Amidst the Mists, pt 2 of Part 3

For a moment, or so it seemed, he was back in the fog, in the thick almost substantial parts of it, but sounds drew him back to the bed.

Sounds of footsteps. 

Sounds of voices. 

Three people, out in the hall. Tall, male. Working men, wearing boots, that they were taking off, from the sounds. Weren't they supposed to do that out on the porch? 

A slammed door on a rush of wind and rain hitting the inside floor answered that. Rain coming from that direction, the porch was probably inundated. 

Only one of the men came to the door(?) of the room. "Any change?" he asked, but not like he expected an answer. 

The hand woman said yes and the doctor woman said no. 

The doctor elaborated that there had been no physical change worth mentioning. Irregular breathing irregularities, but that was to be expected. No signs of returning consciousness. 

The other woman said, in a warm positive tone, that she felt a difference.  That he WAS coming back from wherever he'd gone. She KNEW, she just knew.

There was no doubt in her voice or in her words. Her surety warmed him from the inside as her hands had his outside, and he knew he could sleep, and rest, as he knew he needed to.

Mage, Madrigal, Mama

 For the last couple of months, In between writing bits and pieces of stories, when I've been playing around on Facebook, I've been getting/doing a lot of "off the grid" and "survivalist" items. Some of these have been links to quizzes and such. 

So far the longest I'll survive on my own is about ten days, because I have very few hunter/gathering skills. 

I admit it.

I don't.

And I should. 

I have the knowledge stored somewhere in my being. All my life I have looked at weeds and herbs and known that they can be used for healing and helping, but I can rarely put a name to the plants or have any conscious knowledge of how to use them.

But I  know I know this stuff. Why can't I bring it forth?

In fact, on rare occasion, I have needed, seen something, and used it appropriately in "emergency" situations. Once for fever, once for bleeding. Those were interesting experiences, and I don't remember what I used, for sure. I think it was plantain leaves for the bleeding and some kind of flower (rose? lavender?) for a wash for the fever. Thought about a tea, but the thinking brain said no. Too risky without knowledge to have someone ingest it. 

BUT -- the (non)survivalist in me has a better chance as a member of a tribe, clan, or other grouping. 

The quizzes and skill tests through the computer rank me very high. 

As a wise-woman, as a  story teller, and as a keeper of the flame, able to both hold the old traditions and reach out and embrace the new ideas and ways.

I am mage, madrigal, and Mother. 

I am of great value to my tribe as a GrandMother. 

The funny thing is, this suits me very well. 

I'll keep the kids entertained while others do the hunting/ gathering. 

I'll keep the perpetual pot of perpetual stew over the embers. 

I'll make the coffee!

What really strikes me about these designations, under these situations and circumstances is the acknowledgement that this is a role with importance. In a survival situation, which I will only survive -- for only ten days or so -- because I can build a shelter with a fire near running water, my value is as a bringer of words. 

Somehow, one would think the others would leave me there to dwindle and starve. But according to these different groups, I still have value. Practical value, as I can cook. Maybe not well, but survival level at least. 

But the other values?

There is something somehow reassuring that the ones who create these tests and trials think to put any value on the Mystic and Traditional, and to find worth in song and story.

Or am I reading it all wrong, and this is a polite way of saying "You are worthless. Just stay out of Our Way!"?

Amidst the Mists, pt 1 of Part 3

    He was sweating again, and gasping, and he was in a hot place. He

hoped he hadn’t died yet, as that was a bad sign if he was, when

suddenly sound was all around him, as overwhelming as the heat.

       Maybe not though, as the heat felt and smelled steamy rather than ashy.

They probably didn’t have water to make steam in the bad place. Unless

somebody was melting a snowball? (What did that mean?)

    Voices, and people were moving around. A mix of male and female voices,

as well as children’s voices more distant. He knew the voices, and was

satisfied they were NOT dead people, so he must not be either.

That was a good thing. 

Maybe?

    He tried to take in a deep breath, but somehow choked on it,

and, good lord did it hurt! Breathing wasn’t supposed to hurt

living people, although sometimes it did.

If they were sick or something.

He stopped choking and managed a swallow of air that (still) left him panting. 

At the sound of the breath, the voices rose, and congregated closer to him,

speaking quickly to one another and doing things to him, although he was

unsure of what they were doing.

    Whatever it was they were doing, it did ease the squeeze from breathing

and his breaths were not so loud and raspy now.

