One month before Anna embarked on her road trip across the country, she wrote, “I’m taking off to find myself. But that’s not quite it. I am heading out on a journey to collect the parts of myself that were blown apart 10 years ago. I am calling back these pieces that have always been with me, hovering around and above me, tethered close enough to grasp and pull back into myself when I needed it, but not residing in me. It has always been temporary. I need to integrate these shattered pieces of me. Like a magnet, as I drive to the east, these pieces will shift and tumble and sink into place. Where they fit will be different because I am different. But I am ready. Ready to have those pieces come in and reside within me. Ready to feel it again, ready for that wholeness. I’m looking forward to the journey. I am ready.”
Anna remembered that writing those three words, “I am ready” seemed almost a challenge to the universe. She might as well have said, “Bring it on!” Hitting “publish” on her blog even more so. “Be careful what you wish for” slipped into her thoughts in her mother’s British accent. Vividly, she pictured her mother’s face, chin tilted downward a bit, looking over her glasses fusing “that look” with it’s recipient. She felt this reverberate through her, rumbling within her, “Oh well,” she thought. No turning back now…
Why on earth did she think that calling back shattered pieces of herself would not cut her to the bone? Why did she think they would shift and tumble and sink into place, these shards of herself that floated about, and not draw blood on reentry?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She sat in her car, shuddering as she tried to breathe deeply, feeling sick to her stomach; trepidation making her mouth dry and her forehead and temples sweat. She was in the southernmost part of Wyoming, needing to get to Sheridan, Wyoming; a 4 ½ hour drive. There was no way she could drive around it. She literally had to go through it; Casper. She needed to drive on the same stretch of highway where her mother flew out of her skin. She called her husband that morning, not able to comprehend how to move off the couch, never mind drive the car. He was the only one who could figure it out, certainly he had a solution. He read her words from her blog back to her. He tried to find an alternate route. Finally, speaking as if to a frightened child, he told her, “Maybe this whole cross country road trip was about this one day. Today might be the whole point. I wish I could be there with you, and go through it with you, but I think you have to do this alone. Don’t worry about how long it takes. Pull over whenever you need to. Sleep when you need to. You can do this. This is what you wanted.”
As she lay on the couch, staring at google maps on her laptop showing her just how direct a route she had to take, that little snippet of a campfire song drifted on a wave into one ear, across her mind and out the other. “Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, can’t go around it, had to go through it, swish, swish, swish,swish…” As this sing song repeated itself, she saw a message pop up on her screen from the Cottonwoods asking what time she’d be arriving, because John had gotten them all tickets to the Sheridan Rodeo. Anna responded, “Shoot! I’m heading out much later than I expected. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of having a hard time with driving through Casper, which shouldn’t really surprise me. My husband, Jack, told me just to take my time and get through it. I hope I will be there in time, but I’m not sure.”
She was certain it was Jody Cottonwood who typed the response, she could clearly hear her comforting, no nonsense voice responding with, “Hey, lady. Just keep on driving. Think only about the love and family and great memories you have waiting for you here on Piney Creek!!!” Quietly laughing through her tears, Anna was yet again astounded by the comfort that this family could bring to her heart.
Taking a final deep, shuddering breath, anchored by her husband’s and Jody’s words that morning, with the certainty of safe harbor upon her arrival, she turned the key in the ignition.
Time was fluid as she drove, thoughts blowing by as breezes lightly touching her shoulder, her cheekbone, yet having no clarity. After cruising in this timeless state for a while, a weight of some kind settled into her like oppressive pillows filling her head, neck, and shoulders, physically bending her forward. Her eyelids felt thick and weighty. She pulled over at the corner of two highway’s meeting, into a dirt parking lot of some nondescript store. The exhaustion consumed her, pressing heavily on her body and spirit. “Sleep when you need to,” her husband had said. She put the car in park, locked the doors, and fell dead asleep.
When she woke, she was shocked to see that two hours had gone by. She breathed in deeply through her nose, let it out slowly, then using her fingers, slowly traced a reiki symbol on her steering wheel. She got out of the car, touching all sides of the vehicle as she spoke her words and reikied each side. The temperature of the air on her skin felt absolutely neutral; not hot, not cold, just…neutral. No wind either. She got back into her car.
“Okay, ” she exhaled.
