LOST AND FOUND

Blackie is back.  She showed up later that afternoon after we heard her crying through the neighbor’s window and has been far more domestic, even clingy since her return. Last night we let her stay in all night because it was raining outside.  Yea Rain! The monsoon came with the Powwow.  We were afraid that even the Powwow couldn’t break this stubborn drought but tradition triumphed again. We went on Saturday and enjoyed connecting with family and friends.  PQ danced himself into a spasm but had a good time anyway. Pacing himself has never been his style. I could have danced all night. I’m walking backwards to my original love of Taos.  The sound of powwow drums, the gorgeous photogenic Mountain and those awesome storm clouds overarching our tiny scurrying human anthill is still a thrill. Frances (PQ’s mom) and Joe J. (his dad) are always there in spirit and I felt my eighteen years ago self layered over now.

Blackie Likes to Stay Inside Now

The theme of “lost and found” has been with me for several weeks.  I get up early, that means 8:00 am, which is early for me. Now I notice that I’m finding more that was lost than just Blackie.  Maybe she acted out my own process.  Long ago, I noticed that animals frequently act out something their human companions need to notice. 

Getting lost is always traumatic even when it happens gradually over years.  It’s just that the trauma is also gradual and may escape notice. Getting found can also be a gradual process. Last week, just before I woke up I had an experience of myself standing on a deeply shaded hill, looking toward a brilliant mountain that seemed very familiar although it is somewhere I’ve never actually been. The scene was so sharp that it was more present than anything I’ve experienced while awake.  

Here and there, I’ve been finding myself in the past. Perhaps I’m peeling potatoes and suddenly I’m the sixteen year old girl taking vegetables from the garden for tonight’s stew, or experiencing my current back yard as merely an extension of the half acre backyard of my childhood. Then again I will be walking to work at the Tattered Cover in Cherry Creek around the time that I first visited Taos. These are only a few of many time warp scenes that bubble up from the past.  But you see, it isn’t the past. It’s all part of the now which contains everything and everywhere.  Most of the time my memories are dim, factually correct but missing the sensory and emotional impact of the present. It all darkens slowly the way an old window gradually accumulates murk. Lately memories have been coming through like a hologram but instead of watching it, I’m the center of it.

I suspect that these strange time experiences are all about retrieving resources.  Although this has been an active intention of reading and meditating with the first cup of coffee before PQ wakes up, one never knows just how such things will manifest. I was getting very lax about who I am.  It may not be much but it’s all I have.  Getting lax is way of giving up and saying “my life is nothing really. It will soon be over so why bother. It’s the lazy way through life, but also amounts to never existing except for acquiring some negative karma in reaction to the tedious ride. 

I don’t need to go back to the past out of nostalgia, but sometimes I take a wrong turn and need to retrace my steps back to the trailhead. There are certain times in certain places that you just know were an important part of your personal story. Other pages of personal history you can just tear up and throw away. I’m just now learning that I’m the only editor that counts.