    The panic over breathing calmed, and he began to make more sense

(if one could call it that) of his situation.  He was lying on his back, propped

up on pillows. He was covered with at least two quilts or blankets. (They weren’t

effective.Despite the hot and humid room, he was cold, cold, cold.) He wished he could put his arms and hands under the covers and pull them up around his neck, if not over his head. 

    He thought the thoughts, but nothing changed. His arms and hands were still

lying beside him on the outside of the covers. How very strange that they weren’t

doing anything. 

He managed one deep breath. That was better. 

    There was a bitter taste in his mouth. Some medicine they had given him?

The taste was familiar, although he couldn’t name it. Probably something he

had given others when his plants and concoctions had been the only

medicines available. 

That was a long time ago. He’d lost interest after Mark was killed, plus they’d

had a doctor by then, for all the good she’d done. 

Aha! That was one of the voices. The lady doctor. She was probably the one

who kept picking up his hand by the wrist and holding it for short minutes

at a time.

“His hands are so cold,” the other female voice said. She was sitting on the

bed (?) next to him, holding his other hand, fingers entwined. 

He liked that. He liked the holding, and he liked that her hands holding his

were warm. Her voice was warm, too, and worried. 

She shouldn’t be worrying about things right now. 

Actually, she shouldn’t be worrying about anything. Didn’t he take care of

everything for her? For her and – and what? Or who?

    He struggled to hold onto the thought, but it slipped away from him,

like the vapors filling the air.

Missing the Kids: A letter to my Daughter

  I'm really missing your kids right now, kiddo.

Haven't seen or talked to them since Thanksgiving. They didn't even call me or text me to say Happy Birthday. (Christmas was sad, and they hadn't called me then, either, but there's no grudge there. I'm the one who had to cancel at the last minute.)Between the weather, my health, and my car's condition, I just haven't been able to get there. Seems like I'm farther away now than when you were in Georgetown and we were in Winchester.

    There's no "we" anywhere now for me, not in Winchester, not in Bethel, not in our 'hub' of Mt. Orab. Tracy's miles away (good for her; I'm proud), and you and your daddy are gone. 

    I miss you, but this last few months I've finally begun adjusting to that. It's been a long hard pull, almost three years, but maybe I'm finally getting on. I guess I hope so, anyway. 

    It's those strange weeks between my birthday and yours,(also known as February) with Valentine's Day smack in the middle. That's always been a pleasant time for us, although I can't say anything specific that we've regularly done or shared. It's just that somehow, the month of February, at least right now, seems like the time we have usually been closest, as a matter of routine. 

    That probably doesn't make much sense, because it's really hard to explain. Mostly because I don't understand it myself. Maybe because it's one of those delusions that sneak up when one is bereaved. I don't know.

    I miss you, but I know there's nothing to be done about that, except cherish memories and share photographs, I suppose.

    And try to see your kids. I want to hear them and hug them so badly.  Hopefully soon I'll be well enough and it will be warm and dry enough for me to make the drive.

    In the meantime, you know if no one else does how often and how yearningly I think of them. 

And you.   

Be happy, my dear, wherever you are, in whatever form your energy is in.

I love you and miss you still.

Amidst the Mists 2

The fog was lightening, he was beginning to see vague shapes swirling

just beyond his eyesight. Less thick, he supposed, although he really couldn’t tell for sure.

The light was as white, the ‘wall’ was just as white, scents and sounds just as distorted, but

there was some change.

Maybe it was just that the terrain was becoming more familiar. He couldn’t

explain it well, but while he couldn’t say where he was, with each step, he

somehow knew.

That’s how it was with a home place. 

Up ahead was a dark spot, almost shiny, but a kind of shiny dull, like

seeing a boulder in the fog.

That was it! He was at the Big Rock, up on the Short Ridge. What was

he doing there?

Ahead, something moved . Something on the Big Rock. 

No. 

SomeONE. Someone sitting om the Big Rock, waiting.

Waiting for him.

Oh yes, someone! He felt a little thrill, as the same unconscious that

had recognized the countryside responded to the someone.

The someone becoming clearer as he closed the distance. 

The someone dressed in black from head to toe. His own personal

man in black.

“Hello there.” his long-missed friend said.

“How are you here?”

“I don’t know. How are you here?”

“I ran.” 

“I was just –” the friend gestured, “-- here.”

“Like I was just in the fog.” The runner nodded, seating himself on the rock. 

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing, before I came?”

“Waiting for you, I guess. Like I said,  just here. What were you doing,

before you started running?”

“I was just – there. And running.”

