I was laying in bed this morning, recovering from a nightmare. I dreamed that I was in my house and I heard a noise over by the front door. I went to the door to investigate and a strange woman was standing there by the coat rack. Immediately, I told her that she would have to go. "You have to go!" I kept yelling. Though Phil said it came out more like "Aaaugh, aaaugh, aaaugh" real loud. Anyway, I woke up and had a horrible headache. I've been waking with a lot of headaches lately. It is allergy season so I am not surprised. This will keep happening until the end of September. One morning this week, I actually pondered the question - Could a skull actually split open like a watermelon in the garden? It really felt like my head was getting ready to do that.
So back to this morning - I woke up with a headache and didn't want to move, didn't want to see any form of light, didn't want to hear any loud sounds, didn't want to smell any strong scents. I just wanted to move through this world in slow quiet motion. Phil made some coffee and I closed my eyes and ventured into the kitchen to pour a cup for myself. Immediately, I noticed that it looked like coffee soup....dark and thick.... and I almost started something. I even asked him if he ever measures the coffee. He said no at which point I just gave him a dirty look. So I decided to just pour a cup and get back to my dark, cold bedroom, get back in bed and get over this headache.
I set the coffee cup on the table beside my bed and got under the covers. I was laying there, covers up to my chin, cold, darkness all around me and the smell of that thick coffee started calling to me. I took a sip. It was bitter. Yuck. I set the cup down and pulled the covers close. I lay there for about 5 minutes. Then I took another sip of coffee. I gathered the covers close again and lay back on my pillows. This is the point where an insight came to me.... I want to be kooky and quirky! I almost laughed but it hurt too much. Me, kooky and quirky. Yet somehow the idea interested me. I'll have to think it over and report back.
As you may have noticed, I have two pictures on this post. The one on the right is me - in pink.
My little sister took this picture or maybe I did. And this picture of me really resonates with me. You know how we all have that little voice in our heads that steer us through life? ( Ok, if I am the only one having this experience, please let me know - I may need help). Anyway, there is an inner voice that tells us what we need to know. I think this picture is that inner voice. She is the one who, when I was a young child and I heard the dogs scratching flees on the porch outside and thought it was someone knocking on the door, she told me "It's just the dogs scratching flees". And when the house would settle in the dark night, making cracks or pops and I thought it was someone creeping through the house, the inner voice would say "That's just the house settling." That good old inner voice has clued me in to a lot of stuff along the way. Once, after I was grown and times were really stressful. I thought I was having a nervous breakdown because I looked in the mirror and 'thought' my skull was swollen up like some kind of Martian being. My inner voice said "Girl, you need to get some rest". And as I went to climb into bed and felt like I wouldn't be able to sleep, that inner voice said "Sit down right here in the floor and give all your worries, stresses and deepest woe to God." And I did just that. I followed just what my inner voice told me. I told God that I couldn't make anyone outside of myself do anything that they didn't want to do. I told God that I had solutions to a lot of people's problems but they weren't interested. I cannot solve any of this. I told God that I have 4 children that do need my help and to help them I will need to sleep and cheer up. So I am putting all this 'stuff' into God's hands to hold. And that night I slept like a baby. I slept for almost 12 hours and when I woke up, Phil left for an appointment and it was just me and my 4 darling children at the house. I left the television off as Wall Street was having a meltdown and the news media were in a feeding frenzy. I just listened to my children go about the business of being kids. At one point I turned on the radio for some music and came across a station where they were speaking in tongues and my inner voice said "Turn that off." I turned it off and just listened to my world. So this picture of me reminds me of who I am at the core. I wanted to balance this picture next to another picture of me in work clothes and tell you about the kind hearted me who would do almost anything to help a friend but I will have to do that later due to technical difficulties. Instead I have a picture of my mother. She and I are roughly about the same age in these two pictures. She was a kind hearted person who would do almost anything to help her family or her friends. Mama loved to shop. She didn't have a lot of money so that made it a bit difficult. I love this picture of her. She was shopping. She went by one of her favorite stores and the clerk was showing her this instamatic camera. He took her picture (this picture) with that camera and she bought it. I love this picture! And it has a million cracks in it. I took a picture of the picture since one of my sisters owns the original. I thought I might photoshop it since time has cracked the film. Now I look at it as if it were a stained glass window, picturing a holy, sacred image....Mama mother or Sarah.
