Lisa Beth Darling's Blog, page 9

In Case You Haven’t Heard-There Was A Fire

Before we begin, you should know that everyone involved in the forthcoming tale is safe and sound. No one was harmed.

One thing you never want to get is a phone call at 2am. It’s never good news unless you’re expecting the arrival of a baby. No, someone’s been in an accident, someone’s dead, or someone is too drunk to drive home. Funniest thing about that 2am phone call for me, and any other jarring early morning hours event…they always seem to happen on the rarest of occasions wherein I have achieved Perfect Sleep.At no other time in my life have I achieved Perfect Sleep other than in the hours (to be so lucky!) or minutes just before the alarm sounds. After which, sleep will not be had again for a while.

Yet, mere hours after our second granddaughter was born and as she and her mother were in the midst of their hospital stay, early in the morning the phone rang.

There’d been a fire at her apartment building. Her partner, his son, and our eldest granddaughter all made it out safe but…everything was lost.

That doesn’t sound so bad, I mean everyone’s ok and all. Until you realize that you had little to nothing to begin with and what you did have you scrimped and saved for mercilessly or you’re a Cheap Yankee like e and you found some free goodies on the side of a road. Always a bonus.

We immediately offered to go get them and bring them back to the house. We’re only a few blocks away after all. We were informed they were safe and there wasn’t much we could do. We asked that he not tell our daughter, who was probably also finally achieving Perfect Sleep after giving birth. He agreed. We hung up. Five seconds later my phone rang, it’s my daughter, and she is just totally wigging out!

I don’t blame her. There’s no other reaction to that one.

It’s around 2am that makes being able to actually do something about the situation prohibitive. On top of everything else, one must wait until Eos makes her arrival to even start trying to do something constructive.

I do my best to calm her down. Her dad gets on his phone, calls the nurses’ station and tells them what’s happening so they can go in there and physically deal with the situation because we can’t even get in at that hour. Even though it’s right at the top of the street.

Thank you very much to the kind and wonderful nurses in the Maternity Ward at L&M who were on duty that night.

Get off the phone and we both just…sat…there….just sat. No words to say. Rarely am I rendered speechless–though I often don’t say everything I want–but this was just such an occasion. So many thoughts scrambling through our heads it was hard to get a hold of any of them. All we could do for a while was just let them fight for space to sink in so we could deal with them.

It’s good to do something while that’s happening. In Men in Black, Tommy Lee Jones said to ‘let the pie work’ and I found that to be excellent advice. Especially in times like that. I went and made a pot of coffee, face it, Morpheus was not coming back with his magic dust to give me Perfect Sleep that night. Things started settling, my mind starting absorbing them and turning them over. We had coffee, we smoked a lot. Like….a lot. We watched “The News”. Finally we got around to finding our voices and went from WTF to wtf.

At about 3am, under these circumstances, there really isn’t another place to start the ball rolling other than Ye Olde Internet. My mind is turning; its about 3am, the marketer in me wonders who and how many people may be up at that hour to see a post because getting as many eyes on it as quickly as possible is key. That may sound cold but during times like this my mind shoves all the emotional completely off the stove and focuses solely on the practical and realistic until the wheel starts turning then we get creative. I made a quick post to my personal FB and two New London centered groups. Within a half hour, people started responding.

I was amazed and gladdened. I mean, this is something I can really do. I have oodles of experience in working the internet. Unfortunately for me none of my book campaigns have anywhere the story I am about to relay. Not even close.

Damn.

Sorry.

Forward…going forward…

Responses started coming in. Like I said, Morpheus wasn’t returning, we got out of bed, stumbled downstairs for more “news” and coffee. The responses kept coming in.

I posted on NextDoor. Ultimately I decided to run a GoFundMe campaign to raise the necessary cash for future permanent housing I’m so happy to be able to say that, as of this writing, it is just over halfway to the goal of $5000.

