Goddesses Have One Thing In Common – and it isn’t beauty! It’s intelligence, but cultivated intelligence. You know what cultivated intelligence is? Education.
Goddesses Have Vast Perspective – Across time, nations, histories, cultures…this universe is so rich that synthesizing its glories is a satisfying life’s work for anyone. But you need to know about those glories. Goddesses inform themselves. It’s much more unlikely you’ll be victimized or sidelined when you familiarize yourself with aggressor and hostage-taking strategies from, say, The Prince or The Art of War.
Never Quit Learning. Synchronicity is the magic connector of daily life, but you can’t see it without Education. Do you dream of longed-for events and fulfillment? Glorious parties of blissful happiness where life finally seems to be unfolding exactly the way it should? Synchronous events are harmonious, as if the universe is a vast perfectly working clockwork machine. Understanding machines, systems, attribution and calibration are the subject of the educational process. This is the reason we spend the first twenty plus years of our lives in instructive settings.
Goddess Learn for a Lifetime – Humans are fierce absorbers of knowledge. Advertisers know this, as do the designers of games and entertainment generally. We adore self-educating mazes.The complex dance between our skills, our bodily manifestation and the physics of reality is never-ending. Goddesses determinedly master the synchrony of Right Thought, Right Instruction & Right Action.
Goddess Have Young Brains but Old Souls – We have seen, known, learned and struggled so much. We have much knowledge to pass on to the brash beginners. But we ourselves confront each day with Gratitude Practice – re-experiencing the thrill of being alive and relishing the challenge of bending the universe toward light.
As We Fill Our Souls with Light We Confront the Darkness – Remember – always get the oxygen mask over your own face before you try to enlighten others. We need to design a life-long learning plan that benefits US, not one that puts our hard-earned money in someone else’s pocket.
Beware the Quicksand – The culture seeks to bog us down in titles, degrees, honors, acquisitions and pro forma protocols. Don’t succumb. Our motion is always upward, our benchmark always healthy, top-level functioning. Are we becoming stronger, smarter and more peaceful? Can we pass this flexible, constructive protocol along?
Goddess Danger: we are seducible. We love to relax! We look for allies. We get tired, we long for reinforcements and approval. We just want to put our feet up.
Learn today to calibrate your balance in this uncertain world. Write it out in your Goddess Journal before you go to sleep – what new thing have I learned today? Where will it fit along my map? But we are smart! Our self-designed goal system must contain refreshment and renewal breaks. Most importantly, we will be needing a buddy as we go through the system, and a spiritual guru who provably has our best interests at heart. You can recognize them by the fact that they don’t trap you into a dominance/submission matrix.
Models & Mentors – “Education is the key to unlocking the world. It is the passport to freedom.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela
“Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” – Malcolm X
Goddesses are Self-Sufficient.– You will need to become your own best friend. Have you been fearing time alone? This could be because you are aware of the important work you need to do in bringing your inner universes – past – present – future – and potential – into alignment. Carve out time to reflect on all your relationships. Goddesses are collaborative, never subordinate, although they are surrounded by diminishers.
Our dreams alone could fill a shelf of books – and the dreams of a goddess have immediate reality. The first battle is increasing your Zone of Respect. Treating yourself with respect is vital. You will need to think seriously about ways you disrespect yourself, and why.
Your Mind Is Your Most Important Tool – Sun Tzu reminds us that all battles are won and lost in the brain. Your mind determines your experience which controls your mind which develops your experience in a perfect feedback loop. In a culture based on “likes” from strangers we are all too ready to hand the reins of our brain over to God know who. Advertisers, influencers and partisans do NOT have your best interests at heart. We must learn how to turn that feedback loop into an upward trending spiral.
After the Party Comes Cleanup – Goddesses develop self-confidence. Frustrated Goddesses devour themselves. We need to trust, not fear, our own reactions. This takes practice – “reps” in the words of the physical trainers. There is no need for two weeks alone on the Appalachian Trail (nice as that would be) because we are already alone inside our heads. Check your voices: what are you saying to yourself? “Good effort” or “Idiot”? It matters! Many of us treat ourselves worse than we would treat any other human (or animal.) That must change today.
Goddess Danger – We are not proposing a life without feedback or a divorce from reality. If you really were your own best friend, you would protect, not isolate yourself. You would strategize your power towards health and sharing, not secrecy and isolation.
Do You Hate Your Thoughts? – A recent poll discovered that most people would rather experience electric shocks than spend time alone with their thoughts, doing nothing but thinking. Just as mapping your future is an important Goddess job, so is mapping your brain. Make yourself a person it’s a pleasure to spend time with. You are not lonely when you enjoy your own company.
Your Goddess Journal Is Your Mirror – It anchors you with its reflection. It is not necessary to write long pieces – lists or single words are adequate. Visual thinkers may want to sketch out or paste in pictures. Your Goddess Journal answers the following questions: Where Have I Been? Where Am I Going? Who Am I? Meditate 20 minutes a day on these issues.
