MOMENTUM IS OUR FRIEND

Clearly, in light of COVID-19, I will not be performing my one-woman show at Stage 773 in Chicago on March 28! Instead, I continue to work on the show at home as I socially distance myself. I have painfully edited the two-hour script down to one hour. I hope I did it well. I hope it is tight and clean and not butchered. To be determined…

I am excited that I Am the One Who was one of five shows accepted into DivaFest, a juried festival for female playwrights to be held in Indianapolis. The festival is scheduled to take place the weekends of April 17 and April 24. Of course, no one will be surprised if it is re-scheduled…

I don’t know when or where I will end up presenting this work. I do know it will figure itself out. My job, my only true job, is to create it! Thus, I am at home self-isolating, happily sculpting this work to be used as a vehicle. Stay tuned for scheduling updates! I am certain I will present this work sometime, on some stage for some person(s)!

Here is my offering during this strange and trying time….an excerpt from I Am the One Who. Be well everyone. Let’s wrap ourselves and each other in love and light.

Because momentum is our friend.

 

She found the pin in the folds of a magazine. A straight pin.

Mom was in the kitchen making Christmas cookies. Cammie was in the living room looking at a magazine. At least that’s what my sister said. I don’t remember. I don’t remember seeing it,  but I can still feel the shock of it.

Waves of terror cascade and crash and make the world slow and sluggish and then still, very still even as it turns us spinning dizzy. Caught between this world and that, we dart, then hide, now scurry between, looking for a safe place…We don’t want anyone to see…don’t want anyone to know. And so she ate it. She ate the pin so no one would see it.  She ate the pin so no one would know what she’d done to that puppy.

It was December 21. Winter Solstice. The day the Earth poles are maximum tilt away from the Sun. The longest night of the year. I was 21 months old the 21st day of that 12th month, the day we ate the pin. The day we tried to eat the pin. But here’s the thing. We didn’t eat it. She aspirated it.

She coughed when she put it in her mouth and sucked it down into our left lung. And then she kept coughing, certain that at any moment her insides would open up and spill out, revealing the truth of what she’d done.

We went into the kitchen coughing. My mother thought the red around our mouth was food coloring. We coughed more and Mom realized it was blood. She took us to the emergency room where they did an x-ray and now everyone can see it and everyone knows and now we are floundering. The urgency wraps around us like an itchy blanket. It hides the light and we feel ourselves slipping.

The doctors go after the pin with a bronchoscope. They slide it way down inside…Apparently, the body is full of cavities, places where things can be slipped and poked and planted…cavernous caves within caves where secrets can be harbored and tunnels dug…the bronchoscope was too large–it sent me convulsing, flopping like a fish out of water, twitching like a puppy in a bathtub. So they treated the seizure with medication that was too strong and now I feel very, very tired so I lie down to sleep.

My mother rode with me in the ambulance to a bigger hospital. She rode with a nurse who said she wanted to be with her in case I died in transit. The ambulance careened through a thunderstorm with siren blaring and continued careening even after the siren died, even after the windshield wipers stopped. It careened on through the storm to a doctor who was pacing, waiting for the Ballard baby. I arrived comatose and limp. They were planning to operate right away, but instead they held vigil through the night as I floated on that razor-sharp edge between light and dark.

But I am not alone. All 12 members of the Light Council form a circle around me. They generate a circle of energy between their hearts and their bellies that burns brighter and brighter and moves faster and faster until they shoot it out from one heart center to the next and it moves around the circle, creating a bonded band of light that holds us in a sacred  container.

And then simultaneously they send the light from each of their heart centers to where I am in the center of the circle…they send all that light to me and I am illuminated….filled with love and hope and vision and clarity that wraps around me like a cocoon then reaches into infinity illuminating everything in its wake with effervescent life force energy streaming pure. All that light and love burns away all that itchy pricking and I am whole.

They tell me it’s time to go back, but I don’t want to go. They remind me of my soul contract, my mission to anchor light on the planet, but I am happy to renounce it. I claim to be unworthy of the task, but they just laugh and remind me of my divinity. They invite me to join them in the circle, but I resist. I just want to bask in all this love.