Click to Donate

I opened it because it was quickly apparent people, sooo many totally wonderful awesome kindhearted people were coming out of the woodwork with clothes,diapers,wipes,formula,furniture,kitchenware….you name it. If money would not be needed for those things and it’s not then the collection could go toward obtaining a permanent solution….an apartment. Not easy to find around here. Not at all.

The wave of donations that first day did not stop for, I shit you not, the first 18 hours. I texted more people in those18 hours than I have spoken to in the last year or maybe three, I’m not very sociable. By 2pm people were showing up at the house with their generous donations and they did not stop, it was absolutely relentless until 8:30 that night when I just had to turn it off for a bit and let my old mind cool down. I spent the whole day non-stop trying to keep track of five or six “conversations” at once along with FB and my email.

I never saw anything like that in my whole entire life.

I admitted that I am not a People Person. I’m more ‘Wednesday Addams’. People are great…at a distance. Up close…eh….I’m way more apt to just pass. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll happily working my aged butt off for nearly anyone but it doesn’t necessarily mean I want to have coffee with them.

Anyway, by the middle of the day I looked at my husband and said; “If I ever, in my lifetime, say again something like ‘people suck’, you are to remind me of this day immediately.” I mean that with every fiber. Sometimes people are pretty freakin’ awesome.

At 3 o’clock that afternoon my daughter and new granddaughter were released from the hospital and I had the utter joy of driving them home!!!!!!!! Once again, thanks to the nurses and the hospital who were very kind and sent her home with a load of necessities for the baby. I took them back to our house and we go acquainted with the baby, comforted our daughter with the news that people were working hard on her behalf, and did our best to suss out a plan for permanent housing. She went back to the far less than stellar (or maybe even safe) hotel with a load of freshly donated items including kids clothes, baby clothes, food suitable for a hotel, diapers, wipes, and formula along with some toys. The Red Cross gave them enough cash for a two week stay in this place. After that….no one knows.

The next day, yesterday, was blessedly a bit slower, donations still came in and were picked up. We are making and have made arrangements for pickups and drop offs of everything under the sun, just about. Tomorrow we are going to get a donation of beds and other large furniture items to store in the garage and basement until a permanent place for the family is secured.

Several area organizations have stepped up and stepped in with offers of goods and money including the lovely people at the church where I work.

Yesterday we went to BJs and bought six large clear plastic bins so we could begin taking inventory and finding out exactly what we have. After that we made a very large pick up of donations last night at the Community Meals Center it was organized by a truly wonderful woman named Kim. If you’re out there Kim, I want you to know that this city would be so much poorer if it ever had to suffer your absence. Thank you! By the time we left we could not have gotten anymore in the Pathfinder.

I don’t know what you call that but I’m wholeheartedly pagan and I will happily go with the term Christmas Miracle.

On the way home we decided we had worked very hard and very long so we treated ourselves to a pizza. Lugging it all home,carrying it in, we realized again how blessed we are.Especially as we dragged it all out and sorted through it.

Like I said, it’s a Christmas Miracle.

I have never been prouder to be a Native New Londoner. It is all so beyond words.

Just for fun, did I mention it’s Advent? Yes, Christmastime at the church on top of all of this.

For my family the hits have not stopped coming for at least the last two years and I’m much more willing to go with five on that one.

But you gotta laugh or else you’ll cry then you’ll get stuck and maybe end up driving yourself crazy.

Tuck and roll and laugh all the way down that long bumpy hill.

I’m hoping to get some sleep and maybe a long hot bath with all the trimmings at some point this weekend.

If you out there reading this right now have setup an appointment with me to pick something up between now and Monday, please get in touch with me! This has been as amazingly stunning as it has been maelstrom and my brain is a bit fuzty as it is.Please, please, please, remind me.

It’s the Little Things

That really jam themselves up ones’ ass sideways right quick.

Yes, it is.

I’m here to bitch, whine, moan, and complain so I don’t hold this inside and let it ruin, or at least impinge upon, what is otherwise a super-awesome time in my life.

