The Diamond Island

Talked to an old friend today and she showed me her spirit in a dream she has.  It was the way she talked, shining like a celestial revelation about her, and I saw beauty in her I’d never before seen.  Like a heavenly queen with super space explosions bearing witness to the violence of nature on an epic scale.  And she goes places so far out there in the depths of outer space that I don’t think anyone knows but her the glory of those spectacular conflagrations and ferocious energies at work in the forever-beyond of secret power nebulas.

She’s just like any other ordinary superhero living on this crazy planet, paying the dues, paying the bills, raising her kids.  And I wonder if her earthling human manifestation could handle the magnetic radiation of her lovely, adventurous side.  There’s that quiet, powerful message at the back of my mind about caring, and how long it takes to grow, find or build a facet of light.  I think, that magnificent part of her is showing me that hek-yeah dude look at this secret wonder going on at the same time as her life.

Imagine what will happen on the night she can look at the things she dreams and recognize herself?  My friend will peel that mask off her face and be able to see herself without doubt.  When I see a friend collecting things and meditating on them, owning their feelings and their thoughts and a ray of beauty appears through the cracks I always get nervous and excited.

Talked to another old friend today who I didn’t know was an old friend, but really was.  I opened my eyes and there she was, all along, doing her thing in an amazing way.  It’s like a present you missed in the odd corner, and then one day discover.  You open it, and it’s as if you are offered a bottle of very fine wine to savor beyond measure.

Been learning about her life in the years we’ve been apart since the old days.  I’m amazed and pleased by how she has gotten her troubles under control and shaped her life into a magnificent, noble calling.  Her work, family and interests are so rich, so varied as to stun me.  I hardly knew her at all!  Then one day I run into her on the street and see what a creative, skilled, hardened empress she has become.  Wow.

She’s boxes within boxes, each with some new surprise waiting to be found.  I’m so lucky to have found her again and be worthy of seeing her live her life with such sunshine warmth, like a nautical wonderwoman who’s been to the outrageous land of scalawags and dinosauruses, survived, and come back with an eye for delight and a heart of wholesomeness.

I hear that wind of Missus Mootymire a-blowin’, and I think about the people I might have kept at arms-length without even knowing it.  Time to open the windows and doors and let the spooky wail gust right through me.  Time to clear out the air and let new life breathe through the house.

K and I loaded up the chuck wagon full of yummy organic burgers and buns, homemade pickles, and a slab of onions and lettuces.  She grabbed the lager medicine and I seized on the cider muscle relaxant.  Then we rode on over to the folk’s ranch and got a charcoal grill going.  Hek-yeah, it’s burgerin’ time!

The day was in the high sixties, sunny, and no snow.  Perfect weather for an outdoors shindig and rap session with the clan.  The weekend had been a huge quest of doom which had made us a little unavailable on main and auxiliary power to the rest of the world.  I’ll write about that later.  For now, tasty food, delicious frosty beverages, and good company gossiping and chitchatting like a bunch of crows.  And crow does like a tasty snack with a little jibber-jabber.

While doing the burger meditation I had a chance to think about the change in the weather.  I smell spring, I feel it in my bones.  It just wants to burst forward like a spring coiled giant squid tentacle and seize the morsel of the now.  I can hardly contain myself at the excitement.  Spring within, spring without, all in balance.

Crazy dream time again.  Wandering through the streets of my haunted house existence and spending time with alter-ego manifestations of my friends.  In this case, the detached observer who wanders in and out of scenes like a fool with no ties to one thing or the other.

I wake up to the sound of those popping Droll Dumplings.  Just about ready to serve I imagine.  K and I are just about ready to watch Crocodile Dundee.  She hasn’t seen it yet.  What better tasty treat than a bowl of properly cooked droll dumpling popcorn?  Whoo and hoo, its movie time in the Honeycomb Hindout and there’s munchies galore!

The phone rings again, and I can tell this is going to be one of those random encounter calls.  Whoa, total surprise from the depths.  It’s my old time cousin from the way back machine days, trying to put the clues on his puzzle board together.  Can I lend him a hand?  Sure can!  The memory banks are loaded to the gills with relevant material.

I can’t help but think something significant has happened again.

If miracle #1 gets me back in touch with who I was, and miracle #2 gets me back in touch with the time before I was what I was, then what if a third miracle returns me to the feeling of the time before that?  My cousin and I walked in states of consciousness that belong to the deepest parts of my known being.

