Resonantia

Resonantia

Jules felt thus far life’s main accomplishment was stumbling through it-via the grace of some unbeknownst miracle.

Standing looking down at her mother’s headstone frozen regret sliced through her being. Death. finality.

The cold westly October wind pierced her dainty cardigan, sending goosebumps scrambling up then down paper-thin arms as finality set tone into motion.

Staring at the inscription kept her mind focused…

‘Why in the blazes was she here in the first place.’

Finally.

Here.

Ughh.

Oh! how she’d avoided this moment.

Like the plague, conveniently using global pandemonia.

Great reason (as any) to avoid many things.

As if she’d needed excuses.

Procrastination grand master.

The inscription seemed doing its best re-awakening old reminiscences of times had, long since passed. Glued to a spot, transfixed in place by invincible, inexorable forces while if they could speak might say something like,

‘Look Julia, these hills are alive with the sound of music.

Hear it child!

Resonance.

Never lost on her- she was named after Julie Andrew, the actress from ‘The Sound of Music’. To be honest she hadn’t really liked the movie much. The cinematography was breathtaking. She’d never truly seen anything. Having to tell herself, ‘stop looking through things, don’t do that.’ Perhaps her looking-glass self was lost. If it had ever even been.

Focus.

Her mother’s headstone-

Smooth marble.

Somewhere.

Better than nowhere.

She became thoughtful:

‘I’m sorry Nona I never visited. Too hard to see you that way. Utterly unlike yourself. Incapacitated. Unrecognizable. You’d not want to be seen like that. I’m certain. Thank-you for everything. I know it wasn’t easy. Nor was I. Life so hard. You found a way though. Didn’t ya? Sacrificing-giving whatever you could. I appreciate everything. Please forgive my tardiness. Coming here instead of there. I realize absolutely-you did your best. I miss you so darned much.’

Her mother had been animated in life before getting sick meant- forgetting everything, who she was, or anyone-including anything else besides.

Such an evil disease…

Alzheimer’s.

A whole life lived only to be wiped out.

Forgotten.

Unable to stay still for any amount of time. Busy.

‘Idle hands led to the devil’s work’, her famous saying.

Jules was seized by sudden realization; ‘Ok, this is what it took for Nona to finally stop that incessant commotion life commanded from her.

Reading the headstone’s contents for the 10th time didn’t consolidate such discrepancy.

Edna Claire

Beloved Mother

February 29th, 1920-February 29th, 2020

Full circle. Stop. Rest. Peace. Amen

Jules almost snorted:

Who on God’s green earth chose such an odd inscription beneath those dates?

There’s nobody left only me.

Edna resting peacefully… humph…Sure!

What a joker someone is. Nothing else would have stopped her.

Not with her allergy to anything remotely perceived as laziness.

Jules felt a wave of nostalgia, lightning-bolt style- straight into her solar plexus, hot tears threatening her wide eyes. How different on a continuum our temperaments. Never found-middle ground.

Looking around her Nona’s resting spot Jules thought the woman known as Edna would be pleased.

Well,

…..

As entirely pleased as anyone who’s dead can be about such a thing.

A hilltop in a beautiful small community called Winterton. Located half hour from the city centre or town proper. Who’d decided on this place?

It brought home the concept of how little she’d been involved over the last 10 years.

How fast it’d flown by.

Most pleasing of all-pristine ocean views as far as the eye could venture.

What a vista! Hungry gulls flying overhead set the scene.

It wasn’t The Sound of Music make no mistake,

But

…

The next best thing.

Quaint. That silly adjective almost had become her birthname. How thankful Nona came to her limited senses, watching that musical just in time. ‘Waste not want not’ had been her living mantra. Able to rub two pennies together tight.

Jules smiled; she’d conquered what she’d set out to.

Release some skeletons from life’s wide-open closet.

Hoping this would finally offer some sense of closure.

Well, that along with her having been beyond stressed financially lately. She didn’t know what to do…

~Was she coming or going?

Her (what had felt finite) money was practically gone.

Down to the last few dollars

To her name.

Never as incognizant of how her lifestyle was set against the norm.

This fact more than any other had made her a relic...

Basically, floating about the year 2020.

She was a homesteader extraordinaire.

A one-woman army. Survivalist shunning a materialistic culture. Loner

An anomaly.

It was her against the world through sheer-willed force.

Alone.

Nona had taught everything she knew.

‘I’m going now Nona; I won’t be back anytime soon.

My mandate was to make peace with you. Us.

Keep fighting these demons as best I’m able.

For as long as humanely possible.

My faith is running lower than bull’s balls.

It’s forever darkest before dawn.’

Pulling a threadbare scarf tighter around her exposed neck she headed toward her old beater truck.

Running away from the past.

Deep-seated pain no stranger to Julie Winter.

She’d borne hardship.

‘Twas installed from soft cranial bones.

Birth passages.

A feral girl grown into a philosophical woman who’d had very limited experiences approaching 50 years old.

Never knowing the love of a man. No friends, nor family. Not another more exciting life someplace else, like maybe on-line-Technology eluded her. Still living in 1972. The year of her birth. Nothing had changed. Frozen in time. A water Rat in Chinese Astrology.

Tucked away on the edge of a little path which seemed to led nowhere except over the mouth of a gigantic cliff her attention was taken to a little wooden cross.

Last minute decisions saw her heading toward it instead of the pick up’s old noisy but reliable heater to warmly head home.

Her depressingly predictable boring life awaiting a well-tied noose.

