Intervention

It's Saturday night and I wanted to watch something so I chose Intervention, a movie written and directed by Clea Duvall where she actually gets to play a lesbian in an increasingly constricted relationship and chooses to tell her sister and her husband to stop hurting each other and get a divorce. Clea is not alone in her desire to set up the intervention; she has her brother Jack who has chucked everything to travel the country towing a trailer with a barely 20-something girl still dressing like a teenager hanging out for the summer between school years and Annie, who set up the intervention because she says she is tired of watching her best friend Ruby and husband Peter slashing at each other. Meanwhile Annie drinks her way through most of the movie while organizing the intervention because she is not ready to marry her fiance and knows she cannot postpone her wedding a 5th time.

Like all those movies where nearly 30-somethings are working out their issues during a wedding weekend, bachelor/ette party weekend, or intervention, it is clear from the outset that the relationships will end up on their ears and the happy ending will not include the instigators.

The thing about interventions, especially when they fail to involve people who really do need help and don't have court-ordered interventions, the point is that the couple in the crosshairs aren't really the ones who need help and everyone else is going to have to examine their navels closely. The fact is that people who set up couples' interventions, and the people who express their concerns at the outset and refuse to go along, are really the ones who need help. Their friends were either too polite or embarrassed to stage an intervention, or even talk to them about it, or weren't aware that was an option. In short, the movie is another chance to get together, get drunk, and air out the emotional linen among friends and family.

Isn't that always the way? Our thoughts are on someone else's problems while we avoid our own problems and issues entirely.  After all, they need help and we love them enough to help them. That's the thing about interventions and offering help to someone else, it's easier to focus on someone else's problems than to admit there are things we need to work on.

While watching these almost middle-aged couples sort out their lives, I was immediately reminded of Meathead and Gloria's disintegrating marriage. Meathead was predictably clueless and Gloria was needlessly dismissive and cruel. Gloria was bored, showing signs that if she had to spend one more minute in Mike's company she'd take his head off and castrate him with the rough and sharp side of her tongue. Luckily, Gloria had Edith Bunker to talk to.

Gloria asked her dingbat mother if she had ever gotten to the point where she just could not stand Archie -- and Edith said yes. She gave Gloria the best advice I'd ever heard.

There comes a time in marriage where even the sound of your spouse's breathing is enough to send you running to the kitchen to find the sharpest knife in the drawer to plunge into your once beloved spouse's throat. I would imagine the modern day parlance would be a throat punch. Your spouse's existence is beyond tolerance and you cannot stand it any more. This is the point where most marriages and relationships end up on the dump or out with the trash. You have fallen out of love with your spouse. You could, as most lawyers advise, get a divorce or you could wait to fall back in love with your soul mate. That is what Edith urged Gloria to do -- wait until you fall in love all over again.

As I watched Ruby and Peter I remembered that point in my own marriage when my ex-husband and I publicly cut each other to pieces over cards or during parties. On some level it was witty and funny, but on a personal level it was painful. I considered the knife, but now see I would have happily opted for a throat punch wearing brass knuckles if the choice had been offered. I hadn't seen the episode with Edith told Gloria what to do, and I'm not sure it would have mattered. We would still have divorced because I never actually wanted to be married to him after all. I got pregnant the night we got engaged and marriage seemed the best solution at the time. Mom told me the day we got married I didn't have to marry him and that we could work it all out. I'd have the baby and she and my father would adopt the child. Unlike Edith Bunker's calm dingbat wisdom, my mother could've said nothing that would have hurried me to the altar faster. The thought that she would raise my innocent child turned my blood to ice and all my protective instincts and hormones rushed to surround my unborn child. No child of mine would end up being raised by the woman who spent my entire formative years torturing me as she would undoubtedly torture and abuse my child, especially if it was a girl. I got married that day and have regretted it most of the rest of my life as I struggled with marriage, adulthood, and responsibility and longed for the life I had planned: going to college, getting a degree, and writing a breakthrough novel -- or becoming the first woman judge on the Supreme Court of the United States -- or the first woman driver to qualify for and win the Indianapolis 500. I was 18 and, though I felt I was ready for responsibility, I was nowhere close.

There was no one to do an intervention for me and I doubt I would have sat still for it. There was no Edith Bunker to help me over the hurdles and listening to my mother was akin to praying mantis courting rituals.

There is the fairy tale fantasy of happily ever after and the reality that comes with children and marriage and life as you know it ending while clinging to a past where you remember you thought you were happy and the future lay before you like a brand new Yellow Brick Road stretching along a glittering path where the Emerald City of Oz beckoned on the horizon. The Wicked Witch waited with fireballs and flying monkeys to bar the path, but you're wearing rose-colored glasses and only the good things are visible.

As I have said before, we are creatures who live mostly in the past where the grass was greener, children behaved, and people were civil and kind, socially duplicitous but at least everyone got along. Instead we live in a society populated by people ready and willing to trample your rights to speak while insisting that the only speech that matters is their own as they bully dissenters with libel and slander and name calling fit for a prison school yard and we have only ourselves to blame. While we gave out prizes to children showing up and soothed their hurt feelings by putting ourselves in their places, we forgot -- or failed to remember -- that helping a butterfly out of its cocoon denies the butterfly the struggle that gives it the strength and power to emerge and become a beautiful butterfly able to spread its wings and flit from flower to flower to feed itself and help pollinate the crops so there will be food and flowers for future generations.

