Bird on the Fence

Woke up anxious again. It really is a thinning of the blood, anxiety. The sky is falling--or the ceiling. My check will bounce. My life will bounce. I lie there and become thinner than I remembered. Anxiety raises her flag but there is no color in it. A rock has agreed to accompany me during such spare moments. A powerful rock from a powerful place. Touching the rock, I did a meditation. Felt a little better then. Just now, a robin flitted to the fence outside my window. Landed. Flew away. Returned. Head crooked to one side. So light. So unafraid.

Tours to Heaven

I got five minutes into my angel speech and forgot the rest of it. Really, it was surreal and wonderful because I didn't care in the way I've cared. Here I was in a contest against a guy who delivered a speech more polished than mine. Though, I had props. My molting wings were a hit with the members of my queer Toastmasters group who adore frivolity. ("I loved it, " John said.) When I was ten, I was in a spelling bee and was eliminated for not capitalizing November. As I sat ready to be called to talk, I told myself, "Honey, it's okay if you don't capitalize November." It was okay. I had a moment after I sat down when I fussed inside. My competitor gave a better speech. But was it better or just different? The kind he does well. I'm good at pretending be a tour guide to heaven, to demonstrating halos and wings, to insisting that, upon arrival, you travel on a conveyor belt to the main office with stops for coffee and snacks. At the office, you meet the person in charge. "I call her, 'the boss,'" I said, "but you can call her god if you want." That got a laugh. I had an audience responding in all the right places. I won. So did he. Maybe I don't get competition anymore.

No Wings on Sale

Bought wings today. Bill found me in Aisle 9 contemplating a petite pair. "How do these look?" "Wimpy." Buying wings on sale seemed wrong, anyway. I checked the next size. Not quite right. Then ... massive wings. Bill helped me try them on. I said, "They're vacuum sealed." He ripped open the package. "Not anymore." In the mirror, the wings rose over my shoulders. Perfect. "When we get home," Bill said, "you should run up and down the driveway and shake loose the loose feathers." I did, down falling around me like snow. Bill laughed and laughed.

Bed Time

The witching hour. I'm gathering my resistances, but, instead, send tiny armed forces across the floor. Winged horses and knights with their swords drawn. They are circling my bed as I chant the spells of protection. Soon, somehow, it will be morning. The queen looks back. She's literate so she quotes Archibald MacLeish: "What love does is to arm. It arms the worth of life in spite of life." Her smile is bittersweet.

A Shadow Visit

Spent the evening with David in his office. Tried one of his bacon gum balls, a gift from his fun-loving wife. Truly dreadful. We talked books and movies. He generously did my taxes and fed me soup. When he went for spoons and napkins, I sensed a spirit in the room. She was me six years ago. Thin. Size three. Eating coleslaw and jo-jos for dinner, covering, in her depressed mind, all the major food groups. For years, David spoon-fed life into her. "You can," he kept saying. "You will." She was there for a moment, not even a shadowy sense of a shape. To remind me, I think, of where I've been.