1023 TWINKLE TWINKLE—REVISITED 17

A word of caution—you may not want to miss insights added to Post 1022, concerning three suitcases of baggage, all of which I intend to unpack, while the next two stories unfold …

14A
Since this saga of family life is written in hindsight, I’d like to show you something that none of us, especially Grandma, who'd feared a righteous God, had thought to visualize, when I was three.  So please …

Pretend to close your eyes and imagine yourself floating above the ground while you continue to read.  Now, will your body to fade away, so you can float into our kitchen, transparent and unseen, on that fateful November afternoon in 1946.

Next, picture yourself shadowing my Grandma, as though you and she are one.  Imagine the two of you gliding in synchronized slow motion through the kitchen—past my mother and father, who are laughing at my attempts to mimic Daddy's trilling whistle.

Imagine Grandma striding—right next to your shadowy self—through the kitchen doorway and across the dining room.  Once you and Grandma have crossed the dining room, you'll reach the screened door, leading onto our back porch.  As you reach that door, please stop floating and just hover while we freeze Grandma in place.  Now, allow your shadowy presence to push your ghostlike head straight through the screen of that unlocked door.

Wait!  Don’t look into the buggy, which is to the left of the door.  Look straight ahead at the late afternoon clouds in the sky.  While some are unthreatening, white and fluffy, most have turned chillingly dark.

Between the light and the dark, focus your eyes on two small, gray clouds, floating side by side.  Now, visualize this pair of clouds processing through change—evolving, converging, shaping up quite differently than before, you know, like both sides of human nature ... Or both sides of LIFE.

As the tail of one little, gray cloud conjoins with the tail of the other, an hourglass, lying on its side, shapes up within our mind's eye.  The reason that you and I can see this process of change shaping up so clearly is because we are fully aware of each step taking place.  In short, our focus has not been diverted elsewhere.

On the other hand, common sense suggests that those observing from afar are less likely to be aware of ominous changes, which are growing obvious to you and me.  At this point, please stand the hourglass up and imagine the last few grains of sand, passing through its narrow channel, symbolizing the last few seconds of a family's idealistic sense of emotional security ebbing away.

   As this small configuration of clouds continues to alter, watch the standing hourglass elongate into the slender shape of a lovely lady, clothed in a long, gossamer gown of ‘neutral’ gray.  Though this lovely lady's given name is Fate, she answers to the nickname, Luck.  And while we pause for a moment to consider the speed with which mankind's false sense of safety slips away, let's watch the impartial mouth of the wind blowing the translucent fabric of Luck's full length gown around her shapely legs.

Now that the wind is picking up, let's bolster ourselves against whatever may come while we take a closer look at what Luck is holding in her up-turned, open, left palm.  Luck is holding forth her best attempts to balance the scales of justice while the wind blows the length of her spun gold hair straight back from her expressionless, clear blue eyes.  As the wind whips up, swinging Luck's scales up and down, they clang against each other like cymbals, crashing discordantly—repeatedly.

While Luck’s scales continue to toll, like bells ringing out an alarm, we spy her right hand rising from it’s restful place at her side.  While her right arm is stretching gracefully overhead, Luck’d scales continue to dangle and crash within her upturned, left palm.

Next, if we watch closely, you and I will observe Luck's right hand, which is now held high over her head, folding into a fist, except for one finger, the pointer to be exact, which frees itself in order to direct our attention toward those last few sunbeams, which are quickly disappearing into dark clouds that continue to gather, ominously, above Luck's comely head.

On a clear day, the angelic grace of this lovely lady is gowned in billowing clouds of white, offering the eye a heavenly sight floating across a clear, blue sky.  As there's reason for everything, we're about to learn why Luck is gowned, today, in gray, and all too soon this comely lass will feel so blue as to darken her gray gown to black.  As you shall see before tomorrow's dawn, black clouds of mourning will grow as heavy as inconsolable grief, causing the classic features of Luck's lovely face to furrow into a frown as deep as frowns of foreboding tend to be, simulating the frowns, which are surely forming on your face and mine right about now.

With despairing grief several seconds away, let's imagine a flock of five, well nourished ducks soaring high in the sky until—unexpectedly—one is randomly shot down while the others fly on.  Had these ducks been people, their high-flying spirits would have reacted as one, plummeting to the ground, while the winds of change—causing Luck's scales to crash—go clang, clang, clang.

Upon visualizing this flock of birds blindsided by grief, each losing sight of direction, we'll watch them crash into one another with whiplash speed as this heart wrenching change in emotional climate swirls a family's sense of security into the eye of a tornado-sized gale.

Though each defense system tries to close its eyes to the disastrous effects of this storm, in truth, the strain of 'acting' normal will drain every last grain of sand out of Luck's spirit.  So right about now, I think it’s wise to note the importance of honoring the truth of whatever each of us actually feels—otherwise baggage tends to accumulate deep inside our minds, and if excess emotional baggage weighs too heavy on the spirit, over long, an unprocessed event such as this is bound to affect the path that one terrified little duckling chooses to tread as life moves forward, differently than before.

At this point in my story, Fate is about to give a small child's think tank so severe a shaking as to replace any thought of Lady Luck smiling down on her with a discombobulated sense of emptiness, which filters into her core.  And no matter how often Lady Luck works to regain this child's sense of trust, every strength this little girl had naturally begun to develop between birth and three will spin, like a series of tops, until, one day, her mind gives way to a dizzied state of confounded exhaustion for this reason:  Within the next few moments, life will feel so scary that Annie’s defense system will move her into Denialand in hopes of saving her sanity, and there she’ll stay until the spirit of Socrates hovers near enough to whisper—Know thyself—into her open, adult ear.

Luckily, Annie will grow to be a woman whose mind feels so eager to absorb information concerning human nature that insight into clarity of thought will, one day, call upon the winds of change to blow a lifetime of blindsided confusion out of her mind.

If this was a fairy tale, today's story would end right here with Annie growing up to live happily ever after.  However, this is the true tale of my life, and since I've not yet turned three, let's return to the porch, where the terrifying truth cannot be denied …