“To me?” The man – the friend – began cleaning his fingernails

with a small knife.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think, at first, I was running away,

just running. I can’t remember why, though.” 

“At first?” 

“It changed, when I got into the fog. That’s when I started running to

something. To here, and to you.”

They sat in silence for a while, each enjoying being in the company

of the other.

“Seems like it’s been a long time,” the man in black said.

“Well, you’ve been dead for seven years or so.”

“I have? Well, that explains that.” He paused, reflecting on what

had been said. “How did I die?”

The other man laughed, and gestured at his friend’s hands. “You were

stabbed to death. Robbed in a street fight, three against one.”

“Seems fitting,” he said, as his knife was put away. “How’d you know that?”

“It was just there in my head. Do you suppose I’m dead?”

“No. You’ve had a heart attack. This is a kind of in between place, I think.

No past and no future. It’s all up in the air.’

“In the clouds. Hidden in the fog. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, sorta.”

“Makes as much sense as visiting with the dead. Or, in my case, with the not-dead.”

They looked at one another, laughed and clasped hands in a prolonged

handshake as the fog deepened and thickened again.

Amidst the Mists

He put out a hand and leaned it against a tree trunk, while he gasped. He had been running,

and he was sweaty and breathless. He had run and run, and finally ran into a fog bank, and

after that he was finally able to stop to catch his breath.

He couldn’t remember why he was running. Was he running to, or running from? He thought

it was probably from, because he had run into the White for safety and reprieve. 

But who or what was he running from, and why?

Was he a child, running from punishment? 

Was he a man running from some natural disaster?

Was he running from a person or a thing? Or maybe even just a thought, or a fear?

Why didn’t he know the answers?

And where was he? While he had been running, his feet had known where they were going,

so he was on home territory, but oddly enough, he couldn’t remember where home was, other

than

where he was. 

Maybe he was dreaming? 

Maybe it was the fog? Fog could do weird things, not just to sight, but also to sound, to  

            time, and to the very feel of the air.

His breathing slowed, but remained raspy. He leaned forward, hands on his thighs, feeling the

muscles there. He had to keep moving, but he no longer felt the need to hurry. Here, in the white,

he was not being chased anymore.He could take his time, catch his breath as best he could, and

go forward – where? – to find – something. What?

Or where, or who?

More importantly, why?

His breathing slowed, quietened. His skin still beaded with moisture, but he was pretty sure that

was the fog, not the awful hot/cold sweat that had formed while he’d been running, so fast and so

far.

He started moving forward again, walking. The slower pace was soothing, and he was able to see

if he could see any familiar landmarks. The path he was walking still felt familiar, and he knew he

was heading to somewhere specific.

To a special place, special to him and to the object of his search.

Because he did have an objective.

He wasn’t running from, now, as he had been before the fog.  

He was approaching something, something that was his. That was waiting for him. 

He stopped again, as something in the sound changed.  Echoes weren’t reliable in an ordinary

fog, and this was the thickest, densest, whitest fog he had ever seen.

He suddenly knew he was near a bluff, an abrupt drop-off. He couldn’t say how he knew, but he

trusted the feeling as he had trusted his feet to run safely and to safety. 

Wherever he was, it was home.

Wherever he was going, it was home. 

Join my Caravan! :)

I have had a dream, for most of my life, to see the
Pacific NorthWest. I want to breathe in trees and lakes and mountains.

The closest I have got to this, in this lifetime, is when my sister included me in a trip into the Great Smoky Mountains. There was an instant peace there, a sense of being "home" that I have never ever in my life known.

A childhood home,perhaps... 

As a grown-up, I feel there's something more, and I still want it.

I'm losing my mobility and my health, and have begun trying to make this dream of mine come true. I have some (relatively little) money saved. I have pictures to look at everyday to encourage myself to spend my money on that dream instead of pizza. I'm still working on it. I have scents and incense to breathe in what I can from this far out. 

When I've thought about it, it has been as a road trip. With a few select people, most of whom I suspect will have lives too complex for them to leave when I finally do get everything together. 

And, as much as I like a road trip, I am not a distance driver, so someone else would have the bulk of that responsibility, but I want them to do it my way. That is, no freeways, no hurry, let's meander across the plains (may as well, because no matter how fast we go, it's going to feel like forever, especially after the mountains (finally!) come into view. Days become weeks, driving through the here to get to the there in the flatlands. Been there, done that. 

