A Dreamer's Today Read online

  A Dreamer’s

  Today

  By

  E. L. R. Jones

  All of my life I have had dreams, these “episodes” for lack of a better word. Each of these episodes when I awoke from them seemed as real as the life I am leading today. They felt more like memories than they did dreams. I felt the pain and pressures and sadness of each individual as if they were my own. I finally decided to write them down in a collection of short stories, excerpts if you will. Excerpts of what I do not know, but here is what has come from it all: A Dreamer’s Today.

  Table of Contents

  Beneath My Window Seat 4

  The Intimacy Friend 18

  Miss U of I Girl 32

  Who’s watching Me Now? 36

  An Ever Changing Moment 56

  So Hard to Say Goodbye 71

  The Place My Heart Belongs 87

  Momma, you are 110

  Who Cheats Best? 136

  The Choice Is Yours 165

  Beneath My Window Seat

  July 7-August, 2004

  There is an old saying that says, “There’s no place like home.” For me those words could not ring more true. I have had the pleasure of living in the same home for the majority of my life. I’ve only lived one other place and I was too young for it to have any form of impact. It is ironic to say the least because I’d made up my mind that I didn’t want to be anywhere that would make my life appear to be grander than what it was. For someone so young to make that decision is pretty farfetched, I know. In my defense, even though I was young and dealing with more than any 6 year old should, it was said that I was very old for my age and that I had an old soul. When the decision was made to move to Georgia and into a country home, let’s just say I was rather reluctant.

  Upon entering the front gate, the house looks completely ordinary except for the garden. I feel this way partly because I am biased. The other part of me has experienced other’s response upon entering these gates; watching them bask at the beauty and wonder that is held there. Living in Georgia and all of the beauty that comes with southern living, I can understand how this home could possibly pale in comparison to others.

  The gates attached to the fence that surround the house are made of natural cedar wood with a golden metal latch. The center of the entrance walk reminds me of a sandy wave as it leads to the stairs. The stairs leading to the porch match in color and tone to the shutters of the house and the wooden porch itself. The shutters have a mahogany tone. The most beautiful flowerbeds flank the stairs leading to the house. It is as if someone captured the very essence of the brightest and most beautiful rainbow and placed it there. It is full of marigolds, lilac bushes, white and pink mums, azaleas, penstemons, and sunflowers. Hydrangeas wrap themselves around the pillars of the main entrance, as if they know the comforts of the home and want to be part of the peace that can be found within.

  The color of the house outside reminds me of the creamy smoothness of a mocha coffee. The entrance doors into the home are a cherry wood color with two half moon windows and a vine of roses etched in the top. I remember thinking that I’d entered the Land of Oz the first time I walked through the doors. These two doors with brass handles allow for entry upon pulling down the handle. When entering the front doors, you are met with the light of a 3-foot ice like chandelier that illuminates the foyer. The light from the crystals give off a cascade of colorful prisms that allow the specks from the Afyon marble floor to glow like rays of sunlight. It is this warm welcome that says,“please come in and make yourself at home.” The inviting entrance sets the tone of the rest for the house.

  The house has two floors. The foyer leads down two matching marble stairs to the rest of the house. The flooring is all wood to match the stairs that enter the house. The swirls within the mahogany appear as if a calligrapher personally hand dipped their pen into ink and painstakingly etched each and every perfect loop. There is the vaulted ceiling living room with our furniture; large and comfortable beige mock suede couch, loveseat, and recliner, black and cherry colored end tables, coffee table, and entertainment unit, to your right. The dining area is to the immediate center of the home and housed portraits of different landscapes from around the world. The dining room has a black lacquered table with matching chairs. The seat cushions were soft hazelnut in color to match the walls. Every night the table was set with silver trimmed china, fine crystal goblets, hazelnut napkins, and my grandmother’s silver that she gave to my parents as a wedding gift. There is a piano that sits in the corner where my dad used to play. Before the dining room is a staircase, a marble staircase. The marble in the staircase seemed to have little specks of finite sparkles or glitter that glinted and glistened as you rose to the final landing.

  The backyard has a vegetable garden and mirrors the front yard but leads to 3 acres of land with rolling green hills. I used to roll down those hills when I was younger staining many knees in my pants with green streaks of freshly cut grass. I also stained many a summer dress with mud stains so deep that they seeped through to the mandatory slip or tights that I was forced to wear.

  In my room, I had the basics: a full sized canopy bed with burnt orange bedding and matching pillowcases. I also had lilac colored throw pillows and sheets, and my personalized quilt at the end of the bed with the letter “E” stitched in the center for my name, Epiphany. I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Epiphany, of course. Epiphany Lynn Randalls, to be more precise. I am the honorary owner and lover of this magnificent home. Now where was I? Oh yes! I was describing my bedroom.