Few people learn that it takes persistence and patience to get through the bored "I hate you" stage so you can fall in love again and remember what it was that brought you together. It could be the crooked quirky smile or the way he makes you laugh when you're in the midst of a pointless fight or it could be that her feet are cold on the hottest day of the year or how comforting his arms feel when he steals the covers so he can spoon you. The point is that sometimes you have to wait for the heart to catch up with the brain and few people take the time or feel they have the time to wait. There's always something more important than now and you and us. Sometimes patience is all you need but you have to wait and listen carefully for patience.

That is all. Disperse.

You Didn't Build That

I didn't catch the whole speech, but I knew what Obama meant when he said, "You didn't build that." I heard different parts of his speech at other times, mostly not in a favorable way. It was Obama after all. But I knew what he meant from the first minute I heard the words. I wasn't going to comment on it, negatively or positively. There was no need. The Left and the Right were already commenting, oftentimes in a nasty manner. The Obama Choir was in full voice shouting down the Tea Party clamor. They didn't need my two cents. After all, what did it matter anyway? I'm one person and very little I say matters even when I want what I say to matter. I am forgettable and indistinguishable from the background noise. My one voice will make no difference. Since I avoid pointless battles, I felt secure in my decision to keep my words and my thoughts to myself.

I was wrong. I was ignorant.

Whether I said the words out loud or not, the very thought and my reluctance to join the clamor did matter. They still matter and not just because I'm writing them down to send out into the cyber void. They always mattered because my thoughts, like my unspoken words, are real. They have weight. They make a difference.

They make ripples.

And here come the shouts and name-calling from the opposition. There is always opposition, except in story books where good triumphs over bad. Those stories where good triumphs also cause ripples when the author thinks about the story, puts the words together, types them onto paper or creates them on a screen and sends them into the virtual world, and every single time someone reads the story and laughs or cries or stops to wonder what it all means. Those first ripples create more ripples and each ripple creates ripples and the ripples keep spreading out and out -- and in and in -- forever.

Nothing goes on forever you say. You probably believe in forever after and eternity and the vastness of God or Allah or whatever name you give to the Infinite All the created everything. That created you and even me. Everything goes on forever.

That is what Obama was saying . . . badly . . . but he did say it. Nothing you create is yours alone. It is the result of everyone who helped you make your vision a reality, from your parents to your teachers to your friends and community to your banker, the workers, and the men and women who helped make your creation a reality. It doesn't stop there. The ripples keep going to the people who advertise your work by talking about it, by putting together a marketing campaign, and by continuing to raise awareness of your work by keeping the words flowing. Every person who buys or appreciates your work, long after you are dead and gone, create ripples that create ripples that keep creating ripples. Then, long after you are gone someone will find your work dusty and covered with cobwebs or see an newspaper write-up or read about it in a book, hear about it from someone who knew you when you were putting it all together, and so on and so on and so on forever. Whether in memory or in use, that initial thought you believed was yours was a single ripple in an infinite pond, something you built in your dreams others helped you make tangible reality, helped you build that.

Okay, so I used a whole lot more words than Obama, but the message is the same. You had help to build whatever. You did not build that alone.

Nothing we do, even when we think we do nothing, is ever done alone. No, I'm not talking about the people that believe that God (or Allah or Mohamet or Baal or Lucifer or whoever/whatever) is the author of all. He/She/It is not the all. Nor are you or me or some nameless someone down the road out of sight.

A little too religious, holy . . . forgettable for you? You don't go for all that self-righteous, mumbo-jumbo, airy-fairy, New Age crap. Does it make you nervous? Anxious? Frightened? What if . . . ?

What if.

Obama wasn't the first to create "You didn't build that." Millions of people did that long before Obama's time came up with the same idea. Obama built on someone else's words, someone else's thoughts, someone else's ideas. He did not build that. He had help -- a lot of help standing on the shoulders of others. The words might have been a political slogan, a lesson to a child, an explanation of so much more than just the words, the teachings of a priest, a leader, a father, a mother, or a friend. All that is happening has happened before, many times before. I'll bet you've heard or read that as well. It's true and here is where it gets uncomfortable for some of you.

We are all connected. We are ripples in the stream of time and consciousness forming, colliding, ricocheting off each other to create more ripples creating more ripples -- forever. Everything we do affects everything else. Describe it in scientific terms, refine it until it can be expressed in an equation as simple as E=mc2. No matter which way it come out every thought, every word, every action, every inaction, everything affects everything else.

From the beautiful and sublime to the frightening and ugly, it's all connected. It's not just you and it's not just me or her or him or them. We are all connected.

In simplest and graphic terms, what ripples you make affect everything and everyone around you. You pick up a dropped spoon or pencil and put it on the table or give it back to the person who dropped it. Ripples. Someone finds the spoon on the table or the pencil dropper smiles and thanks you. Ripples. The spoon dropper in a moment of irritation throws the spoon against the wall or the floor or through an open door and hits the boss when she walks past while the pencil dropper notices the pencil is broken and screams at you for breaking their pencil that they can no longer use because they don't have a sharpener. "It's your fault!" they scream at you, spit spraying your face. Ripples. What you do next will either make things worse or make them better. Ripples.

The ripple effect is the same as the butterfly effect. The only difference is the way the effect is illustrated.

Whether or not I added my voice to the clamor when Obama spoke those words, "You didn't build that!" I created ripples. I affected someone or something even though I kept my words to myself. The thoughts I kept to myself had as much effect as those unspoken words and how much of a ripple I caused is determined by my emotions. I dismissed Obama's words out of hand. It didn't matter. He didn't matter because people would still see and feel the same way because Obama said the words. I didn't care. No matter. I still created ripples. I still had an effect whether I knew it or not. Ignorance is no excuse.