The family has dealt with quite a ton of shit over the last 3 years and finally there’s light and all that happy-crappy. Short story: it’s been one long-ass MF’n road and I’m completely wiped. I have find I have little patience for most people and things anymore. That’s bad, I know, but it is what it is. If I don’t actually know or like you, then out there in the Big Bad World if you piss me off I might just let you know it.

That was today.

I got to run an errand for my youngest daughter who is currently 9 months pregnant with our second grandchild expected to arrive on or before December 5th. This errand involved making a trip to…Walgreens. If you know me at all you know I don’t have a shiny opinion of lots of things but doctors and anyone in the Medical Establishment, really, are at the top of the list, tied only with lawyers. One thing I cannot stand to do, and almost never goes smoothly no matter which one I use, is going to the pharmacy.

A regular ol’ thing for you maybe.

Drive You Right UP the MFn Wall thing for me.

I get to the Walgreens in Groton, CT and, at first, I had a rather nice Shopping Experience. Probably because I had to get a few things and was very happy to see that it seems, unlike some other stores, every Walgreens is probably laid out in the same manner. There’s one where I live in New London and, well I might as well have been there instead of Groton. I found a nice deal on some fancy wash for my old face AND to my utter DELIGHT I found 2 big bottles of Regular Tums I don’t about you but, in my area, finding that exact item in any size is like striking gold these days. They had 2. I got 2.

There was no line at the pharmacy counter so the blonde lady called me over and I gave her the details. Like other Walgreens I waited a bit while she shuffled around trying to find what she was looking for. (I once waited over 45 minutes in my local Walgreens for them to find a filled prescription that was in a some bin somewhere. No joke.) She finds it. She brings it over. I’m expecting her to ask me for my youngest child’s birth date.

She asked for the address.

To my shame, I don’t know the exact address. I mean, I know where it IS. I can get there. I know what street it’s on. So I give her that.

She says, “No.”

I say, “I don’t know what address you have but she lives on ____ Ave in New London.”

“Well, that’s not what we have.” Says she.

Ok, honey, what do you want me to do here? Are we on Wheel of Fortune now? Should I buy a vowel?

Before I can ask, she tells me there’s no insurance listed and if I want it I have to pay $120.00 to get it.

Ahhh, the joys of the pharmacy.

Knowing I may not get her on the phone because she doesn’t answer all that often on the first try, I call my daughter. Luckily for me, she did answer. I try to give the woman the phone so she can get the information she wants and she held up her hands like I was pointing a gun at her decrying;

“Oh no! I can’t touch a cell phone!”

Pussy bitch.

So I received the task of relaying…twice …the insurance information. You just to ease the little chick’s phobia. She put in the computer and we waited for a while. In the meantime the stupid PIN pad kept wanting me to do shit I didn’t care about. My patience is fleeing right out the sliding double doors behind me.

This is supposed to be easy. This is supposed to be quick. I am doing someone a favor not vouching that they’ve never been a part of the Community Party.

I’m trying to get information from my daughter to relay to the pharmacist who cannot understand she has become secondary to the entire process.Ok, fine, she was already on the peripheral and she was never going to get off in my eyes. There I said it.

The insurance finally goes and, once again instead of asking something intelligent like “What her date of birth”, she again asked for the address. My daughter hears her, she gives me the exact address and the blonde argues that its’ “not right”. My daughter states it again and I relay it again.

“That’s not what we have.”

Seriously, you dumb bitch, what the fuck do you want me to do here? Just toss out any old address and see if it sticks?

On the razor’s edge, I managed to say, “I don’t know what else to tell you, that’s her address.” You know, since you’re not being of any help here Vanna.

“Well, can you at least put in her phone number?” Blonde says and point to the PIN pad.

At that point I very politely flipped her off. I did. Just gently. Nice and easy. It was more of reflex than anything else at that point. honestly, it was. Here’s the trigger for that; my youngest has changed her phone number like people change their underwear. She has! Years ago, I stopped trying to memorize it because I knew it was going to change. She’s just in my contacts. I couldn’t call her without my phone to save my soul. As I look down at the PIN pad the number says 860-389-(put in the last 4). I instantly knew that was wrong. My daughter starts telling me her phone number, I can’t do anything with the PIN pad and…..