  I had my own pearl white baby grand that was given to me by my father and was personalized with a border of the g cleft note and the letter “E” around the sides of the piano and the piano seat. I had framed artwork from my younger years and my art classes. My favorite was the portrait my mother painted of all of us. It was one of the last pictures ever painted by my mother and the last portrait of our family together and healthy.

  My furniture was snow white with soft lilac and orange-stenciled trim and silver hardware. I also had double doors with sheer soft lilac curtains over the windowpane that covered them. Those led to the small outside landing which overlooked the side of the house. There were stairs attached to the landing that would lead down to a path to the backyard.

  Even with all of the miraculously beautiful elements of this home, my favorite place was always my window seat. I had perfectly stitched personalized seat cushions on my window seat under the largest wood paneled bay windows. When I looked out of my window, I could see the front garden and the pebble stone and granite walkway that led under my landing and to the backyard. My window seat held all of my memories, all of the moments of my life. It held every transition and every feeling that came with my life.

  My window seat is where I sat coloring as I watched my mother cross the room to sit with me and tell me that my father had passed away. She told me of how much he loved me and how he would always be with us. I didn’t quite understand this. How could he always be with us if he wasn’t with us? But I trusted my mother knew what she was talking about. Even though, my little heart was completely broken, I believed her. I must say that a part of me was somewhat angry when I completely understood this phrase. My father was one of my best friends.

  He was a really good listener, as he should have been. My father was a musician and writer. He sang songs often to my mother and myself. He played the piano. Watching him play was and is one of my fondest memories. I can still remember the days of begging him to sing the song that he wrote for my mother:

  Beautiful girl I know

  I want to sing you a melody so sweet

  To tell you how I feel

  To let you know I feel complete

  I find myself i
n your smile

  I don’t know peace until I am near you

  My everything you are

  I find in your eyes

  My hopes, my dreams, my hearts cries

  I know no other place

  To be home, unless I am in your embrace

  I find home in your song

  Which is where I belong,

  Which is your heart

  He used tell me that had he known that I would come into his life then he would’ve waited and saved the words to his song for me. I would tell him that it was okay because Mommy and I could share his special song. He would laugh his hardy laugh that would make both of us shake and me giggle with joy. He always smelled of cigars. When he smiled, I would feel at peace, the truest calm.

  The safest I ever felt was in his arms. He would give me the biggest bear hug upon returning from one of his nights out at the nightclub or bar that he played. He wasn’t the largest man, but to me he always seemed like a giant. He stood 6’7 and was very lean. His arms were very strong from moving equipment from the van to the stage. For as long as I could remember, he always had a mustache. He had hazel eyes and an earring in his ear. On his head was always a Dobb to match either the vest or pants he wore.

  He would wake me up with his nightly kiss to my forehead. His mustache would always wake me because it would tickle when it rubbed up against the hair that was usually hanging in my face. He would then pick me up and sit me on the window seat as he played a song for me, on most nights, the song he wrote for my mother. My mom would then come in and tell him that it was late and that I needed to go back to sleep because their little one needed to get all of the beauty sleep that she could. He would always respond that if I got any more beauty sleep then they would have to bolt the doors shut so none of the boys, who would definitely be banging down the door to be with me, would be able to get at me.

  Even now it makes me giggle a little. He made me laugh often and his voice was so melodious. Everything he said sounded as if it were a new song that was just waiting for him to put it to music. I loved to listen to him read any book and would often fall asleep dreaming of the rhythms and timbres that escaped his lips.

  The day I found out that my father was sick was one of the hardest days of my life. I found out that he had cancer the same day that I was told that we had to move. I was told that the warmer climate might help with my dad’s immune system. He didn’t need to get any colds and his allergies would not flare up as much if he was in a warmer climate. I had so many questions and didn’t really understand what cancer or an immune system was. All I knew was that my Daddy was sick and something about us having to move was going to make it better.

  A classmate told me that she knew someone with cancer and then announced to everyone that my dad and I had cancer. She also told the other kids that I could give it to everyone else. She made all of my friends turn against me and my last day of school was my loneliest day ever. The next day was our move day and I never had the chance to tell everyone that she was a stupid head like I wanted to. I found out after talking to my mom that night that I didn’t have cancer and couldn’t possibly give it to another person. My mother always had a way of making me feel better and like home was where she was.

