The Road to Me, page 22
“Well, you certainly earned it.” This is one hell of a hallucination. I’m talking to her like this is really happening. She even smells like my G’ma.
“But I had to come back.” She leans in to study my face. “You don’t learn very fast, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you learn anything that week we were together?”
“I thought I learned a lot. You never told me there would be a quiz.”
“Well, there is. Look at you, Jack.” She flips a hand at me and sits back with a look of disgust. “The Universe had to practically paralyze you to get your attention.”
I try to roll my eyes, but they only move side to side. “I’m listening.”
“Have you decided what you were sent here to learn?”
I can still feel guilty in a hallucination? “I am going to. As soon as I get the business—”
“Business, schmizness. You’ve been going on about that forever.”
“It’s my baby.”
“No.” She points a bony finger at me. “It’s not. And you’ll never have real babies if you keep messing with surrogates. What comes next? Cats? You gonna be a crazy cat lady?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Are you telling me you came here to learn how to run a successful business?”
“Well, I—”
“Because the Universe doesn’t set up trade schools you know. Your life isn’t OJT.”
“But—”
“Look, I’ll give you a clue, then I’ve got to blow this place.” She unwraps her legs, and stands, without putting her hands on the ground.
Even I can’t do that.
“It’s real simple.” She smacks dust off her skinny butt. “You decide what’s important.” Her face gets big as she leans down to look me in the eye. “Then you do that. And that can be more than one thing, but it is not a business.” She leans a bit farther, and plants a kiss on my forehead, straightens and turns on her heel. “I’m comin’ Easy, cool your jets.”
I’m panicked realizing I’m losing her again. “G’ma!”
She turns to look back at me.
“Does this mean that everything you believed is true? About the afterlife?”
“Sounds logical. Until you add the fact that you’re trippin’, Jack.”
There is that. “Oh G’ma, I so miss you. I love you, you know.”
She gives me her softest smile. “And I love you, Jack. Remember what you learned. You’ll do fine. You got my genes.” She walks off the edge of the arroyo into a magenta mist.
I close my eyes and fade out.
When I wake, the sky is again blue, and the sun is touching the top of my boots where they hang off the edge of the arroyo. I’m not leaning against the rock where G’ma dragged me. I sit up, grateful that my body seems to be working again. There are the bits of dried leaf in the dirt where I lay, and I scrub dried vomit from the side of my face.
Was G’ma a hallucination? Probably. But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see her. I feel like I’ve gotten some closure. I got to tell her I love her one more time. That almost makes this horrific experience worthwhile.
I crawl to my backpack and gingerly drink a half bottle of water. My phone says it’s 1:30. I’m hungry, but I still have to get out of here. I sit on a rock for a bit, slathering on more sunscreen, trying to gather my scattered beliefs. What is my thing to learn? Even if G’ma was a hallucination, it’s still a good question. And it’s time I stopped putting it off and find the answer.
Shouldering my backpack, I crawl through the Laurel branches and find my way back to the trail. I’m no longer alone. Hikers pass every few hundred yards. The heat presses against my skin as if it wants in. My head pounds with every step.
I know what I don’t want about this life. I don’t want the chaos and poverty I grew up in. Looking at my life these past few years, I realize I ran to the opposite: hard work, structure, and discipline. But those things haven’t fulfilled me either.
I have a nice apartment, a decent nest egg (well, I did), and then I sat on it, all alone, and wondered why it didn’t make me happy.
“Man, how clueless can one person be?”
I ignore the odd look of a passing hiker and head down the trail and back to civilization, to find my place in it.
When I pass the spa on my way through the lobby, I notice there’s a station set up in the waiting area. It looks like a manicure table, but with different equipment. Stacy, the girl from the concierge desk, is in a chair, chatting with a woman who leans over her thigh with a Stylus that emits a small humming.
I step up quietly, so as not to disrupt whatever it is that’s going on.