They insist I stand beside them and claim my power as an equal being of light. They challenge me to remember what they say I already know.  And suddenly He is there. It’s Him. There He is. In the center of the circle… I don’t want to send my love and light to Him! But they challenge me to stay focused, stay on task. We shoot light out from each of our heart centers. Our light bores into Him like a laser beam, but instead of illuminating Him, He burns to ash. “What happened?” And then I remember.

Free will transmutation. When gifted with light and love, all beings will either shine or singe. Free will transmutation. The outcome is not my concern. My job, my only true job, is to make the offering…to plant light on earth and let it seed.

My mother tells me I woke up out of my coma asking for a drink of water and wanting to comb my hair. If I’m going to transmute darkness, I need to be hydrated and I better look good! And then the doctors operated. Cut me open mid chest to mid back went into my lung and removed the pin. I still have a fading scar that runs around  my left side.

The sacramental mark of the divine.

 

allis2bLeave a comment

AGGRIEVATION

“He’s dead,” the voice on the phone said flatly.

“What?” I asked. “Who is this?”

“It’s Roma,” my stepdaughter said with exasperation. She repeated, “Dad is dead.” Wait a minute, I think. What dad are we talking about here? My dad died a year ago. Confused, I decided to temporarily skip the who part and move on.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m standing in his apartment. The police are here. They’re removing his body right now. The man is dead. It appears he had a heart attack and died in his sleep.” Suddenly it hit me. She was talking about her dad. My ex-husband. She was talking about James.

“Where are your brother and sisters?” I asked.

“They’re in the car in the parking lot on the other side of the building,” she cried. “They don’t know yet. What should I do?”

“Drive everybody back over to my house,” I said. “I’m on my way.” I was already moving towards the door.

“But, what do I say to them?” she asked.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I advised. “Just focus on driving everybody home safely.”

I was at my mother’s visiting with her, my sister and brother-in-law. It was Christmas Eve and we were all gathering for what we expected to be our last Christmas in that house; since my Dad had died the previous November, my mother had decided the house was too big for her. Earlier in the day, my stepdaughters, Roma and Amanda, had picked up my son and daughter, Jacob and India, and drove them back to Fort Wayne to spend Christmas Eve with their dad. When they arrived at his house, he didn’t answer the door. They waited a while and then called me confused, wondering what to do. I suggested they go to my house and try calling him again from there. “I’m sure he just got tied up in Christmas traffic and will be home soon,” I had reassured them.

When they called a little later saying he still wasn’t answering the phone, I told them to stay put while I called the police. When the police said they’d drive over and check it out, I called the kids back and told them to wait at my house until they heard from me. I wasn’t expecting this call from Roma. Wasn’t expecting the kids would drive back over to their dad’s house. Wasn’t expecting them to find the police hauling his dead body out the door.

“James is dead,” I said bluntly to Mom, Babs and Buddy as I hung up the phone. “I have to go.” I had a single focus vision–to get to my children.

“Hold on,” Bud said. “We’ll drive you.” We all jumped into Mother’s car. The 45-minute drive to Fort Wayne seemed to take three hours. This made no sense. We were just getting good at being divorced. It was only a little over a year ago that Daddy had died. We had barely caught our breath. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Not on Christmas Eve.

I walked into my house and found all the kids in the living room playing the board game Aggravation. (As if we needed any more aggravation!)  “How’s everybody doing?” I asked hesitantly, testing the waters. Roma gave me a pained expression from across the room and nodded me into the kitchen.

“I couldn’t tell them,” she sobbed “I think they know, but I couldn’t tell them.”

Amanda walked into the kitchen crying. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” I said simply. As hard at this question was, I was glad it didn’t require a complicated response. I was at a loss for words.

Jacob came into the kitchen. Same question, same answer. We all stood in the kitchen looking at each other. Then I realized they were all looking at me. Three kids down, one to go. India, the youngest, was still in the living room playing Aggravation alone. I went in and sit down next to her. She flashed a smile big enough to show her one dimple.  But there was fear in her eyes. Her 9-year-old brain was busy between those blonde pigtails processing the confusion of the last few hours. But she didn’t dare ask the question her older siblings had asked. She fixed her grey eyes on me and waited.