And here is where it gets scary.

All those unspoken thoughts, all those hidden dreams and fantasies, all those secrets you swore to keep to yourself, every random angry thought, all those times you wished someone harm or worse, all those thoughts floating out there in the void you were sure were locked in some hidden corner of your mind are ripples.

Every fish, insect, and species living under the water, no matter how deep, create ripples. You may not see them on the surface, but the ripples are there all the same. So are all those thoughts, secrets, fantasies, and emotions hidden beneath your surface. Think of the ripples created by all that life below the surface of the pond. It doesn't matter how big the pond is, even if the pond is as vast as the seven seas or the world's oceans, there are ripples from all the sea life from the deepest depths to the sea life close to the surface where their movements are not visible to the eye, your eye. Ripples.

Yes, that butterfly in Brazil can create a tornado in Texas -- and here's the kicker -- as long as the butterfly in Kathmandu doesn't get in the way.

No matter what Obama intended when he spoke those words, "You didn't build it!" that is not sound byte remains. What remains is Obama taking away the pride someone feels when their dream becomes a reality. Obama trampled on their dreams, turned an accomplishment to nothing more than trash that will end up in a landfill. My silence, my unwillingness to speak, my ignorance changed the effect those words could have had. My choice to refuse to add my words and my voice to the clamor made a difference. My ignorance is no excuse. I knew what Obama meant and said nothing.

This butterfly in Colorado contributed to the forced that made something meant to be positive, to be inclusive, into a weapon and a joke.

Ripples.

That is all. Disperse.

Temporarily Banished

I was asleep, minding my own business in a dream that was just a dream. Only it wasn't. I see now that the dream was born of issues I may not have fully dealt with or at least an issue that remains a part of me -- as some things often do no matter how you banish them or ignore them. It became a nightmare that catapulted me into the wide awake world where I usually live with a raging anger and the same sense of betrayal and loss I felt when I ended things several years ago.

And now he's back, still a coward, still a jerk, and still upending my peace of mind.

The dreamscape is one I've visited numerous times before. It's one of several dreamscape that recur in my sleeping world.

I was in an apartment I usually don't live in when I visit that dreamscape. It was smaller than the usual digs, but comfortable with room for my hobbies and mental pursuits. I gathered the trash and picked up a bucket of water I'd used to mop the floors -- on my knees, so I knew it was a dreamscape immediately. I don't scrub floors on my hands and knees.

Anyway, I took the trash and the bucket of dirty water outside where some of my neighbors were dumping their trash and chatting (gossiping most likely) about whatever. As I dumped the bucket on the grass someone said, "Well, that's new. No one dumps such things out here. Usually use the toilet or the sink."

I ignored the comment until the other neighbors' ribbing pricked the edge of my tolerant mood the wrong way. "I felt like taking a walk and perhaps bumping into my friendly neighbors." I bit down on the sharper edge of my tongue. I didn't add that I should have walked farther or that I should've waited. I really wasn't in the mood for the usual onslaught of hurt feelings and injured cries of bruised egos and pricked self-importance. I just wanted to finish the task and go back to my cozy little nook where I could shut the door on petty minded busybodies.

Almost at the outside door reaching for the handle, he came at me from behind offering sympathy for the rude people and setting the nape of my neck tingling with upraised hair. Oh, how I wanted to escape his insincerity and his subsequent attempt at 'let's be friends and talk about us' before I gave into the urge to slap his face -- with a hand rake.

I consciously lowered my shoulders and eased the tension evident to anyone but clueless him, murmured my thanks for his attempt at empathy and slowly and deliberately opened the door. He was determined to make the most of me speaking to him at last. Sure of his welcome, grudging though it was, he stepped between me and the open door and took the bucket in hand. "Let's set this down here out of the way so we can take a walk."

I could've shoved him aside, got my bucket, and left. I didn't. Damnable manners got in the way and, if I'm to be completely honest, politeness and a smidgen of hope quickly quashed and stuffed into the nearest dark, blind niche. A moment of politeness costs nothing. Well, nothing more than lowering the thick, seemingly impenetrable wall built to keep him out and away from the shreds clinging to the remains of my heart.

"I did want to get some fresh air," I said and backed away from his outstretched hand. I'd walk a few steps but there was no way he was going to touch me. I'd slug him first.

We strolled past the goggle-eyed neighbors without a word and toward the massive tree that towered over the yard, its bottom branches so high they couldn't even brush the tops of our heads. No, not there. I veered away from his intended route and down the long lawn toward the river.

It must've dawned on him that the way he imagined our reunion I wasn't going along with the program. He stopped while I walked on. Since I continued to walk toward the river he pointed to the sky and called my attention to a shooting star. Rational mind kicked in with meteorite blazing to earth from friction as it screamed to its death, a death I had heartily wished on him a few -- million -- times since I'd last seen him.

Come to that, I don't remember him moving into the building and yet here he was. Bold as brass and twice as irritating against my skin. I resisted the urge to claw at the hives I imagined humping up the longer I allowed politeness to keep me from the cozy confines of my rooms.

Politeness can only move me so far. I'd had enough fresh air. Time to shake this hound off. Now. "Thank you for the walk." I turned about and walked toward the building. Sputtering protestations followed a few steps before he grabbed my arm and yanked me to a stop. Bristling, I hesitated just long enough for him to vomit up an apology and "I was wrong," stopping me from slapping the taste out of his mouth.

"Nice to hear you admit it. Too little, too late." I brushed his hand off me. "What now? Should I relent and fall into your arms?" He held out his arms and flashed me his patented crooked grin. "Not happening." His arms dropped as though made of lead held up too long for his puny muscles to withstand. "Thanks for the walk and the air."