Stacy looks up. “Oh hey, Jacqueline. How did the hike go?”
I can’t tear my eyes from her leg. “Not at all what I expected, but I have returned with what I went out there for, so it’s good.”
The woman sits up and runs a cloth over Stacy’s leg. The buzzing stops.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m getting a tattoo.”
“Oh.” I take a step back.
“Not what you’re thinking. It’s a white tattoo. Brandy, this is Jacqueline.”
The lady turns, holding up gloved hands to show she can’t shake. “Nice to meet you.”
I lean in a bit. Pale script spells out, “Roam far, wander wi.” I can only assume the last word will be “wide.” “That won’t show up much.”
“That’s the whole point. It’s subtle.” Brandy says. “Depending on your skin tone, it may be hard to see at all.”
Stacy touches her chest. “But I know it’s there. It’s not for other people. It’s for me.”
Intriguing. “I’d never get a tattoo, but if I did, it’d be one like that.”
Stacy pats the chair beside her. “Come sit. You can look through the designs, just for fun. Brandy is the best artist in Sedona.”
“Oh no, I’m all sweaty. I just stopped to thank you for the hiking suggestion.”
She pats the chair again. “Come on. It won’t cost anything to look.”
I have to admit, I’m intrigued. Ten minutes. Then I’m out of here. I sit, and Stacy hands me a notebook full of designs. I leaf through the pages.
“She can do them so they’re kind of raised, so when it fades, you can still feel it, like braille.”
Nothing catches my eye. I close the book and think. If I were to do this, it would need to be a reminder of my lesson for this life that G’ma talked about. A fresh scent flows through my head, and an idea tugs in my mind, but the harder I concentrate, the more elusive it is. I follow it like a wandering butterfly floating just out of reach. I stand and pull the pink cactus flower from my pocket. This is a part of it—more than the scent—part of my answer, too.
“I’ll be back.” I walk through the lobby and out the doors. I want the canyon backdrop, but not from my window. I walk around the hotel, to the canyon side. There’s a fence around the drop off, so I lean my forearms on it and stare down to the tumbled rocks below and start from what I know.
A cactus is prickly, but not to hurt you, it’s for its own protection. That’s what I’ve done. Built spines to keep people distant, to keep me safe. And it worked. It helped me survive neglect and abandonment. But the antsiness that drives me to haunt neighborhoods at night proves the spines are in my way, too. I want more.
The kaleidoscope pieces that have been shifting since Vegas tumble again, forming the other answer I’ve been chasing.
I can’t have the joy of connection, of belonging that I yearn for, without letting the world in. That means opening up. Being vulnerable. Panic hits with the word, telling me that this is it. This is what I’m supposed to learn. What I’m supposed to do.
Jesus, couldn’t it be something easier? Well, I have to admit, that would kind of negate the whole point, but I can’t think of anything that could more strike terror in my soul. It would be like walking into a battle, swordless and naked, and yelling at the opposing army, “Bring it on!”
I chuckle. I understand Leo’s Twenty First Century Man on a whole new level.
G’ma’s lesson comes unbidden. “Pain is universal. Suffering is optional.” Given her background, was that lesson any easier for her? I remember the smokehouse, the rape, the glinting sockets.
I’m sure not.
My stomach takes an Insanity Coaster dive. Am I really considering this? Exposing my soft parts to the world? When it seems the only people I trust are ones that I shouldn’t? Like when the Universe bumped me onto Route 66 with Nellie Oliver—I realize I’ve been feeling the push at my back again, bumping me toward this.
I pull the cactus flower once more from my pocket. The cactus bears the heat, the lack of water, surviving incredible odds just to stay alive—and yet, once a year, it has the courage to open this beautiful fragile flower. Expose its softest self, for a fleeting few days to see the sun, before it wilts and dies.
I know what tattoo I want. I stride for the front of the hotel, hoping I can live up to the courage of a cactus.
