Safe Haven

Saw this today as the Evil Genius, Sprout, and I were preparing to watch The Life of Pi.

What struck me was the very idea of a safe haven, a place where one may seek shelter, take comfort...something I both have and have not, myself.

There are places I can go, of course, and people who love me better than I deserve...but where I should most feel loved, wanted, and protected?  I do not.  I find that terribly...sad...

It looks like a lovely movie...perhaps I will see it when it's on Netflix...

Peculiar Focus

I am agoraphobic.  I believe I've mentioned.  So by nature, I am something of a homebody.  Sometimes, very much a homebody.  As in, I don't want to leave the home so my body stays right on inside where it belongs.

Don't get me wrong, I adore nature and think the world is a beautiful place.  I am equally enamored of the sea, the mountains, the plains - all of nature is a place of wonder and delight to me, and I revel in it.

But sometimes...

Well...

Sometimes I just can't handle the revelry.  Sometimes it's all just a bit too much.  It's not the nature, the openness, the vastness of the world that bothers me.  It's more the people.  Leaving my house means I must mingle among the mundanes.

Again, don't get me wrong, mundanes are often simply lovely folk.  A few of 'em, though...a few of 'em ought to be labelled, carry a sign, have a light or some doohicky that warns a body that they're not of the nicest sort.

Some days, I just can't muster what it takes to face the possibility of those sorts of mundanes.

On really bad days, I don't want to go get the mail, answer the phone, or even be online.  Too danged many people trying to suck the life out of me.

Occasionally, though, it doesn't much matter how much my crazy is doing the Cha-Cha in my brain - I have to go out.

I don't have pills for this, and I don't drink or take illicit drugs to deal with it.  I just...go all Nike...and do it.

Now, lest you are tempted to turn to the agoraphobe in your life and point and accusing finger with the addmonition "See, she can do it!", you should understand some things.

My van is a mobile safe place.  If I cannot get away with burrowing under the covers until the world plays nicely, I can at least feel a little better about leaving my home because I have Rosie the Mule and now Miss Tessbacher to cart me about.

A number of the places I go are sort of default okay places - this is why I drive past two other markets to get to my Publix and avoid the Evil Empire like the plague.  Also, my local Publix is full of nice people who know me, are good natured and kind-hearted, and some of whom know how to spot the signs of a bad day and are inclined to ease my passage through their world.

If I must leave my beloved van and enter into a foreign land (any place not in my regular pattern is Siberia to my beleaguered brain) and I do not have the children with me, I have music and earphones, which help remove me from the unpleasant physical reality I am experiencing and loft me to a place of sonic calm.

There are time when I am completely out of my comfort zone, though.  At the park, for example, where I cannot hide in the van or between earphones because I need to be watching my kids.  At the indoor play place.  Anywhere or any time I should be minding my children and not my crazy, in fact.

Those times, I focus. Not inward, but outward.  I hear it all, see it all, widen my perception to include everything.  Never mind trying to block out the too-much-ness of it all, I blast my neurons with input until they are so busy processing they can't fear.

It is exhausting.  I feel wrung out and empty after, like a small creek that has had a one-hundred-year flood and is now experiencing drought.

I don't like it, but it works.

I have been working it a lot, lately.  I really want to be at home, quiet, not dealing with what's outside my walls, but that's not an option right now.  Instead I must take a deep breathe, say a silent prayer, and take that leap into my peculiar focus.

Hey, Mom...

Challenge.

The Evil Genius has a small surgical procedure this morning.  It's no big deal, but the recovery will be...umm...a challenge.  No running, jumping, climbing, lifting, bike riding, wrestling, or strenuous activity for two weeks.

Two.  Weeks.

We'll see who hast the worst time of it...

Evidence of Things Unseen

A cup of water on the table.

A sock on the living room floor.

One less Pop Tart in the cupboard.

A wet towel on the rack in the bathroom.

The occasional thump or thud heard from a distance.

An ever-increasing pile of laundry.

While I cannot prove anything, I believe there's a tween in residence at Casa de Crazy.  In an attempt to lure it out of its den and into open space, I am baking orange roll pull-apart bread.  If that doesn't do the trick, nothing will.

Me 'n' Jesus Have a Chat

I had one of my semi-recurring dreams last night.  I say "semi recurring" because the dreams happen fairly often, but they aren't always exactly the same.

In them, I am chatting with Jesus.

No, not the Jesus who hangs out in the Home Depot parking lot waiting for an offer for work - although he's worth chatting with because he's got an incredible work ethic, a really solid family foundation, and a keen sense of humor.

I mean the Jesus that so many people SAY they follow, but so often fall short of.

Oddly, me being pagan and all, he and I converse on a regular basis.  I think I amuse him.

