for the bus.  They stopped the Jeep, and slid onto the shoulder in front of me.
“Hey Sweetheart,” Dan serenaded me from the window.
“Heeeey, Dan,” I cooed back at him.
“Whatchya doing on the side of the road, Maggie?”
I rocked back and forth on my heels, acting coy, “Oh, I’m waiting.”

“Wanna ride, Sweetheart?”
“Where ya going?”

They were throwing a party.  At Dan’s house.   I liked the way his forearm pulsed thickly along the rolled-down window ledge of the truck.  So I got in.

The back seat was filled with the smell of jocks (the people, not the straps) and twenty-something year old guys.  I had to climb over two to get to a six inch gap on the bench in between two of the quieter looking boys.  My boxy purse followed me into the vehicle, and I kept looking behind me to make sure I wasn’t smacking any of those boys in the face with it.

“It’s really too big, isn’t it!” I worried aloud.

The boys chuckled and one retorted, “Baby it’s never too big, is it?”

I guess they were right.  A purse can never be too big.

I snuck my left butt cheek onto the tiny gap they left for me and thanked the driver for the ride.  Dan reached his hand back to my knee and said, “How are you, Sweetheart?”

I liked how he sounded so genuine when he asked.  He was really sweet.  I blushed, dropped my chin and said, “I’m doing alright.”

We wound back to his place and the boys rapidly unfolded themselves out of the car.  I was the last one to scootch over to the door, and Dan was standing there, ready to give me a hand.

“Such a gentleman,” I drawled.

Inside, there were handfuls of couples scattered throughout Dan’s apartment.  I stepped into the doorway and felt eyes glance towards me.  “The mousy girl’s here!”  they whispered in chorus.  There I stood, lipstick red skirt flat to my knees, plain old black t-shirt, and me.  Self-consciously, I tucked my short hair behind my ears, and remembered how it felt when Dan did it for me.

‘So much going on,’ I thought.  Ice cubes crackled in drinks, trains of conversations crashed into the walls, into the bookshelves, into the couches.  Either I was stuck to the floor at this very spot or I was gliding to the kitchen without knowing it.

I slid around the corner, slunk around the stove, and ran right smack into Dan.  I stammered, “Oh, oh!”

“Sorry Dan, I just–”

“Don’t be sorry, Sweetheart–”

I like it when he calls me Sweetheart.

“–I was just gonna offer you a drink.”

So I took his drink.  It was cold, iced.  In a sepia rocks glass.  Like the one I use for short candles that cast diamond patterns on the walls when the lights are out.

I held it with both hands, and I looked at Dan.

His eyes were laughter.

His eyes were the ocean.

His eyes told stories. I made love to his eyes right there in the kitchen.

“Don’t look at me like that, Maggie,” he scolded and turned his eyes away.

“Like what, Dan?  I was just lookin at ya.”

“No, you weren’t.  You were looking at me like you could see right into my soul.”

He turned to wipe the counter with a dark rag.

“And what if I was?”

“What if you were what?”

“Seein right into your soul, Dan.”

“Well then, I don’t like it.”

“Oh.”

I turned slowly on my heel, threw a smile over my shoulder at Dan, and I went into the living room to ‘mingle.’

I walked home that night.

Alone.

Dan was nice.
He was dreamy, even.
But when I looked into his soul that night, I can’t say I liked what I saw.

He noticed, though.

There were others in the waiting room.  Some wearing masks, some looking hung over, and one who stared mindlessly at her own twiddling fingers.  The clicking caught his attention first, but the woman clack click clacking was what endlessly held it.

She held her office on her lap.  She alternated between clack click clacking and putting her pen between her rosebud lips.   Her dark chocolate hair was up in a loose bun, and she wore black rimmed glasses.   Her laptop hummed a ditty while she waited.  And clacked.  And thought about what she was going to type next.  And clicked.

A series of urgent click clacks piggy-backed on top of each other.  She anxiously uncrossed one leg just to cross over the other.  Looking up defeated, she catches him watching her.