I’m going back in time and seeing things that I had never imagined I would witness.  All the way back to the beforelife?  The arrow is pointing in a direction I refuse to ignore now.  Just have to pull back on the bow.

My cousin talks about a time in a spooky haunted house I was living in with my folks at one time.  He came to visit.  I’d forgotten it, but when he describes it to me, the memory comes back to me like lightning.  An isolated farmhouse, wind blowing and trees scratching at the walls of the house.  The tingle of scary ghosts devouring all sense of space in the room you’re sleeping in.

There are all sorts of things I remember being scared to death about during that time as a young pouchling.  The Blue Meanies of Yellow Submarine, for example.  My cousin had a Blue Meanie jacket and he wasn’t scared at all.  Me, though, my folks’ cardboard cutout they got from a movie theater, well that kept me from sleep many a night.

BACK OFF BOOGALOO!

My cousin was scared of that house and its eerie inhabitants.  I got into the excitement of his fear as we stayed awake at night talking like crazy, but I also remember thinking cool, there’s ghosts out there and I like them.  The spooks and the specters, the ghosts and the goblins.  I’ve been walking this haunted house at least since the day I was born, and before that?  I can hardly fathom.

I hold the images of these memories in my mind and wait to see what happens.

Then, it occurs to me, what about the ghosts around me that scare people or make them nervous?  Have I been freaking people out or making them uncomfortable by not being responsible for my own specters?  I sense a windy monster at the window looking at me, rattling chains and blowing moans with perhaps a bit too much glee.  Now, needless to say not everyone is scared of this Missus Mooty Mire wind-breaking goblin thingee (Hexe would just blow her into the oven, and Xtine would sit her down for hard core tea and biscuits, for example).  But it’s a matter of being responsible for the sake of those who don’t have script immunity.

I walk into my room, and a friend of Mother Mary’s is there.  She’s vacuuming my room and cleaning up, which I find really embarrassing.  Nobody should have to clean my room, that’s so improper!  She smiles and says she has full authority to do this, so I stand there and fume as she finishes up.  I ask her what on earth she’s doing here and she says, “Just passing through and making sure we were ready.”  She kisses me on the cheek and for a moment a flower grows there.

I wake up and ponder the significance of this strange dream.  I’m thinking this friend of Mother Mary’s must be a quality within myself that is clearing out the crud.  How many people must quest for the chance to meet their soul in dreams and receive a blessing!  I contemplate what we must be preparing for.  Ready for what?

Time to go searching under the baseboards.  A lyric from a song I’ve been listening to a lot lately has been running in my mind.  Listen for the things you haven’t heard. My friend Xtine has been calling me “listener”, which is a title I couldn’t claim for myself even if I recognized and understood it as being true.  You really do need other people to call you on your crap, both good and bad.

Pisces modesty holds me back sometimes.  Maybe that Aquarian scrutiny of my friends Hexe and Alexi, with a touch of that raw, firey spirit of my Aries friend Xtine will give me the strength and the wisdom to look in the mirror long enough to do something that matters.

“Do without doing, and the doing gets done.”  There’s that crazy rune message again.  I keep thinking I have to do something.  Twelve years ago, a wise person I knew said, “People don’t need to do anything Paul, they shouldn’t have to do anything.  They’re already together.”  I thought she was nuts, nuts, nuts at the time.  She said, “Your best friend will call and you know you’ll come back to him.”

I thought she was full of it at the time.  Except for that weird crawly feeling at the back of my spine that told me I didn’t know squatle-dee-doo.

I mean, one miracle’s enough, right?  If you lose the best part of you and it is restored to you, when you thought it was gone forever — well hey I don’t know squatle-dee-doo, but I’d say that’s a pretty good day.

Xtine always said there’s a bonus round.  Hell, she IS a bonus round.

Stuff happens without us knowing the how and the why.  Dogs and cats, living together without warning, that sort of thing.  I was super fortunate to meet and know a best friend forever in this life.  I might forget the fun of playtime that reaches the height of consciousness in this life, but can any of that be undone?

I dunno, but it can be made into a living hell while you’re still alive.  You can be ground into the dirt and lose everything, and know it as long as you’re alive.  The glory of living at a high level of existence can be taken away from you at any time.

