That fateful Quake

I've been doing more thinking about the impact of that fateful night alone during the Northridge Quake. I just had an amazing day. I can tell the meds are out of my system. I'm remembering how I use to go through life. Totally in tune. With goals, but no agenda. Everything that happened to me was meaningful and magical.

You may be thinking...you've been that way these last few years. NO. It can be even better. It was even better today. I promised my plants I'd water them. I did...and that was magic. That story later if I get to it.

I went out to return some items I'd bought while on my meds. Things that didn't work out. Good ideas, but not the right implementation. Curtains, for instance. I was gonna do this involved project for my bath. I'd bought a pair from place A and a pair from place B. Took 'em both back. After returning the final item at a store in one of those huge outdoor shopping complexes, I decided to try a few stores. Sans meds, I didn't get in my car to drive from store to store...yes, I usually would.

This time I was in the mood to lolly-gag and walk the 1/2 mile to the next store that sold curtains. Ok, 1/4 mile. It was so totally pleasant. No rush. I end up trying every store in the center that sold any kind of curtains. I exhaust them all and found nothing. As I'm walking back, one of the stores calls to me to come back. I do. I remembered they had nice facilities and nature was calling. If nothing else, that alone was a good reason for a second visit.

I take a little more time, look a little closer at the offerings. While I checking some stuff out, this old woman gets right in my line of sight. I can't believe the audacity. Surely, she couldn't be that unaware of others, that clueless. I guess she heard my thoughts. Or maybe, it was the way I got up from my stooping position and began to walk away. She sees me. Apologizes. We end up having a whole conversation on the high cost of curtains these days. I love her English countryside accent. The Asian chick with her was either a daughter-in-law or live-in assistant. She was none too interested in yet another dilly-dallying conversation with a stranger. I got a thing for English accents so we make it into a whole little powwow on places to shop for curtains, other options like blinds. Sensing that her shopping companion is ready to move on, we end the conversation.

Immediately following that nice little chat, I find this little hidden shelf of goodies--and I do mean hidden. And there I found the curtains that are hanging up in my kitchen right now. Actually it is a perfect valance. Cost? $5 with tax. They were clearance and then a sale on top of that. That's how my life has always been. Is supposed to be. Not the running around buying and returning incomplete project bullshit I got used to.

Thank you angels for putting that old woman in my line of sight and having her slow me down to look at the shelf hidden by hanging curtains directly behind where we chatted. The valance is just the right size to maintain privacy but let in max light from the top half of the window. It even has these little double fabric squares which, with it's perfect width, allow for just the right thickness where I need it.

So what does have to do with the quake? Nothing. Just that when I got home and had the magical shopping experience and then a wonderful hour watering and caring for my plants, I got to wondering how with a life so magically perfect, that whole quake event could have happened the way it did.

I mean, WHY, WHY, WHY was I alone THAT night. XYZ and I had only known each other a couple months, but had spent every single night together from the day we met. EVERY night up and until quake night.

A little detail to add. I only fulfilled my promise to my plants made the day before to water them after I had to turn off my dvd early. Doctorfriend got me hooked on the HBO show The Wire. I'm gonna stop saying I'm going to get cable and admit what all my friends, family and students have known for years. I'm not getting cable. Just not.

So I'm watching the show on DVD. There's a character that is oh-so-clearly Ethiopian. Once you've been married to one, you can't fail to spot them dead on. I'm about seven episodes into season one. His character sees the light, is ready to get drug free. (Hmmm. Just saw how that might resonate particularly strongly with me right about now.) For some reason, I get this sudden lust for the character. It reminds me of XYZ. He reminds me of XYZ.

I get a little teary-eyed. It hits me that I didn't file for divorce until I got on the meds.

No, I'm not blaming the meds for my divorce. That was gonna happen more than likely. Pretty likely. I don't regret being divorced. I don't regret the marriage either, mind you. But it made me appreciate that I exited the marriage drugged and, perhaps, have some conscious-level processing still to do. That's when I got up and treated all my plants to food and water, love and care and cleaned them and their environment. All the while, I was processing, wondering.

As some of y'all know, XYZ has a bit of metaphysical inclination to him--how could he not. He's been known to joke/admit that he'd promised me in another life that he'd marry me. He didn't. Perhaps I cursed him. (I'm too karmically aware now for such a trifle). Anyway, he claims to have known he Needed to marry me for karmic reasons. I was neither offended or surprised. In fact, it resonated rather easily with me. Even seemed honest, likely and true.

If I hadn't been left alone on that scary, scary night, I don't think I'd have rushed to marry him. Given his strong desire for children, and worse, for me to be the mother of his children, and my strong disinterest in making them, I have to wonder what either of us were thinking. When both our fathers died within months of each other, each of them offering their blessing to us before they left, we just figured it was all in the master plan.

I can't emphasize enough how much my post-quake state of fear and feeling...ungrounded...contributed to getting married at that time in my life. Again, not to dare to call it any kind of mistake. Just an appreciation of the sequence of events, the timing, the impact.

And so, today I am back to appreciating how things in my life always just seem to flow. I'm trying to say I feel like I just solved a big mystery.

Why two months of night pillow comfort followed by one scary, crazy death-calling night alone? Perhaps to create a karmically needed sense of dependence. A prerequisite to sealing a deal made lifetimes ago? I'm only speculating.

The beautiful part is being able to look back on the quake and the fear and give it a context. A part played. A role. Even if it is the only the fiction of a hyperactive mind, it offers me a comforting perspective from which to take out the senselessness.

Did I mention I'm feeling oh-so-me today?

Oh yeah. And then there's the joy of finding out today that yes, I do have what it takes to process my emotions. When that lusty moment for the Ethiopian actor came upon me and I realize that today was the first day I was dealing with my divorce of 8 years sans medication, there was a temporary fear. What if there are all these emotions and issues that I haven't dealt with that suddenly come to the surface???

I wish you could all hear the hummmpppph I just let out. Yeah, right. You know, fear just really has never been a big part of who I am. I guess that's why the experience of it that fateful quakeful night made such an impact.

It's good to be back.