ATTENDANT WANTED

 [Continuing]

Whatever we gratefully savor is ours forever.

~from the Spiral Notebook

After realizing how much the prednisone had been affecting him, his demeanor and enthusiasm, and also having seen how the recent encounter had gone off without any unnecessary embarrassments, he was reticent to dive back into lots of conversation. He thought to look for his shoes and get things headed outside like they had talked about the night before.

But you don't really want to hear about that now, my goodness you were up all night practically, how's your friend? How's his mom?

She shook her head and they both sat eating for a few moments. The birds outside were in full voice and he was particularly fond of the raspberry jam she had. He poured oversized spoonfuls of it onto his bagel not realizing he was starting to eat like a wild hyena. 

She finished a bite of toast.  Please no, not now.

She swallowed heavily and took a sip of her coffee.

It's not that it's heavy or difficult, it's just that I'm so, so ready for a change. The time I would spend telling you about it would feel wasted to me. And hey… when you started in about the dream, the vision last night, whatever you are calling it… I'll tell you again.  I was quite captivated.

She got up waving over to her left and plopped down in the living room, placing her cup on the end table and getting comfy in the corner of the couch as though getting ready for an easy morning of conversation as opposed to the early hike he was planning on. Thanks a lot.

He said, You don't really want to hear about that, it's just goofy, I mean really. It was a lovely gift, you were more than generous to send to me, he gestured to himself.  Actually, I'd love to hear more about your connection to this beautiful piece of work, I mean really. 

There I sat last night like some kind of idiot, talking about some leftover musings from my journal, who cares. It's boring. The more I think about it… It was probably food poisoning or something like that.

Ha ha! No way… It sounded like an adventure or some kind of epic tale or something. And I'll tell you I am much more interested and energized by that than trying to muster up the energy to figure out how to support someone I'm on the brink of cooling off with. 

He sat with a face that was straight. I have a straight face. I'm not smiling, I have no expression whatsoever, he said to himself.

She went on, It's just I haven't been able to tell him and it's like the worst timing.

His mother is going to be fine. She has these terrible attacks from time to time and I just wanted to be supportive.

And forgive me for sounding arrogant but some people still do need some help. Right? We can say that right? He's definitely one of these people who lives in his head mainly and so this has been the problem for me. He has not yet discovered the difference between his own thinking and the reality beyond his own head. 

Sorry your mother is sick man… But you're still coming off as a know it all – and a spiritual one at that!  

There is nothing beyond his own thinking. Like a lot of people, he has never looked at his own perspectives or perceptions as separate from what he would tell you is some universal absolute truth or real life or something.

He sat stoically. Just listening and trying not to oversell himself as a free therapist. Of course, he did know the type and resonated.

Well maybe you know some of these folks… Isn't it interesting after a while how all of those absolute truths that they are so sure of end up pairing nicely with the very life they're already quite comfortably living… And you'd better believe they'll be making sure you're going to live there with them too… Of course, as God intends.

It's just been a lot. She took another sip of coffee as though to bring the diatribe to a close.

At any rate, I'm begging you… Please, tell me more… Where's that notebook? Your spiral?

Really? He sat down on the other end of the couch and played with the strap at the back of his hat which he kept putting off and on as they discussed.

Really.

Over the next few minutes and after agreeing to go sit outside beside the water at the back of the property, he got out his notebook and the two of them sat talking in the sun on a checkered blanket.

So let me back up and give some context again. I sat on the floor. I opened the package and just started gazing at that beautiful poppy. I traced those perfect orbs of dewdrop on the verge of spilling from the tender petals edges. That's when I started to feel it.

The perfect scarlet blossom started working on me like some kind of magnet, like LSD or something.

It was as though I fell completely into my body… Like I was being drawn into the circular red petal more and more at its center… The further into the petal, the more embodied I felt. It was a sense of warming as though I were becoming one with the red which was swallowing me up into itself…

As he spoke he could not help but notice the stillness of her face, her lips.

Okay, so then… Tell me, do you remember going to your first carwash and staying in the vehicle? And all of the feathery strips of cloth spun around you on those ominous mechanical wheels… Like the car was being swallowed up by several of them on all sides… It was exactly like that but the touch of the spinning was softer than the fur of an animal… I was embraced and held securely but softly inside of its silken embrace… I was swimming in it… I was one with it and in it and it was around me and going through me like some kind of euphoric current… I felt giggly and ticklish… And more completely satisfied than I've ever felt in my life.

The better I felt, the more attention I paid to all that was happening. I tried to record it somehow – remember this, remember this – I kept saying to myself, but the spirit of it would be something like that of a kid discovering it was the first day of summer school. I wanted to savor everything. I wanted every last bit of the juice of its life. I found myself whispering – go with the flow, pay attention and flow…

And then like when you're flying and suddenly the airplane bursts out clear and open from a cloud bank and then suddenly the sparkling blue opens and you are above clouds and below other clouds… In that skyscape the sun shone brightly and took me by surprise as though searching me out till I could be found and held in its light…

Just then whatever I was flying gave a twist downward and banked me toward the right until I saw an island nearly of pure green and I was headed straight toward it.

At first it was only a spec of green among the great blue waters which were brimming and ruffled and whitecapped from my perspective. But the green then grew larger and more massive as I came into closer proximity.

Intuitively I knew it was the first place, the beginning.