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2024-03-21 - 6:34 p.m.
My mother will always give you a magic stone. Every time you leave her house she will hand you a stone and tell you what it's meant for. Thank god (or, thank goddess as she says) she doesn't douse them in patchouli oil anymore. Seriously, one time I was up north on a fancy trip and just feet away from Lake Michigan on a windy day and five hours away from home and I smelled her. She had sent me a package of rocks that we later found when the man I was with went to check the mail at his fancy Lake Michigan "cottage". The mail box was probably half a mile from the actual house. And probably 3/4 mile from where I first caught a whiff it. I'm glad she's past her patchouli era. People would call me and tell me shit like, "I walked in to Walgreen's and immediately knew your mom was in there because I smelled her across the store!". She's a trip, that woman. Anyway, she doles out magic rocks and tells you what the particular rock is good for. I currently have two in my collection that I'm forbidden from letting leave my side. But I also have jars full of rocks from other times and I suppose I should ask her again what they're good for. I'm not a mystic. I'll do chants and rituals but not because I believe they work, it just soothes me. So, one ritual I do is that I go to Galesburg most times when I'm driving to Kalamazoo or back. I visit Michael's grave and I always leave a stone (and a flower if I have one and take the last stone I left back home with me. On our first date back in 1990, we went to Mancino's for dinner and he rifled through my stone collection I had in my purse and he took out a rose quartz that wasn't intentionally shaped liked a heart but resembled a heart and he asked if he could keep it because he wanted my heart next to his always (cheesy teenagers). Although I don't have that particular stone any more, I bring him one from my 40 year old stash of magic rocks and have been switching that stone out every season for many, many years. Many. He died in 1992 and except for when I lived in Spain, I been trading stones with him since then. I keep them next to my bed and for some reason, I feel like he gets my energy when I leave it for him and take the one that had been there for months back to my bedside and I swear, I feel his energy. It's the most daughter of a patchouli covered hippy mystic gypsy you can be. Today I had to drive back to Milford from Kalamazoo. I had a fully charged up rock to put on his grave to welcome Spring and say hi on my way out of town but I left Kalamazoo five hours later than I had intended and really just wanted to get back my kitties and I have a lot to do in general at home and I was was already impatient and frazzled after twenty minutes in to my trip and that Galesburg exit didn't look like anything I wanted to do today, charged rock or not. So I kept going. It's been taking three hours these days between Kalamazoo and Milford. And it's pretty awful. They are getting going with the construction again and I just can't take it. So I dropped out of the highway debacle in Olivet. I used the most disgusting toilet at the strangest Mobil gas station in the world that I'm kind of obsessed with, they have food bank, a free library and a bunch of weird people milling about the parking lot. Then I contemplated whether to get back on the highway or not. And I chose not. So I went from Olivet to Howell on long roads with many fields. Having grown up in a very small, very rural town, fields instantly comfort me even if I know they are probably not doused in patchouli like my mother, but doused in some sort of Monsanto poison. Once I calmed down, I started counting silos but quit at 22. I was passing lots of egg stands and farms and lots of places with old cars parked in the middle of a field that aren't like the old cars like we have in Milford that are fancy things...I love an old beat up pickup, or the Audi I saw all rusted out in a driveway. It was all beautiful and I was feeling calm and at peace and then started feeling bad that I didn't stop see Michael. And just when I started feeling that, there was this most beautiful cemetery in the middle nowhere. And I stopped and walked through it. It's a very old cemetery, most of the grave stones are crumbling and not kept up very well. But that's kind of what made it beautiful. I walked around for a short bit and came across a grave for a woman named Edith. We all know I love Edith Bunker from All in the Family. But this Edith died in 1947 and she was only 30. So I sat with her for a couple minutes and told her to tell Michael hello and I left his rock with her. I might visit her next time and bring another rock for her.
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