The entire drive to and from my sister’s home I prayed to find the strength to face my fear of an empty house. I prayed that it wouldn’t feel so bad and that I may even love my alone time like before. I thought about the surrounding forest that hugged my home and how absolutely serene and peaceful it actually feels. I thought about how close to the beach I live and the quick ability to go from lovingly nestled home to open and bright sea air in a matter of minutes. I thought about how much I loved those aspects of my home.
Upon pulling up to my carport I lingered in the car listening to Fiona Apple, who always seems to know exactly what to sing to help me feel my emotions and process my life in a bearable and secure way. Feeling my emotions through others pain has always been my preferable method, but I’m learning that method doesn’t seem to work as well as it used to. So I shut of the engine and step out of my car. I take my time and side-step the front door in preference for walking around the house to the side yard. I remember seeing a squirrel drinking out of my broken Christmas present earlier, from The-One-Who-Is-No-Longer-Here (I can’t even say his name in thought, it hurts so much). It used to be a beautiful solar powered water fountain but ever since we moved into our new home together it hasn’t seemed to work no matter what I did to manipulate it back to life. So it sits there on our patio full of now dirty and stagnant water in hopes of it miraculously working again.
I walk up to the part of the patio where it rests despondently, pull out the bottom clay pot tier and start to clean it by emptying the stagnant water, washing it, then refilling it again. Then I continue to do the same with the other tiers. Upon my doing so I remember the time He gave it to me, our first Christmas together (or was it a birthday present?). Crud…I can never keep linear time well in my head, it all feels the same to me. I just remember He gifted it to me and I absolutely loved it. I remembered the love that came with the gift and that’s the only part of any memory that ever matters to me.
After finishing up its cleaning and stepping back to view my handy work I decide to pull the solar-powered pump out since its defection seems to pull at the glory of the fountain in a very unbecoming way. To pull the pump out I have to separate the feeder tube from the top tier and then start to wrap up the extra-long power cord that leads to the solar panel below. Amidst wrapping it up the most amazing thing happens! The pump becomes alive in my hand! It starts to suck the air through its filter and makes this low buzzing noise as if to say, “No! I’m alive! Put me back!”
My hands are shaking. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I’m overcome with emotion. So much and so fast I can’t process any of it. Slowly and softly, as if the pump could either jump out of my hand or fall silent again at any moment, I reattach the feeder tube and place it gently back in the waters of the bottom tier clay pot. After a minute of bubbly sucking noises our fountain once again flows with the life force of pure magical elemental energy. The sound of its awakening undoes me and I fall to the ground shaking and crying in pure joy! Immediately the “Knowing” that this is a sign given me of the path that I am on and that I am on it for a reason hits me dead on. I almost can’t breathe with the heaviness of “Knowing.”
I continue to allow the message to fully settle within my being and acknowledge that this also encompasses the man who gave me the gift. That he is on his correct path as well. That this has all been planned and we are all the willing participants of a story well-read. That our story is not over and we still have a ways to go and a lot more lessons to learn. Before getting back up I give thanks once again for the message and put so much gratitude behind it I set myself off with another round of crying. And of course I then record the fountain in its current youth and joviality and sent it off to Him with a message of Love and Light in hopes He sees the message in this as I did.
For the rest of the day I am full to bursting with Love and Light. No longer does the thought of my empty home besiege me with fright. The sound of running water has cleansed me and I can enter my home and fill it with love as I clean and freshen it up in the way of grace and forever gratitude. The fact that my children are away, my sister is no longer here, my man is gone…never even crosses my mind. I feel the freedom from my low thoughts and glide into the evening on the power of high and mighty self-love.
To be continued…
Peaceful Endeavors 