Once upon a time, there was a birth, then another, then another, then a death. Then there were closets and boxes and tables overflowing with ideas and pictures never taken and futures not fitting. There was chaos and sadness and an emptiness that was strangely filled with invisible, un-attainable things that were supposed to happen. Anniversaries and autumns and re-runs, aging with dignity, treasures, love that knew no limits, and photographs, pictures, snapshots - words.
Like misfires in an engine, there were sparks of light that appeared, sometimes only once in 3 months, and new hope and concepts and truths were lit for milliseconds, or sometimes even entire hours, days, until something physical manifested from the blinks of light - a Bus. Working with vigor, with solitude, with tears, with humans who loved the idea, or sometimes just loved me, this object we can touch was transformed into something not unlike a dwelling suitable for three small humans and one small adult human. Not unlike in that it still lacked some integral components.
Then the small larger human took too many steps forward without looking and fell down a dark, mossy, steep flight of steps into an empty cellar, breaking some steps on the way down down down. The smaller humans, having their proverbial trunks around each other's tails as the pachyderms do, tumbled down down down also. Though it was a cellar, which is built to be a constant, it was sometimes very cold, sometimes too bright, sometimes - mostly - too dark to see a way to fix those steps and climb back to that Bus, sitting in an empty parking lot, was waiting to be a freebird.
All four of those humans with big hearts and bright eyes sat in that cellar and through much sorrow and discontent, worked diligently to repair the steps, with stones dug up with tiny bare hands in the very ground that held them up and cradled them as they rested. A stone step cannot be broken. These are the lessons and blessings we all have to share and to be thankful for.
Those steps led out to somewhere unexpected, not an empty lot or a new house or a heaven or a hell. They led out to another room, empty, and filled with possibility. Like a video game where you have to escape, or a demanding nightmare, but only in a certain perception. There is no 'getting out' - there is adaptation and acceptance and seeing blessings just like some see auras and angels. There are steps, but these are also perceptions that cannot be legitimized or proven. There are windows and doors and there are also roofs above us to be thanked and floors beneath us - be it the dirt in the woods, the sand on the beach, the waters of the oceans. But there is also the space beside us, between us, and the space that needs to be taken away and the important things seen.
Because of this story I tell you, I have begun my quest and inquiry and demand of community, but in a much different way - heck, nothing I had planned - it was a run and jump down into a cellar with mice and roaches (literally), yet, I have been gaining vision of all that is beautiful and doable and real. Having love beats all. Having love hurts, as I wonder what I'm doing each night once the children are slumbering in their perfect ways, with their perfect faces releasing all their perfect beauty with light that deems it unnecessary to use a night light. What the hell am I doing? On the quest for the Great White Owl (see Hank the Cowdog) of ideals and the love and wisdom I see in my kids? On the quest for the Unbearable Lightness of Being? No no no - that was college. . . now that I'm a parent, single, poor, well - I should know something better. . .Educated, talented, tiredless - why the conflict?
Why should parents be left to struggle? Don't we as a community assist many others? Maybe that answer is no, too. Maybe I'm just not a shut-in, or disabled, or a vet, or an orphan, or a minority, or a drug addict, or a senior widow. Maybe it's just my plight, my decisions, my life that I see slipping in the cracks you walk over. Maybe it's everybody? Yes - the latter - we ALL need each other in more ways then we chose to recognize except on new year's tipsy celebrations or at weddings or funerals. Hey - let's look out for one another - not judge, not feel sorry for, not shed mercy on - but really, let's see ourselves in each other.
We're on our way to our first original destination in 11 days - Philadelphia and the Simple Way. I have decided to forfeit our time at the farm in lieu of 3 and a half months living with another dear single mother friend up north. This gives me the most time at the community I most wanted to visit. We'll see what happens from there. The bus will be residing at a friend's house in NC, just over the border, where she will be warm under the tall locusts and sleep peacefully bordered by an old graveyard - you see, whether we acknowledge or not in our lives here - most of us end up in such a peaceful community. . . (that's not a tasteless joke either, it's a lovely little ironic, thoughtful snicker)
Those stone steps are permanent fixtures now. . .
