Hot Damn 5! The Dysfunctional Family Reunion Strikes Back (event)

I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the back seat
Oh admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day
I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below

-The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades-
{Sufjan Stevens}
Farther from Home, Track 20

It was almost always at 3 am on the dot that they called the dead. Some nights sequestered away in my sleeping bag in the corner of a darkened room, I only caught tenuous glimpses of a stray wraith passing through the bedroom door, shaking off the last of the hallway lights from its form. It hung there, fadingly luminous, above me as the darkened room leeched the last of its form until I was again alone.

Other nights, I'd wander into the circle as they called the names to be summoned. The specters swung powerfully into the crisp forest air, the most awesome often waiting only for that darkest bit of night that occurs before daylight breaks its opaque shell. They soaked in the same fresh breeze, purified by earlier rains, that swept across our faces and our city worn skin. These too faded into the darkness that lurked outside of our petty lights. They were beautiful and along with the glamours summoned by their side created snapshots of a world I had been too late to catch, but not quite late enough to completely miss.

*      *      *

I'm almost two years old. In a lot of places online, two years is ancient. Not so here. I'm still the new kid on the block at these gatherings and I dance tenuously out of reach of a history that is both web and warm hug. It rained hard as we first hit the road for the cabin and, despite the rain's roar, it came out as exciting rather than ominous. I ran from the garage and damply settled into BrooksMarlin's car. Something in my bones cried adventure as we drove near-blind through the falling sky. I jumped at the shadows jumping from the rain as he muttered quietly about the torrents.

Here were people new and old -- familiar faces that I know by heart now and names that hung on the tip of mind -- things well-read but only half remembered. I walked into intimacies that I didn't quite understand and histories that I only knew of third hand and whispered, all in a house that looked like a half breed of every world's culture and none, poised at any minute to leap to be alive and chaotic as those that huddled within it.

Oddly, this newly birthed conglomerate creature of man and house, of rekindled belief and eclectic chotskies, welcomed me with open arms, sat me on it's lap, and taught me stories of yore and told me tales of the future. I took in the warm timbre of his voice like a mother's heartbeat.

*      *      *

HA! I'M JEWISH! IN YOUR FACE POPE! I'm so faklempt at the wedding -- I always sniffle at weddings -- but we down drinks in celebration and it's all laughter again and I laugh again and again and never have I ever again again again. (Rowan quit surprising me, it makes me feel old when you make me drink.) Have you written a node before 2005? Drink. Drink deep. And laugh. Cake and pie and non-pie flow free and only once did my face get stepped on at 2 am one night.

Feet full of "Sorry, sorry..."

Misplaced "It's me... It's me" that trickles off the back porch.

A grotto full of "It's ok."

It's been so long since I've seen the real stars, rather then the washed out dots that the city brings. and they twinkle within reach, landing in my hand between swigs of vodka tonic that I have to remember not to drink until the statements apply to me. Have I ever thought about 10 people at once like that? Have I? Drink to be safe. Above, the big luna moth makes its nightly visit, landing on everyone once before settling comfortably on the wall behind the circle to watch us.

*      *      *

In the quiet, on a mountain far from home and cut off from our usual connections, those around me made their own accidental magics, recreating the faith of a child and resurrecting the bones of ages past. In their midst, I, the quiet, funny thief, stole some of the sparkle for my own and have swallowed it whole. It now sits in my throat, halfway between my stomach and heart, wanting neither digestion nor flow. It simply waits to root into my marrow and flower in my mind, leaving seeds in my memory.

Maybe it wasn't so odd to think of when you realized the familial feel of it all - not just the literal parents and children, not just the pretend roles we took for the owner (which did I end up as . . . . ?) but maybe something else that I can't really finger or say. It all happened in one near infinite instant and I'm left wondering what to make of it all still... It wasn't perfect, but that more satisfying imperfection of limited water, awkward moments, too late nights, and rooms that stared back at you. Sometimes we rubbed each other the wrong way. Sometimes I would end up with a baby in arms, wondering, horrified, what to do with it should it start crying. But mostly, people remembered, people cared, people hugged, people celebrated. People happened. And whatever occurred over those few days, I don't think I'd have had it any other way.

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