Goddess Opportunity – Find a voice you respect and admire to model your internal voice. We all need a life coach or a cheerleader in our corner. Learn to enjoy time alone by building in rewards – indulging in nourishing hobbies as simple as walking and reading. You don’t need rocket science, you need a healthful day to day peaceful retreat inside your own head.
Ask Yourself What You Take For Granted – This is the part of the picture that’s hardest to see. Because we take it for granted! Here is where your study of models can be helpful because you will be surprised by what other people take for granted. For example, some people assume being a goddess is constant partying and adulation, but to me, it is the peace of totally owning oneself and being responsible for oneself. It is serfdom that is suffering and hardship.
Gratitude Practice – Gratitude must be part of your everyday practice. Give thanks for this wonderful body, with its aches and cuts and bruises, eagerly shaping itself according to your efforts. Give thanks for the freedom of your mind. Give daily thanks for the honor of being a Goddess.
Models & Mentors – “Loneliness is the poverty of self – Solitude is the richness of self.” – May Sarton
“The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude” – Voltaire
“Solitude is necessary for creativity” – Picasso
“The best thinking is done in solitude” – Thomas Edison
Goddesses Re-Imagine Themselves. This is a consequential power. You are not condemned to your past; not even to your biology. You are completely free to be whomever you choose – and to evolve in any way you choose.
You Know You Are A Goddess When: Have you been dreaming of rebirth? Second chances? Starting over? Do you wake up in the middle of the night screaming, “Mulligan!”
Isn’t Rebirth Really “Recovery”? Recovery is what happens we repel a demonic force that kept us in thrall – could be addiction, illusion, corruption, compulsive behavior; even a poisonous culture. Were we hostage to another human being who didn’t want the best for us? Goddesses claim absolute freedom: this requires deep thought about our best interests. Freedom to do “anything” doesn’t serve us well. Freedom to “advance”, to “evolve” is what we crave.
“The Bad News is Time Flies – the Good News is, You’re the Pilot.” As our brains clear we get ideas. Ernest Hemingway used to say we are “stronger at the broken places”; Nietzsche expressed it as “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”. Healing provides peace as well as joy. We give thanks that we have begun the journey.
Starting Over Is About Expecting to Stumble. Watching toddlers try to “rise and walk” we consider it lucky that they don’t mind being laughed at. (In fact, they love it.) It takes them time to figure out this new challenge. Like beginning skiers, they cling to objects, sway exaggeratedly back and forth, slam into things, and plop down SPLAT; not just once or twice but over and over. The toddler hasn’t been born who suddenly vaults up suavely and starts swanning around in a sophisticated manner. Embrace the last step of Recovery: “Expect to go splat.” Of course we don’t WANT to – fingers crossed – it’s dangerous and bruising. We’d better arrange to have someone around – just in case.
Do Goddesses Fall? Of course! Read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology is you have any doubts.
You Don’t Fail Unless You Refuse to Rise Again. Don’t even bother counting the times you were “brave”. It’s only the “getting back up” that counts. As long as you’re doing that, you’re a true winner.
Goddess Danger – Life never goes the way we planned. There’s the excitement of finding a plan, investigating goals, making them ours, and committing to the plan – and then there’s living the plan. Suddenly we don’t know how to get through the next ten minutes – worse, we make a “big mistakes” unconsciously. The rational self we’ve planned for fails to show up and instead we turn into some irrational monster who threatens murder when momentarily frustrated. This is like sport-learning. Allow each new behavior to penetrate every fiber of your whole body. Rehearse over and over. (10,000 times?) It’s ALL mistakes at first.
Concepts of “Perfection” and “Purity” Require Re-thinking and Re-framing. This exercise is more like forming calluses over tender new skin. It feels funny at first, sore. It might actually “hurt.” We’re on the early steps of a long journey to a wonderful place; and we won’t get there unless we forgive ourselves, pick ourselves up and keep going.
Goddess Opportunity – To “acquire” some things means also to “surrender” others. Learning what to surrender to guarantee our lightness and power is part of being a goddess.
Ever heard of a “dry drunk”? The phrase refers to the state of envying those who “indulge” and feeling that we are somehow lesser, damaged beings because we “can’t.” How does this regret pertain to the goddess’s pledge of superior living? Contrast your planned empowerment with others’ benumbed abandon. Think about what this means.
Goddesses never envy loss of consciousness. We enhance consciousness.
