Gods are present in small things, I’ve learned.
I play a game very often with my patron god, in all seasons and all weather except snow. As I leave my condo building to go around to the back, I tell myself, “There won’t be something living for me to pick up this time,” thinking of a still-green leaf or a windblown flower petal. I always find on the grass one, the game has been played for years now and never once failed. My god is a sun god, and sometimes, like today, I find leaves that have a yellow pattern staining them, as if the sun has left its mark. I usually find them on bad days.
Today is a bad day. Once again, Athlynne has badly budgeted her medication and run out. Not too bad, I see my doc and refill it tomorrow morning. But it’s left me feeling badly today, although the Claritin is at least taking the edge off my allergies. And going outside now and then, being in the sun, seeing it through the leaves, takes the edge off everything else wrong. It always has. The sight of it is like a memory, a very old has come up to comfort me.
Memory is funny. I watched an old horror movie today I used to watch repeatedly as a child, one I haven’t seen in a good two decades. I remembered most of the dialogue, and every single scream of the main character I identified with the most, the mentally pained girl who could do things she couldn’t explain, who was haunted by things no one else believed. Such things are normal in my family, for the most part, but I always seemed just too far out even for them. When I told them what I thought my nightmares of execution via guillotine meant, my well-meaning father said, “Oh, I’m sure you weren’t her, she wasn’t a nice person.” He’s since apologized, but God, that stung.
My son, the one who I found again in this life, seems to recall much more than I do, not just of our shared past, but his other previous lives. I don’t know whether I envy him or my heart breaks for him. What I have is mainly the sun shining through leaves, that’s when I feel god, even stronger than when I sit at my Lugh altar. I have the scent of orange blossom, which transports me back for an instance. I have the way of lifting my shirts (I wear very long tunics) when I walk up stairs, as natural to me as holding the railing as I go.
My family, in case you were wondering, believes me about the Antoine thing. My mother, who almost became a licensed hypnotist, once got me under, and alas, did not tape it. She said I went under, I was speaking French, and I was miserable. I have no memory of this occasion, and when it was done my conversational French skills were extremely…non-existent, basically. She told me not to remember, so I’ve lost that too. Insight is cold comfort, but it’s something. Sometimes my life seems like such stasis, a hurrying-up followed by a long wait.
I’m back on my medication, a bit more numb to the slings and arrows of outrageous, well, you know. So, things are better. I just get so frustrated that I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why I, we, remember. I’ve pushed so many things down deep in my soul for too long. For all I know, it may one day return full-force, and what will happen to Athlynne then, Athlynne who prays for death, for release?
My Longing Shall Gather 