When Grandma Came to Visit in a Dream

The night before last, Grandma Becky came for a visit in my dream.

We were putting on a play because Wyatt is missing his chance to perform the part he wanted (the part he earned, the part he worked so hard for) in the sixth grade play because...quarantine. 

In the dream, it felt big. Graduation level big. Everyone came. 

And here in my dreamscape, I of course held nothing back. We had built an outdoor stage, complete with smooth wooden flooring (and a trap hatch) lighting, pulleys and levers for whatever special effects were called for, long and velvety curtain legs. 

I had that excited buzz in my head that I get when we're about to create an experience. We were nearly ready to start, so I came out from back stage to tell Wyatt and the other actors to get in their places and to survey the audience. Almost time! 

Then I saw her. Grandma Becky sitting in one of the folding chairs near the back, watching with a pleasant expression on her face. And I knew in the way you know in dreams that she was here as her spirit self. Also - I knew she had to be visiting in the spirit because if this were a time travel dream, she would definitely be sitting on the front row. But this time, a bit of discretion was in order. 

My heart gave a little leap and I quickly made my way around the crowd, taking the long way around and up from the back. If she wanted discretion, I would comply! I didn't want to devastate any sort of rule or law that allowed her to be here! I slid into the chair next to hers.

"Grandma!" I exclaimed. "You came!"

She gave me a look and in her snarky way said, "Oh, honestly Stephanie! Of course I came!" She looked back toward the stage with a half-smile. "I have never missed any of my grandkids' plays." 

I thought of all the performances her grandkids had done since her passing —the concerts, the plays, the recitals—and the thought both thrilled me and felt completely correct. Of course she would arrange to be there. She never missed a single performance of any kind during life. Why should a little thing like death interrupt such a loving perfect record? 

I wanted to ask her so many things. The enormity of all that I wanted to ask her! But instead, I did what felt like the most important thing: I laid my head on her shoulder the way I used to when I was small and she would sit with me on her brown and gold floral couch and read me stories for hours. She always, always had time for me. 

Finally, I did ask, "How did you come?" 

She smiled proudly and held up a ticket, white with blue writing. "I have my ticket!" she said. 

With sudden urgency, I started into a half-standing position, scanning the crowd. "Let me find my mom," I said. "She definitely needs to see you." 

Grandma put a calm, stopping hand on my knee. "Your mother sees me when and how she needs to." 

And then, without words, she conveyed to me the message: Now Shh! Let me enjoy this! You better get up there or you won't start on time!

I woke up from her visit, then. But I woke with that familiar feeling of having spent the day with Grandma. With that feeling that I wanted to be a bit tougher, my priorities a bit straighter, and my loyalties a bit fiercer.

I can't remember what she wore, now - only that there was purple. And that she was still very much the grandmother I knew, but younger. Not necessarily in years...those didn't seem to matter. She was younger in energy. And that her lipstick was expertly applied. 

I taught Daphne how to make Grandma Becky's scratch brownies last night in tribute. My own little thank-you for the visit, and for the many layered lessons in our too-brief conversation. 

Look Out, it's OCTOBER STEPPER!

October is my Spring.

I go kinda dormant in the Summer months. And then in October, I experience THE AWAKENING.

Someone protect the children; it's OCTOBER STEPPER! I go a little crazy and want to do ALL THE THINGS.

I want to be outside all the time.

I randomly burst into a run because I gotta burn off some of this October Sauce and also: WHY NOT?!

I start the plotting. You know. Because energy and that creative burn and HALLOWEEN. 

I start a book. A painting. A BLOG!

I start throwing everything away. STUFF IS DUMB when it's October! The kids watch me with suspicion wide in their eyes, making sure I'm not headed for their treasures. They start to check garbage cans. I strike while they're at school, because, remember? PLOTTING.

I remember it's actually FUN to get up in the morning.

I wear. the. fuzzy. BOOTS.

I feel like a tree in the spring, shaking off the dust of a sleepy winter and then shuddering as I examine the newness of my growth. Only instead of blossom buds and sweet fruits, I seem to randomly produce ghost pumpkins and an unreasonable amount of sweaters.

And I feel so FREE, so ALIVE and so ARRIVED that when I hear complaints of cold and gloom and where'd-the-precious-darling-sun-go during these tender October beginnings, I get a little...

Defensive.

(Defensive isn't the word my fingers went for, but this is a FAMILY FRIENDLY blog.)

Bill and I have an inside joke that there was a mix-up somewhere and I am actually not a human girl at all. Human girls typically enjoy warm summer evenings and days spent poolside or at the beach. Turning pretty freckled faces up to the sun and all that. But I'm not a human girl, but a water nymph; preferring the cool and the rain to cloudless blue skies and uninterrupted sunshine.

Clear blue days are BORING.

Bring on the drama of the CLOUDS! That overcast haze that makes everything smell, feel, taste ALIVE.

(The sun and I have an understanding. It's fine.)

And. You guys. HOODIES.

Amiright?

But....I also go completely nuts with house projects. Side gig ideas. Creative outlets. I have more ideas than I can keep up with, and I kind of make my people a little bit crazy with all of my crazy.

Go figure.

So I'm TRYING to reign it in this year. Really.

I mean, we are in the middle of a major back yard overhaul - but that's not my fault. That one started in the dreaded summer months. It's just that now I'm actually interested in getting out there in the dirt!