The blonde wigged!

It was priceless. I can’t stop laughing about it and I hope she reads this, realizes what a dumb bitch she was and that she deserved the bird she was given.

In true Millennial Fashion she RAN over to her boss whining like a child. It was beautiful.

The boss comes over and instantly realizes he’s not gonna get any ice from me. He forges ahead like a GenX Trooper. He wants the address but he’s smart enough to realize the one they have is wrong so he gives a hint. WOW! Right? No BS at all.

Come to find out they have an address on file that’s 3 years old. In fact, it’s my address. Neither myself or my daughter can figure that one out OR the fact they were looking for is also mine…from 3 years ago.

I could have spent half the rest of the afternoon there if I hadn’t flipped her off. She would have kept treating it like a game show instead of coming to the straight and simple understanding that she was wasting both our time.

Want the real kicker here? I dropped the stuff off to my daughter and….they didn’t give her the whole thing.

Gotta love ’em or be like me and avoid like the black plague.

It gets better…don’t leave yet.

The boss pharmacist ‘forgot’ to ring up my items so I took them to the front register where I encountered the stereotypical, but unfortunately not funny, Grumpy Old Man.

He spent about 7 minutes arguing with the cashier repeatedly telling her that she didn’t take off a KitKat bar…keep that in mind the following all about 1 single regular KitKat bar.

She kept showing him her screen where the item had been removed. Plain as day. Right there in his face.

He couldn’t get it. He started griping about how he’s ‘on a fixed income’ because ‘the democrats ruined the economy’.

Fuck off, old man, get your own shit straight.

Repeatedly, he took his three items from one side of the cash register to the other as he added them up.

1 large pack of paper towels

2 KitKat bars

“This is $12.00,” he’d say about the paper towels. “These are, what? Fifty cents each?”

The cashier kept telling him the KitKat bars were $0.99 each. So he added it up again and kept coming to $14.00. Why was he being charged $14.91!

Do you have any idea how much it took for me to shut my mouth until that old fuck finally realized there was sales tax on all that shit? It wasn’t some Government or Walgreens plot to get an extra $0.91 off the old geezer who obviously should have paid attention and made better choices in his much younger years.

THEN, as the sale was run up the first time, he was given a $5.00 off coupon. He could not understand why she wasn’t taking that $5.00 of no matter how many times she informed him it was $5.00 off on his NEXT purchase and he kept saying (I shit you not!):

“So I can go outside right now, come back in, buy something and get five dollars off?”

She kept saying; “That’s right, sir.”

“But I can’t use it right now?”

“That’s right, sir.”

That exact exchange happened no less than 4 full times.

I think, by the time he was finished everyone was ready to cheer if a house should fall upon him.

By the time I got to the Pet Place for flea and tick shampoo, the dispensary for meds for someone else where, thankfully, I had no problems at all because stoners know what the fuck they’re doing no matter what anyone else says. That’s how you run a damn pharmacy Walgreens, CVS, and all you other money hungry little grubbers out there. Then to my daughter’s house to drop stuff out and then, blissfully, finally, home, I really had enough of the entire world.

Yet, still, I am grateful for the lesson they reinforced today and that is; Who Not To Be Like. Examples are everywhere. Follow them, please. I beg of you.

Now I gotta get ready for Thanksgiving Dinner and the arrival of new granddaughter. Both of which I am looking very forward to beholding.

I have spent weeks behind the scenes working was diligently on some awesome things no one but will care about but I do care about them and I’m proud as hell of them. While instituting One Stop Shopping on my site…whoa what a job! I discovered some thing that a lot of people never get to say and I’ve been able to say it for a while ow I just never knew. My books are, quite literally, available on sites and places all over the globe–no, not just frickin’ Amazon.. Places I never even thought of. Places that had once turned me down! I may not have become the Next Great American Author but I have worked my ass off for the last 15 years and created something I can be extremely proud of. I have accomplished my dreams and goals as a writer. Maybe not in the big flashy way but…in the end, baby,

So, you know, I’m a little tired from all of that. I’m not going to let the two…individuals…we just discussed taint any of it with anger. That’s why you just read this. So, I could be like Elsa and Let It Go.