  My mother used to sit by the window and braid my hair. She always wore the most beautiful summer dresses. Her dresses always fluttered around my arms so that I could feel the smoothness of the fabric rubbing against the hairs on my arms. As I sat at her feet I could see the blue waves from the fabric of her dress through my long brown freshly washed and hot-combed hair. A gentle breeze would send the dress sailing over the sea of my imagination. She always smelled of clean linen and sweet roses. I always thought she must’ve been born in a garden because no matter how much she worked, she always carried that scent with her. She had dark brown eyes and soft brown colored skin with honey tones in her cheeks. She also had reddish brown hair with brown highlights. She stood about 5’6 and had the frame of a woman who worked to care for her family. I always hoped that I would grow up to be as beautiful as she was. She used to sit in my room doing my hair and hum the tune she sang to me when I was a baby:

  Go to sleep, go to sleep

  Go to sleep little darling

  Close your eyes, say goodnight

  Go to sleep my baby

  Go to sleep, my baby

  Go to sleep little one

  Go to sleep little girl

  Go to sleep Epiphany

  By the time she would get to the second chorus, I would be sound asleep and she could finish braiding my hair without me whining or crying about how much my head was hurting.

  There are so many fond memories held beneath the window seat. My first sleepover was held here with my best friend, Marigold. I sat here with six of my friends and dreamed of the things that would come and the princes that would whisk us away. We sat dreaming of being liked by the popular kids or the jocks. We laughed, giggled, told scary stories, ate junk food, and played tricks on each other until the wee hours of the morning.

  I sat there daydreaming one day and had the man of my dreams cross my path. He walked with such a swagger that made me shutter at the sight of him. He was walking along whistling and to this day I have no clue what made him look up, but he did. We smiled and he went on his way. I sat there waiting for him with my mom for our first date. I was nervous and excited all at the same time and pacing a hole into the floor. My mom walked in and made me sit. Joshua sat here with me and explained why he was going to school out of state and how we would make it work. Here is where I sat as Joshua serenaded me on his last night before he left for college. My mother and I sat there as we read through the responses to college applications and celebrated there when I was accepted to the college of my choice.

  I shed many tears there. The first argument that Joshua and I had, I cried because I thought that we would never be together again. When Marigold and I fought over a boy that we both liked. When Mark Preston, the class jerk, said that I would never be as pretty as any of the other girls in our class and he never did like me, ever. When Kelly Johnson said that I would never find anyone to take me to prom because I was such an ugly duckling. When my mom…

  My final work for my Masters dissertation was to compose a new piece for our theatre team and write about the creative process that came with it. I was supposed to research the amount of time input into creating and composing the work. My research was to include how much being creative affects all aspects of our lives. I couldn’t bring myself to focus on the piece because I was about to lose everything: my inspiration and reason for having the courage to even venture into doing college. My best friend and mother were now gone from my world and life. Now I was supposed to come up with this piece of work for the theatre group, finish planning my wedding, put together a funeral, pack up the house, finalize the sell of the house, and grieve all in the course of the next few weeks.

  …The window seat is where I sat and cradled my mother in my lap as she took her last breath and succumbed to the illness that had quietly plagued her life for what seemed to be such a long period of time. She was diagnosed with lung inflammation about 2 years ago. I only recently found out about it. She was making my dress and I noticed she kept stopping to flex her fingers. Her pain had progressed to the point where she was taking a great deal more breaks. I finally convinced her that she should just allow someone else to finish off the dress if it was going to cause her so much trouble. She had been doing that for years. I just figured she was dealing with arthritis because she was getting older.

  I finally took a good look at her one day, encouraged to do so by my now fiancé, Joshua. I realized that she was masking her pain and that she’d lost a great deal of weight. We all went out to do some taste testing for my reception and she barely ate anything. So, I took her out to dinner to celebrate finalizing things for the wedding. We ordered our favorite meals: hers’ being baked salmon with wild rice, and mixed vegetables; mine is fettuccine alfredo with chick
en. She nibbled on a piece of bread and drank some water. The next day she came to my room and sat me down in our favorite spot by the window. She told me that she was sick and apologized to me because she didn’t believe that she was going to be around for my wedding. I sat on the cushions of my window seat for hours before it actually sunk in. What she said seemed to be from a nightmare and I was hoping I would wake up soon. She couldn’t be dying and with an illness so similar to the one that took my father away from me. How was I supposed to deal with all of this? How was I supposed to watch my mother die? How was I supposed to get married without her there?

  My mother was very quiet and to herself when it came to her own personal pain. She’d worked for years trying to maintain the house and the life that we’d, moreso I’d, grown accustom. In the final year, I found out, as I read her journal one day, that she was in a great deal of pain. Her joints ached which was the cause of her not being able to paint anymore. She evidently was barely sleeping. I always figured that she was just an early riser and had late nights due to the work she was overseeing. She ran a seamstress business from our home after my father died and was supervising it up until the day she died.

  She was able to see the final product of the wedding dress inspired by our vision. It was a pearl white A-line dress. The spaghetti straps met at the top of the front of the dress with a g-cleft jewel created by a friend of my mothers on each side. The dress had a simple 1-foot train and a lace overlay that at the base had musical notes. The central button was a lavender rose. The dress also had a lavender sash around the waist and base. It was silk like in material. Within the hem in the lavender base were stitched the words to the song my father used to sing and a message from my mother saying that they would always love me and we would be together again.