We are DIY-ing one of those ladder library thingies...re-doing the girls' room (I get to build furniture tonight!! IKEA furniture!!! Puzzle level: MASTER), overhauling the kitchen because I listened to a blog that told me I need a STATION and then we watched Salt. Fat. Acid. Heat. and I now want to be a seriously amazing intuitive cook like Samin.

And I may just secured myself a sign-off from the hubs for a climbing wall for Henry in the back yard. Which might also require building some kind of wall. I mean, probably.

BUT - I'm NOT teaching myself how to sew, or making a pallet swing for the back yard, or accepting every invitation to join interest groups that look interesting, or committing to the PTA because...come on. I'm REINING IT IN.

(OK - I'm totally making a pallet swing for the back yard.)

(I'll just shove those things a little further down the list).

If you see a mushroom cloud of DIY dust form over my house...please send pizza for my kids, because I guarantee I forgot all about dinner.

So I am a Stone

...rough and grainy still...

I have this image in my brain — so clear it could be a memory — of a scene that I drift to when I start to feel heavy in the head. I am looking down at my feet, pressing with pleasure onto the smooth, cool surface of a river stone. The stone is dark and gray and green and earthy, and my feet are bright and white in contrast. The stone stands in moving water. A brook or a river, depending on my subconscious needs of the hour. I can hear it, regardless. Always whispering or murmuring or growling softly nearby. The stone's surface is wet, but not slippery.

I feel grounded, here.

Calm and centered but also somehow expansive.

Connected.

...but when I close my eyes and feel you rushing by...

I suppose this is my happy place. Though it feels too sacred for names. It's just...my place. I like to think of it as a gift my higher self gave to me years ago - before I knew anything about "time travel" or any other selves or any of the fantastic things the human brain can do. And anyway, I often forget to pay a visit to my place when I'm a tumble of its opposite. Frantic. Distracted.

Disconnected.

...I know that time brings change, and change takes time...

Sometimes I'm a river stone, tumbling in the violence of the water, trusting that I am becoming. (I will be the person to create 20k for Life Coach training; my golden egg. It's the most money I've ever made in one lump some, by myself, in my life. It doesn't have to make sense—and doesn't—to friends and family; I am excited to become the kind of person who can do that. The kind of person who did do that. I want to meet THAT Stepper.)

Sometimes, I'm canyon limestone. The wind is whipping away at me, and I don't know if I'm going to become a sturdy but delicate arch, or if there is just not enough of me left, and i will crumble away to insignificant rubble. (So many women in my neighborhood feel lost and lonely. So many need a friend - but what that means is so subjective. I love them all so much, but my love doesn't seem to reach them. Not in any way that matters. I try not to make that mean that I am not enough. I was asked to lead. I was asked to be the representative of Christ. I am so flawed, so...Stepper about it all. It's not the ones who have made me the enemy—that's never about me, I know. Thank heavens. It's the ones who slip through the cracks. I'm so so afraid of those cracks!)

Sometimes I am a sandcastle against a Tsunami. (The days I long to stay in bed. The mornings I am tempted to drown my phone and take to the hills just for a stretch of peace. The housework—and the regular work—that suddenly become monumental and inhumane. When did switching the laundry over deplete me so completely? When did I lose interest in my book? where did I leave that desire to paint? Where did I put my passion? It must be around here somewhere...under one of these piles of later...later...later...)

...sometimes raging wild; sometimes swollen high; but never have I known this river dry...

But always, at the end of it—whatever form IT takes each time—I am okay.

I'm okay.

I like that I can trust that.

Because I know Stepper; I know who that is. Deeper down sometimes than I can immediately access...but I know that girl. The hot and cold of her. The shape of her moods and her quirky sense of humor and her delight in sudden bursts of beauty.

She gets really self conscious about how her brain works. It finds beauty and meaning everywhere, but is also hyper analytical and so logical that often she misses nuance. She is anxious to never miss the subtle joke, but is fairly sure that 70% of the time she does; and her people sigh and give up because it's easier than having to explain.

She loves teaching, but conversationally. She hates presenting - but only because she loves it so much until afterward when she watches the replay in her mind and realizes she came off insufferably didactic.

She loves words. Oh how she loves words. The power of them. The art of them. The way some of them feel in her mouth. But...oh how she hates when the drive-through kid says "there's that". Wasted words. And she punishes herself for being such a good noticer of things she should be able to let go. And everyone assumes she's good at word games just because she loves them, but she never wins.

And she always has so much to say. So many astronomical feelings and ideas erupting out of her all the time—even when she's dreaming—but she  never has anything to contribute to a conversation.

So...odd, yes. Difficult, yes. But also okay. Always okay.

...and when the sunset comes my prayer would be just one: that you might pick me up and notice that I am just a little smoother in your hand...

I need the smoothing polish, I've realized. The closer I look, the rougher I get. I'm caverns and glaciers and...when did those wrinkles happen? Oh, please...PLEASE let me carve smile lines in my face, not worry lines.

Almost 40, and I still don't know exactly what kind of stone I am.

I want the balance. I need the outlet.

I want the words back.

Quotes borrowed from the song "Rolling River God" by Mindy Gledhill. 

THE STORY CONTINUES...

...but...you know...backwards.

Keep reading about McCrery Clan adventures at my bloggy beginnings: STEPPER WAS HERE.