Light in 23 Dimensions

I just ran out of the house – jail break – down the side entry walk, River screaming in the background, Maaaaaammmaaaa!! I keep going. Determined to write, I make the dreaded deal and head to Starbuck’s a few blocks away. But I deliberate. If you knew how much I hate Starbuck’s you would surely understand my desperation. Can’t drive across town to find good coffee and wireless internet. Today I choose time over good coffee (painful) because I only have an hour. I order chai – can’t be that bad – and sit down. Dread! I forgot my headset and two babbling toddlers toss and roll on the bench next to me. I sip the chai – ppaaffck! I stand up, throw the chai in the garbage, and cross the street for my beloved Peet’s, half block up on the left.


Ahhhhh, Peet’s coffee. How can I count the ways? This is a long, long love story that begins in Boulder, CO almost twenty years ago. Not with Peet’s, mind you, but rather the legendary Trident Café at the corner of 9th and Pearl. This is a story for another day. Suffice to say, after cleaning up rat urine with a wailing toddler yanking on your pant leg, the particulars of a cup of coffee become sublimely important.


Yep, rat urine. The exterminator explains that he will not move my stove or clean or provide odor management. Liability – he might chip a tile. So while the tall, dark big-guy stands behind me, I yank the stove from the wall and hoist it mid-room. Not unlike getting River into a stroller, frankly. “You got it?” he asks. I give him that, Thanks, eat shit smile as my neck goes out. “Easy,” I say, and wipe my hands together. Leaning over the dungeonous (my new pet name for the space behind the stove) space, “Yep, that’s rat urine all right,” he confirms.

Unfortunately, I’ve read way too many channeled books in my twenties, so I start thinking about how I might have attracted rat urine into my life. Is something going on that I didn’t see? I only track twenty-three dimensions as I walk through the grocery store aisle. Did I miss something?

I thought the same thing, the karmic thing, as I leaned against the car seat this morning. I sighed, turned back to River and confessed, “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I got angry. It’s not your fault. It’s my stupid mother’s fault.” She stared at me for a minute, studying, then held up her large musical frog and exclaimed, “Fog!” I wanted to say, “Are you sure?” but I didn’t. She just has this way of moving on. I don’t, so I keep stewing. Now I feel guilty for blaming my mother. Guilt. Guilt Guilt. University of Colorado’s Intro to Feminism class haunts me. Not good to bash another woman. Must be women-centered. Must find compassion for my dead mother.

Across the street a toddler flops to the ground, and the mother stands over him pleadingly. She wants to cross, probably to get her life-saving coffee, but, alas, he gets up and runs in the opposite direction.

The rodent guy explains that he can’t come just once, or even a few times. No, he will have to come for a year. It’s a process getting rid of varmints. “Are you kidding?” but he doesn’t laugh. I start to laugh. I laugh too hard and it disturbs him, “Look, ma’am, I’ll spray every ant, spider, bee, and bug for you. In a year, it’ll all be over.” When I ask fanatically into the toxicity of the outdoor peripheral spray, he assures me, “It’s very very very low toxicity. The exhaust from your car is a hundred times more toxic.” I’m sad. Sad. Sad. Sad. I could discuss my shamanic relationship with the bug realm but decide not to go there.

River wakes up from her nap in the garden….ok, from her stroller in the garden, asking for pizza. “Mama. I e peepa.” To make up for the first half of the day, I take her to award-winning Zach’s Pizza for a slice. I’m so happy to be there, all civilized, that I sway back and forth, back and forth, and we laugh and giggle. But then, in slow motion, I watch as her pizza falls apart. The perfectly browned layer of cheese pulls free from the think-crusted end, and like a rug thread caught in a vacuum cleaner, she keeps sucking up the cheese until she can’t close her mouth. I swoop in for maintenance, attempt to pull the cheese out, and she screams until she chokes. Here we are, our reserved seats at pandemonium, where I get to watch chaos unfold from the ceiling. I am no longer in my body. I am floating above – any other detail becomes rest. Except people – they just stare.

I laugh again. And again I laugh too hard. River stops crying, presses tomato sauce on my shoulders and begins to pat my arms. I have to say, “River, it’s ok. Mama’s ok. You’re ok. We’re doin good, baby.” Somewhere in there, in the midst of pizza happenings, I see the woods in the backyard of my childhood home. On an alternate track in my mind’s eye, I feel the quality of light, dappled light, and the way I loved gazing at the opaque neon green of the leaves. Why now? What do you want from me now?

In the grocery store, that light turns to sensation. Warmth against my skin. And I wander into thoughts of indigenous huts and the forts I built in countless bush and dirt hovels every childhood summer. Lugging bags up the front steps, I understand, it’s courting me. It’s waiting for when I have a moment to turn, to see, to remember, to love it the way it loved me when I was eight. If I face it too quickly, poof, gone. And so I keep moving, cleaning in useless circles for the next hour, while tree limbs sidle up beside me like an old flame.

Hiding out allows one to cultivate and hone observations skills. Being a terminal student has its advantages. I will wait. At that door. The door I cannot name but faithfully return to day after day. And some time in the night, or some time next year, what wants to be known will allow me to see – to see by color, without my eyes, into the way of nature. Such is the writing life.