Switched At Birth

Heavenly Days Spa

Still groggy from my dream of the Heavenly Days Spa. Everyone there wore petal pink choir robes, even the wise-eyed, wrinkled-face proprietress, who spoke to me in a voice that suggested some previous life full of cigarettes and whiskey. That voice sounded like driftwood, aged and impossibly smooth.

I listened as she looked at and through me and agreed that a full day at the Spa sounded like just the medicine for the rejuvenation of this soul.

Suddenly, I remembered I was supposed to be at home to go with Buck to a physical therapy appointment this morning for a partially torn supraspinatus muscle in his right rotator cuff. I checked my phone. Sure enough. He had left a message for me. I pushed the speed dial for home, and woke up.

Good thing, too. He really does have that physical therapy appointment this morning, and it's almost time to hit the shower.

Westmark's Cat House

I have this recurring dream where I forget to feed my cat. She is very thin -- who wouldn't be with no food -- is barely creeping around, and I dream think, "Oh, no! Poor Genie! How could I have forgotten to feed her? And where is her litter box?"

Well, Genie Bird, my sweet little torti-point siamese, died at sixteen, well fed, while taking a nap in her favorite sunshiny spot, about eight years ago.

Genie came into my life as the prototypical adorable ball of fluff, lavender-eyed and ready for fun. She was barely more than a kitten when Buck and I were married. We lived on Pensacola Beach then. Our first Christmas together brought another adorable ball of fluff, this one a black labrador retriever with a big red velvet ribbon around her neck. We bought her from a nice family over in Montrose, Alabama, a short drive from Pensacola. We named her Amanda Blackvelvet, and  the drive home with that warm puppy in my lap, her wet nose snuggled into the curve of my arm, is one of those experiences kept in my Museum of Life's Perfect Moments.

In inimitable cat fashion, Genie let the gangly pup know who was boss of the house. Later, when their weight ratio was more than seven to one, and Amanda had a mouthful of sharp teeth with a slightly more aggressive personality than many labs, she remembered the puppy lessons, and Genie ruled the roost.

Some time after we had built a home in the country, on the Williams Ditch Road in Cottage Hill, just northeast of Cantonment, Buck and I were sitting on a sofa in the living room one evening. Genie was in possession of my lap, Amanda at Buck's feet. Amanda came over to start a game with Genie: stare, wag tail, lean forward for a sniff, step back, repeat steps. . .  I could have told her that when Genie's eyes start to glow purple, it's a good time to back off. All of a sudden Genie sprang forward, biting Amanda's large nose in a series of quick motions up and down like it was an ear of corn. Amanda was stunned. She didn't know how to respond, and so just sat there making gurgly half-snarl sounds, curling her lips and showing the fierce canines. But her eyes were on Buck. "Can I bite her? Can I bite her?"

Having made her point, Genie let go of Amanda's nose, and in a great show, turned her back on the big dog and curled up once again in my lap. Amanda wasn't physically hurt from the pin pricks of Genie's little teeth tap dancing their way up and down her snout, but she sure was humiliated. She moved over near the fireplace, dropping down to a position with her face between her outstretched paws, blowing air through the sides of her mouth in disgust. "Good grief."

When Genie got old, she developed some gastrointestinal problems. I hate to be indelicate, but the fact is she threw up frequently. Buck thought up the idea of the Cat House, and set about to make Genie's retirement home a reality. It was a small aluminum building with two windows and a door. Buck built a wide shelf just under the window where Genie could enjoy birdwatching and the morning sun, lying in her furry cat bed.  She still came and went basically as she pleased, but her food and litter box were in the little building and she spent increasing amounts of time there.

The little building was wired for electricity and had a light in it and a plug, so when the weather  began to turn cool, I put in a barn warmer kind of infrared light that moved around like a fan, gently warming the small space. She loved it.

One evening we set the alarm and went out for dinner, dogs in the garage, Genie in her house. It was cool, so I turned on the warmer light before leaving.

We came home to find a series of odd messages on the answering machine. Something about the alarm, the police, old man Doty, a hand gun, hiding in the bushes. What? We called Neighbor Bob, our friend and electrician, who lived across the way and was on the list as a contact person if our alarm went off and the security company couldn't reach us. Old Man Doty was a neighbor too, an excitable elderly fellow who lived nearby and kept watch on our place from across the pond.

I don't know what tripped the alarm, but apparently Doty saw this eerie red glow in the darkness coming from Genie's cat house, while about the same time the alarm company didn't reach Neighbor Bob quickly enough to suit them and so called the local gendarmes -- a/k/a Escambia County sheriff's deputies. When Neighbor Bob arrived, he found Doty trying to explain to the officers why he was hiding in the bushes with a gun. While this was going on, they were all were peering into one of Genie cat's windows, the small building glowing red from the barn heater. I can only imagine Genie staring back, looking for all the world like a character straight out of Dr. Seuss central casting.