Do Goddesses feel pain? Of course. (See Mythology.) Isn’t it always better to remove the source of the pain, the shame we are escaping from? Is the nostalgic fantasy of mental sleep Normals yearn for really some faint memory of union, with a lost, beloved Other? What would it mean to give up these blind yearnings, this cultivated pain and these unbearable memories to lead a fresh, released and intentional life? It means accepting and becoming a new self in all our exquisitely uniqueness, exploring everything that implies. Recovery is “self-forgiveness”; going forward with a clear-eyed, honest appraisal of ourselves, resources and desires. “I am free”
Goddesses Crest the Wave – Most people have too narrow a self-definition to dare to try new things, but daring and courage are essential features of being a Goddess. Just because something sounds uncomfortable doesn’t mean we won’t someday like it so much we make it part of ourselves. If you’re used to sleeping on the floor, going without breakfast and struggling with a new language, you’ve learned to be unafraid of those things.
Goddesses Are Cagey – We don’t expose ourselves to unnecessary danger. We are constantly developing our safety instincts to recognize insecure situations before they get out of control. A main reason for frugality is that situations can become “too comfortable” – your senses are being dulled! Sharpening senses is what Goddesses are all about!
Goddesses Are Reborn Many Times – Creating our own maps means we go many wrong ways before we find the right one! It’s the process. Throughout our quest we transform ourselves many times to incorporate our new knowledge.
Self-Definition Is Key – Should you be ashamed of taking a wrong turn? Or confident because you figured it out, and proud that you were able to change? Your body is completely new every seven years. You welcome every new day. You are eager to meet new people and find out what makes them tick. You like putting yourself in new situations and figuring out how to cope. Read “Survival” manuals and try out escape rooms with your friends. Explore the sport of orienteering.
Models & Mentors – “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life” – J.K. Rowling
“The airplane takes off against the wind, not with it” – Henry Ford
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt
“The best way to predict your future is to create it” – Abraham Lincoln
You Were Born Lucky! You have to be lucky to deserve goddess-hood. It’s not for everybody. What is the greatest piece of good luck you’ve ever had? Your parentage? Talents? Home town? Best friend? A piece of advice? A special teacher? Think about it. Have you ever been offered a piece of good luck you couldn’t take advantage of, but wish you had?
How Lucky Do You Need to Be? Ever seen the faces of gamblers seated hour by hour at the slot machines, wearing special gloves so their skin doesn’t fall off? Seriously, who would want to be them? Is it luck itself that we give thanks for, or our ability to recognize good fortune? Perhaps goddesses should give thanks for our innate ability to take advantage of a piece of good luck when we’re offered one. All these memories have one thing in common- i.e. “ability”, which is not luck, which is YOU. Give thanks for these abilities. Being a goddess is a glorious privilege. Let’s learn to develop gratitude thinking.
Goddess Challenge – A different way of thinking about fortune is not all the wonderful things that didn’t happen, but the terrible things that COULD have happened – and didn’t. In other words, let’s try adopting a “glass half full” perspective and see how far that gets us.
Goddess Danger – Now that you’re committed to the goddess path, the danger is always the same – recognizing your power but somehow being tricked into giving control of it over to some other entity that almost certainly doesn’t have your best interests at heart. We’re usually not even aware we’re doing this. But when you want to “be lucky” what does that mean? In whose eyes? Let’s put ourselves firmly in the driver’s seat and take a look at the path ahead of us. Do we want to go there? Do we really trust these people? Or are we the dog throwing away a real bone to reach the illusory bone we see pictured in the watery reflection of Aesop’s Fable?
Goddess Opportunity – As we negotiate our mortal existence we have a unique chance to take advantage of serendipitous appearances and encounters. If we recognize it. Compare your path to the immortal framework of eternity and ask, How am I doing?
How Did We Get Here? Turns out your Goddess Map is only a suggestion, full of surprises to keep things interesting. We are mapping as we go along. However, life is even more exciting, it turns out, than our imaginations.
After the Storm – Comes the Rainbow! Every visible color – carefully separated out – forming an arch to give us a glimpse of heaven! If it didn’t provably exist, would we still believe in it?
List Your Rainbows – Clouds may or may not have silver linings. Rainbows are a complete surprise – unconnected to the storms that spawned them. Write about the surprises in your life in your Goddess Journal. How many were nasty? How many joyous?
The Universe Conspired – To bring you to this moment. You zigged, you zagged, you wound up here. Give thanks!
Models & Mentors – “Serendipity is when you find things that you weren’t looking for because what you are looking for is so damned difficult”
– Erin McKean
“Steer Into the skid” – Alysse Aallyn
“Here you are moving ahead bravely in spite of everything going wrong” – Rithvik Singh
“Take advantage of happy accidents” – Vincent van Gogh
Do Goddesses get time off? They need it! Are your reveries organized around beaches, vacations, relaxation, memories of happy times when you had nothing to do but enjoy yourself feeling only the moment? Goddesses have a heavier lift! We have to live in four time frames at once – past, present, future AND possible!
Is Peace Possible? Consider Serenity as an Idea, and an Ideal. Most of us are familiar with the “serenity prayer” written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right.“
The Serenity Prayer works as an inoculation against pointless worry, which it sees as “borrowing trouble.” The benefit of cultivating serenity is that it allows tender shoots to grow and broken limbs – and organs – to mend.
