Jet
Can you feel that? The world is growing. The tree outside our window is stretching taller by the hour, slowly, slowly. The best kind of progress always takes time. Except when I’m around, but I’ll talk about that later. Right now, I just want to lay here and feel everything change. I can feel the grass growing, Lauren’s hair, Sam’s goatee, the plants on the dresser, slowly, slowly. It’s incredible to feel, like a rush of energy, an affirmation. Life really is beautiful. Even when it’s gone. I don’t tell many people this – only Sam knows – but I feel it when things die too. That has a rush too, released energy. That energy has to go somewhere. It can’t be destroyed, only transferred.
It goes to me.
Me.
When I first figured that out, I freaked. Had nightmares for weeks about ghosts coming back for their stolen energy, their stolen lives. I tried to stop sleeping and that made things worse. I started pulling energy from living things instead of the other way around. Worse still. I tried to kill myself ad it didn’t work. Energy kept popping back up, healing my slashes. I don’t know where the energy came from… I was so fucking selfish. Worse. I couldn’t control anything anymore, not my powers, not my life, nothing.
Then I met Sam. He puled me back from the edge – quite literally. I tried to step off of an apartment building. – and taught me a lot of things. Control, versatility, use. He taught me to look at things objectively ad not freak at everything. I’m part of the cycle, he said. What I am is not my fault, but what I do with it is. I don’t cause people to die. Those things happen. I don’t cause it, I just take advantage of it, the same way others take advantage of a cow’s death when they eat a hamburger. He taught me all these things, plus some meditation exercises that help me figure things out on my own. He’s a good person, Sam. He saved my life and I’ll love him forever for
There’s a lot of energy running around this morning. I can’t really stay here in bed much longer or I’ll wake up the others. Besides, it’s time to get up. I want to swim. Somewhere in the house, someone had made coffee – gods, bless them – but it’s still quiet out there. Squirm out of the tangle of arms and legs – careful, don’t wake them yet – pull on cutoffs and a tshirt, creep out of the room. A cup of coffee later and I’m out of the house, off into the woods. It’s still gray-dark outside, the color of false dawn. The trees, the plants, everything glows just a little bit behind my eyes. Life is beautiful.
Down to the lake. The sun is just starting to break the horizon when I get there, misty fog shrouding the water. Lovely. The others think it’s ungodly cold now, but most of them grew up here in the flaming pits of hell – I mean Texas. Not me, born and raised Seattle kid. Quick glance around – nobody yet, too early – just to make sure. Not that anyone out here would mess with me – I’m essential, you know – or that most of them have seen me at one time or another when I’m working the fields, but too bad. I’m modest (yeah right).
Strip and plunge, too fast for common sense to catch up with me. “Holy shit!” I think my voice went up two octaves. Now that, boys and girls, is cold. Ten times better than coffee any day. A couple of laps and I’ll be so wired that I can’t sit still. But I don’t have time to play for much longer than that. It’s almost seven by the sun and I’ll need to be ready soon.
Shiver-dry, hair twisted out and pulled away. Cold-cold-cold! But the water did its job, my head is clear of everything but the temperature (and that will go away soon). To the tree! My meditation tree – “Jet’s Treehouse” – is a huge oak, so big I can’t put my arms around the trunk. When I first came here, I could wrap my hand around the trunk. Everything growing changes if I spend too much time around it. ~She changes everything she touches and-~ It’s hard to see, but in the trunk are handholds, small dents that grew into a kind of ladder. Up, up! ~Everything she touches changes.~ At the top, clearing the regular treeline by a yard, there’s a branched cradle, an easy perch for me. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do this you know? I was still learning to control things when this started. Everyday, I’m still learning. ~Change is, touch is, touch is, change is.~ Breathe, in, out. Slow, slow. Close off everything for now there is only me and the tree and the growing world. ~Touch us, change us.~ Breathe, in, out…
When I opened my eyes an eternity later, he was there at the base of the tree. Sam… I know that we’re a trio of little poly-pagans and half the time I’m playing with a few of the others in the Grove, but none of them take my breath away like he does, just by being there. I don’t know why, he just…does. “Morning, Jet. Ready?”
“Always.” It’s lesson time. Back down the tree, still cold from the water, but starting to dry off. Sam had a towel thrown over his shoulder – this is routine, our morning ritual – and wrapped me up in his arms. Warmth and the rough towel and sandalwood soap. Mmm. But when I was dry, he didn’t let go. “Ground and center.” Oh, we’re at this lesson now. I still need to learn how to keep my focus even when things are distracting, no matter what’s going on around me. And he is oh so distracting. Lovely.
Okay, okay. Ground and center. Focus. Don’t think about him, about sandalwood and warmth and arms. Ground and center…
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