I never accepted that.  If it was granted, and taken away I screamed and raged until I didn’t know my own name.  I just didn’t know the cycle of being lost and returning, of finding and losing.  Someone was trying to make a point, that I just didn’t get it.  It wasn’t one thing or the other, it was both.

Part of me the last few months had been saying the other thing, but I wasn’t hearing it.  “This is how it goes down.”  Yeah, but how could it go down like that?  It makes no sense!  “Because it will.  You don’t know squatle-dee-doo, remember?”  I couldn’t hear what my instincts were saying.  Yeah, I think they’re right, but I haven’t a clue how it could happen.  I know nothing.  I got beat down, remember?

“You aren’t beat down anymore.  Answer the call.”

The phone was ringing, so I picked up.  Somebody wanted to talk.  I never thought in a year and a day they would.  But my wise friend was right.  All of a sudden I realized I was okay, and I could see clearly now.  A piece of my soul restored, as mysteriously as it had been removed.  How does that happen?  A bonus miracle, just in case I missed the importance of the first.  Judgment Day dude, you are waking up.  As many miracles as you need.

While I’m waiting in the closet for the dumpling attack to subside (yeah, right), I come across a bunch of papers that need going through.  Most of which need to be tossed into the psychological void.  I’m not through with my mental dustbin by a long stretch.  Hexe witchie-poo text-messages me that I need to get on the stick and flame broil those puppies.  Which of course, makes total sense.  Have another popover froggie!

K is there for me.  She’s found the oven reactor, and fired up the converters.  It’s a hot smokin’ cook-a-roo just waiting for a bunch of sweet mineral dumplings to leap in and cook like a bee with an itch.  I telepathsize an ingredient list for her, figuring we might have to wing some of those ingredients a little, say cat pee instead of dog pee.

An’ I’m out of the closet and using my super-Mario powers of crazy imagination maneuverability to spring over that assembled high-density collage of crazy critters.  But whoa-ho-ho, they don’t waste time chasing after me with juice-drinkin’ intentions and physical happenstance collectivoids dancing all around my magnetosphere of doom-ness.

Thanks to my kung fu classes, I manage to stay one step ahead of the horde.  Sheesh, I guess being a little fit helps a little bit, eh?  I can understand Hexe’s desire to stay in top tennis destructor form, now.  The ability to fire tennis torpedoes is mighty after all!  K’s shoveling in the petrified wood as quick as the coal bin hatch will allow, and I lure those critters into the huge stone oven that must have been some crazy mass food feed-a-thon apparatus in olden days.  I dunno, Hexe’s the expert here.

I have no desire to end up cooked to a nice golden brown patina, so as K slams the door shut and bolts it, I leap up to the ceiling and grab a hold of a rope courtesy of Alexi’s thoughtful chimney rescue brigade.  Those Droll Dumplings try as they might, but I’m up and out of that chimney before you can say Jack Robinson!  I cut the rope in case a few more enterprising buggers decide they can evolve climbing skills.

Man, those dumplings are mad!  Hopping up and down in the oven like popcorn.  K pours on the fuel and pretty soon the haunted house heats up nicely.  Won’t be long before those critters are cooked to a crisp pop.

Meanwhile, more monsters out there!

No sooner have I got the Goob-a-loo settled in, when the next monster jumpdoggy surprise arrives. Causing no small amount of trouble is an infestation of anxiety-causing mineraloid entities from the depths of inner space and they want major amounts of psychic juice! And they’re willing to put down roots in your brainpan to get it.

For a while I have to fend these micronic high-density critters off with a couple of whacks from the slapstick. The next thing I know my car is about to blow a tire and I’m getting fleeced by the most charming mechanic this side of rip-offs town. Yeah, in this dire economy boo-hoo down in whosville it’s a laugh riot getting money vacuumed out of the ducat interface, but may as well laugh at my own lack of sleight of hand self-defense.

Speaking of which, I show up for my first kung fu lesson with Mother Mary and I get one of her short duration personal assistants. Said assistant proceeds to show me how sadly out of shape I’m in and how not in tune with fundamentals I am. No special maneuvers, awesome skillz, or fabulous finishing moves for me. Going to be all blue Mondays for a while.

Not that I’ve forgotten the music quest, but man does that new U2 song suck eggs. Depression +1 as the critters cackle at me on the other side of the barricaded door. Oh, what am I cryin’ about? Sooner or later that UFO Girl soundtrack clue will pay off. In the meantime, I have to deal with these critters or I’m going to find all sorts of lack in the mental cupboards.