Chapter 19
Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go
of who we think we’re supposed to be
and embracing who we are.
Brené Brown
A few hours later, I’m showered, checked out, and on the road. The inside of my right wrist itches, and I look down to the red outline of the cactus flower formed by many white dots under my skin. Brandy said the irritation would be gone in a week. When the white fades, I’m hoping it’s almost invisible. But I’ll be able to touch the raised design when I need to remind myself.
Vulnerable as a cactus’s flower. That’s me.
I hope.
Within twenty miles I take a Louie at Route 66 and keep going.
G’ma was a hallucination. I know that.
But it felt so real—so her.
Does it mean I’m going over to her new-age dark-side if I believe it was her?
Whatever. My gut tells me it was my grandmother. And as long as I’m picking and choosing what I want in my life, I’m choosing this.
A mist of nostalgia fills my eyes as I blow through Williams, then Seligman. I wish things could have been different—that I’d have appreciated those days at the time. But I have the memories—like the tattoo, I’ll be able to touch them when I want to remember.
I’d thought to scatter her ashes where Easy died, but when I slow at the turn, the wrongness of it smacks me like the scent of a roadkill skunk. She wouldn’t want to be at one of the saddest places from her life.
Then I know the perfect place to scatter her ashes. I throw my head back and laugh. I never planned to return to del Soul, but I never planned to get a tattoo, either. It’ll be interesting, finding out other changes as I sift through the rubble inside me.
On the two-hour drive, I consider how I’m going to handle tonight, choosing and discarding ideas based solely on what feels right. Another new thing.
I turn off the highway and roll through the tunnel of trees that leads to the colony. When I pull into the clearing, the nude people strolling by don’t seem as odd as they used to. I park and head for the office but hesitate at the door. It doesn’t seem fair to bring such sad news. If I drove on, they’d be spared—secure in the thought their beloved Blue is safe and happy.
But she is safe and happy. And if anyone would understand that, it’d be these people. I turn the knob and walk into the lobby. Spike looks up from behind the desk. When he recognizes me, he smiles but then it falters and slides from his face. “I can think of only one reason you’d return here alone, Jack.”
I nod. “She went peacefully, in her sleep, only a few days after we left here.”
He steps around the counter and takes my hands, his eyes full of sadness. “I am not sorry for Blue. But I am so sorry for all of us who loved her. A bright light has gone from this plane.”
“It surely has.” I sniff. This is only the beginning of the hard things I’ve chosen to do this day. “Can I get a room for the night? And do you have a few minutes to talk? I have ideas for a memorial of sorts.”
“Of course. Your food and lodging are on us.” He squeezes my hands, then lets me go. “Come on, let’s get you settled.”
Word has spread by the time I sit down to dinner. Many bring me condolences, sorrow, and stories of Blue.
“Excuse me, everyone. Could you take your seats?” Spike waits until the room is quiet. “You’ve probably heard by now our beloved Blue has left this plane. Blue’s granddaughter Jack is here. She’ll be speaking at our night of sharing after dinner. Enjoy your meal, and we’ll see you in a bit.”
Fawn sits across the table from me with wise eyes. “I am going to miss your grandmother. She taught me so much about strength and joy.”
“I miss her so much.” I take a sip of water to mend the crack in my voice. “I so regret all the years I stayed mad at her for something I didn’t understand.”
A soft smile lights her face. “You know what Blue would say.”
I smile back. “That things happened just as the Universe meant them to happen. And I’m no longer arguing with that. But still, I wish it could have been different.”
It’s dark by the time we gather by the lake. The fire is blazing. I’m standing between Spike and the fire, the urn with G’ma’s ashes in my arms. The guests are fanned out in lawn chairs before us. My blood races, hotter than the fire, and the jitters skitter just beneath my skin. What made me think I could do this? A six-point earthquake hit Vegas once when I was ten, and the beginning felt like this—when it hits your awareness that the ground you always took for granted has betrayed you—and it’s just a matter of how bad it will get. This shift feels like a nine point five.