I don't want to have to be in certain towns by certain dates because of reservations or anything. I want to go until we're tired of going, and stop at the first stopping place we find, be it a hotel, motel, campground, or a park of some other sort. I want to pull off at odd little stops and walk down odd little paths to odd little or large waterfalls, and eat in odd little towns. Tourist stops, if they are the natural kind. Not interested in flashing lights and crowds and staged events. I want to see the world --or just the country -- as it is in the open.

Now, today it popped into my mind that perhaps I'm being too close, or closed-minded, in my choice of companions for travelling, and that I should ask around and find if maybe there are others interested. There are certainly others who share interest in some of the things that piqued my interest and fostered the dream. (Haven't yet found many tree-people yet though.)

The thing about this thought is that it isn't exactly me. I'm uncomfortable with persons I don't know well. Heck, I'm uncomfortable with people I DO know well.

As a child it was considered being intensely shy. Then for a period of time it was some type of social anxiety or phobia. Now it is extreme introversion. And although it's not as strong as before, believe me it IS still extreme, almost to the point of phobia.

Anyway, this ranks highly in the category of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever had, So I laughed at my crazy self and went about the business of my day.

When I got around to the delights of my day, one part of that was reading my horoscope. Which said, I kid you not, that I would have a crazy idea that day and however wild it seemed to be, I should consider it seriously. That it could have merit and meaning for whatever vague plans I had been considering. 

That made me laugh, too. Almost as funny as off-the-cuff socializing was the idea of me taking a horoscope more as a specific rule for the day than a general guideline for some time or other before I die. 

The same advice was repeated, in different words,  in my career horoscope, my money horoscope, and it also appeared in my magical tarot card draws that I actually have NO participation in. 

So, I thought maybe I should put it out there. Anybody interested in joining my (thus far imaginary) trip to the PNW? .

You'll need your own money, and it would really be a big help if you have a car, because mine is not up to the trip (although it might surprise us all, that's not a risk I wish to take). Actually, an RV might be even better, and a truck camper thing would be best. They can usually get in campgrounds that RVs can't. 

So, having provided your own vehicle to drive yourself (or vehicles if our group becomes too large for just one) and your own financing, you are invited to join a trip planner who has made no plans, no reservations, nor mapped out a definite course for no specific time frame.  

Come one, come all, no need to shove. Surely together we can figure me out!

TREES!

I need trees!

The pictures just aren't doing it today

At @20 degree temps, I can admire the waterfalls from my chair, but it's just not working for trees. I need the shaded hidden green areas where the giants dwell. They needn't be green themselves, which is fairly rare in this place at this time of year, but they need to be somewhere in the verdant hidden spaces that only tree lovers can find and cherish. And touch and smell, and be immersed in.

I need to put my hand on the bark, and feel in my mind the stirring of the sap as the year begins again. I want to feel the moss, live and lush from recent snowfalls, or dry and dusty from cold, and feel the incipient life therein. 

I want life to blossom and winter to end.

I want to touch the trees  that touch the stars.

THE Return

 The words have returned to me, in a very big way.

Oh, they never left entirely. I could scribble out a poem, describe an evening on my porch, share a summer shower, and most especially I could write a lengthy rant and make others laugh at my horrible life, because I was making a joke of it, even while complaining and whining and feeling sorry for myself. 

Always, always, a thin trickle of words remained. 

But I was used to a river! A wide, full, flowing river, hopefully with a waterfall or an underground component that popped back out of a rock wall.

Not just a babbling brook, although those could be fun. 

Not a nearly dried up creek bed full of rocks that crack and turn to powder in the heat of everyday. 

And not just things. Not just weather, and birds, and description of static objects.

My words were persons, and lives, and with voices and thoughts of their own. With in-jokes and griefs and crying-until-laughing, and laughing-until-crying. 

These persons wanted needed me to tell their stories so that they did not dissolve unnoticed into the midsts of mists. 

But I could only share moments of them, if even that much.

Somewhere I lost them.

My words had gone, and with them gone, so was I. I was no longer the Voice, or the Participating Narrator, or however my role could be defined. 

I was not them and they were not me, and so I was no longer I, and their very existence was at risk. 

Sometime in the autumn of this past year, they came back. A whole gang of them started shouting at me, even waking me every three or four hours in the night. 

Mostly they were saying, "Look at Me! Here is My Story!" That was okay. I could watch and listen and wander off into dreamland, often a mixture of their presence and my lack of presence. I need do nothing but be aware, and I needed only to be aware of their existence. 

Soon, they compelled me to creating them for others, and I did. Not always easily, not often quickly, but the more I did it, the more I felt myself again becoming.

I am me! I am Here! I am me!

