How odd to see this question today! I have been in the same apartment for 16 years -- the longest I lived anywhere, including the house I grew up in. Just yesterday we looked at a new apartment, closer to my husband's work. There are lots of pros and cons to the whole thing, but I think I could feel at home in this new place, and rekindle some of that feeling of belonging that, just recently, is sadly missing from where we are now.

 

The Whispering Wind, Part 2

 

 

 

            Marie woke with sunlight on her face. Her eyes sprang open and she sprang from the bed. Finally! She thought. The storm was open. Marie threw open the window and let in her friend Breezelle. The yard below was covered with dew that sparkled like diamonds in the morning sun. Marie could see the gables of the house across the street. Despite the early hour, there was a hubbub of commotion in the driveway.

            The day before the big moving van had come and unloaded quickly during a break in the rain. Marie's father had been there to unlock the doors. The semi truck had backed right up to the door and the big, burly moving men had rushed big pieces of furniture into the front door under army-green tarps. What kind of family would it be? Marie had no way of telling. Then not one, but three cars pulled, each one stuffed with a jumble of kids and boxes and each one pulling a bright orange U-haul. People piled out, along with two dogs and dashed into the house just as the rain started to fall again. Marie barely got a glimpse of a little girl with black ponytails running inside behind her mother.

            Now Marie saw the same lady directing several big boys in the unloading of the U-hauls. They would disappear into the house at regular intervals, so Marie was unable to even tell how many there were. Marie dressed quickly and raced down the hall.

            "Where are you going, young lady?" Marie's mother called from the kitchen.

            "The new family is outside .." She began.

            "Get in here and have some breakfast," Mother ordered. "Don't you think they would like some time to get settled?"

            Marie sighed and she heard Breezelle echo her sigh. "I only wanted to help," she began.

            "They have five big boys to help. You would only get in the way. After breakfast we'll make some cookies and take them over this afternoon. How would that be?" Marie's mother had that tone in her voice that Marie knew she was not really asking. Making cookies was one of her favorite things to do, but of course the baby had to be feed first and other chores had to be done. Then there was lunch while the cookies cooled. It seemed to take forever.

            But as she walked across the street with her mother and the baby, carefully holding the plate of cookies, Marie suddenly felt shy. The big house across the street was different in every way from their own home. Their house was a new, low slung ranch house made of gold bricks that blended in with the ripening grain in the fields all around. The house they were approaching was the old farmhouse, three stories tall, with a jumble of additions and porches on every side. It was painted a bright blue with white trim that stood out from the apple trees that surrounded it. And, as they were invited in, Marie could see that this family was as much of a jumble as their big house.

            "Excuse the mess! Hi! I'm Ellen!" boomed the lady Marie had seen earlier. "Glad to meet you!  Thanks for the Cookies! Come on, boys show yourselves to your new neighbors!"

            The new family gathered around the kitchen table where Marie had set the plate of cookies. Ellen continued to boom out, "Here's our basketball team, " she announced, introducing the five big boys. She rattled off their names, and Marie was not sure who was who: " Dustin, Danqual, Shawn, John-Michael, and David. And here," she added, hugging the little girl that stood in her shadow, "Is our little cheerleader, Jenny. Jen, why don't you take Marie up to see your room."

            Marie was glad to escape the noisy kitchen and was surprised to find herself in a room that was in perfect order. The bed was made with pink, ruffly bedspread that matched the curtains. Dolls lined the top of the bookcase and looked down at the two girls solemnly. These were not the kind of dolls you played with. The closet door was shut tightly, but the window was open. Marie was glad to be touched lightly by Breezelle.

"You have a nice room, " Marie said. " I hope we'll be friends." She really meant it, but even as she said it, she wondered if it would be true.

Jenny shrugged and said, "This house is noisy."

"You have lots of brothers!" Marie said, thinking that's what she meant.

Jenny just looked at her blankly. "No, she said. The room is noisy."

Over the next few days, Marie took Jenny to see her house and the garden. They walked through the apple orchard with Jenny's dog, Barkly. Marie tried to tell Jenny about Breezelle, but the new girl just looked at her with wide, fearful eyes.

"Breezelle? Who's that?" Jenny asked timidly.

Marie was disgusted. It was as bad as talking to her parents about Breezelle. Would no one ever understand? It made her just a little bit mad at her parents, too. Why did grown-ups think that just because someone was your own age you'd automatically be friends?

That night as her mother was tucking her in, Marie asked, "Do you think you are going to be friends with Jenny's mom?"

"Well I certainly hope so!" Mother laughed. "After all we are neighbors!"

"But she's nothing like Aunt Mary!" Aunt Mary was a close friend of the family for ages. Marie was named after her.

