Double trouble

So of course, after finishing bathing Chi (the one on the left) and drying her off, sending her on her way to finish her beauty self primping, I refill the tub and try to entice Apple (how now brown cow, you can’t catch me and I am NOT getting a bath) to get in the tub. While I am cajoling and pushing her into the water as gracefully as I can, Chi decides they must be in trouble and that she must have to get another bath. She jumps in beside the brown cow and sits patiently as the bubbles flew all over the place, looking all sad eyed and pathetic. Two clean dogs and one wet Mom….priceless. A day in the life of dog ownership.

Into the rabbit hole

I felt the sun bearing down on my body, moving the brush back and forth against blue tile as cold water splashes like diamonds upon my skin, I stared into the depths of the azure water, feeling the coolness upon me, spreading peace through me like a gentle storm.

My mind keeps drifting into places I had not thought about for many years, memories of a childhood, of the scent of the sneaker smudged yet shining gym floors as light flooded in from windows two stories above my head, the image of the silken material draped in a perfect circle, its color a drab army green, the parachute that lay waiting for the games to begin.

Children stood around this circle. Talking amongst themselves and laughing and I remember just gazing at the color, how it seemed so foreign there against the brightly colored painted stripes and circles of the basketball court. I did not know what was to happen, standing as a mere spectator around the cloth I watched, waiting patiently. The whistle blew and I felt a hand upon my shoulder, was told to go lay in the middle, the next sacrificial lamb I remember after the fact, but the smiles of friends and the nudges from those beside me sent me forward to become a part of this challenge. The other girl, I do not recall her name, lay beside me in the middle of this silken circle and the children on the edges grabbed hold of the material and lifted. They began to moving around the cloth in a circle, as the material gathered up tighter and tighter, closing off the light from sight and at one point separating me from the other child within this cocoon. The outer children kept moving until they could move no more, the material all tied tight and we lay within, not knowing up from down, locked in tight.

The whistle blew and the command was shouted to work our way out. I remember the kicking and screaming of the girl somewhere beside me beyond a curtain of silk and how I kept flailing and ripping at the fabric, trying to break free. I think I was crying, I think I panicked and in the end, I believe we failed to emerge as expected. I do not remember anything else after that.

As a child I could never wear slippers or night-clothes that covered my feet. My mother would have to cut them off as I would wake drenched in sweat from fighting to free myself, to breathe. This was that feeling again, except it was all of me, in this maddening rabbit hole, no escape, no light. I do not know why this memory keeps lingering today, as I am feeling so very peaceful, under a vast blue sky, working beside a neon bright blue pool. Perhaps it is just in need of escaping onto the paper, to become words so that it can be set free once and for all, to know that I am not a small helpless child and that I can make choices of what I wish to do. To have the conviction and strength I lacked then, to plunge down the rabbit hole and face the darkness I had feared or to remain on the edge and just opt out. Universal reminders taught to self through time and space, and to take one last plunge into the darkness, to turn on the light and know that it will all be all right. I am learning to let go, to dive in and to breathe.

Call to peace

Come to me sweet Luna,

Carry my thoughts away into your peaceful light embrace,

Whisper to me of better days,

Days beneath the glow of a Spring sun that heals

With the sweetest kiss

Of a universe.

Come to me my moon,

Rest yourself above the sea

Reflect your magnificence upon my face

As I bask in the moment of calm

And your wind will wash me in its cleansing spirit,

A light that beckons to follow,

And a wave to wash at high tide

As you pull me into a better day,

I will walk in your shadow leaving silent indents on the sand

If only to remind you,

That I am saved by the sweet breath of midnight.

I sing praise to the life of the world

As it turns silently while we sleep and wake

I am refreshed in the scent of a solitary gardenia bloom as I pass,

Blessed truly, indeed.