Woman on Wire
When the man pulled up his pole that looked to be twice the size of him and stepped gingerly onto a thin gauge of wire 110 stories above the earth and knew in his heart that he would make it to the other side, our hearts agreed.
The equation of yes + I can + I will = sure! And he did.
The black and white photo of the trust and game of it, the whatever the eff of this life of it, I just find it exhilarating.
And true for me, too. I am running across the wire, like a rat headed to the next garage, looking for another shiny prize. All the world’s a stage and we are merely players, and maybe life is but a dream… but for me? This dream has players on both sides.
Spirits whisper to me (sounds so sweet, doesn’t it?) but they also yell. Oh and throw baseballs. Which is fair, because during that phone session I was being weird and letting my brain get involved. I kept thinking that this sweet old lady probably wasn’t a baseball fan so I shouldn’t say something about baseball even though the spirit was clearly talking about stolen bases. Which meant her friend on the other side had to give up clairaudience (clear hearing) and go to clairvoyance (clear seeing) and whip a baseball at me. But it worked, flying objects became an excellent option.
Once I was three spirits in during an hour long session and coming around the :45 minute mark when things really start to sing when I heard PIZZA, PIZZA, PIZZA and the person on the line (the live one) kept saying,
“NO, I don’t think so, Nope.”
But then! At minute :56 when I was smacked in the 3rd eye by a large delicious looking pie, I said it again. PIZZA. And she said.
“Oh. Wait! Yea.”
“I did bring him his very favorite food on his deathbed, which was pizza”.
And I thought, thank god! We can stop slinging cheese around here.
The other day a woman who died young of cancer made me wave my arms with emphasis as she came through just furious to tell me how much her mom’s nurse sucks and how someone needs to fire this woman and oh boy as the messenger I was like, “Shit! I hope that’s true, cause someone is about to lose a job.” And then I had to figure out how to reclaim my arms. It’s not hard, but really important to do.
After a move to Oregon my friend’s cat left in a huff and this cat named after the moon was gone, like really gone, and my friend forgot that I could be useful in this situation but then we finally talked 18 days later, I told her “Don’t worry, she’s alive. Go find a little black SUV on the third street over the hill. And Luna with her green eyes and her voice clear in my mind speaking like an 18th century lady of some means will be there and even though she was furious at you for that woozy plane ride she would, in fact, like to come home.”
Today my friend said, “It worked! Luna came home in a black SUV”.
And I’m back on that wire like the french man, short and confident, walking between towers and straddling the worlds. Walking between what is acceptable and reasonable (like running a business! raising a golf pro!) and then sweeping and swooping up up up out of this body and frustrating dimension, lots of air below me as I wander with so many unseen new friends and listen to their complaints.
It’s exhilarating, it’s terrifying, it’s like a fantastic parlor trick and I don’t even know how the magician got into my body. But, at this height, I can’t look down. A tipping point where the fine balance of belief and breath and staying strong in my conviction can bring relief to a widow, comfort to a friend. Best to trust that I’m not making up random flying objects and that a new caretaker would be a better option.
I think so, anyway.