Goddess Challenge – Like meditation, serenity is a mental gymnastic that takes practice. Make a list of your most pressing concerns. Can you do anything about any of them today? If so, appoint a time when you will take a step towards resolving this concern. If you can’t do anything about it, put it forcefully out of your mind. Goddesses aren’t in charge of the universe! We are merely an upgrade in toughness and heroics. Imagine your worries as a bunch of balloons. Now let them go, one by one. Put each useless worry on a piece of paper and burn them slowly, one by one.
Goddess Mantra – Give yourself a “serenity mantra” a word or phrase you find comforting and centering, and repeat it out loud to yourself. St. Julian of Norwich recommended: ”All will be well”, Coué offered, “Every day, in every way I am getting better and better”, some yoga enthusiasts chant a simple “Om.” You can use a phrase from your own past said to you by a Beloved Person – “now you’ll be fine” “You’re safe” “You’re perfect” “Everything’s all right” or the tried and true: “I love you.” My favorite is from the Book of Revelation: “Every tear is wiped away.”
Goddess Danger – Don’t be tempted to become a mentor while you’re still learning. Goddesses usually want to be helpful but this can be a snare. Mentoring is an end-of-life honor, but you are still placing the oxygen mask on your own face so that you can stay on your plan. Not everyone has the steel to graduate to Goddess. You’re welcome to show friends the basics but don’t bother to walk them through it. You’re nobody’s nanny. You’re busy.
FOMO – We are all worried about “missing” something. Often that “centering person”, that reassuring person from our past is not just the one who gave us the relaxation code, but is also the same one who told us what to worry about: ie. ”Make sure all the locks are locked” “Have you done your homework?” There certainly are things to be concerned about (“Are you registered to vote?”) but there are plenty of worries we CAN’T address. Return to the serenity prayer and start weeding out – on paper – your Justifiable Concerns. One of the best things about Anxiety – and I mean this – is that it offers an opportunity to ask for help. Yes, I say “opportunity”! Because – remember The Lovers -life is all about RELATIONSHIPS.
Worries offer Opportunities to Forge More Meaningful, Worthwhile Relationships. Get ready to experiment. In every relationship in your life, your requirements, tolerance, communication goals will present as unique. Many people yearn to speak to a “professional” – therapist or life coach – and plenty of professionals out there are auditioning for a little – or a lot – of your hard-earned cash. An excellent place to start is with Proven Gurus like Tolle Eckhart or Pema Chodron who can be accessed for free from any library. See what you think. Evaluate their assistance. Inquire further.
Goddess Know What They Have to Do – Others will be envious that we have laid out a plan for our lives, as well as that it is flexible, that it is life-enhancing and that it gives us permission to Enjoy. Be humble and unsurprised about this jealousy.
You’re Entitled – Others also could find peace if they began to take control of the drama that rages within them. Point them in a hopeful direction but don’t get sucked in.
Meditation Looks Like Dreaming – The truth is just what they suspect: that there is enormous pleasure in being a goddess. You will finally feel confident, and when you know your own strength, and the value of your time, you understand your own value. This is what others yearn for. They can learn it, too. But in the mean time you are enjoying your hard-fought-for serenity.
We Need So Little To Be Happy – Here is the great realization. Do goddesses require entourages or enablers and sycophants, vast bank accounts, and acres of product and showcase? Or is one bowl, one mat, one dawn enough for us when we are fueled by our own power? Allow yourself to revel in the comfort of another’s presence or the private pleasures of your own thoughts and company. There will be the joy of another morning, the peace of another night’s rest. The confidence of maintaining a sharp, clear head. Welcome to the Universe.
Models & Mentors – “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – The Dalai Lama
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr
“Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action make up the sum of life”
– Vita Sackville-West
“Enjoy the peace of nature and declutter your inner world” – Amit Ray
Can Goddesses afford to relax? Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Well, Lesson #1 is that being a goddess is Counterintuitive. Other people rush away from the burning building – planning on being EVEN MORE SCARED the next time. Well, we are going to master our fear. We are going in.
Everybody Panics – I had a panic attack at age 5 (I got lost outside a movie theatre) and another at age 11 when I descended deep, deep, deep into a cave. (I think the guide was deliberately trying to scare us.) I didn’t know at the time what these episodes were – my parents and sisters saw them as embarrassing annoyances – but looking back it’s clear what was happening to me physically as a result of what was happening to me mentally.
Relaxation In the Face of Panic – Learning to tolerate psychic dissonance, to be interested in it and challenged by it is what we’re all about. It’s a sign that we’re in the presence of the Deep Stuff – the things that galvanize our deep subconscious and if we can just seize control of that, we’ll access our true power.
Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are so many and you should experiment with all of them! Learn what works for you and – key – what you enjoy. You will find yourselves using these techniques all the time. To get to sleep, to get through difficult experiences or just to access your subconscious when you have a question.
Breathe Deeply – The very first thing is mastering control of the breath. Pregnant women learn all kinds of helpful breathing techniques in Lamaze; panting, counting; deliberately slowing down and speeding up your breathing. In yoga you will learn Lion Breaths to make you feel powerful. They are very similar to the gasps and shouts in martial arts and will affect your opponents. Watch the Maori war dance on YouTube.
Get Out Your Training Journal – write down the techniques and your reactions. Appoint a time to practice these every day. Your breath connects you to the universe and all living things.
Models & Mentors: “The first thing to learn is the breath.” –Confucius
‘Breathe In. Let Go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure, and give thanks for that.”
– Oprah Winfrey
‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor” –
Something’s bothering you. Immortality is a lot of hard work, that seems to require giving up life’s tiny but expensive (physically And financially) comforts. Do you lie awake at night recalling bad moments from the past? The Regret Oracle says you need tackle the problem of “change” NOW. What moods flood in when you close your eyes? What would you change NOW? How do you WANT to change?
Why are People so Afraid of Looking Inside their Psyches? Because of Regret, that’s why. The things we’ve already done or that we already are that can never be changed. Sorrow floods in – now we feel helpless, we hate ourselves and we can’t fix anything. We fear we are in for a bad, cold, frigid winter of discontent.
Lighten Your Load – No one can do this but you. You are serving as prosecutor against your own life and guess what? – that’s not fair. Fundamental Attribution Error means people blaming individuals for actions that were the result of mass decisions or life circumstances over which they had no actual control. Look into it, if you want to. (Sometimes we need to.) Or you can just forgive yourself and move on. After all, we’ve got the future to think of. Our Inner Goddess won’t be stymied.
Goddess Challenge – First, forgive yourself. You were held hostage by fortune (we all were) and inevitably you went full-on Stockholm Syndrome and identified with your attackers and tried to please them. (We all did. It’s called Society.) Now you’re madder at yourself than you are at them. Forgive yourself.
Goddess Danger – The moment you drop that burden, you’re in another part of the forest. Surprise! This wasn’t the plan but here you are. The Danger is – you’ll give up. Don’t. NEVER GIVING UP IS THE GODDESS’S SUPERPOWER. We CREATE paths where none existed. You can easily see from every fairy tale and hero’s journey you’ve ever studied that now we’re getting to the Good Part. By testing your muscle you get to grow your muscle. If your muscle is never tested, it withers. So get ready.
Goddess Opportunity – We don’t know everything. Even Jesus demonstrated surprise about the way things turned out. Be gentle as a dove, he advised, but wily as a serpent. Serpents can get out of anything. (Ask a herpetologist.) And so can you. It’s just a bigger world than we knew – both inner and outer – so get mapping. I guarantee you – IT GETS BETTER.
YOUR Personal Superpower: Our brains are constructed in a way that allows us to move backward and forward through time, watching and judging ourselves from the outside, always considering multiple possibilities, outcomes and problems. We have a tendency to regard this power as a burden and envy those whose lack of questioning seems to make them more carefree. But it is this exact superpower that designates us as Goddess.
Even When We Enjoy We Regret: There’s always something we could have done differently. And that unknown outcome is bound to seem preferable to the reality in which we find ourselves. Don’t waste time on regret. You drew the “Regret” card to remind you that time – even pleasurable time – is always limited. Restrict the amount of time you spend on regret! Congratulate yourself on your ability to play a multi-level game, forward and backward through time, peopled by a panoply of characters. Open up your Training Journal and take a God’s eye view of your world. See anything different? Fresh? Exciting? New?
There’s Lots to Enjoy About Autumn – It’s a beginning, not an ending! The world is freshening up to divest those tired leaves and grow some sharper weather! Always consider the exercise possibilities. Maybe you can stay out longer! There’s a lot of fellow Goddesses in the Polar Bear Club!
Models & Mentors – “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”
– Lucille Ball
“There are no regrets in life, only lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston
“We have only one life, and the second life begins the moment we realize that fact” – Confucius
“I was designed by my Creator to not only feel pain and love but to become whole inside it. I am a Goddess” –Glennon Doyle
“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile” – William Cullen Bryant
The phone man said the best that we could get was a party line. No real privacy – ever. I was dumbfounded. “There’s no real privacy on them other lines neither,” said Mr. Sterling, the phone man. “You just think there is.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Arnold told me, right in the phone man’s presence. “We’ll get our phone through the Internet like all sane people. The land line is only for emergencies.”
Sometimes when the phone rang we weren’t supposed to answer it because it wasn’t our “ring”. Maybe Arnold can ignore a ringing phone: I can’t. Especially if it goes off in the middle of the night. No counting a “ring pattern” there – not with the echoes of sleep rattling through your head.
