non-subject: "declaring independence"
(aww ~ Wednesday, 01/20/10)
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My laptop sat on the L-shaped bar in my kitchen, an area I had recently set up as a mobile office.
The bar is stained wood veneer and matches the kitchen counter tops which are on the opposite wall from the bar. From the eggshell-colored chair rail to the ceiling, printed vines extend in forest green tones. They are adorned with various fruits in hues of deep plum and various shades of purple. All on a marbled tan and cream background, a typical kitchen wallpaper. The kitchen cabinets, shelves, and un-papered walls are an eggshell color. The floor is vinyl tile, marbled with tan and cream hues. We have a black refrigerator and black ceramic double sink, a black glass-top stove, and a black double oven in the wall beside the stove.
Opposite the bar, light streams through the window above the double sink. Peering out the window and beyond the deck, our yard slopes upward for some 200 feet where it meets the woods crowded with tall white pines and other trees - a haven for birds, raccoons, snakes, spiders, and even the occasional deer. Between the deck and the woods grows an array of vegetation. Along with the various grasses and weeds are a large oak, fig trees, an ornamental tree, an "umbrella tree" as I call it, blackberry vines, all sorts of hostas, tiger lilies, and various plants I don't know the names for.
I like our back yard. I like our kitchen. I like my new mobile office area. I like my laptop.
I don't like curtains.
We have no curtains in our house. All the windows have blinds of some sort.
The kitchen window blinds are off-white aluminum. They stay raised all the time. A red scarf is swagged across the top of the blinds and six design cut copper-like metal stars hang on a metal chain in a half-circle below the swag, each chain-end attached to either side of the blind headrail. Two red tassels and a tiny wooden miniature mandolin hang from the chain.
Dee gave me the chain with stars. She had been my best friend in The Way when I left back in 2005. We've only talked a few times since then; she still stands with The Way.
There is a fluorescent light in a recess above the sink. I guess it's called a recess since the window has a recessed look. A decorative panel, painted in the eggshell shade, attaches to the ceiling and the cabinets that are on either side of the window. Behind the panel, nestles the above-the-sink fluorescent light bulb. Hanging down from the panel is an ornamental stained glass rainbow.
Alyson made and gave the rainbow to me some 25 years ago. Alyson and I were in the same Way fellowship at the time. I always liked Alyson. It's nice to have a remembrance of her.
I decorated the windowsill above the sink with eight Art-o-mat pieces - six different blocks of various mediums and genres, one box containing "Peace" soap, and one pear-shaped sculpture. In the middle on the sill is a 4-inch high djembe replica. Djembe is an African drum that is shaped like a chalis. Diane made the replica; she and I used to be in a drum circle together.
On the drum head sits a crafted wire human replica with a dark-brown wooden head and long purple yarn-hair. I think Leigh Adams, an Artomat artist, made the wire human which I have deemed Djembe Player. Djembe Player is only about two inches high. I have her bent so she sits on the drum head.
I like the life-memory trinkets on my windowsill. I like the light streaming in. I like watching the occasional spiders weave on the outside of the window.
I like James with whom I'm chatting on the computer while I sit at the kitchen bar on this Sunday in May, 2009.
I didn't like how I was trembling.
James could see see and hear me via my webcam but his cam and speakers were broken, so he responded to me in text. That's a weird feeling, to chat with someone in that fashion, when the other party can see and hear me but I can only read their text.
James lives in Australia. He and I had become friends through a serendipitous online connection in May, 2007, after I'd experienced bizarre events and toxic webs through GreaseSpot Cafe, an online forum that tells the other side of The Way International. Yet few people know about the other side of the GreaseSpot Cafe.
From age seven, James was raised in the Jehovah's Witness Sect; he dropped out when he was twenty-two. At age thirty-five he began intense research on the JW's and totalistic groups and their tactics. As part of that research, for a period of about fifteen years or so, he joined or visited at least twenty-five various groups. He's a walking encycolpedia; yet down-to-earth and practical, able to cut through bullshit pretty well...at least for me. I hope he gets around to publishing his book some day; the manuscript sits at his home. These days he is into painting with oils and would prefer to retire a recluse and paint all day. I imagine that would get boring for him though.
Now he was holding my hand, so to speak, as I trembled due to more antics from at least one member at GreaseSpot Cafe. What was it about the Cafe that made me tremble? How could an online forum have so much power over me to induce this fear? And the greater question, why did I allow it and what was I afraid of?
The fear and silencing power angered me.
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Click here to read an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction
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