Beyond 11 years ago, I was a very different person. I don't know how I was perceived exactly by others. I just know that I had undergone a decade and a half of loneliness and anger. It continued even after the watershed event of 11 years ago for another 5 years. After two decades of lonely living, I knew that something different had to happen.
I could still detail the times if I needed to. After all, it was during those times that my children were growing up. Many of those memories with them are good ones. I recount them if with my daughter, and she wants to reminisce. Otherwise, I really don't revisit the toxic 20-year period.
On my back patio, watching storms roll in or just musing about shapes in white clouds as they float by, I think often about the time after the 20 years of drought. I'll catch a whiff of the pleasant aroma of rain arriving in the wind just before it starts and flash to a time of sheer happiness. I'll hear words from songs from that time play in my mind and call up visuals of satisfaction and enjoyment. I'll sometimes catch a glimpse from my mind's eye of sacred places full of the most pleasant of memories.
That merges into scenes of a path away from the sacred places into the future where health has had to be dealt with and hard situations have arisen. The trip to the present isn't all grim, however. It includes episodes of laughing in the car wash and playful tickling with my granddaughter. Then I know all is well with the world, and I return to a livable reality.
I can rest at night and dream of the Elysian Fields.
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