Becoming the Storm
52 Deep Thoughts
I’D BEEN DOING A LOT of thinking since I came back to life. Not all of it was morbid, though I struggled with plenty of that. I’d screamed at Casa del Agua in the middle of a night with Doreen and woke the baby. In a perfectly brilliant solution, Doreen placed Matthew on my chest. He settled down immediately on his Papa and my heart settled down as well. I shared a son with Doreen, Doug, Rhiannon, and Sandy. He had three moms and two dads. And La Madrina. I wasn’t sure how Hannah did it, but if she wasn’t in the studio or in class, she had one or more babies crawling all over her. Eleanor, Matthew, and Leon for now. Soon there would be Theresa’s next, Dani’s, and Doreen’s next. And who knew who else was going to announce an addition in the future.
Our clan was big into ritual. We had our bonfires, our handfastings, our adoptions, naming ceremonies, and even weddings. And now we had our River of Life. But there were lots of other little rituals. I woke up early in the morning and either talked to Hannah or listened to her. I know that stuff about being tickled in her head when I’m talking is a bunch of new age hooey. But sometimes I almost think I hear her responding to me. Of course, if I’m talking out loud in the kitchen, she might respond. I know it’s silly, but I’ve done it since the first time she took over my paper route for me.
And forms. Now that was a ritual many of us participated in. Not everyone. Dani didn’t care to participate, though her two sisters were often in the field with us. That would last another month and we’d have to move indoors. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be able to do forms in the studio any longer. While it still only seated about forty, we’d definitely made the main level of the barn into a working soundstage. With platforms for seating, we didn’t have room for everyone to line up and exercise. But we did have a good big exercise space in the basement of the big house.
And we had the silo.
There were still only half a dozen of us who ever used that space. Whitney, Adam, Judy, Amy, me. Occasionally Hannah. I was reminded of Campbell’s book again as I entered the sacred space and began my private workout. Whitney had done a great job with the design. It was only about sixteen feet across, but that was room enough to spar or to do a strenuous workout alone. For me, it was the place to center myself and let everything else flow around me.
I moved from one form to another as my body continued to regain strength and agility. Sometimes I still had a twinge or two. I’d stretch and my hip would lock or my back muscles would start to spasm. But there was no question that the exercises were doing me good. Master Xi visited once a week to work with Whitney and me. He billed insurance for physical therapy and never had us sparring or doing anything that could be interpreted as training to fight. Still, he talked to us about balance, centering, and the universe.
Had I killed Wayne Enders with fire?
If so, how could I possibly teach that to Whitney like she’d asked? To strike another person with it would kill him. But seven people had said they saw me hit him. They saw me streak across the space and strike him with so much force that we both fell back twenty feet from the impact. Yet the coroner found no sign of contact. I knew I was too far away to reach him, but I struck out anyway. Had I struck out with the fire that fried his brain?
Sacred space. It was the only place I could allow myself to contemplate that day calmly. I still met with my counselor once a week, as well. But if we actually talked about what happened, I’d freeze up. Panic. So we talked about what was happening now. How to help control the nightmares. Tools I could use to overcome survivor’s guilt. How to talk to my partners. Even how to make love again. I wasn’t all there, but I was making progress.
That’s how I decided to follow my bliss. I’d been involved in television since I was sixteen. Was on it the first time when I was fourteen. It’s not like I didn’t love performing and building our studio. I couldn’t even imagine now what had held me back from making this decision. I’d grown away from chemistry, in spite of having done my degree in it. It wasn’t that I liked chemistry less, but that I couldn’t see myself working in any of the places that hire chemists. And I didn’t want to be a hermit, hidden away doing experiments in a research lab. That just wasn’t my style.
Besides, I really liked going on all those television talk shows and blasting the tabloids.
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