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Guess What I Did Today….

I did something today that, up until a very short time ago, I never even dreamed of doing. Never once did such a thought cross my mind. Although, hindsight is 20/20 and it definitely should have. All the signs were there.

Quick Reminder: I’m a pagan and I work in a church. A nice little church with nice–for the most part–people who happen to be a wee bit older than Yours Truly and, well, it shows. I have always been the Under Dog’s Biggest Supporter. All my life. Drove my mother nuts, it did. So, I can’t help rooting for this place and trying my absolute best to elevate it and drag into the latter part of the 20th century. (Yes, I know what century it is.)

I also know that some of those church members will find their way here to this post. So to them: Hello! So glad you’re here, please stay and read…with that Open Heart and Open Mind you advertise. If the following pisses some of you off, you should step back, take a few deep breaths, read again calmly, slowly, and in my voice not your own. (You’ve probably at least spoken with me on the phone so you know what I sound like…toss a little Erma Bombeck in there for good measure.) If you’re still pissed off after that, you should go to the nearest mirror, stare straight into it, and ask your reflection; “Why am I angry with this woman who is trying, in her own way, to honestly help a place that I love?”

Everybody else ready?

Here we go.

Ever since I got my job over two years ago I’ve hated going into the Sanctuary. That’s the…well…the Church part of the church for those of you who don’t know. Never in my life have I gotten a Bad Vibe in anyone’s House of Worship and I have been back to my Childhood church St Joseph’s on several occasions. I came to pride myself on the fact that I had come to terms with the Christian God, we sat down, had a nice long chat, realized this wasn’t going to work for either one of us, and parted as friends. I now how strange that sounds and yet it’s the truth or…you know…my truth, anyway. Over the decades, I’ve been in several Houses of Worship and always felt nothing but welcome.

I kept telling myself it’s just the fact that it’s dark in there–the frickin’ light switches are up a small set of stairs hidden on the wall. That’s all. Just dark. It’s all wood. Really nice old..oak, I think it is. From beams, to pews, to altar, to wainscotting. Which makes it, yeah, a little dark. I thought maybe that was what made it feel so heavy.

But there was an undeniable odor.

It would get stick in my nose and make it hard to breathe. I waited for two plus years for someone, just in passing, to say something like; smells funny up there. Then I would know it wasn’t just me–which it so often is and I was afraid it was. No one ever made any such comment.

One day I came home and I discussed this offensive smell with my husband. I realize my choice of words was poor, as you will see, but that is exactly the way it smelled to me. I told him: You know that smell wood makes just a few seconds before the flames actually catch? That’s the way it smells.

To wit he laughed and laughed and laughed and mumbled something about it; bursting into flames because there was a pagan standing there!

Go on…laugh. It is funny.

But that is the exact scent. I cannot possibly describe it any better than that.

It got to the point where I bought ‘light scented’ air spray (Bamboo scented) and would spritz the sanctuary now and then. Within the last few months it got to the point where I didn’t want to take the bulletins inside. I’m supposed to leave three of them in the sanctuary; 1 on the pulpit, 1 on the lectern, and 1 way in the back for the videographer. I didn’t want to go into their Hall, it didn’t smell in there but the sense of heaviness was pervasive. I could almost hear people shouting in there.

Let’s get back on track here.

Two years go by. I do my thing at work. They drive me crazy as I try desperately to help them Level Up….just one little level…just one. They need to make a ten level Leap of Faith but, I’ll take a visible baby step if that’s what I can get. Suffice it to say they’re stuck. Like that scene in “My Cousin Vinny”. You know that scene?

If not…enjoy….

Ok? Got it?

Good.

Only it’s not funny.