"Please." The longing and desperation reeked from that one word. Tears threatened. I stopped to gain some semblance of control and he emerged from the shadows to stand in front of me. I never knew he could move that fast -- or be that decisive. He was all about over thinking everything and planning to bolt. "Please," he repeated.

"Please what?"

His head jerked back as if my fist had connected. "Please wait. Let me explain."

Angry retorts battered his limp excuses. Too much time, too much hurt, and too much silence stood between then and now. I felt my resistance waning, giving into the dis-ease I felt standing that close to him. My vision blurred with unshed tears. My stomach ached. My heart ached. Everything ached from the stifled emotions and resentment and repressed anger. Not sure which was stronger, the fury at myself for letting things get to this point or the horrible loss because he was -- and continues to be --- a coward and not being honest from the start. I should have been less naive and more cynical, but I have learned. Finally.

Suddenly, my temperature cooled . . . as it does when I have reached the outer limits of fury and anger, and the temperature around me dropped. He stopped dead in his tracks. His arms dropped to his side and he stared at me as I gathered myself, turned, and slowly walked away leaving him behind me. When I reached the building and opened the outer door I looked back. He had not moved.

I almost expected to see snow falling. The neighbors rubbed their arms and complained about the creeping cold. A few pulled their sweaters, jackets, and coats closed and moved away to go home as they shouted hurried goodbyes. I picked up the bucket and went back to my cozy apartment. I wasn't cold. I wanted to be safe inside away from prying eyes and nosy neighbors. Away from him.

It did not feel like a long time, but the expected knock thumped on the door. When I opened it he stood outside in the hall. "Why did you see me in that first time?"

"Of course I wanted to or I'd not have invited you."

He turned and walked away. We were obviously done at last.

Why is it that a man can't take a woman's word when they end? Why do they believe only a man can end it? My second husband told me that we would never end until he said we ended. I laughed at him and laughed even harder when he came back with "I asked you to marry me. It's not over until I say it's over." I told him, "But I had to say yes first." He didn't get it and I spent the next few years proving it to him when I moved away and made my family promise never to tell him how to get in touch with me or I'd not let them know either.

Not that I worried too much they would take me up on the promise to cut them out of my life. They wouldn't mind. They'd wanted to get shed of me for most of my life. I had provided what I was adopted to provide -- children of their own. My purpose was fulfilled. All they needed to do was get rid of me so their family, finally complete, could go happily on as a family without me. I was used to being alone and without family. My own birth mother didn't want me back. She had her own happy family. Oh, she loved me, but I was the past. I should stay in the past and not be a constant reminder of what she had given up. I was her child, but only by biology. She had sons now. Her daughters were part of the past. I was part of that past.

A few days later -- or hours since it was dream time -- the phone rang. I answered and confirmed I was me. He wanted to take me out, get to know me. He had been given my number. No surprise there. He knew all about the affair and he thought I might be lonely and wouldn't want to remain lonely. My girlfriend listened to my side of the conversation amused at the way I handled the caller. She was a little surprised that I was so calm, that I seemed to tease him and flirt. All I can say about that is that is my default mode: teasing, flirting, pleasant.

"Keep listening," I said and hung up.

"What was that all about?"

"He wanted to keep me company," I responded, voice tight, temperature dropping. My jaw worked as I clenched my teeth and sought to master the feeling of betrayal and anger bubbling like lava toward the surface. Our conversation was terse on my part and full of wonder and the need to get out of the blast range on the other as she sidled toward the door.

What had sounded like light-hearted banter was obviously not so light-hearted or pleasant. The caller had presumed too much and that presumption came from the man who gave him my number. A man who might as well have written it on a bathroom wall. A man I once trusted and, Goddess help me, I still loved. A man who had tossed me away without paying me off first as any good prostitute would have demanded. I never expected to be passed around like a dirty joke, but that is evidently where I found myself.

Even when it's over it's not really over. Not until the man says.

No wonder I was instantly awake last night. Betrayal and calculated disregard -- mine or someone treated that way -- always gets my attention. Had I answered wrong when I told him I let him in because I wanted him, because I wanted to be with him? Had I brought everything on myself with my feelings for him? I didn't know. I would never know. He was too much of a coward to face me or to tell me his promises and our plans were empty dreams. Had he told me, I would have still wanted him the way I've wanted anything that is out of reach -- without emotional investment. Or time. Or belief. Or trust. Or dreams of a future together.

And it would have hurt so much less.

Even the relationships that have ended and the men banished, the banishment is only temporary.

Or so it seems.

In The Serpent's Eye

The story of Adam and Eve is one we all know and have been told since childhood, but have you ever thought about the story, really considered the story from the standpoint of reality? Paintings of Adam and Eve nearly always show them wearing fig leaves (or some kind of leafy covering that hovers over the genitalia) before they have even committed the sin of eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is often a snake coiled around the tree and inclined toward Eve. Try looking at the story from a more realistic point of view, taking the story out of the divine aspect that surrounds it and putting it into a more familiar reality -- as if it had happened.

Adam and Eve, according to the Hebrew Bible on which the Old Testament is based, were the first human beings. Forget about Lilith, another dramatic construct from the Jewish midrash (explanation and commentary on the Hebrew Torah (which became the Christian Old Testament with appropriate additions decided by the Roman council of Nicaea). What is immediately apparent is that though Adam was still the first (at least for this discussion) another female was created as his mate, Lilith. In the Vulgate Bible (first Latin bible written for the masses (vulgar - vulgate) Lilith was called Lamia, a Libyan serpent goddess, or Lamashtu, a female demon who killed children, drank the blood of men and ate men's flesh. She also caused pregnant women to miscarry, disturbed sleep, and brought nightmares. Basically, woman was a demon, an evil being wreaking havoc on the world of men.