The only enjoyment being her beloved woodstove Daisy, an old calico cat Rhonda, along with her beloved assorted library of books.

Sometimes, those rare occasions she was able to be real with herself admittingly the only thing she’d ever really done with life was read.

Drawn toward the battered blue wood, how out of place it seemed-the walk less than a minute, past artificial flowers blown around helter skelter, overgrown alders, down a rock-hewn path, further on-a majestic cliff face beckoned.

It was only by some fluke it’d caught her eye. The sun’s glint had shone at a most particular angle illuminating some glitter in the paint, she was hooked. The writing indeed stood time’s test non-begrudgingly. Etched into the fine wood. Reading simply:

Captain Arthur Said.

Born February 29, 1820

Died February 29, 1920.

Coincidence…

never lost on her.

Shit. Wow. Born on a leap day, died on one 100 years later. Odds of that?

Astronomical at best. The same day Nona was born. A shiver sent fine hairs from the back of her neck straight up. Before she had time to process the gravity of this leap year strangeness a tape clicked under the ground. Right beneath her feet. The sound of static. Force from beyond trans-communicating- tripped by her very presence. Then sound. Gravely.

I am a sea captain. Here I lie. Still. Not at peace.

But stuck in tow.

Remorseful.

A long life means nothing without love.

My name is Arthur Said.

I’d been perishing away under this ground for 200 years.

Only the past few months I’ve met my soul mate, her name is Edna.

We have a love currently unknown in life.

How we found each other without bodies to do so is a mighty good mystery. I speak now forever contended to hold my peace. The mansion built on the hill next to this graveyard is our home- Edna’s and mine. We play 120’s all day long. Laugh about silly things. Don’t worry Nona cannot sit silently still. No change in the weather, nor her either. She wanted me to tell you things’ll be just fine. Righter than rain. Not to worry sweet dear. Go home where you’ve lived many years humbly. Quaintly.

Really look around. You’ll find something you’ve never noticed before: seek and find on a shelf behind a star a book to tell exactly who you are.

Read between the lines don’t delay. All that passes soon fades away.

And with that

Another…

~ CLICK~

Realizing I was driving through pelting rain on a lonesome highway toward a leap in faith. The 8-track tape started playing, soothing my battered soul. Tammy Wynette. There’re some things only country can convey convincingly.

Sometimes what we see and know is only ever pure conjecture.

Jesus take the wheel.

Believing what someone has told us is truth we build whole identities, stories around ourselves, only to try attempting escape into someone else’s life. Grabbing the steering tightly Jules raced for grip on her sanity. It’d always eluded her. She knew she’d always behaved differently. Thought nonconformist-style. Outside the box (if you will). Nona used words like unique, special, never retarded, slow. Reading enough to know it was mental illness that had haunted her.

She’d long since accepted her unusualness.

Even from the grave she had a message. Leave it to her mother. Pulling into the driveway she shifted into park. Jumping from the vehicle, keys in hand to find Rhonda at the inside door as per usual waiting her arrival. Truth told she never left the house. Not anymore anyways. Marvelling at how worlds could collide. Animal/human. Dead/alive. Mere constructions.

Entering her small spare bedroom, against every wall an overstuffed bookcase. Instinctively, her eyes were drawn toward the tiniest one next to a bay window. Scanning it closely, sitting there on the top shelf, standing out from the colourful spines she spotted a black notebook never before noticed. Taking it down gingerly, her hand shaking, with a deep inhale she set it on the table next to the settee. Steadying herself, she sat. Then thunderously unable to restrain herself a second longer grabbing it wholeheartedly, whipping open the ornately decorated front page. For there was only one. Page. The rest had been ripped asunder with an envelope placed inside instead. Holding it together was a tidy frayed rubber band.

Along the top in lady-like script-

Property of Marigold Winter.

‘My mother isn’t pleased about this pregnancy; she expects me to –

“abandon this notion straight away”.

To which I regretfully decline: I am completely utterly unable,

I love this child after only 12 weeks.

I’ve accepted Charles’ decline of responsibly.

In lieu of physical presence in his child’s life he’s given a sum of cash which thinkingly grants absolution.

It’s a most kind gesture. I suppose!

Into this little black book I’ll deliver it until such time as whenever.

I’ve a great foreboding I’m simply unable to put into words.

My life feels different.

Somehow.

I live for my child-but do not feel I’ll be around to bring up.

Yet pray I might be of some importance in her story to be told. I put trust in my decision as it’s been made. The ultimate death of choice being decision. So sorry mother for disappointment. I love.

Jules laid the book down peacefully. In that single moment everything added up. Change. Realities slid effervescently. Resonance. Nona’s behaviour. Raising her daughter’s out-of-wedlock child.

Obligation. If nothing else. Keeping mother’s death birthing her secretive until grave disclosure. Her grandmother’s ghost-lover filling in holes inadvertently. Hope. Conviction. Birth. The wherewithal-flying into the present unscathed. The crazy year of our Lord 2021. Make my voice heard. Moving beyond reading other people’s stories- toward living. Write my own. Somehow. She bent down, picking up a sealed envelope which had fallen from the notebook onto the floor. Full speed ahead Captain. Aye aye! Good a time as any. Looking at the legal tender with newly-born eyes, finally seeing what was in front of her. Possibility. Nothing less, nothing more. Money her new way forward. Ten crisp 1000-dollars bills, twenty 500-dollar ones. Salvation. Rebirth.