riverwrites

The Final Farewell

    I just wanted to sit on the back deck with the dogs, look out over the bean field at the Midwest horizon, and cry until my heart turned dry and cracked like the parched August earth.  

    It was the final farewell. The home I had created with colors and soft carpet, filled with my laughter and love, and adorned with books and exotic memorabilia was now void of my things, my songs now silenced, and the doors now locked. The dogs I had trained, fed, walked with, traveled with, and oh yes, cuddled with on so many cold and lonely nights were anxiously hoping I would take them on another drive. They didn’t know I would not return. Oh, how I wanted to sit with them on that deck and be showered by their kisses and knocked over by their clumsy competition to be the most dominate one in my space.

    I wanted that. Their kisses would make the drying of my heart take more time, but I didn’t care – I wanted the opportunity to indulge in the full sensation of lurching emotions. I wanted to sit there on the deck and love on the dogs one last time without the watchful eye of my abuser. I wanted to survey the land I had loved and weep freely as my eyes lingered on the weed-choked garden, the shed that was to become my outdoor kitchen, not cluttered with broken machinery and debris like any other white trash back yard, and the remnants of my holy space. Oh, my holy space! Now abandoned, it lay dead like a rotting carcass in the desert. The circle where my tipi once stood so perfectly mirrored the abandonment of my heart and my marriage. The walkway I had created to the entrance with small garden stones was barely visible through the stubborn stance of unwelcome weeds. The prayer rocks I had painted were scattered about like trash, and the floor I had prepared covered the fire pit and alter like a grave blanket.

    I wanted to spend time with that space, my memories, and my dreams, expressing my sorrow, asking for forgiveness. I wanted that, but could not have it for the hawk eyes of my estranged husband hovered over me.

     Instead, I bend over Red and loved him quickly, taking his big head into the bend of my neck, tears dripping into his soft fur as I blubbered over his body, “I love you, Baby, I love you so much!” John towered over me from behind and the urge to run from him was strong. So I sucked in my tears and ran to the garage to say good-bye to the labs in their cages and little Mr. Higgins who was running about nervously, ever attuned to the state of my psyche.

     John was there, too. (How did he get there so quickly?) I stifled screams and swallowed my panic. “You can let them out of their cages,” he offered. How dare him speak that assumption that I needed his permission to free those dogs! I would not revel in the joy of them jumping on my body in front of him. I kissed my hand and stroked each of them through the bars, scooped Mr. Higgins into my arms and kissed him on the cheek, then walked bravely but briskly past John and got into my car. I couldn’t get it turned on and put into gear fast enough. “Stop starring at me!” The demand remained only a fantasy in my head until I was off his property and speeding down the country road.

A Date with the Moon

    I was called by the moon. It was so big and bright last night, so magnificent in the deep, black sky. The dense light of the North Star at the top left corner of its space kept vigil watch over the royal illumination. The moon sat there, an ominous presence, inviting me too, to sit in space and share her beauty. I felt the pull in my heart, yet I was too tired. I recoiled from the invitation with the innocence of a child believing in tomorrow.

    I descended the steps to my basement abode and covered myself with the pile of blankets on my unmade bed. There I fell into sleep. The mental and physical stresses of the day had me crippled by their grip and really, the only thing I could manage at that moment was to fall between the bed sheets of the dark, cold basement bed.

     I asked the moon for forgiveness and promised to join her later. “Just a little rest,” I explained, the words trapped in the spaces between my bones, and I ventured into the dark cave of deep, heavy sleep.

     The alarm went off at 4:30. it seemed it had only been a few minutes since I had collapsed into bed. I got up, pulled an over-sized shirt over my night gown, beckoned George to follow, and got into the dew damp car. I meandered through the dimly lit streets of town to get my coffee, then, with urgency, followed the moon out of town.

     I felt I couldn’t get to a big open space free of the safety lights of civil organization fast enough. The morning light was pushing at the horizon and I knew the moon’s watch would soon be over. I had to sit with her! I had to honor her call! It felt instinctual, natural, absolute, and outside of logical thinking.

     The warm coffee filled my chest with pleasant comforting heat and served to open my eyes into waking consciousness. My intent was deliberate: I had to get to a big empty space on earth so I could sit beneath the moon before dawn was in full bloom.

     Ah! Finally I arrived! I parked the car at the wooded edge of an open field and walked through the cool damp grass enjoying the cascade of sweet, wet kisses all over the tops of my feet. I spread a blanket and sat down to share some time and space with the moon.

     Nothing spectacular happened in the cosmos of my soul – no great epiphany revealed as I sat and connected my eyes to the beam of her light. I just sat and noted the weightless sensations of my mind.

     As I watched her bow to the dawn of a new day, there was an absolute knowing in my whole being that I had done the right thing by responding to her invitation.

     She has gone into retreat now, gone to bless other beings on the other side of the earth. My friends in Japan, perhaps – will they too, see her beauty tonight and look her way? Indeed, some of them will. This knowing penetrates that place in my heart that draws a spontaneous smile.

     This universal connection of past, present, and on-going infinity dwarfs those tangible and immediate details that paw and grope at me as the daylight hours move me through another day. This perspective provides me with new eyes, new energy, new resolve.

     The moon invited me to sit with her so she could give me the gift of peace. What a beautiful model she is for me! This is the gift I want to give to others.

     Can you strip from your eyes the confines of my earthly body and the entrapments of matter that we mistakenly think actually matter and hear my invitation to come and sit? I am calling you: come and sit with me. That’s all I ask, come and sit awhile, and let’s see what happens.