As old as the rain

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I had an awakening moment that lasted about half an hour and then disappeared leaving me wishing it hadn’t gone. Twenty years or so later it seemed I had another one that lasted the same amount of time and then that too was gone.

I’ve been waiting now about 27 years for the next one to come along. And while I’ve been waiting I’ve been filling in notebooks with stuff, and a few forms here and there…

Anyway, my granny was old when I was young and that was a long time ago but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, seeing as I’m older than her now than when she was old.

Maybe this is why you think a lot when you get old because you’re older than everyone you’ve ever known, and all those moments that you were young have gone leaving only memories, and memories of memories, where your connection to them becomes thinner and thinner and spread like the thinnest gossamer touch so that you don’t know if you’ll ever wake up again to another tomorrow.

And time, that was once an ocean, finally becomes the fleeting moments that you try to hold onto to stop them racing by, but nothing you can do can stop them now, or turn them around; and you find that there’s no tomorrow, there never was.

And you find that your enemy was nothing more than your shadow trying to come home to you.

And all your friends were a presence of your spirit inviting you into the circle of love.

And the songbird that called you from its hidden place through all the years was but your heart calling you to play.

A love like that is worth recognising.

And of all that you’ve loved and experienced and known, that was a gift in your life, was there not one something out of all of it that you cherished more than anything else; that was perhaps your true purpose…

When you get old you talk to yourself a lot and say many things that sound like how you would like it to be, but there’s one thing I’ve known and that is: if you set your mind on a purpose there’s no stone it can’t crack.

Hmmmm said Sweet-pea and turned over to sleep.

Let us now talk about writers block: Silly funnies like water snakes were running all over the place and blowing bubbles with me trying to catch them and going wheeeeeeee…

Hours turned into months.

Sweet-pea was fast asleep beside me and probably hadn’t heard a word I’d said this last hour or so as my eyes followed the moon over its counterpane. Seeing her, I gave her a kiss on her hair to bless her and began to turn over the next leaf of the unravelling.

Seven Sundays came and went rapidly; and then seven more on top of them until I couldn’t count anymore. I tell you, growing old may be a necessary evil, but I’d not swap it for anything else.

There were many pardons for my pain though, that came dressed as love, and then Sweet-pea woke up and told me not to worry about anything…

And yes, of course I closed my eyes, wouldn’t you?

I think I am reading your thoughts.

You don’t say.

Well yes, I do actually.

Oh come now, you surely don’t.

Ha ha.

He he.

Too early and while it was still dark the alarm went off with a ring a ding ding and wouldn’t do anything else until someone turned it off.

When no one moved to turn it off I searched around for my shoe to throw at it but found only the dust of all my endeavours, so I gave up on that and turned over to go back to sleep.

And then I twigged…so I said: hey?

What? said Sweet-pea.

Are we old I piped out?

Honey, I tell you, I will love you forever, but you’ve got to go back to sleep now.

I couldn’t stand it anymore so I shook all over and ruffled up the bed a little bit and thought that if I grew any older I’d get writers block or something and have to call in the mind readers to sort it all out.

Oh, the belly-dance of that; it left me reeling, I can tell you. But suddenly I found I was hungry.

So I crept downstairs towards the fridge to see what was there….

As I descended downwards, a spider crawled onto my leg and a bat flit through the air that made me think that it was that time of night again.

The moments of this passed as I began to grow older by the minute until I couldn’t feel anything anymore and so went to sleepwalking mode and noticed that it was very dark.

The ghost under the carpet moaned about its lot again as I walked over it and so I had to say: Bengy, be quite, which did the trick and all became quite again.

In the kitchen I lit a candle to see by, and wider than the widest mushroom was the wonder of this that came in through the window a short tail spin later to rescue Sweet-pea in her hour of need. It was the meow cat. It brushed past my leg and sped upstairs, and finding the bedroom, it jumped upon Sweet-pea and woke her up even more.

Oww, said Sweet-pea, and began plucking her eyebrows out.

And then, almost impossible so, 14 gypsies jumped out of a lorry and came knocking with roses and prophesies like hosepipes of doom at the front door.

Well, you know that time when you wake up from a bad dream, and a moment later you’re wondering if it will come back again when you go back to sleep, that happens a lot when you get old, however young you are.

Climate change was not waiting around and was throwing doom everywhere, so I decided that I really didn’t need that snack and turned around and went back up the stairs.