Their eyes lock.

“A not terribly attractive man.  Staring at me,” she thinks.

He looks away as quickly as it registers that she’s looking right back at him.

They both synchronously turn their focus back to themselves, like a paper cootie catcher, morphing back into withdrawn–no, inwardly drawn–in-divid-uals.  People.  Busy people, sitting in a simple waiting room.   They both pull themselves inwards, sucking in and sitting up straighter, and they both recollect, with the reminder, the awareness that they are not alone in this busy universe.

She clicks. And then she clacks.  Slowly now.  Self-consciously.

He shifts his weight from the back of one thigh to the other.  He is tired of waiting.

His glance, almost imperceptibly, entirely uncontrollably, sparks back to her.

He catches her staring at him.

With a flash, they are both drawn into themselves again.

Like sea anemones.

Like turtles.

Self-focused.  Self-aware.  Self-conscious.

Seconds tick by within the clock that is strangely audible, even in this busy waiting room.

Seconds as long as years.  Click.  Clack. Click.  He wonders if the clicks and clacks are really the seconds, or if they’re just more of her nervous energy, funneled into an annoying audible evidence.  Click.  Clack. Click. Clack. Click.

He can not take it much longer.

The energy, the anxiety, the self-conscious awareness that he has been caught staring and is now the center of the universe– at least the center of the universe that is this waiting room– is closing in upon him so furiously that he must stand and escape this place… he throws himself upward, shot like a bullet from a gun, upright, arms out in a monster bear hug-like stretch, while the nurse simultaneously calls out his name.

“Paul!”

The man twists and grabs his briefcase, twirls around with it and quickly, urgently flings himself towards the back room.

“Paul” the woman thinks.  She rolls the name across her mind’s lips.

It tasted sweet to her.

“Paul.”

• I am so grateful for health.  My health, my honey’s, my kids, my friends, and my dear Amber’s, who is finally completely done with chemo on Monday.
• I am grateful for my own little herbal pharmacy.  It makes me feel empowered.  And tea-ful.  Which is always a wonderful way to be!
• I am grateful for technology.  Because seriously, the internet and all the goodies that come with it (The Oracle aka Google, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc.) because my life is enhanced by it.  And I have a social life now, without even leaving the house very often.  Thank you Jesus for technology!!!
• I am grateful that we get to keep the house.   This was kind of a big deal, and I’m pleased to know that we’re not going to have to move.  Hadn’t brought it up much, but it was a big looming possibility for the last few months, and frankly, I’m glad to move through that growing pain.
• I am uberly thankful for my best friends.  Ya’ll know who you are.  I love you. (yes, you, too)
• I am severely thankful for being able to continue to eat toast for breakfast every morning.  I know it sounds like such a small thing, but there were a few months there that I was concerned that I might have a gluten allergy.  I don’t have one, and now I can eat toast, generously.
• I am grateful for my extra time to read and write.  Time is money.  I suppose what it comes down to is that I really love time.  My own time.  And I love not being told what to do.  I’mma focus on getting more of that.
• I am grateful for living in a city of peace.   I can walk outside when I want, and am not afraid.
• I am grateful for my kitties.  Specifically the white one.  Don’t tell the other one I mentioned the white one, though.  That would be cruel.
• I am so thankful for tax refunds.  Even if they’re only a fifth of what I was hoping praying for.
• I am so thankful for my education.  I know, I’m a pendulum here.  But I need to be grateful, not a little brat about it because there are lots of women who never had the opportunities I’ve had.  And if I’m in debt because of it, I’m thankful for my freedom to rack up a shit-ton of debt for a degree that doesn’t give me a whole lot more leverage because I was ALLOWED to do it.  No one tried to stop me, and I’m grateful.
• I am grateful for our electricity and our ability to pay for it.
• I am grateful for our clean water and for the fact that I can drink it straight from the tap without getting sick.