“India,” I said gently, searching for words. “Sweetie, your daddy is dead.” She screamed and threw herself in my arms, then pushed me away, knocking herself and the Aggravation game to the floor. So much for the mother-of-the-year award. Then she was up again, pounding my chest, shaking her head, “No, no, no! I can’t live without him!” (That made the second worse news I had received that day.)

“I know it feels that way,” I said. I was fresh out of any brilliant words of comfort, so I went quiet and held her while we cried.

Good thing we drove Mother’s car because mine wouldn’t have been big enough to hold us all and I insisted we all drive back to Huntington together. My mother-bear instinct was flared full force and I was not letting a single one of those kids out of my sight. We all crowded into Mother’s car, dog in tow.  The trip must have made him nervous because when we get to Mom’s, he walked right in and peed on the fake snow that was laid out under one of the Christmas trees.

“Simba!” Mother shamed him. “I can’t believe you did that!” He looked at her confused as if to say, “Isn’t that why that tree and the snow are in here?” Poor puppy. We were all confused. She ripped out the soiled “snow,” leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the decorated holiday fantasy.

When we woke up Christmas Day, I had no idea what to do. The Christmas presents were all under the tree wrapped and ready. But how could we just open presents knowing James was dead? On the other hand, if we didn’t open them, he would still be dead and the unopened presents would be a merciless reminder.

“Yes, we should share Christmas!” Mother proclaimed. “James would want it that way.”

Not like I had any better idea. So we had coffee and Christmas morning casserole and opened presents. We got caught up in the excitement of ordinary Christmas moments and would forget.  And then one of us would remember and the tears would spread through the room like a virus. Everything was surreal. By the time we were done, we had as much dirty tissue as we did torn Christmas paper. The holiday had definitely been soiled with a big, gaping hole.

The next morning my best friend Sally called. “What do you need?” she asked. “How can I help you?” I closed my eyes and tried to organize my thoughts. It was the day after Christmas and I was still at my mother’s house. What did I need? I needed to let the dog out. I needed to do some laundry. I needed to make phone calls. I needed to load my mother’s car with Christmas presents and get my family home. Or maybe I needed to sit down with a cup of coffee and give this recent whir of events time to sink in.

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I guess I need to get into his house. We need his clothes and eyeglasses for the funeral. And we need his driver’s license so we can provide the morgue identification. And I just need to get in there and scope the place before the kids go in to get their things.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked

“Well, the problem is, I don’t have a key.” I explained. “And I don’t know his landlord’s name or phone number.  And the city’s Office of Records is closed because of the holidays. So I don’t really know what to do.”

“Well, it sounds like we need to break in,” she said matter of factly.

“What? How do you suggest we do that?” I asked.

“Come pick me up and we’ll go over there together and figure it out,” she reassured me.

I borrowed my mother’s car and drove back to Fort Wayne. “What is that?” I asked when Sally climbed into the car with a small duffel bag.

“This? It’s my breaking-and-entering kit,” she said. “Didn’t we decide to break into his house?”

My head was swimming. “You have a breaking-and-entering kit?” I asked incredulously. “Whatever for?”

“For situations just like this!” she pointed out. “You never know when you might need to break in somewhere!”

Good grief. I didn’t even want to know what a breaking-and-entering kit might contain. But she was right. I did need to get in James’ rented house and I didn’t have a key. So it appeared a breaking-and-entering kit was just what we needed. And my best friend just happened to have one sitting right there with us in my mother’s Lincoln Towne Car. My guardian angel appeared to be on the clock after all.

We drove over to James’ house and parked. I sat in the car and took in the scene. His car was still parked in the un-shoveled driveway blanketed by snow. There were no telltale signs of death. No flashing neon signs that said: tragedy struck here. In my mind’s eye, I could see my four kids standing at his door knocking with snow-laced gloves, presents in hand, the excitement of Christmas wrapped around and between them like the cold. Surely they knocked several times. How long did they stand there before they finally turned away and decided to go home?

I shook my head, clearing the picture as Sally and I got out of the car. She moved up and down the side of the house, scanning the windows. “I think this one will do,” she said choosing the window closest to the back door. She pulled a tool out of the duffel bag and snipped the screen then somehow popped the window open. I had no idea what just happened, but in a matter of minutes I was standing in front of an open window that bid me entrance.