Anyway, over the course of those two years a very strange thing has happened to me in that I have come to like the Reverend very much. I never dreamed of such a thing. She’s pretty cool. She lives up to the sign outside their front door which is nice. Always a good thing that is. We’ve come to have this working relationship where we bounce things off each other in relation to WTF is Going On Around Here? She makes no judgements about my Path and I make none about hers. BTW, that’s the way it’s supposed to be out there in the Real World of America every single day. You know, just so you know.

Lately, during the course of our chats, once or twice, out of a mixed sense of humor and seriousness, I suggested we smudge the sanctuary.

It was very clear by this point there really is a crapwad of Negative Energy just oozing its way around the place. It’s delighting in holding the place back. Yes, I know how insane it sounds to smudge a freakin’ church. Ok? Believe me, I got it.

Over the last week or so I have brought in my smudge sticks. I really wanted to bring in my whole kit but I thought that might be a little much considering the location. She’s mentioned it again and again. I was just waiting for her to say ‘Go’ because the Universe already had. As odd as it was, and as lighthearted as it was meant to be, when I ventured the idea of smudging the first time I heard an undeniable, not ‘yes!’, but rather a a soft, ‘oh, please’ from the Universe. So all Systems were Go on that most important front. The Big JC and his Daddy weren’t going to get mad over it and Everybody Else was also on board.

Today was the day.

I used most of the last of my White Sage on the place as I got every pew, every window, every door, the altar, the organ, the piano and…oh yes…the entire building. ALL of it except the attic. ALL of it. TWICE.

I did it once with her and it felt OK, she had a lot of questions that I have to get comfortable answering because they’re good honest questions and they deserve answers. But this is like my books in many ways, not only is it deeply personal, I just don’t like talking about it. It’s hard to explain and you might join the long line of people who think I’m nuts.

That’s probably why I didn’t feel comfortable speaking the words that the Universe was asking me to say. I waited for that for the second round. We went from the sanctuary, to the front doors, back down again, and through the midway to the Hall. Everywhere we went she seemed to feel pretty much everything I did and I thought that was pretty damn cool. Another sign from the Universe that we were doing the right thing.

By the time she left for the day the place was already feeling a lot lighter. Almost like a strong wind finally finally found its way around to blow away a big black cloud. After she went, His Majesty clearly spoke up:

You know, you did forget the two back staircases.

Yep, I did. You’re right.

Well, you know…

Negative Energy likes to run and hide. I got it.

So, I got up and did the two backstair cases where, yes, yes, indeed, some of it appeared to have fled. Then I did the whole building again and let the Universe use me to give Itself voice. We banished all negativity, all negative energy, all the things that sought to hold the place back, to hold it in the grip of fear, keep the status quo and, by osmosis, refused to let it grow. We brought in light so the place could grow again. We welcomed change so maybe it could not just grow but thrive.

Never in my life did I ever for one millisecond thing that I would be called upon to smudge a church. I knew from day one that the Universe had a solid reason for putting me behind that desk in that place at that exact time. That was undeniable. This was unfathomable. And it was so freakin’ awesome!!!

By the time I left the it almost felt like a new place so full of bursting potential and life. Believe me, I left it absolutely steeping in sage smoke. I got every single corner.

Now we wait and see. I’m already thinking of doing it again next month. I’m not an idiot, one really good smudging probably isn’t enough to banish decades, if not centuries, of festering negativity. Oh, how I’d love to do it on Monday! Halloween Itself. How perfect would that be? The Day of Days for just such a task. If no one was going to be there I’d bring my whole kit.

Yep, today definitely goes down on Aunty Moon’s List of Things I Never Thought I’d Do but Did Anyway.

I mean something like that wasn’t even on my Bucket List.

Many thanks to the Universe for tapping me for this most honorable task. I am as humbled by it as I am enlivened and enriched.

Now, to you church folk who have stuck with this ….if you’ve read this before you go to worship on Sunday,you probably won’t notice anything because you’ll go in with preconceived notions. But…keep an eye on your friends who haven’t read this. See if they seem any…lighter, happier, a little more ‘there’. As though the wind had suddenly changed direction and is blowing afresh.