“Okay,” again.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jackie loved to drift and meander, visiting her heart homes; those places on the earth she stumbled upon that felt so familiar, that when in physical form, her gut told her was “her place”, resonating with the same vibration as her body. A sort of internal hum would begin, and a sense of “rightness” settling in her solar plexus. One of these homes was Piney Creek, Wyoming. Her family never quite understood why she had stayed there so many years, but Wyoming had claimed her. In one of her journals, the small, dark brown leather one with a wooden binding and leather ties, she had written,
“Wyoming~ Wild. Harsh. An unforgiving land
whose beauty Seduces and The Soul tumbles
and rests in the womb of The Wild Sage~JVS”
And on another page…
“How does the place, the land where I live,
have spiritual relevance to me?
How does it Rise Up? Anoint, and Love me?
How do I Anoint and Love it?”
She roamed, catching gusty currents, sometimes shifting like starling murmurations, other times relaxing into expansion as a mist. Time and again, one of her beloved living would sense her, feel her. This gave her such joy! She would harmonize with the physical world, affect it, hoping to bring affirmation to her loves that yes, this was actually happening. No this isn’t coincidence. Yes, she is here. Sometimes it was butterflies. She would hum a tune, gently wave her hands, and they would move together in a compelling dance, drawing the attention of her family. Sometimes it was just a gentle exhalation of her cosmic breath that sent them dancing. Anna particularly loved the butterflies. She loved them so much, she got them inked right onto her skin! Jackie clearly remembered when Anna finally settled on that enormous tattoo on her back. “Good lord, girl. What the hell are you thinking?!” Jackie mused. “Oh well. Good thing you waited until I was dead or I would have killed you.”
She loved it when they, in turn, would manipulate the physicality of the earth to draw her in. Sometimes simple gestures; a thoughtfully placed stone, other times quite obvious, such as when Anna drew “Hi Mom!” or “Jackie is here!” in enormous letters, drawn by dragging the heel of her foot on the beaches of Plum Island. She was inexorably drawn to that shore; her presence instantaneous. She still marveled at this aspect of herself. She could be wherever she wanted to be with just a thought.
Jackie was buzzing about, anointing the sage hills of Piney Creek, brushing her hands across the tops, releasing their healing aroma into the air, when her reiki symbol appeared inches from her face as if drawn with glowing embers, first directly in front of her eyes, then on all sides of her.
“What on earth…Oh, Anna.” The energy language they shared encircled Jackie, surrounding her with glowing fire spirals traced in thin lines on all sides. “Well, you’ve got my attention, darling.” Taking in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and flew up and out, felt a tingle in all her celestial cells and looked upon her daughter tracing spirals on all sides of her car. She heard her daughter’s voice, calling in her angels, “Mom, Auntie Sheila, Nana Sweeney, Gale, Chuck, all of my beloved dead, I need your help. Keep me safe.” She watched Anna get into her car, heard the crunch of tires on dirt and gravel as she backed out and then forward, pausing to get back on the highway. She slowly made the right hand turn onto HWY 220.
“Oh.”
“Oh, brave girl.”
“I’ve got you my darling.”
It was time to be everywhere all at once.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As Anna crested the hill, a sensation exactly like that of cresting the hill of a great roller coaster fluttered in the direct center of her chest. Anna hated roller coasters. As she started the downward slope, she felt something compressing all sides of her; squeezing her up and out of her own head. “No, No, No, No, No, No, No,” Anna cried. Sensing she was lifting up and out, she said, “Whoa, whoa, I can’t drive like this, I can’t drive like this! stopstopStop!” Jackie looked on. She did not want to enter that car. Any car. She was shocked at her apprehension and attachment to what had happened to her body that last time she was in a car. “Get in there, Jackie,” she ordered herself, at once surrounding the car, sifting through and into it, once more a structure of metal and glass housing her spirit. Anna gasped, breathing too much, feeling too much…
“Steady darling. I’ve got you.” Jackie firmly encircled Anna, whose boundaries were blurring and extending upward. She reikied her girl and applied gentle pressure; Anna’s bodyspirit slowly sinking back in through the top of her head, drawing with it shards of energy on all sides. These razor-edged pieces pierced Anna’s skin, pressing into her body. She shrieked; screaming and crying hysterically. She caught a glance of herself in the rear-view mirror. What she saw there unrecognizable. She was somehow feral, and more frightened than she had seen anyone in her life. “No, No, No, No, No, No, No,” she kept crying. Jackie surrounded her in the strongest, sweetest embrace, holding her and crooning to her daughter who sobbed with complete abandon, throat burning and raw, literally pulling herself together…
Anna shivered and shook, breathing deeply once more, her edges still soft in her mother’s arms. As she reached the bottom of the hill, she slowed, rolling down the window just a crack. Jackie’s attention moved to the altar her daughter had created on the dashboard. Anna brought some objects from home, and also collected a token; a rock, a stone, a leaf, a flower, from every stop she made across every state. Jackie recognized an owl feather that was once hers, with a dried rose resting on top. As the car slowed to a crawl, she lifted the feather and the rose and held it in both palms, gently rocking it like a newborn directly in front of Anna’s eyes, letting it hover for a moment. She kissed her daughter, then collected herself and flew up and out of the car, taking the feather and the rose with her. Anna continued to sit there, head still fuzzy. “I think I need to give her a bigger sign,” Jackie mused.
