sipping watery kona coffee, gnawing sugared, dried mango slices, listening to a very sad-sounding woman for Telefon Tel Aviv croon, 'life is beautiful.'
it's almost noon on a friday, and i just got up. because i was physically coaxed and mentally twisted into a too-long dream about the church i grew up in, the cult i am betraying as my book goes out to publishers even as i type.
and so i dream, with guilt and nostalgia, of the religious fundamentalists that betrayed me, too.
of course it begins with my mom, my bitter, conflicted, sweet mom. who coaxes me out the door and into her car, and before you know it, we're sitting in the old church driveway and she's pattering on about her thoughts and worries and old angsts.
i wander away from her, as she finds sister cheryl to talk to, and, in the back foyer of the old building which spills into the small soccer yard, find myself bombarded with gap-toothed grins, cherubic arms, and little bodies kicking in one-pieces. there are fresh-smelling, softly safe babies, EVERYWHERE. someone keeps opening the back door to the meeting hall and shoving them out.
a few of their older sisters, no older than eight though, their dresses long and respectful, follow them around. i avoid their eye contact and pretend we don't see each other. maybe they won't tell anyone i'm here. maybe brother gary doesn't have to know, doesn't have to come out gently firm, and tell me i am not welcome.
i glance down, glad suddenly to realize i am wearing a skirt, even though i'm still in my bedroom slippers, too.
damn you, mom! where are you? let's get out of here! i go to look for her, and before you know it, i'm back to acting like old heidi.
i'm running around the meeting hall, being chased by a little boy with a water bottle, shrieking and laughing, and 'not caring,' aka, hoping for some perverse reason that the meeting hall inhabitants will notice, that i am here, i am not following the rules, and i am creating a commotion.
i glance in, quickly, as i round a corner by a side door, and sarah quesnel is setting something down on a front table. pretty, perfect, painfully snotty, robotic sarah does not look at me. just like old times.
and then i wake up. and feel guilty. just like she'd want me to.
and for no apparent reason, except that perhaps my dream was playing a background soundtrack, a bible verse is sternly repeating over and over in my mind:
"you cannot serve two masters. for either you will love the one, and hate the other."
suh-weeeeet.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Friday, May 04, 2007
i remember
as i get older it seems the brain that is my computer - or is it the computer that is my brain? - gets shorter on storage. everything starts to scramble and popup at the most random times.
right now, as i'm trying to do data entry at my parttime job as an assistant, i am bombarded with distracting, almost tangible memories of a museum i visited in my childhood.
the oak trees along the shaded concrete path are thick, the woods beyond so dense that it feels almost like nighttime as i stand near a small driving bridge. the water is rushing and bubbling beneath. it feels like rain.
there is a loghouse museum here, an homage to the olden-days that i always found so magical. there's a gigantic dollhouse divided from my eager fingers by thick glass. it's still decorated in the 1850's style from when it was first filled with intricately designed furniture and props, perhaps by a little girl my age.
there's a sparkling train set, as broad, old-fashioned and intricate as the Ghostbusters trainset in the attic.
i am moving through the the musty dampness towards the vanilla warmth and buttery staleness of the ice cream parlor in the next room. I am looking forward to a bag of popcorn in a red and white striped bag. I can still feel the moist chill of the trees outside, on my forearms.
it's as if i'm there.
random, graphic moments such as these, from a long-forgotten time, have been popping up in my consciousness with all too much regularity these days. this brain-computer seems to be firing at random, digging up files i didn't even know still existed.
right now, as i'm trying to do data entry at my parttime job as an assistant, i am bombarded with distracting, almost tangible memories of a museum i visited in my childhood.
the oak trees along the shaded concrete path are thick, the woods beyond so dense that it feels almost like nighttime as i stand near a small driving bridge. the water is rushing and bubbling beneath. it feels like rain.
there is a loghouse museum here, an homage to the olden-days that i always found so magical. there's a gigantic dollhouse divided from my eager fingers by thick glass. it's still decorated in the 1850's style from when it was first filled with intricately designed furniture and props, perhaps by a little girl my age.
there's a sparkling train set, as broad, old-fashioned and intricate as the Ghostbusters trainset in the attic.
i am moving through the the musty dampness towards the vanilla warmth and buttery staleness of the ice cream parlor in the next room. I am looking forward to a bag of popcorn in a red and white striped bag. I can still feel the moist chill of the trees outside, on my forearms.
it's as if i'm there.
random, graphic moments such as these, from a long-forgotten time, have been popping up in my consciousness with all too much regularity these days. this brain-computer seems to be firing at random, digging up files i didn't even know still existed.
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