Speaking of which, where did all my bath bombs, bath salts and luxury soaps go? Oh crumbs, everything’s turned upside down at the haunted house in real time. All that reorganization and now I’ve misplaced the usual bath meditation tools. Just when I need to escape the crazy doom knocking at my closet door while I hide. No worries – break out the hard-core incense that got dug out of the back rows and estate sale cheapo cool dude 50’s candles and I’m in my own little steam bath retreat. Maybe now I can think.

Frankie Day is today, Friday the 13th. That means trouble galore from the depths of mischievousness. I’m going to have to make sure Frankie gets a long walkies and tour of the folks house (she loves that), to celebrate her discovery and rescue from the dumpster by K and I. The next day is VD day, so K and I are going to have to do the Devil’s Children thing and be anti-romantic. Browsing for good manga at the comic store, followed by a hot date at Burger King. Maybe we’ll have an angry whopper and get down with our saucy selves.

What strikes me is that there’s physical stuff going on all over the place. Time to get grounded and find out what’s amping up the psychic electric juice to jittery whackaloon levels. I’m going to have to find a place to plant these droll dumplings, before they get to the meltdown level. The carpet’s got enough issues as it is. The next step must be to go through the haunted house and find a suitable place, lure the dang varmints over, and take care of business.

If only it were as easy as it sounds.

I follow that snapping, crackling, dancing Goob-a-loo all around the house and back to my folk’s home again.  Slowly, a large number of objects are considered and their fates decided.  Trash, donation or storage in brand new containers suitable for ease of access.  My folks and I exchange a few boxes of old keepsakes and papers that need going through.

I spend several exhausting days tossing 90% of my papers into the recycle bag as outdated, unimportant junk.  My schedule goes topsy-turvy, with odd hours of sleep until that Goob-a-loo feels like the King Mahar of all Goob-a-loos.

Then I have a dream.  There’s this lake out in the woods and I’m on a roofed pier on the edge.  I’m trying to write down important notes for people on the end of the pier’s wall with a Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph pen.  There’s something enormous and frightening in the lake.  I can feel it swimming towards the pier and I have to flee back to land before it sees me.  I run back to shore as turbulence starts rocking the pier.

I half wake up and this whole message goes off in my head (you know, of the Hek-mail kind).  Mother Mary dropped by and left me a note, saying that I’m not ready for the lake yet, that I have to get right with my body and learn how to know myself better.  She says she will train me in her style of Kung Fu.  I scribble this all down on the notepad before the Goob-a-loo notices I’m awake and starts up again.

Once it’s on paper, I feel like its all been turned into the physical.  Oh wait, the Goob-a-loo is right there next to me!  He’s been hanging out all this time, but he’s quiet like the vacuum after a loud pop.  Then he’s gone and I notice a scrap of paper calling to me in the papers pile.  I scramble over in a daze and see it has the words “haunted house – trainwreck?” written on it.

I remember now!  There was this vinyl record with haunted house sounds on it that I used to have and was trying to remember something of.  I didn’t have the power of the internets back then, but now I do!  A sensor sweep and five minutes later I have it:  Disney’s Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House.  The title wasn’t trainwreck, it was shipwreck (though now that I’ve heard it again through the magic of the internets it does sound like a train crashing).

I think I understand.  Now that I’ve cleared up a lot of psychic space, the Goob-a-loo is satisfied.  This is his way of showing me how things that were blocked can come through when you clear out the junk.  The dream and the message from Mother Mary must be letting me know new energy is available for use.  All these clues, I’m going to have to do some more work.

In the meantime, here come more monsters!

Unexpectedly, my folks have been activated. They are going through their museum of a townhouse and stirring things up. All my old toys, high school and college artifacts, and forgotten keepsakes. They are trying to identify objects, group together related items, and either toss/donate unwanted things or put them away in new containers.Needless to say, such a psychological task stirs up more than dust. The ghosts of Paulie past are not amused, nor are the secret monsters dwelling in the crevices. And the only person who can name the pieces is me.

My folks have adopted certain superstitious taboos while going through their motions of digging up and accommodation. Only during daylight. Only when both of them are together. Always have a drink in hand. I can emphasize. When I am with them, they are able to make substantial progress.

