Category: Shades

PREFACE:
I found I had to go back to go forward.  And writing in the first person was a decision.  One I’m finding strikingly difficult to do.  It makes me feel very vulnerable and exposed.  But…the decision’s made.

No going back now.

The following occurred in the winter of 2010, but right now it seems decades ago.

This story I’ve called Mr and Mrs Smite had to begin here, where I felt the worst part of my life ended.
An event I felt had opened the window to a second chance. To begin anew, that quest we are all on.
In one form or another.
Not to say we are each searching for the same thing.
Sometimes we don’t even know what it is we are searching for.
In fact, I don’t think I knew what I was searching for then. But whatever it was, I had managed to make it ridiculously complicated.
But from that day, it was simple.
At least in my mind.
S I M P L E
I just wanted to be happy.
A happy woman.
A happy wife.
A happy mother.
A happy human being.

Now…I just wrote, “…it was simple. But from that day, it was simple”
Right?
Well, from that day until now, four years in, it’s been anything but – Simple.

And that’s why I’m here trying, writing, searching, needing, working, deciding…

And there it is…
DECIDE
DECIDING
DECISION

This next direction, this next step on this journey, is a decision, not an accident.
A decision.
Something I have not been doing for a very long time…if ever.

So…if you are not sorry that you stuck around, not disappointed that the Prologue made it seem that a short leap over the road would lead directly where I was going…stick around.
I’ll get where I am going, eventually.
I just need to do it my way.

♥ R

Chapter One – Best Laid Plans

I’m awake.

Today’s the day.
I’m leaving.
Last night’s drinks spilled not wine, but words, onto pages of useless I’m sorrys and hollow I love yous to those I am leaving behind.
I spent hours erasing the written evidence of my journey and the tracks of my tears to this place and this time; wanting to spare them the pain of walking down that dark, unforgiving, one-way, memory lane.

Outside.
I listen.
But for the wind singing its winter song through the scrub pine and giant oaks, it’s silent.

I sit.
A perfect illusion of peaceful reflection.
Yet, I’m nothing more than a frozen portrait of a woman on the edge.

Alone but for the unbidden and unwanted ghosts of my past for company, a head full of painful thoughts of my present, and nothing but darkness in my future…in silence, I wait.

Hidden only by the casual chaos of all things brown and green that grow this close to the ocean; the wild, climbing vines threaten to claim me in my stillness, as they have claimed every inch of the beach house behind me. On the ocean-facing patio; dry-eyed and numb to the biting cold belying the radiance of the February sun; I close my eyes, lay back my head, and wait.

For the tide.

The sun is bright, but not warm.
The wind is biting; heard but not felt.
The echoes of ice breaking on the shoreline grow louder as the tide slowly comes in.
That’s the sound I am waiting for.
It’s almost time.

The sounds carry with them, the images.
In my mind’s eye, I see myself walking down the stone steps; my walk of shame.
Slowly, towards the sounds of the ice cracking and the water lapping against the boat house.
I’m terrified of the impending first steps into the freezing waters but strangely, not the eternal cold that will follow.
I say a small, last prayer, for strength, to the God whom, much like myself, I thought of as a Ghost.
There, but not. Real, but not. All knowing, but not. All loving, but not. Forgotten.

I open my eyes and stare straight into the sun.
Wishing for a bit of warmth to take with me, but finding none, I look towards to blue-black water and…
See.
Something.
I think I know what it is, but I don’t trust it’s really there so much as an image burned into my brain from having stared into the sun a moment before.

But it is real. It is there.
Gliding over the water.
Wings spread, talons down, focused on a floating island of ice.
As balletic in its approach and landing as it is elegant in flight.

An Eagle.
Magnificent, Regal, Stunning, Majestic, Eagle.
I’ve never seen anything like it.

I stand there.
Transfixed, silent, unmoving, as the tide finally comes.

Liquid, flowing freely, running…but not to shore.

Down my cheeks, sneaking in between my lips via the channels created by the smile I didn’t even know I was smiling.
I feel them, taste them; the warm saltwater of tears and not the freezing cold saltwater of the ocean.

And, just as I’m smiling a smile I didn’t realize I was smiling…I’m hearing a voice in my head and feeling a warmth in my heart that I do…realize is not mine.

So I feel, and I listen.
And this is what I hear…

“You are not alone. You have never been alone. I am here with you now as I have always been. You are not lost. I never stopped believing in you. I am your Father. I am your Mother. I am You. You are Me.”

I am stunned.

I turn away from the majesty on the water and walk up the steps and into the house.
It’s automatic. I reach for, and grab, my camera. I turn back to the glass door expecting to see…nothing. It won’t be there anymore. But it is. Camera in hand, I open the door and go back outside.
Before I put the camera to face, I can’t help but look again. And while I’m staring at what I can’t believe is there, I let go…with a heartfelt apology, to myself and to God, I bring the camera up and snap what was to date, the most significant photo…
Of my Eagle.
Of my God.
Of my Life.

The Eagle has landed.
Of all the bodies of water.
In all the small, coastal, New England towns.
He chose that one.
On that day.
At that moment in time.