"Well, no, but that doesn't mean we won't be friends. And it doesn't mean I'll stop being friends with Mary, either. Let me tell you something Marie, in this world we need all the friends we can get."

" But, Mom, " Marie began, looking for the words to tell her about Jenny.

"Shh, now listen, Marie. I want you to think for just a minute. I know you have been lonely out here at our new house and you have been looking forward to the new family moving in. You can't order your friends out of a catalogue to fit just so. You have to learn to be friends. Now, don't you think that little girl across the street needs a friend just as much as you do? Believe me, Marie, people all over the world have much more in common than they do differences.

Fine, thought Marie, I'll be a friend with people all over the world before I ever become a friend with that little sissy Jenny.

But the next morning Breezelle seemed to be urging her out of bed and across the street for more try. It was an especially beautiful day. Once she was allowed to go out, Marie headed across the street. Shawn and John-Michael were playing 1-on-1 in the driveway. Shawn said, "I wouldn't go in there if I was you. Jenny had a bad night."

"Shut up, Shawn," John-Michael said. "Maybe what she needs right now is a friend."

Marie felt pangs of guilt about her mean thoughts earlier.

But Jenny was sitting at her kitchen table meekly cutting out paper dolls with the same dumb expression she always wore.

Paper dolls, thought Marie, how lame! But what she said was, "Can I play, too?"

The two girls sat quietly cutting carefully around the frilly clothes of the Victorian figures. Breezelle came in playfully blew one of the frilliest of dresses around the room.    

            Marie laughed, "I agree! who would where such a goofy outfit!"

            Jenny gasped, "Who are you talking too? A ghost?"

            "A ghost! No, it's just Breezelle, the whispering wind."

            "You talk to the wind?" Jenny's voice had a little tremble in it.

            "Not just any wind," Marie tried desperately to explain. "It's the little whispering wind."

            Jenny looked like she was going to cry. "You made that up," she said angrily.

            "Well," Marie admitted, "Maybe I did. But there's no need to get mad. Sometimes Breezelle is the only friend I have."

            Jenny lowered her voice to a whisper; "There's a ghost in my closet. Danqual just laughed at me, and David said he would get rid of it. But Dustin said it was all in my imagination. And he ought to know. He's in College."

            "Oh," said Marie. At first she didn't know what to say. That explained a lot! Finally she took Jenny's had and said, "You know not everything you make up is bad. Maybe it's friendly ghost."

            "Maybe," Jenny whispered a tremble still in her voice.

            But Marie was on a roll, "Look, you like all these old fashioned dolls and clothes. Maybe it's an old fashioned girl who wants out of the closet to be by your old fashioned dolls. If it's your imagination, why can't it be what you want it to be? Why don't you try sleeping with your closet door open?"

            The next day Jenny was the one knocking on Marie's door. "It worked," She told Marie. "I slept all night and didn't hear a thing. Thank you."

            "Great answered, Marie, "And guess what! We're going into town today. Want to come? I can't wait to introduce you to some real girls our own age."

           

Strangers are an open book for my imagination. We have no past, only the present condition that brings us together.

There was a young man outside the library pretty engrossed in his laptop, and I did not want to intrude. Along comes a gal on her bike. Well, there is two people not speaking, so she doesn't either. Soon, though, a lady walks by walking two jack russell terriors. The walker does not acknowledge us, either, but deftly surrenders one leash to the other hand and sends a big wave to a passing car. The terriers, however, let it be known that this is their sidewalk with a duet of growls. The gal and I bust out laughing, and start an inpromtu discussion about little dogs and dogs we have known. By this time, other library users start to pile onto the porch. No body really knowns one another, but we all rcognize each other a little. The usuall chit chat, the somber church bells over the tree tops, and here is the librarian with a cheery hello. The young man is still engrossed in his lap top.

Wow! Usually by time I get the reflection of the day at least a dozen other people have said something similar to what I would have said. but today only onereply? what is this/?The positive thoughts of the morning drown out the fears of the night and everyone is just stumped. Hmmm...what was i thinking about last night, anyway? I am reading a Jules Verne novel, and I was thinking it's just a little too wordy and i wish he would move on with the plot a little quicker. I was thinking "What a mess the kitchen is from canning yesterday." (almost 3 gallons of salsa and two BIG jars of refrigerator pickles.) But, then I decided, well, that will be my project for tomorrow...And i was thinking about my friend that i saw yesterday and I had not seen him in awhile. He is having some medical problems, and i pray things get better for him. And i was wondering how many windows i should close up, as the nights are getting pretty cool, but I decided to leave them open and just grab another blanket if needed. and, oh, yeah, i was wondering if my cat will every get the message that she is not welcome sleeping on my pillow. She can have a pillow of her own, or 10 pillows for all i care, but leave me just one! Boy, It's a wonder that I get any sleep at all.......