So, last night we were chatting over tea and cinnamon rolls - he likes my cinnamon rolls - and he was a little...melancholy...

I asked him what was wrong...because I can be sympathetic once in a while if I make an effort.

"What's up, J?"  He lets me call him that because he knows I'm just teasing him.  So few people are playful with him.
"Oh, you know..."
"Maybe, but tell me anyway."
"Well...people kill in my name, and it makes me sad."
"Yeah...I don't understand why they do that."
"And they're fighting wars in my name.  That hurts."
"I bet, you being so peaceful and all."
"And they make laws in my name denying people equality!"
"Mm-hmm...guess they forgot the Samaritan."
"And they attack others, good people, just because those people don't go to my Father's house to worship."
"Uh-huh...and after you warned 'em not to cast the first stone..."
"Exactly!  I mean, all I asked was that people be compassionate, kind, and loving, that they leave the judging and all that to my Father and try to live decent lives."
"Sucks.  'Nother cinnamon roll?"
"Yeah, thanks...they're sinfully good."  He laughs at himself.
"Pfft.  So you wanna come hang out at a gathering some time?  I have a spare tent and you can borrow my drum as long as you don't pop the rings - they're a little warped.  And there's a place at my table for you if you want to sit with me..."
He smiles that sweet smile.  "Are you paraphrasing...?"
"Well, duh.  Anyway, you're always welcome to hang, you know.  I won't kill anyone in your name or start any wars or attack someone just because they don't worship you the right way (or at all), and I won't deny anyone food, clothing, medicine, education, or shelter just because they don't worship you."
"Sounds nice.  No fish, though...I'm kinda over fish..."
"'Kay.  Hey, Jesus, I need a favor..."
"You know how to make your own wine..."
"Heh...Cygnus does, anyway...but no, I wonder if you could maybe go visit the people who are shooting at, firebombing, and harassing a friend of mine...maybe show them how much she does for the community (more than THEY do, you can bet), maybe remind them about that whole judging and stone throwing thing?"
"Well...I can try...but you know how difficult it is for me to get anyone to really listen."
"Hey, thanks...I appreciate the effort."
"May I grab some of these to go?"  He indicates the cinnamon rolls, which are now back to their original numbers.
"Silly, of course.  Sure wish I knew that trick...could use it on a pile of twenties..."

He smiled his enigmatic smile and faded away, and I felt sorry for him.  Everything he endured in his father's name, for the sake of love and compassion, for the sake of people who didn't want him and repudiated him, for the sake of people who hadn't been born and might never follow his path...and the folks who claim to live and act in his name?  They ignore his teachings and use his name like a club to bludgeon the world into the shape they demand it take.

I think he comes and visits me in my dreams because there's no pressure.  I have no expectations, and I don't need him for anything.  We are, in a sense, equals - I contain the goddess within me, and he embodies his god on earth.

I wonder what the world would be like if more of HIS people acted like they truly followed HIS teachings...

I bet he'd smile more in my dreams...

Dreams of Stone

I was standing in the field at my mother's house, nearby one of the hickory trees.  The grass was short.  The air was pleasantly fresh and cool, bespeaking spring.  I surveyed the field, head cocked, and said quietly, clearly "I want a house of stone."

With those six words I said so much more - I want a house unassailable, a house solid, a house that will hold generations safe within its walls, a house that even nature would admire and respect.  With those six words, I made something happen.

The ground beneath my feet trembled a little, a thrumming vibration that rose up my legs, hummed along my spine, and made my teeth buzz the tiniest bit.  Up from the earth, just where I had been considering its placement, stone rose.  Rooted in, born of, the bedrock, the house rose up with stately grace, settling into itself as if it had always been there, always would be there.

My house.

There were windows, great swaths of glass to let in air and light.  There was a porch wrapped entirely around it, an embrace between inside and out.  Chimneys spoke of fireplaces within, and I knew they would be large, friendly, inviting hearths suitable for warming nearby spaces.

There were, however, no doors on the outside.  The only way in was to know one was home.
~~~~~
Before me was a block of granite.  In my hands were hammer and chisel.  I could see what the block wanted to be, the lines and curvatures that yearned to be coaxed from the stone.  I knew, to the bone, that if I touched chisel to stone and tapped, I would ruin that dream-of-being.  I did not have the skill necessary to transform the block into what it was supposed to become.  Better to put the tools down and walk away than to dishonor it with imperfect skill.  I left it for more able hands than mine...
~~~~~
I was a statue on a plinth.  Unseen tools wielded by unseen hands struck invisible blows, chipping away at me bit by bit, slowly turning me to dust.  Just before the final blow landed, just before I became nothing but dust to be blown away by an unrelenting wind, I woke.