As she slowed, Anna stared at the feather as it hovered in mid-air directly in front of her eyes. Just as she started thinking, “wait, what…” the feather and rose whisked out the crack in her window, as if sucked out by a vacuum. She watched the feather fly high, desperation hitting suddenly that this was a treasure of her mother’s that she’d had for years, not wanting to lose it. Eyes upward, she noticed the quilted clouds blanketing the sky, all encompassing in every direction. As she watched, lyrics from the mixed tape that her husband had made her seeped into her consciousness. She hadn’t even realized that music had been playing during the entire stretch of HWY 220.
“In the distance light years from tomorrow
Far beyond yesterday
She is watching, heart aching with sorrow
She is broken, as she waits.”
“No way. Seriously, mom?” As the lyrics continued, a tiny tear appeared in the quilt above her, revealing a sliver of golden blue light.
“Oh Starlight, don’t you cry
we’re gonna make it right before tomorrow
Oh Starlight, don’t you cry
we’re gonna find a place where we belong (where we belong)
And so you know, you’ll never shine alone”
Anna giggled. The giggles turned into full blown joyous laughter. The sliver of golden blue crackled and sliced through the clouds, setting the quilt aglow.
“Oh, come on!” She was cracking up.
“You will see as the mountains fall and turn to dust
That there’s one thing that won’t change
I believe there is something within each of us that always stays
That will always remain as long as love never fades”**
“Okay, now you’re showing off, Mom!” laughed Anna as beams of light shot down from the clouds above. She rolled down her window, thrust her arm into the sky, and danced her hand on the current of the wind as her car picked up speed again. She felt a giddy lightness in her chest, spreading and filling every cell in her body with such joy. Every cell giggled. She could not remember when the last time was that she felt such elation. She caught her reflection once again and she was positively beaming, although she could swear it was her mother’s megawatt smile in the rear view mirror.
The dazzling blue overtook the clouds, swallowing them up, leaving just a hint of white puffs speckling the sky. Anna felt the wind press and guide her hand dance, drifting in memories of riding home from Hampton Beach with her mother in those muggy, New England summers, feeling drained and contentedly “beached” as she “hand surfed” out the window with her friends. In an instant, she was struck with a memory so clear, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. The words of her reiki teacher stamped her consciousness, “After Reiki 2, you’ll be able to perform distance healing, reiki past life events, even reiki those who have passed on.” Anna was stunned. Of course. She began reiki-ing her mother, then a certainty smacked her on the back of the head. After a decade, Anna had still not forgiven her mother for dying.
“Oh wow…Oh.”
Turning off the radio, she said these words aloud, “Mom, I forgive you for dying. I know you didn’t mean it. I love you so much. So, so much.”
A sweet exhaustion wrapped itself around Anna like the softest blanket. It was different than being tired; it was more like being in a perfect state of …being. Just being. She pulled over, knowing that her husband would want to know she was alright. When she put the car in park, her hand brushed the dark brown leather journal of her mother’s on her passenger seat. She opened it up,
“Forgiveness is never done well in little bits and dabs-
Do it all at once and never look back, or do not do it at all-JVS
The Dutchess……Through a Glass Darkly.”
A small laugh escaped from Anna’s lips, whispering out as she smiled softly. Pages slipped and flipped through her fingertips and landed solidly on another page,
“The Essence of me lives on
In the Essence of you.
Only my Body has gone – Mum”
Anna cranked up the music, turned the key in the ignition, and kept driving.
**song~Starlight: lyrics and music by Slash
In the Margins 
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