Considering raging hormones during puberty, I can see how that would be perceived and how, from personal experience, it feels.

Lilith can be viewed another way -- that there was another female created with Adam from earth. It was Eve, the second female in this story, who was created from Adam's rib.

Putting this in context and comparing it to the older Sumerian account of creation, Lilith would have been the first attempt at creating earthlings and Eve perfected when the DNA retrieved from the rib of the Creator -- or Adam as the story goes -- made Eve more human. Consider that the creator of Adam and Eve -- however many attempts at creating a humanoid capable of thought and learning to perform tasks useful to God (or gods) -- perfected his model and sent two specimens, male and female, to the leader of the group (high commander or Commander of Earth) as a gift. It is very likely a pair from the first batch of earthlings, male and female, had also been sent as a specimen of the ongoing work to create a being able to carry out orders and do the hard work, freeing the rest of the colonists for less sweaty and dirty tasks. Would a pair of earthlings be sent as mature adults or as children?

I say children were sent, especially with the perfected batch of earthlings produced with the DNA taken from a male and female colonist obtained from the ribs. Like any modern scientist, the obvious source of DNA would be taken from his own rib and the female DNA would come from his scientific partner, the geneticist making it all possible. The new pair of children were sent to the Commander of Earth and he kept them as pets in his garden, naked as the day they were born, and just as unaware of who and what they were. But pets grow and they grow up.

When the latest Adam and Eve grew up, at least to the point of puberty and its inherent changes in body and mind, the scientist (Lord of Water) visited the Commander's garden to check on the progress of Adam and Eve. I can imagine the scientist saying, "How you have grown," when he encountered Eve. Probably through the worst of puberty, Eve would have answered the scientist's questions and told him about how odd and different she felt, how much pain she had had, and how funny she felt. She would have told him she had blood coming from down there and wondered if she was dying. The scientist was ecstatic. No longer would the earthlings be mules (infertile), they could produce children on their own. That was far more desirable than growing the earthlings in tanks or female volunteers and would speed things up nicely so the work force would be ready sooner.

The scientist is a sensualist. He liked women. He enjoyed them. He admired everything about them: their beauty, softness, receptiveness to his advances. They smelled nice good and, as he usually did, he was aroused. The scientist took Eve for a test run and was pleased with her willing responsiveness. She was still a child, but a talented and curious child eager to experience . . . everything, and so was the scientist.


After experiencing the new sensations of physical intercourse with the scientist, Eve noticed she needed to get cleaned up. She pondered what had happened with the scientist as she bathed and looked at herself in the water's surface. She felt she had changed and she looked changed. Her cheeks were flushed. Her breasts were fuller and flushed. She felt sore, but she also felt warm and tingling and . . . good.

She waited for the scientist to return so she could experience it all again. He had told -- and showed -- her they could be close many times and how good it could be. The initial pain dulled and was replaced by a warm and tingling feeling that did not go away immediately. It lingered. Her thoughts lingered on the experience long after the scientist was gone, her fingers and hands touching and stroking and feeling her body. How good it was and the feelings lingered.

Eve may or may not have known Adam, but it is likely they were companions, play fellows. She wanted to share the new experience with Adam. He was shaped like the scientist and she had seen his body change first thing in the morning when he awoke and sometimes through the day, his phallus growing hard and sometimes dewy with fluid. Eve had never really thought about it, but Adam's phallus got hard like the scientist's and she thought Adam might also enjoy the new experience with her.

That's what happens when a new experience is introduced. We want to tell our friends and companions. We want to talk about it and get others to help us understand it. We want to share those feelings and experiences.

Adam might have noticed that Eve touched her body more and he could have noticed that her body changed when she did so. Adam likely caught Eve bathing after the scientist left and acting strangely. When Eve emerged from the water she might have covered her genitals and breasts. That would have piqued Adam's interest. She would have gathered a branch or stepped into the bushes while she talked to Adam, gathering leaves and flowers and weaving them into a belt or apron to cover herself and hide the swollen pudenda that still tingled and felt warm -- and was growing warmer and tinglier as she told Adam what had happened with the scientist.

Eve touched Adam as she told her tale and Adam's body responded in a way that was natural and yet different. His body tingled in ways it had not tingled before. He felt warm. His phallus swelled and became erect and his scrotum tightened and tingled. Adam touched Eve as she touched him, cupping a breast and stroking the suddenly prominent nipple, teasing its sensitive tip while Eve touched the tight buds of his nipples. Ripples of tingling warmth coursed through their bodies and Adam gasped as he felt Eve's warm, wet embrace as she mounted him, wriggling as she guided his swollen phallus between her legs and deep inside. Adam and Eve began to move together, lost in their bodies awakening to each new sensation. At first, they were a little awkward. Then the pace smoothed out as the alien sensations overwhelmed them, finally giving into the rushing waves of heat and the growing sense of racing toward . . . something -- an abyss, a warm ocean swell, a crashing sensation and fullness that engulfed them and forced squeals of pleasure and surprise and climax.

Adam and Eve fell together, sweaty and excited and somehow replete as from a feast, marveling at how everything seemed different, felt different, was different. Every inch of their bodies tingled and they giggled and smiled as they touched each other. They were tired and excited and drooped a little.