I finished that story and did a second draft, and sent it out to a few chosen readers that I thought would offer good commentary. So far the reviews have brought up good points, but I've not heard from one section of my chosen readers. I don't know yet what does or doesn't work for that class (for lack of a more precise word.)

As I waited to hear from my readers -- I am seriously considering this as a venture into self-publishing, or print-on-demand, or whatever it's called these days -- I began another story with my fingers and there was a third story stirring into existence in my mind. 

These last two were abruptly and rudely shoved out of place by a compulsive need to write a fan fiction piece about a young child trying to make sense of the death of a parent. 

It wrote itself in ten days, wringing me out from the inside out. That's why it took so long to write it. It left me too exhausted to communicate. 

I slept. 

I slept, I wrote, I ate, with occasional trips to the doctors (5 or 6 of them) because I am old. But mostly I stayed home, with two sets of people pushed to the back of my mind, squabbling for my attention, while this child was trying to make his world make sense again. 

That exact type of compulsion to write is a rare event. It was really almost like what psychic scribes (I forgot the correct term) describe. As if someone else was melding with me, using my mind and body to do what theirs could not.

And I am concerned, my friends, for surely a compulsion of that strength and with that urgency was MEANT to be heard/seen by someone, perhaps to make sense of their topsy-turvy world. 

I just hope that somehow I am getting the word out to the right person. 

Fan fiction seems a strange platform for delivering such a message. 

I don't do fan fiction. The people in my own head tell me this or that is wrong with the other peoples characters and turn them into who they are. I have a sincere respect for any writer who can make someone else's character breathe, and can do it right, but that is a skill I have never ~quite ~ had.

I can only hope that the same energy that produced it reaches across or through the void and finds its target.

Whoever you are, I hear you. I feel you. I even love you. 

Because I, too, have been there.

You are not alone. 

Somewhere In My Mind

 There's an 'understanding' that wandering through one's own mind is a bad thing. As children, as soon as we are indoctrinated into the education system, we are told to "quit daydreaming". We are discouraged from coloring chickens neon colors. Our off-beat rhythms are discarded because they "don't exist." (then how did we create them in the first place?) Music should have rhythm, tune, melody, and harmony -- never mind that our ears and our minds are filled with garbage trucks, tankers, revved-up motorcycles, children screaming, doors slamming, and many other types of discord.

Inside one's own mind is a place to be avoided. It can't be taught; it cannot be reached. One who lives in an isolated spot is an oddity, a weirdo, an object of pity and ridicule.

An outsider.

This continues through our growing-up years, and into our grown-up years, and sometimes we find ourselves trying to program our children into the same ruts and roadways of communal living. 

Because humans are social creatures, and without organization and codes of behavior, life will be chaos. Anarchy. Different.

Different.

As we age, though, we are "allowed" by society a little more room for vagueness, wonder, and wandering. 

***********

I used to think it was the saddest thing when old people would no longer recognize their in-person loved ones. When they call grandchildren by a (long dead) brother's name. When they ask where their spouse has gone. When they marvel and grieve at the same time at a child with a beloved's eyes. 

When they tell you to your face that they can't visit with you today because you and a sibling are coming to take them somewhere. 

So sad. 

But Now, as I age, and as I spend more time with my memories and my dreams of days and lives gone by, it doesn't seem so sad or bad.

I am spending time with people I love(d), and who love(d) me. In my mind, I am present with them, no matter who is at the door, or sitting with me on the porch, or by my bedside as I roam beyond my body's abilities. 

Besides, how can that fat old woman be my granddaughter? She's a little girl with bright eyes and curly hair that won't stay combed. 

And that guy over there, you can't fool me. That beard can't fool me. That's my brother, who went away decades ago. It's so good to see him again, and didn't he always like to make a fool of everybody with see-through pranks?

Now, there are some whose memories bring violence and fear and anger. They may harm themselves or others. They should be cared for as needed.

There are some whose only thoughts, if thoughts they be, are of pain and messes, and the failure of the body. They too should be cared for, and eased as much as is possible.

These, the ones with no peace and no escape, are the truly sad cases, and the most needy. Try to love them, care for them, and grieve as you must for the lost loved one, overwhelmed by too much today and no escape into either tomorrow or yesterday.

But do not grieve for me.

I am with friends.

I am with family.

I am loved.

I love.

And I am, finally and at long last, who I am. Lime green chickens and 9/8 tempo with lots of slam-bang-crash and an occasional screech.

I am me and I am happy here.

Somewhere in my mind.