Sandy Saga, pt. 2 -- A Room of One's Own

It’s Friday morning, and you might be thinking, what are you doing typing this when you should be on your way to visiting Sandy?! Good question! i think this is the latest i’ve ever posted, but it’s been a really crazy week. i spent last night moving to my own room, about which more later. But i’m not going to visit Sandy today because i’ve signed up for a one-day Reiki course which begins at 1:30 (till 6, and then after dinner till 8:30).

i mentioned last week how i was waiting to get closure on an unpleasantness that happened Friday night two weeks ago (6/24). If you’re one of the earlier members of the Readership, you might’ve already figured out that Friday night means i might still be at Michael’s place and indeed i was. Here’s what happened there.

First, neither Annie nor Mike were there. It was just Zack, Jeff, Katie and me. i’d spent the first part of the day with Sandy down at the creek near my favorite watering hole. i helped Katie with some weeding in a vegetable patch for about an hour late in the afternoon, and after a simple dinner, we all retired to lawn chairs around a campfire, for a beer or two and a bit o’ smoke. It was very relaxed; nice chit-chat about this n that.

Round about 9:00 or so, after numerous tales of hunting and talk about the wild-life in the vicinity (deer, turkey, mountain lion, boar, etc.), Jeff and Zack convinced each other how much fun it would be to go hunting, and eventually Jeff gets up to go and get a rifle. Katie goes into the house with him, and a minute or two later, Zack and i hear a ka-BLAM from inside the house, followed by silence, as we turned to look at each other with horror on our faces. And then a moment or later, the sound of Katie’s voice as she begins to bitch at Jeff for being so careless.

All right, i won’t go on about how lucky we all were that no one was hurt or killed; that part is pretty obvious. For me, the main part of this – and this is the most difficult part to tell – is where Sandy comes in. AN HOUR LATER, she was still quivering, tale stuck between her legs. She and another dog Clover had both been inside the house when the gun'd gone off, and were both pretty freaked out, but Sandy more than Clover.

The next morning, i asked the others if we could have a little business meeting – “not more than 20 minutes or so” – before i left for Heartwood. They all said of course, and i prepared a little space where we would sit in a little square on folded blankets on the floor. i opened the meeting by saying that we all would have a chance to talk about whatever we thought was important, and i drew up an agenda whose first item was “what happened last night.” We did a Heartwood-style “heart-circle” where everyone holds hands and hopes for a positive outcome; i’d told them that even management’s weekly operations meeting began the same way, and then i introduced them to the concept of the Indian talking-stick, which longstanding members of the Readership will remember i used with great effect with my mom when we were on the train to LA last November.

The meeting went on for over TWO HOURS. Everyone was convinced that Mike would fire Jeff for what had happened, and they all wanted to pretend like nothing had happened. i didn’t see that as a reasonable outcome, given (for one) the hole in Mike’s house, and i also expressed my discomfort at being asked, essentially, to go along with a cover-up. i also brought up how angry i was that my dog had had to go through what she had the night before. That was unacceptable, and i told them how disappointed i was that – after having felt proud and happy for so long that i had manifested for Sandy this little doggie-retirement paradise – i was now thinking for the first time since our arrival there two months previously about removing her from the property.

Jeff finally realized that there was one proper way to deal with the situation, and called up Mike on the phone to tell him what had happened, who surprised everyone by not blowing his top and NOT firing Jeff. He was upset though, and has forbidden Jeff from using his guns.

Now i didn’t mention all this last week because i had my suspicions that Jeff might’ve merely pretended to phone Mike. But when i showed up last Friday (July 1), the first words out of Michael’s mouth were of thanks for handling the situation the way i did, and that i was the only one who was to be paid for the time the meeting took! (He has been so generous and kind ever since we met though: i owe him so much more than i’ll ever be able to pay him for everything he’s done for both me and Sandy, and i declined his kind offer to pay me for organizing the meeting.)

i'd phoned Mike last night and left the message that i wouldn't be coming the next day; he phoned the Lodge this morning and told Nile (who happened to be around when the phone rang!) to tell me that Sandy was running around and was all happy (not to worry)! Gotta work at 2 Saturday as usual, but am thinking about hitchhiking just to be able to spend a little time with the ol' girl.

Nile asked me to go with him up to McKinleyville on Wednesday to pick up a 1959 Ford pickup truck that he’d agreed to pay $1500 for. Our neighbor, a young gal named Nicole, came along for the ride and for the opportunity to window-shop in Arcata, a funky little town that reminded me big-time of Pacific Grove, the first town south of Monterey.

We got the truck, which Nile and Nicole took back to Arcata while i followed in Nile’s ex-girlfriend’s 1985 Volvo station wagon (which he’d paid $340 for)! Nile had bought us all lunch at a great little burrito place, and then we all split up. i hung out in a bookstore for about 3 hours, and broke as i am, couldn’t resist purchasing a book called Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way, by Idries Shah. Finally i realized if i was gonna make it back to Heartwood in time for dinner it was time to split, so at 4:30 i hit the road.

Well i was about a third of the way back and speeding along at the posted 65 mph (104 kph) speed limit when i noticed Nile and Nicole sitting by the side of the road! They’d been looking for me to go past for the past hour, and they’d almost missed me! i went back to pick them up, and heard the sad tale, of how smoke had started pouring into the cab, apparently due to faulty wiring. He’s in negotiations with the previous owners to come to some kind of a more equitable settlement, poor guy.

It’s now Friday evening, and i’ve just come from my 7-hour Reiki 1 class. i’ve had my attunement, and to be honest, i didn’t feel all that much, although a couple of the other 7 participants had some really profound and quite amazing experiences. i’m going to stick with using it in my life though. i’ve had Reiki sessions done on me in Amsterdam. i’d even taken an earlier Reiki 1 course from an American woman in Saudi Arabia, but hadn’t really done anything with it after that. i think i felt like the symbols involved were for me too close to mumbo jumbo.

Anyway i’ll keep you posted on anything interesting that happens with Reiki. The instructor said that some polarity work (i.e., cranial-sacral work) might be helpful, and i’ll be looking to get some of that in the near future. Cranial-sacral work is really interesting by the way. The practitioner holds sits behind your head and holds your skull and other parts of your back in her hands in a very particular way. A guy in the Reiki class tonight named Jim who works in Maintenance told me afterward that his first cranial-sacral session literally changed his life .. he’d been thinking about leaving Heartwood for various reasons, and he felt so different (so much better, more positive, more energized) that he changed his mind and decided to stay. He implied that it was his higher power telling him, “NO, your work at this wonderful place is not yet done!”

Oh, my new room! i just moved down two doors from the room i shared with Nile. He seemed a little bummed to see me go, but with 3 vacant rooms in our ten-room building, it was crazy to live so much on top of each other. i didn’t like the clutter on the floor next to our bunk bed which was all my school books not having any place to go. And most of you know how easily distracted i am .. i’m really looking forward to doing what i want when i want to without having to worry about anyone else being disturbed by it. i chose Room # 7, partly for the number itself, and partly because it was the only room available with no neighbors!

Go figure: street sign
Posted in a McKinleyville neighborhood: “This area is for your enjoyment. Please play carefully and keep clean.”