“Who could be calling at this hour?” I demanded of my husband. Rhetorically.
But he said, “Cows. Bears.” In his dream or on the phone?
As usual it was up to me to answer it. “Hello?” I quavered. A sharp intake of breath but no one spoke. I
had played this game before. Could we have brought our own ghosts with us?
‘That you, Gayle?” I boldly inquired. “Just checking up on us? We’re fine. The baby’s fine. Arnold says hi.”
155 – Awake Till the End – Stories by Alysse Aallyn
It was only afterwards that I wondered if the caller was my uncle’s “housekeeper”. The unpaid one he swore would be compensated in his will. Who else would be angry enough to hound us? And there was always the possibility that it was my uncle himself, wanting to complain about the way I’d spent his money. It would be just like the stupid dead to initiate calls they can’t complete.
FIVE – MEATSAFE
Our first visitors came when before we were ready (as visitors will). Before the cable was connected. Willette had streaked her hair with an unbecoming dissipated rock star red which, considering her coal black eyebrows and pointed chin made her resemble Sarah Bernhardt in her coffin. She had two legs, however. Willette had always been High Maintenance. Compared with her, Stan, a little plumper, somewhat balder now, seemed refreshingly cooperative and easily amused. In honor of our upstate move he wore a sweaters with a vaguely Chistmassy theme.
“Snowflakes! Moose!” he genially exclaimed. “What’s not to like?”
“You’re not missing anything in the city,” said Willette. “We’ve been burgled.”
take?” Stan. “Better glasses don’t help.”
“Omigod,” I sympathized, “What did they “A Cuisinart and my reading glasses,” said “Those instructions are rough,” I agreed.
“We told the cops to be on the lookout for a bandit with severe left eye astigmatism,” Stan joked.
“Not that they’ll look,” said Willette gloomily. “They never do.”
“Until the guy kills somebody,” agreed Arnold.
“They don’t even care about that now,” asserted Willette. “They bargain murders down to “accidents” just to skew their crime statistics. Fighting crime from a desk chair.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” echoed Arnold, a sociable host refilling wineglasses.
They had been stuck in traffic so we were dining at nine-thirty, a distinct hardship for anyone with my raging metabolism. I had eaten the cheese and crackers all by myself and was forced to smack together some distinctly unappetizing crudités. Zucchini slices with sour cream, anyone? Fortunately it didn’t matter. They wanted dinner and dinner itself hardly mattered because the dining room was so dark. Without windows, but six doors, there were constant and mysteriously unaccountable drafts; the candles slanting first one way and then the other. Over Martel and coffee conversation languished. No Martel for me. No wine. I was trying to be good. Trying to be good does not a dinner party make.
“I know,” I roused myself. “Let’s play
Icicle.”
“Icicle?” they all wanted to know. “How do you play that?”
“One person hides and everyone goes looking for him. When you find him you have to squeeze in as close as you can get. Last person left is the icicle.”
“That’s sardines!” scoffed Arnold. “I’ve played that.”
But Willette was intrigued. “Good game for this house,” she said. “We’ll find cubbyholes and corners even you haven’t seen.”
“I’m warning you, I’m the world-class champion sardines player,” said Stan. “I once won hanging for an hour in a garment bag.”
With a challenge like that, he had to go first.
“Basement off limits!” shouted Arnold. “It’s dangerous down there.” Was that an implied waiver of danger elsewhere? We listened to his footfalls clatter up the stairs and wander overhead.
“Sounds like there are three of him,” said Willette. Of course we weren’t bothering to count.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I teased. “Real estate agent says this house is haunted.”
Willette seemed unintimidated. Stan I could have impressed.
“Our refrigerator tried to eat the delivery man,” said Arnold, getting into the spirit. “Both recovered and doing fine.”
“And there’s kind of a bad smell coming from Arnold’s study.” I suggested.
Arnold gave me A Look. Ooo, snap! Talk about burning with a cold fire! I pulled out the Big Guns. “Oswald Pewlett saw a fireball.”
“I feel a fireball coming on myself,” said Arnold, shaking the empty Martel bottle.
“Maybe it’s an animus.” said Willette. “You know, like a malignant spirit that attaches itself to unfinished business.”
I didn’t know. Upstairs a door slammed. Hard. We took that as a starter’s pistol. I let the others rush straight upstairs, elbowing each other like a middle- school recess, pretended at first to follow, then ducking behind a door.
World Champion Stan could not make it this easy for us, not even in an unfamiliar house. If it was me I would make a lot of noise going up the front stairs and then sneak quietly down the back. How he slammed that door I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound difficult with our drafts. If you balanced something on it and opened a window…
Outside had to be off-limits. I heard an unpleasant rustling in the rhododendrons. Think far enough outside the box, fall off the edge. I allowed myself to be seduced by the kitchen broom closet. It’s as narrow as an ironing board but runs the depth of the room, thus making an ideal crawlspace. And there was someone inthere. I could hear him breathing. “Is that you, Stan?”
