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.