COMPANY IS COMING

It's been at least six years since I entertained at my home. It's been a mess. An Oprah show for sure. Thank God for the few years who have been willing to strap on hip boots and walk through shit to save me.
I lost my way after my mother died. I lost what it was I was going to do to change the world. I lost the will to care about and for myself, which is amazing since before then I was 200 pounds overweight and fighting to stay connected-to find my way out of a hundred sparks of depression. But Mom dying while I watched her trying to breathe and yelling into the phone for 911 and remembering the rule if they are breathing on their own let them-or was that it-I know I paniced because I didn't know whether to touch or not. The paramedics got there and worked on her. I knew she was dead then, but they didn't declare it. Like a zombie I drove behind the wheel to the hospital as they took her out and wheeled her into Emergency. I called people. Friedns came-Mary first-then she went and got my family... well...that's for another time.

As I said company is coming and I am putting on a BBQ. I realize it means a lot to me because I am finally willing to go amongst people again. To feed them and smile and it not be work or obligation. I invited my friends and family and people I care about. Maybe most will show up, maybe some will get waylaid, but I am doing something, good.

I love people. When I was lost I was afraid of them. I thought them all to be parasites because they all seemed to be takers and I am run out of blood. Now, in recent days, years under exile, I find true friends-givers. They always were, but I had lost my way. My vision blurred by disappointment, heartbreak and death. My greatness defection was my anger at God for not coming and saving me and the people I cared about. I started rail at Him.
When Mama died...I remember a scripture that reads-and I don't know where...in the year that Uzziah died I saw the Lord.

Well, there will be ribs and chicken, brocolli and nondles, shrimp and tea and people. PEOPLE ONCE AGAIN in my house. People laughing and meeting each other. New friends and old friends and people who are passing by.
I'm going to be 60 years old. Seems like I've been down under for the last 40 years-30 maybe. I read somewhere that He'll give you back the years the locust and the cankerworm have eaten. It means that all the time that has been stripped from you. All the life you've lost will be given back to you. It means I am reborn again-to believe-to care about the world-to pass on..

*****

Everyone is gone and the Grilling Man is still turning ribs and chicken, though everyone has gone to bed. I told him there was no more need to girll. Everyone had gone home. Possibly asleep already. It was nearly midnight and as long as the ambers were hot he would be there. I left him there, man among the cinders and doused the light.

*******
This morning the janitor comes to say my shower is linking into the basement apartment. Indeed, the only way to get something fixed is that to have a flood or disaster. Maybe they will fix my leaking shower. But I've learned not to freak out about things.

This morning I read in The Word in which it talked about "Love". For the first time I began to understand that you make a commitment to live your life a certain way-the word is commitment. You make a decision that you're the one who's going to be the "Lover" and YOU do that whether anyone else gets it or not. YOU DECIDE to FORGIVE. YOU DECIDE TO HEAL. YOU DECIDE TO KEEP HOPE ALIVE IN YOUR HEART WHEN IT ALL TURNS BAD.
The YOU in everything is both greatness and failure. Triumph or Defeat. In that word is everything.

It was a good BBQ for me. Not all my old friends met with the new. But my long time actor and friend got the award she long deserved. I was glad to see her-my old friend Barb back from a surgery. My family who were in one place, not since the memorial for my mother.

I think you know what it means to lose your way. One minute you are unshakeable and know everything and the next you don't care whether you'll ever get out of bed.