The shadow rippled towards me. “I’ve missed you, Sharl.” That could have been my sigh, me just talking to myself. But then the voice spoke unmistakably and said the most surprising thing: “Time has no meaning.”
That’s not a message I would ever give myself, and it was my uncle’s voice, I swear it. I backed out in a panic, slammed the door so hard the doorknob fell off. The ghost was locked in, ha ha. Serves him right for refusing to play dead.
Willette and Arnold were upstairs together, looking equal parts smug and guilty. Like I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And they couldn’t say exactly where they’d searched. “Please yourselves,” I yawned. Maybe if I found Stan, he would show a sudden yen for pregnant women. Unlike everybody else.
“He’s not downstairs,” I declared, so it was time to inspect the attic. My flashlight revealed footprints in the dust along the steps. I pursued a faint tapping sound. In the dark, Stan had locked himself in the old meatsafe. Dumb place to hide! And he wasn’t happy about it. Like it was our fault. Willette, feeling a bit one down after the exposure of her skirmishes with Arnold, seized advantage like a wolverine protecting its mate.
“What if he had an asthma attack!”
Then you’d be a merry widow, I thought. But honest Stan said, “I don’t have asthma.”
“But an experience like that could give it to you,” said Willette. “Trauma triggers, they call it. “Traumatic inception”. Someone needs to take that door
off at the hinges.”
mandarin .”
“Don’t look at me,” said Arnold. “I’m a
The game was over. “Maybe in the morning,” I told Willette. “I’m gravid and I need my sleep.”
When Arnold finally came to bed – could Stan possibly have agreed to a threesome? I refused to let him in. “You’re the icicle,” I told him.
When I discovered one house on the list was haunted I gave the real estate agent no rest until he took me there. Honestly I had to do that man’s job for him. It was raining so heavily that morning that his car was like a bathysphere.
“I want to at least look at it. Cheer up; if there are leaks we’re sure to see them.”
“That’s it.” The agent still seemed very depressed as he reached for his golf umbrella. “It’s been empty fourteen years. No modernization whatever.”
Better and better. The bathrooms and kitchens I’d been seeing were like lip-sticked hogs in toe- shoes. There might even be original paneling. Peering out of the window I could see nothing through the darkening rain. “What’s it haunted by?”
I saw his wattles quiver in battle with his chin. Was I interfering with the real estate agent’s code?
“Various things.” Unadroitly he tried changing the subject and actually selling. “It has a view of the river. And it’s a real bargain.”
“Like what things?” Not reaching for my own umbrella or putting up my hood might tempt disclosure. I saw him wondering he could talk me out of going further.
(Sigh) “Oswald Pewlett saw a fireball.”
I was entranced! Had he searched his memory for the spectre least likely to queer a deal? “There
was a fire?”
He hastened to reassure. “A green fire.cold fire that doesn’t burn.”
A Delicious! I had to see it now! I pulled
galoshes over my ivory heels. “Let’s go!”
Perched above the road, the house was reached by a corkscrew of steps. The porch was an addition, so it was full of leaks, but the house was solid as a rock. Silent. High ceilinged. Original paneling. One bathroom for seven bedrooms, a marvelous thirties kitchen with no appliances, and a single light bulb in the exact center of every ceiling. This could be fun.
The real estate agent ensconced himself by the library window with its view of the river and refused to go upstairs. “I’ve seen it,” he said, pulling his fishing hat down over his ears as if assaulted by inner rain.
Upstairs there was no fireball, but the floors were littered with little glittery shards that turned out to be flies’ wings. No flies, mind you, only their wings. Thrifty spiders, I suppose who dine on all but isinglass. Is that how fairy legends started, I wondered. Fairy wings and flies’ wings – hard to tell the difference. I’m on the side of spiders. They can have all the flies they want.
And that’s how I bought The Old Chase Place.
THREE – DELIVER US
I should never have told Arnold the place was haunted, but I couldn’t resist bragging. “It has everything,” I sang.
“Air-conditioning too, so it seems,” he groused. He was always out to ruin my good time.
“That’s just the wind off the river. A natural chill factor. And real oak, too.”
“I’m not complaining.” He couldn’t help but warm to so much wood. In the city everything is “faux”. Alas the rooms were rather small, and in strange juxtaposition. Not a rich man’s house, you wouldn’t say, but perhaps the warren of a worrier.
“This will be my study,” said Arnold. He chose the one room in the house that still had a working fireplace – the others had been fitted with hideous stovepipes. But I didn’t argue, because at last he was smiling.
We were having a picnic lunch when the Sears truck drove up with the appliances. I didn’t see the accident because in my condition, meals are serious events. If I’m going to spend all morning nauseated then I’m going to spend all afternoon eating. (And all evening sleeping it off.) So when Arnold rose to show the hirelings what a forceful homeowner he could be, I pulled the fried chicken bucket closer.