I can’t do this. What was I thinking? Stand up in front of a bunch of nude people and talk about emotions and woo-woo beliefs? I finger the inside of my wrist, a reminder that I can be whatever I want, now.
But showing emotion in public? One of my biggest fears.
Spike claps for attention. “Tonight, Jack has asked to lead the discussion. But first, let’s have a few moments of silence for our dear friend.”
Quiet falls over the crowd.
I stare into the fire. I know it was right to bring you here, where you belong. I know you’re happy, and only I can sort myself out. But I’m afraid, G’ma. Please help me.
I lift the lid from the urn, and twist open the plastic bag that holds the part of G’ma she left behind. I take a shaking handful of ashes and toss them on the fire, then pass the urn to Spike. He does the same. Fawn is next. She sprinkles something over the ashes in her hand, then flings it onto the fire.
The flames flare in a hundred hues of blue.
The audience gives a collective “Ohhhhh.”
The urn comes back to me, and I empty the bag onto the fire.
Spike speaks softly, but his voice carries over the crowd. “Thank you, Jack, for bringing Blue back to us. From this night on, these nights of sharing will be called, ‘Blue’s Fire,’ in honor of our wise friend. Sweet dreams, Blue. We love you.” He steps to a lawn chair and sits. Fawn backs into the shadows.
I look over the expectant faces. I’m terrified, still not sure what I’ll say. But if I can’t do this, it proves I can’t change—that I can’t live up to what I have to learn. Closing my eyes, knees quivering, I turn off my brain and search my heart.
A wrenching grief wells. I feel my mouth pull down into a rictus of pain. A sob convulses my chest and I clamp my muscles to hold it in. Tears leak past my squeezed-tight eyelids.
Time stretches like razor wire. I have to say something or run away, and I’m caught between, capable of neither.
Fawn’s soft voice carries in the silence. “It’s okay, Jack. Whatever comes, it’s okay.”
I take a breath and speak my heart. “Blue asked me that last night, what I was here to learn. I didn’t know at the time. I know now.” I’m sharing the deepest part of me with naked strangers. I stand outside myself, watching the tears stream, marveling.
“I thought the only way I could survive childhood was to try to control the world. I believed you only got what you worked for, and I was the only one I could depend on. I got so good at it that the world narrowed to a small tunnel of things I felt safe with. I only accepted black and white in my life.
“But G’ma helped me see that we have no control, except over ourselves. I was given amazing gifts that I never had to work for. My creativity and strong sense for scents. They are a big part of me—I shaped my entire career around them. But the Universe is a jokester, because my gifts, they don’t live in black or white. They are made up of every shade in the palette. I am learning to open myself to them.
“My grandmother taught me by how she lived every day joyful and unafraid, even knowing how hard and uncaring the world can be. She didn’t cling to the earth, fists in the dirt, trying to hold on. She threw herself off cliffs and flew, riding on updrafts of hope and belief.
“I’m going to be more like her.” I take a breath. “I want to move through the world unafraid, vulnerable, believing that I have the strength, even if I’m not meant to overcome—then to accept and let go.”
Spike stands. “Jack, that was a beautiful tribute to your courage and your love. It’s clear you take after your grandmother.” He turns to the crowd. “If anyone would like to speak, either about Jack’s lesson, or about Blue, please step forward.”
I cross to an empty lawn chair and sit, my mind a blank slate.
After the sharing, people wander off in clumps. I’m too keyed up to sleep. The future I was bent on has also been tumbled by the seismic events of the past month. I wander down to the lake and walk the path around it. Cricket mating calls rise from the meadow around me, and frogs join in, with a toad’s bass croak adding emphasis. The stars stretch overhead like diamonds tossed on black velvet, and the lake shimmers their broken reflection.