As they continued to explore each other's bodies, they discovered they were ready for more, and they indulged themselves laughing and giggling and sighing and groaning with every sensation. When they were exhausted from their new experiences, they bathed, splashing each other, drawn together to experience it all again in the cool waters. When they finished and stepped up onto the bank, they blushed all over as they looked at each other. They would never look at each other in the same way. They knew each other in a very different way, an intimate way. They immediately felt shy and covered their self-consciousness by weaving leaves and flowers into a covering so they could go about their usual tasks or get some food to eat.

The Lord of Earth's pets looked different when he came upon them as he walked through his garden. They seemed fuller, more aware, and wore coverings of leaves and flowers. Was it some new game? Had they begun to imitate the colonists, to imitate him? Clever earthlings . . . or were they merely clever mimics?

The Lord of Earth questioned his pets and the answers he received explained so much, explained the strange noises he had heard and their exotic behavior. It didn't take long to find out that the Lord of Water had visited and been up to his old tricks. He would not allow his private sanctuary to be violated in such a way. His pets would have to leave his garden and live with the other earthlings. They would learn to toil and feed themselves and no longer be loved and petted and cared for. They were no longer pets. They were something more, something else. His brother had gone too far.

The Lord of Water's symbol was two snakes coiled around a staff, the symbol of his calling as a scientist and his creation of the slave species. It is not surprising that he would be called a snake by future generations as the snake was a symbol for the creative branch of science. Call it poetic license, a poetic license that has turned a scientist into a living serpent, a demon tempting innocence into the sin of knowledge of the full extent of the changes made in the earthlings. The earthlings could procreate and probably had souls. They were no longer just slaves and pets because they contained the essence of the colonists's being.

By his meddling, and his own curiosity, the Lord of Water had changed humanoid beings into beings closer to the humanity of the colonists.

I have often wondered if the First Sin was not a sin of eating a piece of fruit, but of introduction to sexual intercourse with the Serpent (the scientist that created earthlings) and the eventual pregnancy and birth of the first earthling child, Ka-in (Cain to Christians). Adam and Eve would have continued enjoying the experience of intimate intercourse and Eve would have become pregnant again, giving birth to the first earthling child. As a hybrid, Cain would have been obviously physically different from Abel, the second child born to Adam and Eve, and would have been treated differently by the Lord of Earth, the Commander. He would have favored the earthling child over the further hybridized child and that would have created further conflict between the half-brothers. They each had their own tasks, but Abel, favored by the Commander, would have lorded his favored status over his brother because he knew the Commander would side with him.

Children are sensitive to what goes on around them. Try as we might to shelter them from discord, children will be aware and know not only something is wrong, but what the something is.

Sin and shame are social constructs. Left to their own devices, people (earthlings) will find no problem with a woman sharing intimacies with whomever she wants or wants her. Children are a byproduct of that physical communion and the only thing that affects the harmony in their lives comes from outside. In Adam and Eve's case, their previous master's affection for their second child and their creator's affection for their first born would have been apparent, but not an issue until it became an issue between their sons, ending in the death of Abel at the hands of Cain when they argued and fought over the importance of their jobs and which of their overlords favored which.

Cain was probably as shocked as their masters and his parents, but he was to be punished and that was the end of it -- for him. His actions would become legend and be used as a cautionary tale to future generations.

Finding out that I was not the only person that believed the First Sin was the earthlings' creator explaining -- or showing -- Eve she could procreate was comforting. I was not the only weirdo in the world. How could I be when others read the words in Genesis and see a different tale? Not just because I am a writer but because I saw the story differently as a small child. No amount of bowing to my parents' will and trying to fit in lasted long. I did not see things as they did and no one could shake me from the certainty coming from deep within me. I imagined the story as I've written it above, although the sexual content came when I had my first experience of sex as a teenager of 18, nearly an adult. I remember the wonder -- and the shame -- that accompanied the strange new emotions and sensations, even more so when I discovered I was pregnant. That is when the shame kicked in.

Actually, the shame kicked in when I realized I would have to tell my parents. Facing my overlords was a lot more difficult than it would have been for Eve since she had no idea what had happened to expand her awareness of herself and the world around here would be met with anything but kindness as she had known from the first time she stepped foot into the master's garden. She was a child, not in body, but in mind. She had never been ill treated and she expected understanding and kindness from her master just as if she had found and presented him with a new flower or a unique stone or shell or animal. She did not expect the shock and revulsion on the master's face when he realized that her pregnancy was as a result of his brother lying with his pet. No doubt my parents would have been more stunned had I told them I had had sex with the family German Shepherd.

Others will see -- do see -- the story of Adam and Eve differently than I do. It is to be expected since we do not see the world in the same way. Others may or may not believe the story in the Bible and the way it is told and some may even call it a myth, a story told for children, to explain how the ancients explained and viewed the world around them. Whatever point of view others take, for me, the story of Adam and Eve is someone's version of events and a propaganda tale to make women out to be the villain of the story secon only to the serpent that tempted her.

Woman is weak and easily tempted and she is a seductress that lures man from the straight an narrow path and onto the dark path that leads to sin and destruction.

The truth is that the scientist was a sensualist and given to enjoying females. He took every opportunity to indulge his desires whenever and wherever he found them, much as Zeus did when he turned himself into a swan, a shower of gold, or a sunbeam into a dark room, or cuttlefish in pursuit of a sleek-bodied goddess disguised as a fish, or even taking on the likeness of the female's mate to enjoy the exercise of his desires. Whatever tale in which the scenario of seducer and seduced appears -- and there have been many -- someone with knowledge uses that knowledge to take advantage of a more naive prey. Today, we call it rape or sexual harassment, but at the heart it is the same tale of the serpent and Eve. Assign blame where you will, the tale becomes either a story of sensual expression or sin based on your own beliefs and experiences. These differing views are portrayed admirably in art, born of creative impulse ending in beauty and the representation of society's sensibilities.