If you’re mad over it, I want you to do me one favor because I know you won’t follow the steps above and get all introspective about it. Ready? Stop cooking with sage. Go to your spice cabinet and toss it in the trash now. Don’t ever buy it again. If you need it, I’ll give you a list of very common every day other herbs and spices you should get rid of although I must warn you, it will leave your cooking rather bland.

To everyone else, thanks for letting me share this most delightfully unexpected experience with you.

Magick is Afoot

Oooo…lucky you, look at that, you got that second post from me after all.

I am very disenchanted with several things at my job…you may recall I am a Pagan who works in a Church. While I would love to tell you all about it blatantly I think, perhaps, I will take the advice of the candle in my bedroom and Choose Joy.

My birthday is tomorrow. I’ll be 56.

To that end, this past Saturday we took our oldest daughter and our granddaughter to Flanders Donuts where the World’s Best Donuts are made but in dreadfully limited supply. We got two dozen.

We then went, just about right next door to a building I swear was my dentist’s office when I was quite young. It has been Mystical Horizons for several years (decades?) now. I used to frequent their shop in Mystic and was saddened to hear that it closed a while back. Though I’d been by this one I had never been in this shop until Saturday.

I thought that was perfect! I would enter the shop for the very first time and so would my granddaughter. New Beginnings.

The shop is small, I won’t lie, but it was packed! More people just kept coming in. ALL women and most with small children–most were girls–some were moms with their daughters and others, like me, where grandmothers with their granddaughters. It was wonderful! The energy was striking as the kids stared wide-eyed into the cases pointing at glittering crystals, stones, statues, and all sorts of Paganware openly excited as they asked; what’s that?

My granddaughter was no different.

She wanted to see everything. She was amazed at the statues of Buddha, Ganesh, Kali, and several other Gods/Goddesses along with a particularly large and colorful Foo Dog near the register. Her beautiful brown eyes were as wide as the Universe that was unfolding for her as she took it all in and my heart soared to heights it has not seen for a long time.

She was enthralled by the open bowls of rocks and crystals as she happily grabbed them up so grandma could buy them for her. The magnetized hematite balls fascinated her so she got a pair. I also bought her very first mojo bag, it’s a ladybug zip purse with her treasures inside.

She wanted to see the incense and the candles and; ‘what is that, grammy, what’s that do?’ at every blissful turn just like the other kids happily milling about.

Not once…not one single time…the whole while we were there did the shopkeeper admonish the excited children. She did not once tell them not to touch or get away or calm down or be quiet or anything. It was very clear she was gratefully enjoying the little raucous in her shop. In fact, she just kept welcoming them inside with sparkling eyes. Inviting them to explore all the Mystical Magickal Wonders of this vast universe as she helped give some of them, like my granddaughter, their very first taste of that sweet freedom to explore all that is out there, to ask, to wonder, to grow, to learn and ultimately to become who they are meant to be and not someone else’s idea of what they should be.

It was quite the wonderful day. It has recharged me and given me back some of what I’ve had to surrender, stifle, and honestly just outright choke down, working in a Church. It broke those bonds and reminded me of who I am. I sorely needed that. I didn’t realize how much I needed it until I was relating a small bit of this experience to someone today and they asked if Mystical Horizons was having some kind of Halloween thing and that’s why it was so busy with kids.

I had to stop myself from saying something like; the world is a lot bigger than this tiny place with its one little box and book. We really are the granddaughters of the witches your kind couldn’t burn, drown, press to death, hang, draw and quarter, mutilate, humiliate, or torture into submission and we are powerful, we are numerous, we are strong.

Instead I said something like; No, it was just a Saturday at Mystical Horizons.

(Surprise!)

The next time my granddaughter and I go out, I’m hoping to take her to Pandora’s Box. That’s another Paganware shop I’ve never been in…mostly because it looks like the parking sucks…but have always wanted to visit. We shall go for the first time together and I will bask in the joy of watching her light up as she begins her journey to herself.