At Least They're Committed

Sitting quietly on the lawn chair on the deck, hair whipping about me, clawing into my eyes as I spit strands from my mouth, my blue eyes gaze equally at the swirling creek below and at the screen of my phone. Phil Collins, who is otherwise not on my list of favorites, is crooning in black ‘n’ white on YouTube, ‘Oh, how I wish it would rain down, down on me!‘

I do, I do, I do wish it would rain, and I have faith that it will. And as lovely as it is to sit out there in the cool winds with the gray clouds inching in overhead, I can’t help but feel a little sad. One more tradition in the wind.

For three-plus years, we sat in that sunroom and prayed for rain when it was needed and celebrated it when it wasn’t — pretty much, we loved and appreciated rain. We still want rain, but as we are in the process of selling that house and getting comfortable with our new residences, I’m just not sure where to sit. What direction to face? When to start clapping!

Of course, rain against these A-frame windows would be a fantabulous start! I’ll be able to hear the trees and the brush singing with each droplet! It will arrive, and the land and I will thrive.

Days later, we’re back at the northeasterly homestead, still needing rain for this elaborate landscaping, and I’m still praying. But, I must admit, despite the need here, I pray more for the mountains.

I’m reading, too. I’m narrowing in on the final “Thursday Murder Club” book, which is delightful and good to rotate between it (old people’s charm only goes so far), and “Never Whistle at Night,” a dark fiction anthology I purchased off TikTok. Native American mythology and lore are a bit more exhilarating than old people solving murders, I guess.

I was totally psyched by Stephen Graham Jones‘s forward — as I knew I would be. I had the honor of interviewing him for a podcast a few years back, and I hope he doesn’t mind me singing his praises here. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl (that’s cliche, isn’t it? I must come up with something better!) when we met to record. I found myself dizzy as brainless as a beagle sensing a rabbit in the brush, maybe? (Closer! I love beagles.) Eh, I’ll keep working on it. Anyway, as someone who thrives on all things creepy, during the interview, I hung on his every word.

He is an outstanding writer, so much so that I can’t read all of his ‘stuff.’ Disturbs me a tad too much, ya know? No matter. I was jazzed by the forward, and the first short story in the anthology had me looking up what a kushtuka is. This is according to ChatGPT: A kushtuka is believed to be a shape-shifting sea otter spirit—sometimes helpful, but often dangerous.

Got it! In this particular case, it was both. And in this case, it shapeshifted to appear as the protagonist.

I’d be lying if I were to say all the rest of the stories have thrilled me as much. A little too modern, perhaps? Dunno. I just know I lived in a New Mexico community that included many Navajo (Diné), and I heard the tales of terror of what happens when you whistle at night. I hope as the book goes on, it tells some — at least one or two — of those stories.

All of this adds a spring in my step as I clear out the dishwasher, putting the clean cutlery away, then starting to reload for the next round. Shhh. The others are still sleeping, best not to clink or clank to wake them. With three of us living in this abode, precious and few are the moments alone — at least just Max and me.

Native American lore has always fit with my psyche: the apparitions my child-self experienced seething in the night. Roiling, yes, roiling, thank you very much! Darkness folding in on itself.

I am curious about Skinwalker Ranch, and I have stepped places where the earth vibrated beneath one — only one — of my feet. It happened again in the garden shed here and I even circled around my foot with chalk to see if I could make it happen again . . . but then when it kept happening and felt like something was grabbing my left shin, I figured it was simply one of my many anatomic glitches. Or a sign. Time will tell.

All good! These things are out there and I know it, no matter what naysayers try to convince us. Thankfully, as someone who follows the Catholic doctrine, it understands this and in no way discounts what I have experienced.

I don’t see much anymore, even though I sense things. I have built barriers with a lot of help from my spiritual guides. I leave my closet open at night, I walk in the dark, and if I don’t trip over a lawn border I hadn’t noticed or down the steep, albeit elegant rock, stairs at the ‘pretty house,’ I have no fear.

Building barriers doesn’t mean ‘it’ is not real. Oh, it is. Only that it can’t reach you, well, me . . . mostly. Folks who go out searching for this sort of interaction are either not intuitive (as much as they would seem to want to be) or they are fools.

Shhhhh. It’s bedtime.