CHAPTER FOUR

That was the day I borrowed Melanie's blaze-orange Datsun pickup and went back to the apartment for the last of my things.

We made multiple trips in Cheeto that week. I cut Melanie in at ten percent on items she dared to model for Craigslist and the stuff we couldn't sell went to Saint Vinnie's. Anything worth keeping went into storage at a creepy outfit near that tan titty-dome megachurch off Highway 99.

Now I was after the rest of my makeup. Any paperwork or mail in my name, the power and MIDI cables for my microKORG. My amp and my passport, a final pull of drawers and one last look around for anything I left behind.

I'd been sleeping on a trundle bed in the spare room where Melanie made her jewelry. The walls of her Southtown home were thick with unsold inventory from abandoned Etsy ventures. Smartass KEEP CALM placards advocating naps, kittens or cake. Inspirational phrases condensed to three verbs stenciled on salvaged planks, hung among framed photos of Melanie glowing in a backless dress at her sister's outdoor wedding. Kayaking on the Rogue River, throwing up devil horns on the teacup ride at Disneyland. Mimicking the "Charlie's Angels" pose with friends in gowns and mortarboards.

Like uninvited vampires prohibited from entry, the attentive retinue of doubt and worry that normally stood over my bed could not follow me to Melanie's house.

I went to work early the next afternoon. Met with Barb in Human Resources and cashed in some leave "for reasons personal and emergent". Freed from a night-shift schedule my body clock snapped back to the diurnal routine of a day-walker.

Now my brain powered down and unplugged properly, without compulsive ambush-audits of my life's course and content. Each night I curled up under all-caps instructions to DANCE DARE DREAM and lost consciousness within minutes instead of pacing off the growing distance between the life I was living and the one I'd always imagined for myself on the wide side > of Greater Than.

I woke to finches and chickadees fussing in the birdfeeder outside my window. Felt the warm weight of Bagheera purring, tangled in my hair. Living with Melanie and getting eight hours of sleep each night left me truly rested. Reset and renewed. I'll even say healed, I don't care how Oprah that sounds.

I spent my last morning at Melanie's house playing in bed with Bagheera. Got up to feed her and spoiled her with much too much. Made coffee, sat on the windowsill and watched the neighborhood wake up. Took ten deep breaths. Pushed each one against my ribs until I thought they might crack. Saw the reflection of myself smiling in the glass and didn't stop to brand that woman a fool for feeling healthy enough to experience and express a little bit of joy while nobody was looking.

Have you ever shut down your whole go-go me-me mechanism long enough to bring it back online with a fresh assessment of your potential? It doesn't take a meditative state to move outside yourself and scout for new prospects and perspectives.

Ten deep breaths can change your fucking life.