Pray. I like to meditate alone, but there is nothing like communal worship. Weddinds and, yes, even funerals I enjoy because they bring a unique set of people - friends of the beloved ones - together to ask for God's blessing on the occassion.

 

            Thank you everybody who has commented so kindly on my self-portrait. I painted it in 1977 and I recently came across it when I was look for the pencil drawing of Lady Hollyr I had made at the same time. Now here's the real deal: I just don't know how to paint faces! It's really not mysterious or spiritual; it's just a few bold brush strokes. But, as a tiny icon on the computer screen, it translates to a few bright colors of a woman reaching for the light. I have been having a lot of fun with my new scanner. It makes a better picture than the original!

When I joined Gaia and was asked for a nickname, I had to think a minute. I was trying to lose my childhood diminutive of my name, so I certainly didn't want to encourage that. But I have been working on Hollyr's book, and she has been on my mind quite a bit, and she is a titled Lady, so that also took care of that. The first manuscript was written in the seventies, and that is what I am working with now to get it into printable shape for submission. I had a real burst of creativity at that time that I am still tapping into. I was in college and there was a lovely woods with trails down to the river. I wrote a poem that was published in the college student journal. I submitted two poems, and I believe that the one they didn't choose was really the better of the two.

There

Were you near the maple trees,

Flowing northward in the winter's breeze

Along the river's frozen edge

With children everywhere;

And like the stars across the sky

Danced there in the summertime

Deep within the tiny seed

Held in sleeping, timeless wastes

Of love, and soft embraces.

Yes, I was there, I was there with you.

Did you see there ragged men

Taking money for their cares

Like bums or golden demigods

Walking where the brave men say

Only they can go;

While peasant women laughing there

Of their life's bending sorrows show

That in the flickering candlelight

Is all we have tonight.

Yes, I saw it there with you.

And did you feel the passing cloud

Along a moving rainbow bowed

To touch the earth curved back in blue

Like a dying dancer lying there,

A clown to fit for life to care

If death comes into view;

But takes it all in loving arms

And gives it gently back to you

To hold within your heart.

Yes, I felt it all in you.

Faerie Music

Down in a clearing in the woods,

A magic place of old,

A Faerie Lady's dancing there

Beneath the boughs of gold.

She's dancing to a faerie song

That only she can hear.

The whole woods stops to stain to catch

The music floating near.

She wears no jewels or costly gems;

She sparkles more than these.

She needs no perfumes from the East;

Her hair smells like the breeze.

The leaves that cling to branches high

Are waiting for the chance

To grab the nearest passing wind

So they can join the dance.

The sun is shining down on her

Just like a warm embrace.

The sunbeams tumble from the sky

To touch her smiling face.

The gentle river sighs at her

While lapping at her feet.

The fishes swarm around

To hear the magic beat.

She's throwing kisses to the squirrels

Who chatter from the trees.

She's calling to her rabbit friends

Who scurry through the leaves.

So if you come upon that glen

Of songs you cannot hear,

Take care you do not startle her,

Or she will disappear.

But rather watch her from afar

And maybe you will learn

The faerie songs inside her head

That makes her sway and turn.

If you enlarge and look closely at the painting you can just make out the legend Faerie Lady. JLD. 10-26-77.

So, every time some one writes me about the painting I have to laugh, because it's really not very good, it just ended up being really good 30 years later for a completely different purpose! Several people have asked me to join groups on the strength of that image and my short replies of my profile. (Some of the groups I joined because I was interested in the topic, it turned out they were not very active anymore.) Sometimes these little pictures are called icons. Here is a lovely prayer I have posted by my computer wok area along with some favorite photos:

God's Window

God of my childhood

And my call,

Make me a window,

Not a wall.

So like an icon,

May I be

A sign of love's transparency,

And through the love

That lives in me,

Proclaim Your lasting

Love for all.

That's by Miriam Therese Winter from her book The Singer and the Song. It pretty much sums up what I would like to be here at Gaia. I know my life falls way short of that ideal, but here is place, like that woodland walk to the river, that I can be free to be me.

If the overwhelming culure of the people or the place is relentlessly negative, I absent myself from it. Some organizations and causes thrive on the negative, either by rewarding it, or even exploiting a bad situation. There's got to be more to life than that!

Family, friends, strangers, cats, dogs, plants, birds. No rabbits lately, and that is kinda sad.

A few months ago I fond a book in the teen section about tapping into your psychic abilities. It had a section about the I Ching. Ahh! Hadn't consulted the I Ching since college. I made pattern sticks based on a game I used to teach about mathematical probability. That is what i like about the I Ching. It makes patterns out of randomness. It is not to answer questions, but to add new images, like dreams, to an existing situation, enabling the seeker to see things in a new light.