Savannah: Chapter One (continued)

We talked for a while as I stood beside the door to his office peering in.

I invited him to a few things in the community; a dance, more environmental meetings, and a book talk.  We had coffee together.

From time to time I would pop into his office to say hello. 

Last year I ended a relationship with a man who taught me a lot about what was acceptable for me in a relationship.  It completed when I was ready to be more emotionally available to myself.

My kids were grown and the three of us lived in different states now. I was living in the south, my son and his family in Washington, D.C. and my daughter and her husband who recently moved to New Hampshire.

A couple of years ago, I was returning home late and driving the long road up the mountain I had a thought that would forever change the way I saw myself. 

“No one will know if I get home safely.

That thought bothered me for a couple of years.”

 In time I can to realize I would know and that is all that really matters. This time I was coming home to myself.  It has been a long road, with unexpected twists and turns. I was not in a relationship. I realized after I ended the unfulfilling relationship last year that I had been disconnected from myself more than I knew. I spent a lifetime taking care of everyone else.  If I didn’t return home when the kids were home someone would notice and do something about it.  It was different now. We had all grown up.

On a recent holiday visit, with my children, their spouses and my fifteen month old adorable grandson, my daughter remarked that I was becoming more eccentric. 

“Yes, I suppose I am masquerading as a regular Mom.  There are so many injustices and I feel a quickening of the earth to right them.  It’s like we have to sit up and get it now.  Time has run out.  Seeing the UFO last summer said it all. Besides, I am not one to follow the crowd.  I don’t much like rules.  Many of them don’t work for the people we are becoming.”

I appreciate how long it takes all of us to grow.  Because I see my own slow rate of growth, I can more easily understand others.  We either  come from a place of fear or we come from a place of love.  It is either a choice or a reaction.  I guess I have reacted long enough.”

Snow came early to the mountains this year.  The Farmer’s Almanac told us this would be a more mild winter.

“Mild alright.  In compared to what?”

“I wondered whether HAARP was adjusting our frequency and vibrations again and causing this change.”

 The kids arrived a few days before Christmas this year.  We spent just thirty-six hours together when the weather report changed our visit. 

Western North Carolina was anticipating nearly a foot of snow.  Washington, D. C. was expecting a pelting and New Hampshire would receive over a foot.

I sure wasn’t happy about this.

“How could this be.  I worked so hard to prepare for their visit?”

Before 7 a.m. the following morning, everyone was gone.  The next three days I spent removing the glorious powder.  All plus eight inches of it. 

I had gone outside to do some light shoveling when I noticed unusual tracks.  I had seen a red wolf two days before the snow.

It came up from the bank.  The first thing I saw was the newly brushed cinnamon tail.  Then it disappeared only to come back with a full presentation from the side.  It wasn’t a fox, too big for a coyote. 

I went online and it definitely looked like a red wolf.  What was my animal totem telling me?

Maybe it was living a suburban existence that made me want to protect the natural habitat.  I felt instantly a part of the community because I wanted to be here.

I saw the corporatization of our world in the larger cities and towns.  I saw the egoic and self-serving behaviors of Washington, D.C. and the enormous building attesting to the power elite there.  I thought about the beautiful transportation systems in the places I had previously lived and wondered why the rest of the United States was so ignored. It all felt so overwhelming.  I felt like we were going down the toilet and nobody was working together to stop this.  Where are the social movements?  Why don’t people protest in D.C.?

As a Sociology major in college, Cornell and Rutgers to be exact, I can be the observer. I love our earth and our people.  We are here to serve one another, to take only what we absolutely need and to leave a path for others to follow and nourish themselves. I like being around people like that.