When, I reached the bedroom around midnight I thought that maybe my granny was never as old as this as I flopped down on the bed and turned the TV on still feeling hungry.

Several were the offers that came to take my brain away as I was thinking that there are too many gods to deal with.
So I lay back and decided to die into the pain where I could give it all away.

As I died, I came to the fifth circle and heard birds tweeting, but that may have just been my imagination.

I carried on to my doom.

Down, down, I went, to as far down as you can go; and then came to a stop at the bottom that was begging for a bus stop.

I looked around me and noticed that it was empty and dark with nobody lurking about the place.

But, on glancing up, I saw a horse raced towards me from around the corner. And as it came close I held my breath and found that it wasn’t a horse at all.

I took stock of my heart that was beating wildly and wished I was a woman so I could flutter my eyelashes.

I don’t know how, but suddenly I was giggling away in the silence and searching to know what was before me and found it was something that can never be said, but nothing came to mind.

And the more I looked into what I was faced with the more I felt a love filling me with joy.

My face began to crack wide open then, and for some reason I said: no, no, stop or you’ll break the mask.

But the command was given, and I could not take it back. As it left me I called out in the hope it would come back; but no, away it went and was gone.

Bereft I was then as I was flung back upwards towards my pain; and crying anew I wished I’d never become so old, because it’s no fun dying in front of the TV with all the lights turned off.

I can hear the questions coming about this, so let me attempt to forestall them a little bit by this: if many chickens cross the road, does that mean there is a stampede?

I wouldn’t say that, said Sweet-pea awake beside me.

What would you say then?

I would say nothing at all.

Sometimes that is easier said than done.

I am going to go out on a limb here and iterate that you are in some kind of doubt.

You could say that.

I have said that.

Then, you have said it.

Yes I have.

I’m blind now you know, and I can’t see who I am talking to.

Are you hinting at something?

No, not at all; I’m just looking for clues.

Let’s dance for a moment, out on the floor of our perceptions.

Good idea, I’ll race you there.

I was listening hard the very next day into the silence, when the phone rang from a long way away from where I was from it.

I’ve got shillings to spend I said into the mouth piece a mad dash later and breathlessly grabbing it to me.

I want dollars, said the ear piece.

Who’s that I asked, wondering why they were calling me.

It’s me, Hazem, the genie.

Ah, Hazem, do you take coupons, I said, trying to be nonchalant and without a care in the world.

I’m sure something can be arranged said Hazem eating his way out of the phone as a smoke roiling mist and multiplying before my very eyes so that I felt like a toad with convulsions until I just had to put the phone down.

I really can’t tell you how that felt; and I’ve got an aversion to phones now.

Scribbling upon my nails a month later I was still thinking of it and saw I was in a deep blue that stretched out as far as I could see.

At least it’s not dark I thought.

A glowing note on the refrigerator caught my attention, and as I read it I heard the sound of a door opening.

Imagine nothing. And then place yourself there. And then stepping back away to see what happens you see yourself from afar in infinity and imagining nothing.

Yes, welcome to the rabbit hole. And, do not be afraid, there is nothing to harm you here said Janie holding the door of the rabbit hole open for me to walk through.

On the other side of the door I met Golden-dawn who gave me a feather and said: When you know nothing, how can you say a thing?

As I dashed off into the wind with my raincoat flapping around me a hundred tons of rain hit my face, so I grinned, and bore it, and growled: arrgggh.

A sticky flute and a bunch of grapes have not a lot in common so there’s not really much point in talking about them any more than this, is there? I said to the wind.

See the words lapping upon the shore as the sounds of your ides shaping you into some idea you can hardly recall replied the wind.

Am I a slave to be treated this way I said then?

When you have reached this far you are allowed to drink the rain to cool you down said the wind and gave me a parking ticket and a slap on the face.

The genie of the reiki-forest with a huge grin plastered all over her face danced past me doing a jig that lifted the fur on my neck so that I growled again and thought that maybe people should start calling me the growler from now on. On looking around me I saw my way to escape, so I ran for it.

All through the night I ran, down that long road to the ocean where I found the storm that was no more than my heart pounding on the door of existence.

Crossing my heart so that I would love myself more than ever I remembered back a long way to where I’d begun to get lost, and as I did so I found myself more lost than ever.

So I said: I don’t want to think about that with this advice hanging over me that keeps me alive to believe more than the death that approaches.

I’m as old as the rain, but the party’s not over until that very last breath is given away…

This shall be called part one until part two comes along.

Images from Pixabay

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