Before I Was Here

I find myself back on the moon, the earth peaks over the horizon. My hands slide across the surface, coarse like gravel, a stark silence fills the void. I sit at the edge waiting. An absence of light everywhere except for two bodies floating in space. I can see the earth in my field of view. Before I was there I was here at the edge of space. The moon underneath my crossed legs is impregnated with color and texture. Three things are present. My mother, my father and me.

Familiar voices awakened me from a dream. I found myself in a different room then the one I fell asleep in. The atmosphere felt tense, confused. I hear words to a song, “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby”. My mother was singing to me. 

It was the 1960’s. My father was an engineer who designed the rocket boosters for the moon landings. I remember the sense of wonder I felt, watching them on TV growing up as a kid, and how excited I was to be part of a culture of exploration. Immersed in the dream. I wanted to become the first woman on the moon.  

As a highly sensitive child it was easy for me to see pathways between mystical and material worlds. A cosmic kid, a star child. I could pass through gates of possibilities and ideas which were different from ordinary life. For me it was all colors, dots and inner sensations.

I remember one day being told by my best friend's mother that I had a vivid imagination. As though I saw and said something I wasn’t supposed to. I could also hear in her tone this was not a good thing. That something was off. In me or in her I don’t know? It was not clear.

I was called many things because of my vivid imagination. From dyslexic, to anxious, to ugly, spoiled and loud. A good athlete and a sleepwalker. A mystical, indigo child connected to another world, rebellious to the core. My favorite pastime was to lie on the lawn and look at the sky. Night or day, stormy or clear, looking up was all that mattered.

I turned six years old in 1972. My family watched from our black and white TV the last lunar landing. The magical gate of possibilities closed on me that day and a new era began. I felt banished from the world I came from and was quickly initiated into a heavier and denser atmosphere. Order and rules reigned over me as an insult to my character. I became subject to the doctrines of time. On that day my brain split in two. The wise and the survived.

Can life be so influenced by a song, a movie, a moon landing? Can a fairytale claim our personal narrative or can someone else's legacy rob us of our own self portrait? Are our souls so entangled as to eclipse our own story? 

A spell was cast over me for many years until, at a perfect time, and on a perfect day, a rainbow appeared along with a memory from long ago. Dorothy taps her heels together and chants, “I want to go home”.

The magical gate I had completely forgotten about reopens. Unbound and free to enter I am given a choice. “If you want to gain access you must first give something up.” Riddled with fear I pause, and only partly agree. For the next several years I am faced with contradictory forces, free and unfree.


Seen and unseen energies paved a futile path until resistance broke open. A golden road came into view. My arms raised high to the sky. Surrender came over me and finally I agreed. “Okay, I will give something up.” 


Instantly my will shot out of me and with it the people, pleasures, possessions, popularity, position and power I had pursued. Distilled and dissolved, I realized my will was never me. The only part of me left was a tiny dot, cradled safely by mother-of-pearl. Magnificent and beautiful held tightly together by love. 


I broaden my gaze and lift my eyes up, when again, I find myself back on the moon, waiting.