Shakespeare was right when he wrote all life is theatre and we earthlings merely players fretting our hour upon the stage.

Take the tale of Adam and Eve as allegory or cautionary tale or celebration of the beginning of knowledge of self and the world and use it as a stepping stone to wisdom.

That is all. Disperse. 

Lullaby and Good-Bye

I knew it would not be easy; nothing ever is. But there was a moment, a single moment, when fear overwhelmed me. What was I about to do to my children, to my own life? How could I walk away from the man with whom I shared three sons? What could I promise them except uncertainty? Would it be better to stick it out and make sure our boys had two parents?

While Dave and I sat on the couch talking about splitting our belongings, the words were on the tip of my tongue: “Let’s think this over. Maybe there’s another way.” But I couldn’t say the words. Something held me back.

“You can have the furniture. I can’t take it with me,” I said.

“What about the piano? I can always send it to you.”

“It’s not practical. Sell it and send the money to me in Ohio.”

He didn’t put up a fight. After all, he really hadn’t wanted the piano in the first place. He couldn’t play it, and I would not be here long to play it. Or I could sell the piano and use the money to pay for the divorce.

It was all so cut and dried, so easy to divide up seven years worth of furnishings and mementos—and to leave behind seven years worth of travel and holidays, birthdays and anniversaries, love and companionship. The reason why suddenly didn’t seem so important. I had to think of the boys. None of us was happy, and no matter what we did, things were becoming increasingly more unstable.

Eddie’s screams startled us both.

Dave looked up. “I thought I told those boys to go to sleep.”

I raced to the boys’ bedroom. Eddie sat in the middle of his bed, his eyes closed and his head thrown back, screaming. I sat down and pulled him into my arms. He fought me. “It’s all right, honey. It was just a nightmare. Momma’s here.” He snuffled and calmed in my arms, sobs wracking his body. His shoulders shook. I pulled him onto my lap, his head against my chest, and rocked him slowly as I hummed. Eddie, the oldest of my sons, was getting too big for me to hold him. He was growing so quickly. So were his two brothers.

“I heard voices. Shouting,” he said.

It was the same dream over and over: a larger-than-life replay of the arguments between his father and I. Dave and I fought often in the middle of the night, whenever he finally came home, our voices barely hushed and intent on ripping each other apart. I thought we had been so quiet, but Eddie was a light sleeper.

“It’s all right, sweetie. No one’s shouting. It was all a dream,” I reassured Eddie now as I tucked him into bed. Then, I lay down next to him and began singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the boys’ favorite lullaby. He curled up against my side and sang some of the words before he fell back to sleep. The song had the same effect on my sons that it had on my baby sister when she was little.

David Scott stirred in the upper bunk. “It’s all right, Eddie. It’s all right.”

I slipped carefully out of the bed and checked on David Scott. He patted the pillow, murmuring in his sleep. “Shhh, Eddie. It’s all right.” I kissed his cheek and tucked the covers around him. I don’t know how the boys did it, talking in their sleep to each other as though they were awake. It must be some family quirk, because, according to my mother, my sisters and I carried on whole conversations in our sleep. David Scott stopped patting his  pillow and was silent, his breathing even and deep.

No, I couldn’t back out now. My boys needed to be able to sleep without nightmares and terrors. I had to go.

Over the last two years, Dave and I had gone to three marriage counselors. We did everything they told us to do, but we couldn’t recapture the spark that had brought us together, and Dave didn’t seem to want to stop seeing other women. He didn’t want to change, and I couldn’t change enough. I could no longer ignore the truth. Counseling hadn’t worked. Talking hadn’t worked. Shouting certainly didn’t work. And lullabies didn’t soothe whatever it was that made my husband unsettled and uneasy. There was no way to sing my marriage better. The only choice was to leave and take the boys with me. We’d all be better off.

I picked the covers up off the floor and covered A.J. He slept through just about everything, but he was still young. It was only a matter of time before the tension between his father and I began to disturb his sleep, too. It was time for us to leave. I looked sadly but resignedly at my three young sons, then closed the door quietly behind me.

A few months later, I sat on the edge of the bed that Eddie, David Scott, and A.J. now shared, singing “Over the Rainbow” to ease them into sleep. The bed was unfamiliar, but they wouldn’t have to sleep there for long. We would move out of my parents’ house and into our own apartment at the end of the month. Thank goodness, they were still small enough to fit in one bed together.

“I can’t believe you still sing that song.” My youngest sister, Tracy, stood in the doorway. “You almost had me ready to fall asleep.”

“It’s their favorite song,” I said as I turned off the lamp and slipped out of the room.

“Mine, too,” she said.

Together, Tracy and I folded the laundry and talked over old times while the night wore on. Finally, finished with all the chores, I climbed the stairs and checked on the boys before turning in myself. A dim ray of light fell across their sleeping faces. A.J. kicked at the covers and turned over, one pudgy little hand dangling over the edge. Eddie mumbled something about rainbows and wishes, a smile tugging at his lips. David Scott patted Eddie’s shoulder, murmuring  a trickle of words—“… over the rainbow.”

At times I regret the divorce … but not in the middle of the night. There are no more nightmares of fighting and angry voices, no more crying and screams in the night. Now, the only sounds that drift through the night are of my boys talking, and sometimes even giggling] in their sleep about little boy things and rainbow wishes. That’s when I know that, no matter how hard it is being a single parent, it is all worth it.