It is as if I can name the secret creatures that lurk under the depths of existence. I emphasize with their desire to clear the field, for I too wish the dark corners of my past to be cleansed. I want to move forward and let go of anything that holds me back from living life.

I’m nostalgic, sentimental, and romantic. K has been telling me I need to focus more on the here and now, not so much in the past. I agree. I want harmony and balance. How much can I hold onto my Star Wars figures or my Ocean Adventure sets without regressing to a childhood I no longer have a right to? A new perspective is required.

My folks begin to dig up all sorts of things. It feels good to throw away notebooks of Algebra and World History that I will never return to in that form. Also, the sense that I am putting away valuable toys for the future makes me happy. I haven’t played with my Navarone Gun set in so long it feels like I’m looking at an alien puzzle when I put away the accessories for the Allied forces.

And the countless comic books, both in the standard size and the magazine and supersize designation. My folks get their hands on plastic bags and cardboard backing galore so they can archive the finds, before putting them away for a suitable storage. I never knew I had so many Richie Rich comics, or Shazam specials. It totally blows me away.

Digging up the corpses of my life, that’s what it amounts to. Weirdness. But it feels good to excavate this long, large detritus pile up. I sense this is timely, and necessary. But what is responsible for this sudden digging up of my life? What has changed that I should go over my life and set things in order for a change of outlook?

Unfamiliar, or forgotten aspects of my being must be at work. Newly revealed parts of myself that I’m only now making sense of.

Wait, what is that gigantic shambling thing in my old room? How is it that this magnetic electric spirit of blazing titanic fire can be in two places at once? Why, it’s the Goob-a-loo throwing a fanatic fit over all the junk people carry around with them. It builds up nothing but dust bunnies, which charge up the capacitors and wreck havoc with the Goob-a-loo’s allergies!

The only solution is to diffuse the build-up of psychic debris by disconnecting the memorial junk accumulators from the items held in unconscious repose for storage. This means getting into the piles of objects and separating the wheat from the chaff. Anything not likely to be consciously considered and handled must be removed to a disposal array – clothes in a bag to AmVets for example.

We’re holding on to too much stuff that has served it’s purpose, and the Goob-a-loo will dance on our heads until we ease the psychic continuum down to a less radioactive level of possessiveness. Goob-a-loos only want to stand still and coast on the ambient energy of household operations. Don’t we know they’re being made miserable existing in human object dumping grounds?

Hek-yeah, I’m on it.

I have guests in the haunted house who need attending to. The spookiness and the odd happenings continue. Weird sounds (what was that sound of someone landing in the wall?), strange smells (who’s cooking?), and sudden movements (the faucet turned itself on again). The floor warps and curls in odd places. K and I can hardly maintain a sense of propriety in the face of it all. But it doesn’t scare me, and that’s such a natural but unexpected feeling. It scared me so bad I couldn’t sleep before. Now I accept it as normal, that supernatural occurrences are a part of life.

And then my friends. I never knew I had so many. I scarce know what to make of it, because for so long I’ve been a jerk out of touch with myself. I’ve been displaced from my nature and didn’t even know it. My friends have faults, and so do I, so I hesitate to call this a massive hug session. It’s as if I see people in a darker shade, with the light coming from an unknown source. I know we will all make mistakes again. Somehow, it’s okay because I’m seeing in a different way that I can’t quite explain. Almost as if the mistakes and the screw ups lead to better things and I can’t wait for the discomfort, because that’s where the life is.

I let a good friend read my book. She read it so fast I was surprised. Lots of great suggestions from her. I really trust her instincts, so it’s nice to feel that I’m on the right track with my craft. And my editor asked to see the whole thing, which took me by surprise. She’s so unpredictable I can hardly comprehend what she’ll say. Not as if I have a lot of work to do, because I do.

The cover sketches are proving difficult – I’d forgotten how hard it can be to get tools to behave, and I’m still working out the rust of ages. Plus, I am considering the idea of illustrations to go with the book, one for each chapter. My editor has some really mind-bending ideas!

Oh yeah, back to the haunted house. All the ghosts and monsters have been coming up to me with requests. Suddenly I find myself having to find solutions to supernatural problems I hardly expected. And the killer bees are getting active again, despite the winter season. Yes, the year is in full effect and I’m the one who has to come up with ideas and work out the real world maneuvers.

Oh crumbs, here they come!