“Since I did the breaking, you should probably do the entering,” she said as she put her tools away. Recognizing some logic in that, I stepped closer to the window.

“Give me a boost,” I said and lifted my foot. She bent over, laced her fingers together, cupped my foot in both hands and hoisted me up. Palms down on the windowsill, I heaved myself forward. I was hanging half in and half out, with my tail sticking up in the air. “This is the last compromising position you will ever put me in!” I swore at James silently and then started laughing hysterically even though my stomach was pressing into the windowsill making it hard to breathe.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sally said. “Get in there before someone sees us and calls the police.” She threw my legs inside.  I tumbled over a chair sitting under the window and onto the floor. “Now go open the door and let me in,” she directed through the window.

I stood up and looked around. The air was as still as–well, as still as death. I opened the back door and Sally came inside. We stood silently together, listening to…dead silence. We walked through the kitchen and into the living room. Presents were lined up on the couch, waiting to be shared and opened. I grabbed the wall, steadied myself and caught my breath. I was glad I was not here alone. And I was glad the kids were not here at all. They did not need to witness this post-death scene. The rumpled bed where his body was laying when they moved it out. The pre-made Christmas spaghetti sauce. The cheese ball platter. The unfinished work left on his desk. The journey through the house was a safari of surprises that jumped out like wild animals that clawed at my startled heart.

“Are you okay?”  Sally asked as she put her hand on my back.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I grumbled. “Let’s get what we need and get out of here.”

We scurried around gathering clothes, eyeglasses, wallet–apparently, the initial needs of a corpse are similar to the needs of those of us who are still breathing. We closed the window, grabbed her breaking-and-entering kit and left the scene. I was fairly certain I did not get whatever it was I needed.

allis2b1 Comment

THANKSGIVING GOODBYES

I develop clarity and focus and set my intent. I act on that which comes to me.

My four-year-old grandson died Thanksgiving Day 2018. On Tuesday morning he went to school with a slight cough and no fever. On Tuesday afternoon the school called his parents saying he wasn’t feeling well and they needed to pick him up. Before they got him home, he quit breathing. They started chest compressions and called 911.  By the time they got him to the hospital, his heart had stopped and started three times. They transported him to a larger hospital. He arrived with a pulse, but was not breathing on his own. They put him on a ventilator and began testing for brain activity and there was none.

Tuesday morning he went to school. Tuesday evening he was brain dead. On Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, he was taken off life support. By 7:30 Thanksgiving morning, he was declared dead. The doctors tell us it was a respiratory virus that seized him fast and furious; three strains of parainfluenza narrowed his airway. He was a healthy 4-year-old…it is a harsh truth for my family and me.

We are in shock. Our numbness is penetrated by waves of grief. We have no profound insights; we simply move from one breath to the next.

His parents decided to donate his organs. On Thanksgiving Day, a number of families on organ waiting lists received the call for which they had been waiting. Who is to say our grief is bigger than their joy, relief and gratitude? Talk about an exchange of energy….Donor Alliance tells us that his heart, liver, and kidneys were successfully transplanted, saving four lives; his pancreas and cartilage went to research.

We are grateful even as we grieve. We are grateful that in the wake of this tragedy, in spite of his short time here on earth, his life has meaning…not only to us but to others as well. We are grateful for the opportunity to know him and to love him. I trust he is on his path and his story is unfolding as it should. His mother tells me that out of the blue last Friday he asked her what happens when you die and then he asked what happens when you stop breathing. She said he wasn’t angry or sad or upset or even particularly serious; he just casually asked these profound questions as he continued playing. She explained that if you stop breathing you die and no one really knows what happens when you die and then she asked why he was asking. He said “Because I think I’m going to quit breathing and die.” In typical Mom fashion she exclaimed,  “Don’t say that!” so he dropped it. And then a few days later, that’s exactly what happened. I choose to think an angel was there with him while he raced his toy cars around the room, talking to him quietly, preparing him with a gentle spoiler alert! It reminds me that the veil between the worlds is thin… the veil is very, very thin.

In the midst of all this sadness, I bless and celebrate both his sweet short life and his passage. I develop clarity and focus and set my intent: I intend to explore a new relationship with him now that he has left this 3D world. I trust an exciting journey awaits us. I choose to act on that which comes to me.

 

allis2b1 Comment