When I heard a crunch and a hoarse cry I did run to the window. The ramp had fallen off the steps, tossing the refrigerator and pinning a delivery man. His mouth was open – I could see blood – and he was gasping for air. He reminded me of the fish my uncle caught on his
many unsporting ventures into the wild. He loved watching creatures die. He once presented me with a still- beating fish heart, saying, “It’s only the stupidest that go on living after they are really dead.” The fish, the headless running chickens — I guess the joke was on them, if they didn’t know they were dead. But the delivery man was not dead; we all affirmed the fact.
There was a flurry of activity while the driver jumped into the truck to call for help – we didn’t have a phone yet and cell phones don’t work out here. The fire and rescue truck arrived after about ten minutes to take over. Arnold had to help the second delivery man move in the appliance. “Get a camera,” he hissed.
He wanted me to take pictures of the ramp and the steps to show, although our porch was in sorry condition, it was the ramp anchoring that was at fault (them) and not the steps (us). That’s because it’s so important in life to figure out whose fault everything is.
“He’ll be all right,” I offered. “He had a lot of meat on him.”
“Jesus, Sharl,” said Arnold, “I heard his bones go crunch.” And that was the end of that picnic.
At least I had a brand new oven, refrigerator, dishwasher and washer/dryer. I went back to applying the coat of dark green paint to make the room picture-perfect. Hunter green for Hunter (boy or girl); a super-infant guaranteed to make all his mother’s dreams come true.
Andrew looked up from the Food section of the Sunday Times. “Did he jump out of his coffin and give everybody the finger?”
“No.” I sat down on a Brazilian leather cube impersonating a chair. “He left me a lot of money.”
That made Arnold sit up straight. Finally I had produced something worthy to compete with three- melon risotto. “How much?”
“A lot.” Two beats. “All of it.”
I hadn’t seen Arnold this excited in a long time. “This is the uncle we never once went to visit, even though he only lived in New Rochelle?”
“He’s the one.”
“And there are a lot of other relatives…” I saw the penny drop. “Is this the same guy who used to feel you up when you were little?”
“He’s the one.”
Arnold whistled. “Wow!” he said, “Break out the champagne! Let’s drink to old fashioned Calvinist guilt!”
But I couldn’t drink. “There’s an unpaid
housekeeper who says she’ll sue.” I tried dismissing that
ugly scene from my mind. But ugly scenes don’t go so easily.
“Screw her,” he laughed, “Doubtless the old man did. To the one who got away!” he snorkled. “With…” drum-roll on the glass coffee table… “all the money!”
“I could split it with her,” I said thoughtfully. “Except that I need it all.” And if I divorced Arnold, I’d have to split it with him.
His eyes narrowed over my unusual decisiveness. “Sounds like you’ve made a plan.”
“I have. I’m pregnant and I’m moving.”
He rose to pursue me to the kitchen. I was the pursued one now.
“Rich? Pregnant? Moving?” He banged his palm against his chest. “It’s a lot to handle for one afternoon. Where are you going, oh helpmeet?”
“Upstate. The country.” There was no champagne. Of course not. There had been nothing to celebrate for so, so long. I poured us each an apple juice. “You could come with.” Two beats. “But you’d have to give up your girlfriend.”
Surprise! I saw him try to toss it off and keep on dancing. “What’s that? Getting jealous are we? Symptomatic of your condition?”
“Gayle.” I leaned forward, giving back the name. “She sent me such a charming letter.” In which she stated her utter non-comprehension of why the moody bitch wouldn’t just step aside and let the poor, kind, considerate man go free. Ugh. Apple juice is disgustingly sweet. I’ve never understood how adults can covet the provinces of children. Poor little sugar addicts, they are ruined before they start. I tried adding powdered tea from a mix. Still bad. The no-liquor lifestyle is a tough sell.
He was sputtering like a damp firecracker. But it was not Arnold’s turn to speak.
“Screwing students is the beginning of the end for a teacher. You’re lucky she notified me and not the superintendent.”
Unfortunately I could always read Arnold’s mind. He really needs to get some more interesting thoughts. I saw him deciding he’d better stop aimless denial until confronted with the evidence against him.
“Why upstate?” he bartered, testing me. “Why not, say, Europe?”
“Because,” I answered, “I like to get something for my money.” That alone made me my uncle’s worthy heir. Glittering silver dollars lit the darkened rooms of memory. I persisted — for I’m nothing if not persistent — “Haven’t you heard of the curse of the lottery winner? They spend it all and then some. I want a property I can buy outright – debt-free.” Wouldn’t it be heaven owing nobody nothing?
He toddled toward the window on his be- jeaned insect legs. He looks much better in big-boy pants. Was he trying to imagine life without me? Or without New York? So I sealed the deal with a siren song. “You could finish your screenplay…”
Alysse Aallyn 