That's how Westmark's Cat House became a neighborhood landmark. I miss Genie Bird sitting on my books and papers, or thrusting her head under my book to get my attention when she would lay on my rib cage as I read in bed.

But why I continue to wake up in a start from this recurring dream that I haven't fed my friend is a mystery to me. Sounds like a guilty conscience, but over what? Ah, well, usually I blame it on what I ate for dinner. . . but chicken soup?

06:57 AM in Day Book | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Punching Holes In The Darkness

At four this morning, I awoke with the phrase "punch holes in the darkness" playing like a song on an endless loop. It was familiar, but I couldn't connect it with anything.

Drifting in and out of sleep, blocking the annoying replay out partially by sticking an ear phone in my ear to listen to NPR's Morning Edition. An interesting shift in dialogue seems to be occurring between the leaders of India and Pakistan. Maybe they will begin to punch holes in the darkness. Arggh! There it is again. Okay, time to get up.

The phrase sounded a little familiar. I was sure I had heard it before. But where? What does it mean?

So I googled it up. Most of the references were embedded in various advent sermons. They all include some variation of a story about Robert Louis Stevenson who, during his boyhood in Scotland, reportedly lived on a hillside outside a small town. The stories vary as to whether he was sitting in his family's kitchen or standing at a bedroom window, but the essence is that, while watching a lamplighter ignite the town's street lamps, Stevenson said, "Look, mother, there is a man down there punching holes in the darkness."

I guess I heard it in church sometime, somewhere.

Anyway, I for sure heard it in my head this morning. Not a booming, deep James Earl Jones voice. No burning bushes. But there, nonetheless.

I said earlier that this new year strikes me as a time to concentrate on being "awake" in my life. Awake to the open windows of possibility.

Going back to the Book of Common Prayer, the prayer for the first Sunday of Advent (gone now, this past Sunday was The Epiphany), I found the first prayer begins, "Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light. . . ."

Hmmmn. Well, I'm going to pour a mug of coffee, walk down the gravel road to the gate for the morning paper, and think about it.

07:31 AM in Spiritual Journey | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Bridge Of Light

Daylight is came on a cloudy morning this past winter. I sat at my desk by the fireplace with a headset on, listening to Keith Jarrett's Bridge of Light for Viola and Orchestra, and remembered why it was such a lifesaver to me several years ago.

During a minor illness, I was prescribed a medication for which my body developed an instantaneous dislike. The result wasn't the usual allergic response which I have to penicillin or sulfa drugs, that is, a comically swollen face, lips that look like a collagen injection run amok, red dots on the upper palate, and a feeling that some invisible hand is choking me for past misdeeds.

No, this reaction was different, but in its own way more terrifying, since Benedryl or epinephrine was no help. I took this medication at bedtime. It worsened the headache it was prescribed to help. That night, my dreams, twilight images and wakeful states became a nightmare ride, and for the first and only time in my life, I felt an actual sense of doom, and feared I would not live through the night.

Strangely, I never got out of bed. Who knows? Maybe milk and cookies would have helped. I was too much a prisoner of my own head at that moment to do something so sensible.

Ever since September 11, I have kept a tiny radio tuned to NPR on my bedside table. For months, I would listen to it several times during the night to check on the state of the world. Now that music has returned to the middle of the night on NPR, I still listen sometimes when sleep is stubbornly elusive.

That awful night, I reached for the ear buds in hopes that music would bring comfort.

And I was, literally, handed a bridge back to light. I am listening as I type, with grateful tears of remembrance. The first bars, the theme, changed a channel in my brain. The message was: "You are fine. You have many years. Work to do. Love. Especially love." The headache became inconsequential, faded, my blood pressure went back to normal, that awful feeling of doom was gone. At the end of the piece, when the well-modulated low voice told me the name of the composition, I smiled, "Of course it is. It sure is for me. Thank you, Keith Jarrett. Thank you NPR for playing this just in my moment of need."

I was unfamiliar with Keith Jarrett's work. Still am, honestly, except for this one composition. Track 8, about 17 minutes long, is the one that was played that night. The next morning, I located a CD and ordered it. Listen to it sometime if you can.

The composer's own words about his composition were a message to me as well.

". . . these pieces were born of a desire to praise and contemplate rather than a desire to 'make' or 'show' or 'demonstrate' something unique. They are, in a certain way, prayers that beauty may remain perceptible despite fashions, intellect, analysis, progress, technology, distractions, 'burning issues' of the day, the un-hipness of belief or faith, concert programming, and the unnatural 'scene' of 'art', the market, lifestyles, etc. etc., etc. I am not attempting to be 'clever' in these pieces (or in these notes). I am not attempting to be a composer. I am trying to reveal a state I think is missing in today's world (except, perhaps, in private): a certain state of surrender: surrender to an ongoing harmony in the universe that exists with or without us. Let us let it in."