Ghost

24 years ago a ghost roamed the rooms of a newly-purchased newly-built house, walking, walking, as there was something lost and the walking would help with the remembering. A ghost pacing miles of grey carpeting that stretched in every direction. A ghost that sat silently under white walls that loomed overhead. A ghost that looked out with blank eyes upon a bare yard, pre-landscaping. The ghost had dreams and longings but they thinned impossibly gossamer, invisible in the hot desert sun.

Six months later the ghost escaped into the bright sun. The bare walls could no longer contain the ghost and she no longer swallowed handfuls of pills hoping to not wake up. Was it an escape, really? Or was it out of the frying pan and into the fire? Twenty-four years of fire.

This week I read words penned nearly two years ago in a tumbled fresh April when there was sureness, and fire, and direction. I remember now what that felt like. Strong. Brave. Beautiful. And I feel sad, oh so sad, that I had forgotten. I had forgotten where my center was. I had forgotten the voice. I had forgotten what it felt like to gently surrender into a world of goodness and hope. I had forgotten, maybe, where I came from.

This week the ghost came back. A warning, perhaps. I feel its breath at the back of my neck, waiting. Twenty-four years ago I ran. This is not then. This is now.

I know my task. To gather in close. To open my eyes. To listen. To remember. And then to sing.