By Jenny Forrester
I have this Psychic Jeep. It doesn't damage the earth, but I can venture and adventure. It's fully loaded, this jeep is. Psychic Dashboard: fog lights, navigation, speedomoter, odometer, radio...it's all there. I see things a mile away in those fog lights, can tune into far off messages, can span history, rev the engine or idle in a moment, depending. Color is important. Psychic messages and all. What you send out into the world. What you project. You know. So the Psychic Jeep is red usually. Sometimes, it's blue or gold, sun yellow gold. Anyway, we look good.
I drive a lot. Like. I love to drive. I love to drive like I love to eat. I need to drive like I need to eat.
Back in time, I didn't always have this jeep. I used my feet to escape, to journey, to jump and run. You know. Diane, the trailer park bully, came around and still comes around sometimes. I go for long drives to think about navigating her when I get back to the trailer park or when I take some turn, whether forced by circumstance or by some calling. You know. The life of the mind, the mapping of things, the movement and stillness. Life.
Anyway. Diane's been around awhile. When we were kids, she waited for me, standing on the crest of a small hill. I’d gotten off the bus after she did, watching to see which way she’d go, to elude her, walking a way I hadn’t walked before, between trailer neighbors I didn’t know. Somehow, she was there between the trailers. She said all kinds of things to me. She said, "Come over to my house and play," and then she'd beat me up. She said, "You're my best friend," and then she'd beat me up.
Now. I’m driving a dirt road … the eastern sky is a pink and blue watercolor, lined by winter cottonwood silhouettes, a goose V and their honk my goodnight, the rattling pods along the road seem to exist only to scare me, the ghosts I ignore because I have excellent boundaries when necessary. The Rockies are black, the bluebird sky turned dark as the last point of pale sun disappears. I whisper, “Human. I’m human.” It’s gratitude.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche says, “Where are you in relation to this unformed moment?” The moment of the blank page…but also it’s the moment of loss. A relative speaks about me behind my back to other relatives. My family here on earth or one version of family. You know what I'm saying. Anyway. Her words about me. It all gets back to me. She said, “She’s this. She’s that. She’s a Karen. A cultural appropriator. A sociopath. Trash.” Really mean stuff I don't deserve. You know. But to my face, she says, "We love you so much, me and my family do." This relative has a lot of things happening. And, really, I know it's fear. I'm afraid, too. It's real. This Big Fear.
So. How to navigate this, and other, unformed moments...
Back in time, after Diane beat me up once or twice, my mom showed up between the trailers when the bus dropped us off. When she could be there which wasn't always. You know. No mother can be. No mother should have to be. That's not the way the universe works. You know.
Anyway. Magic. My mom was magic. Telepathic. Psychic. How did she know where to find me at exactly the right time. She saved me from the bully. When she could. She didn't have to. She should've have had to.
Dear Reader, don’t go flattening anything now. This road isn’t flat. Our lives aren't flat. Bullies aren't flat. Mothers aren't flat. My journey's not flat. Yours isn't. No one's is. This little piece of writing isn't about projections or flattening or map-making anyway. It's about driving. It's about The Jeep.
I practice improving my driving skills in vacant parking lots, doing cookies or doughnuts or toroidal fields…the wheels are toroidal so that's fun. What I've seen is that consciousness can be as vast as any parking lot doughnut, as massive as any mountain under sea or on earth's surface. Mindfulness of the road can be as precise as any clear biofield. Our energy can be as boundless as any crystal-based engine system we have the imagination to create.
I mean. We can do anything. Go anywhere. For example, The Jeep's got capitalism beat because we don’t need to depend on the oil industry or the prison industrial complex or the assault on the biological world.
We can go anywhere together, too. It's all an experiment as you know. It's all a journey worth taking. There's something I insist on when you go touring with me, though. The Jeep has seat belts. Boundaries for safety. You know.
Anyway.
Wanna ride?
......................
Jenny Forrester (she/her) has been published in GetSparked, Gobshite Quarterly, Pom Pom Lit, Nailed Magazine to Columbia Review, Portland Review, Seattle's City Arts Magazine. Her books include Narrow River, Wide Sky: A Memoir and Soft Hearted Stories: Seeking Saviors, Cowboy Stylists, and Other Fallacies of Authoritarianism, a Colorado Book Awards Finalist. Learn more at: www.jennyforrester.com
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