The stocking are hung but who cares?Ben is eating the little packages of Graveyard body part gummies from the bowl of leftover rejected Halloween candy. He is calling the inventory out loud. So far he has eaten a nose, two thumbs and a pair of lips (I won't tell you the comments he was making as he opened those. Goddamn. Hilarious). We're not big on gum-thingies here. Bears on rare occasion and sour patch kids and sour soothers always, but digits and facial features? No fucking way.
Preserved for those no longer there.
Six feet beneath me sleep.
Black lights hang from the tree,
Accents of dead holly.
Whoa mistletoe
(It's growing cold)
I'm seeing ghosts,
(I'm drinking old)
Red water
Red water
(Red water)
Red water chase them away.
Here's an ear for you, baby. Try it out.
Oh, Jesus, Ben. Can't you eat the rockets like everybody else?
He drove me all the way out to the Metaphysical shop in the valley this afternoon. I now have a winter supply of nag champa and patchouli incense now and some other assorted trinkets. The owner of the shop reminded me to clear the space of heavy imprints and we would be good to go.
I know. I am the world's most prolific skeptic/cynic and here I am with all of the lucky charms and feng shui and pseudo, bastardized Wicca to cleanse the house of negative energy. Life experience harvests the doubts and superstition assuages them. I don't dare ignore any chance I have to make everything turn out okay.
The boys humor me because they treasure all things eclectic and strange and beautiful, including, especially Bridget.
Now I just have to find a brick and mortar Doc Marten shop for my boots and I'll be fucking gold here. Homesickness, take that. I am figuring this place out at last, filling in the last few gaps. Filling up the holes and patching the worn spots. It isn't easy setting up home in unfamiliar territory, it can take a long while to truly feel comfortable. I still painstakingly walk through the new grocery store in my head as I update my perpetual shopping list because everything is in a different place. I still count intersections through town and ask for help everywhere because it's all New with a capital N, and different by far. Where is the watchmaker, what's the best pool? Where do you get your dog clipped? How come no one goes to this little shop? Oh, dammit, we've been stopping at the Starbucks in the next town over because I didn't go that extra street or I would have found this one, on the edge of my neighborhood. Ha.
Different. Yes, by far.
But in a better way.
Quality of life has taken on new meaning. This week we have had changes. Lots of them. Kind of a literal stock taken, at one year after the routine of Prairie life was disrupted for good. The new incense ceremony and the solemn attempt to do personal inventories and pull up our bootstraps at last means we are holding ourselves accountable for the state of the Collective right at this minute.
Last night there was zero trust extended to Caleb. He asked again to take me for a drive down the mountain, a final spin in his 350z before it is put into storage for winter and again he was denied, but not by me. Our unified energies have been strict and strained as of late and I have done nothing to change that. The boys were solid black in their rejection of Caleb's attempts to make further peace with me and I was obedient to my boys. I ignored all of them, studying the pewter goblet in front of me. The goblets are so ancient, the engraved poems (different on each) are worn almost smooth. I pretended I wasn't listening and they dealt with it and moved on. Subject changed.
Consequently, in a bizarre twist of devotion this evening, Ben was relaying a particularly violent story as he removed dishes while I talked quietly with Andrew and he came up behind me, gently grabbing a handful of my hair and he pulled my whole head back and drew the blade of a knife across my throat and I didn't even break the conversation. When I was finished my thought I turned and asked him what that was and he just smiled and ate a pinky finger, chewing it with his super wide oh-fuck-I'm-up-to-no-good-again-watch-out grin that makes my knees cave in and my heart thud so hard it hurts. Dull side in (on the knife AND the heart) in case you didn't realize. Obviously the princess isn't dead yet. Sometimes I'm halfway to breathing normally, even.
It wasn't a normal weekend by any means. It hardly ever is and I like it that way, imaginary murders, disgusting candy and weird traditions included. To each their own, I guess.