You are my witness, you know, and I want to tell you about the Big Sur getaway.
You remember… the rocket scientist from India that I met at Esalen. I know I told you about our meeting. The three hours talking in the hot springs, my fingers pruned beyond description. Soaking in every word he spoke I was entranced in the steam and moonlight. We stayed up all night – watched the sunrise colors in the sky – then parted ways and said goodbye.
Only I made my way back to Big Sur to meet him.
He had picked the sweetest cabin for us next to Castro Canyon creek and it became our haven for three nights and four days. In the mornings we would wake and look out the little window – white framed panes and bevelled glass – right by the bed. The cabin was nestled flush against the hillside beside a cedar tree, huge and lush and towering. The morning sun would sprinkle in through the skylight and illumine the raw wood walls of our tiny room. It was a little chilly but beneath the covers we were warm.
photo by Jessica Dofflemyer
I would venture out of bed and plant my feet on the thick, deep red, oriental rug to start the electric tea kettle. Cue up my favorite iTunes playlist and be DJ for the morning.
“Have you heard of Katie Gray?”
“No, hon, I don’t think I have.”
“Ok, listen to this one…”
We were half-dressed and making coffee, dropping chunks of orange chocolate in our mugs, adding spoonfuls of white spun honey and peeling the tangerines I had brought from my grandfather’s tree. The lavender I cut was sitting by the bedside table and every once in a while that beautiful, prince-like, Indian man with deep dark eyes and full lips would look at me with such adoration and kiss me on my smiling mouth. Read more
I hold a special place for the number 11, so today’s 11-11 date seemed to be ripe with possibilities. Those of the metaphysical ilk claim today’s numerology can open portals. Global meditations are planned.
It’s also Veteran’s Day so I send a prayer of peace to the planet.
And it’s the beginning of a new cycle for the Archives. 11-10-10 marked the completion of my 40 day commitment to posting here once a day. 11-11 begins the cycle anew. We’ll see where this fresh thread will lead.
With all of these occasions converging into one day, I was ready for magic.
Instead the day began with a goat on the loose, charging at me like a bucking bronco. This sweet little goat I’ve spent plenty of time petting, turned sassy and uppity, chasing me back into my house with threatening head butts to the air. Once I was inside, she sauntered over to clatter her hooves up my porch stairs, nibbling my succulents and eyeing me in nanny goat defiance.
Come to find out it’s the mating season. This sweet little goat needs a boyfriend.
Like a damsel in distress I call a man to help me corral her back in. When he comes she follows him like a puppy, making me look ridiculous.
Then no hot water. The hot water heater isn’t getting enough juice. Not igniting fully. Metaphors flow through a cold water tap.
Last night I was grounded in my seat during the African second chakra activation exercise (reference post 11-10-10, as needed). Man! I mean, woman! I mean…I have to call a man to come and figure out how to get the hot water going.
Jeb wrestles in the grass with his buddy and then wanders around sweaty and flustered saying, “I need a shower, I’m so itchy!” rubbing his back on the floor, sticking two weeks of dust bunnies to his skin like a lint roller.
I side step an ant-invested, dead gecko at my front stairs, and reach for a sticky doorknob fresh with papaya hand prints.
The boys are taking full advantage of my distracted mind. Riding barefoot on the motorcycle. Warring with fake swords but making contact. Climbing the papaya tree trunks and then cutting open their harvest without my supervision (butter knife, mind you).
There is no order here. My 11-11 portal is chaos. Nothing is neat and tidy.
At day’s end I get a short reprieve and a quiet house. I may not be in tune with the global meditations but I turn within and feel. What I feel doesn’t seem to fit with goats in heat, faulty hot water heaters and sweaty little boys making mischief. But maybe somehow it’s all connected.
I touch in on the feeling I had in the theatre with Toni Childs last night. In a dark back row with empty seats on either side, I sat dressed in silk and carnelian with Jeb and his skid marked skate shoes asleep in my lap. Toni’s voice was strong, the band played low, and she sang a call to let go of the pain.
Being a mother and wife can be like a knife, it’s time to be free now.
I didn’t know exactly why tears were rolling down my face. I was feeling something. Something she understood, could name. Through music she made it beautiful, honored it for a moment and then asked that it be set free.
As I reflect on the memory and the feeling, a text message from Jeb’s father, Rex, shimmers through my iPhone. He’s in a cabin in New Mexico growing out his beard. He says it’s snowing in the mountains. “Tell Jeb I love him and I’ll be home soon.”
Our son is a breathing, biological manifestation of a love Rex and I once lived. This love from the past threads the present, still alive but in new form. There is forgiveness. Letting go.
There’s the acceptance of drool on my silk shirt. That sometimes a nanny goat’s gotta buck. There are times when the tap runs cold and dead creatures find their way to your doorstep.
For now, I say OK. I didn’t exactly levitate, but maybe that’s my 11-11 portal.
“Dear Mom
that time
I told you
that Catherine
would get
me a dog
that will be
soon.”
– Jeb, 6.5 years old
This is the dog harbinger. A reference to an agreement made with Auntie Catherine that she would get Jeb a dog when he was 10, if it was OK with me. This foretelling was folded neatly inside a special box, which was conspicuously placed in the middle of the kitchen floor – no one in sight.
Is it an indication that they’ve revised their agreement? Or perhaps he misunderstands…
I can’t help but think that a greater force is at work with this cryptic message. Like it’s some way to remind me that he’ll be 10 so soon.
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