I still sing my sons to sleep every night, after the hard days of school and play. But I no longer sing to chase away their nightmares and calm their fears. Instead, I sing a wistful lullaby about hope and better times, grateful we’ve finally found them.

 

No Shoe Polish

I didn’t really want to date. Divorced less than a year raising three children alone, I didn’t have the time and certainly wasn’t ready, but I let my girlfriends talk me into going out on my birthday and that’s when the fun began. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like dating. It was the men.

 

“It’s your turn to get the drinks, birthday girl.” Debbie nudged Connie. “That guy over there has been watching you all night.”

I rolled my eyes, asked what they wanted and headed to the bar. A hairy-chested guy in a powder blue suit with his Saturday Night Fever shiny polyester shirt open to his navel and sporting almost as many necklaces as Mr. T attempted what I’m sure he thought was a smile. I ordered the drinks and waited, trying not to notice the stench of Mr. Saturday Night Fever’s cologne. “How ‘bout I get those for you,” he wheezed in my ear. Must be his idea of sexy, but it wasn’t mine.

 “Thank you, but I can manage.” I picked up the drinks and headed back to my friends while they made faces at me and pointed. I knew he was there; I felt his hot breath on my neck. I should have worn my hair down.

 As I set down the drinks and stepped back, I bumped into him. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t know anyone was there.” His hand was warm on my elbow.

 “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry for acting like a jerk. I didn’t know how to get your attention.”

 “It worked.” I managed a weak smile. He wasn’t bad looking if you ignored the long Elvis sideburns and concentrated on his thick, curly black hair. Outside of the hideous clothes and the overwhelming amount of gold he wore, he might be a nice guy.

 “Would you like to dance?”

 My girlfriends huddled together and nodded, giggling and urging me to say yes. I was outnumbered and it was only one dance. “Okay.” He took my hand and led me to the dance floor just as a slow song started.

 When he pulled me close, I fought the urge to sneeze. I finally recognized the cologne he bathed in; it was Polo. It smelled better in the bottle. I was fine as long as I held my breath, at least until I passed out. He pulled me closer and pressed his cheek against mine. He was a good dancer, but I was uncomfortable. I fought the urge to sneeze and needing to breathe, as the black spots in front of me grew bigger. I stepped on his foot, pulled away, and turned my head to take another deep breath when, suddenly, the song was over. I thanked him for the dance.

 “See you tomorrow at work,” he said as he kissed my cheek and left.

 I looked at my friends, but they looked everywhere but at me. “What’s going on?”

 Darlene shifted in her seat as if she had ants in her pants. “Didn’t you recognize him?”

 “No. Who is he?”

 “You should take a break once in a while, look around, pay attention to the cleaning staff.”

 “Shelby cleans our office.”

 “Carlos is her boss.”

 “Some friends you are.”

 They hadn’t set me up, but Carlos was in the break room when they discussed how to get me to agree to go out on my birthday. He’d noticed me. Since I seldom got up from my desk, he didn’t know how to get close enough to ask me out. He’d suggested meeting us at the Blarney Stone and they agreed. “You need to get out more. Go on a date.”

 “I don’t want to date.”

 “You’re too young to close up shop,” Debbie said. Darlene and Connie agreed. “He’s not so bad. Owns a cleaning company.”

 “He’s single,” Connie said.

 “Well, he’s not so bad once you get past the gold and the polyester and the cologne. Not bad at all, as long as I don’t breathe.” I smiled and my friends laughed. “There is that,” they chorused.

 “But before you do anything else,” Connie said, “maybe you should check your lipstick.” She offered me her compact and pointed to her right cheek.

 There were black specks like coal dust down the side of my right cheek where Carlos’s cheek touched mine. “His face didn’t look dirty.”

 “Not his face, his sideburns,” Darlene said. “It’s shoe polish.”

 “What?”

 “To hide the gray.”

 Just my luck. “What’s next, a safety pin to hold his zipper closed?” We all laughed.

 The next night at work, I bumped into Carlos in the lobby. He wore a gray polyester suit with a plain white shirt and red silk tie. He smelled of soap and fresh air. “I forgot to wish you a happy birthday.” He held out a small box wrapped in silver and gold. His smile transformed him into something approaching a nice guy, all the bravado and attitude gone.

 I opened the package. It was a small leather bound copy of “Pride and Prejudice” with gilded edges.

 “I noticed you like her books.”

 “Thank you, but I can’t accept this.”

 “It’s bad luck to refuse a birthday gift. Please take it.”

 “Thanks.” A blush warmed my cheeks.

 “Would you like to go out to dinner this weekend?”

 “I have to work.”

 “You have to eat. Let me buy you dinner.”

 I said yes and before the month was out we had dinner together three times. One night, when it was too cold to walk across the parking lot to the diner, he brought a picnic basket full of food he’d made. As I got up to go back to work, Carlos touched my arm. “Would you like to go to a movie this weekend? We can take your kids.”

 I had so little time with the boys as it was and I didn’t think they were ready to see me with someone other than their father. Carlos was a nice guy with a chivalrous heart. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll talk to my boys and give you an answer tomorrow.”

  “No gold chains, no safety pins, no cologne.” Carlos grinned. “And no shoe polish. I promise.”

 My cheeks got hot. “How…?”

 He winked and pointed to my three friends peeking through the window in the break room door.

 Carlos wasn’t perfect, but he had a generous soul and I suddenly realized I wanted to get to know him better. I guess I wanted to date after all.