In My Beginning

The Way of the Unicorn

In My Beginning

After a perfect day of 72 degrees, I sit here in my studio with an open window, the cool evening air idly swirling the wind chimes hanging above me. The fading ripple of sound simultaneously expands and diminishes. The cool hand caresses the breeze on my face, brushing my hair. The sound lingers in my ears. I hear crickets and a few evening birds, cars going by in the distance, and the sound of the nearby MAX light rail. I love it; it’s so charming, sweet, and civilized. The sound is. I feel the word “safety” coming up. I’ve had increasing moments of synchronicity with my Beloveds. It’s divine. We are in this together, this oneness, this love, this energy. It is the ONE LOVE. I realized why the sound brought safety. It’s the trolley sound in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, which I watched constantly as a child. Mr. Rogers radiates safety the way my Great-Grandpa Johnson did. They were both my heroes.

It’s never been any secret to others that I am a Unicorn. Even before my prismatic hair color and eclectic style, my Unicorn was evident when I opened my mouth to speak. I had an advanced vocabulary at a very early age. I was constantly read to by devoted family members who proved their love for me by repeatedly reading me my favorite books ad infinitum, and I was reading on my own well before my peers.

Not surprisingly, I was comfortable speaking with adults as a child. I was the only grandchild on either side of my family for the first six years of my life and spent much more time with adults than children my age. Children my age didn’t quite know what to make of me. I have always expressed myself through my dramatic streak, and the theater provided me a haven where other Unicorns and Wild Things flocked together.

In addition to being “a hyperactive child who talked 100% of the time and that no one could keep up with”, my mother described me as “fearless”. And she had the leading role in cultivating that fearlessness as, instead of trying to make me conform to society’s norms, she was delighted and supportive of my Unicorn nature. (Except maybe that one time I dyed my hair black in high school and stained the bathroom counter and towels…) I remember her telling off a man in a restaurant one time who asked her how she could let me “do that to my hair.” She told that Captive Wild Thing to mind his own business and that she thought I was beautiful no matter what I looked like, hair or no hair.

My fearlessness was also fortified during those times I spent with my paternal grandparents on their walnut ranch in Modesto (yes, I grew up on a nut ranch! Shocking, I know!)

When I was there, I was doted upon not only by them but also by my Grandma Merritt’s parents, my great grandparents, in this idyllic cocoon of unconditional love, devotion, adoration, and (as I perceived it) singular focus on their very first (great)grandchild.

No one ever raised their voice to me or each other. I was never in trouble or spoken crossly to or punished. I spent my days playing in the orchards, walking barefoot on dust as fine as powder, making little puff puff puffs as I walked along. Playing in the mud during irrigation time and riding around with Grandpa Merritt on his tractor.

Having an unending stream of answers to my equally unending WHYs session with my Great Grandpa Johnson having a picnic on the lawn, eating Fig Newtons, chewing Juicy Fruit gum, and finding those Brach’s caramels in his breast pocket. I cherished walking down the alley behind his house looking for the tortoise that lived in a backyard that we could see through a fence.

I spent countless hours playing by myself, sitting at the foot of a giant cedar tree, enthralled with a cigar box of little plastic animals that my maternal Great Grandma Cook had given me. I felt safe and protected, creating animal dramas among the roots, completely content.

Loving the caw of the ravens and crows, which still to this day instantly makes me feel safe and at home wherever I am…

I was a wee lass devoted to Mr. Rogers and his neighborhood friends and believing Jesus loved ALL the children of the World, which meant all the PEOPLE of the World, as evidenced at Disneyland’s “It’s A Small World,” I honestly thought that was how the world was: everyone from all nations living in harmony. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. (I still feel that way, as manufactured power-over structures divert the natural way humans can live harmoniously in community and care for each other.)

This unique, blissful existence was the perfect storm to shape my superpowers and kryptonite. When I eventually left that Sanctuary of Love, I was so innocent, guileless, and unassuming that I was an easy and obvious target for anyone looking to distract themselves from their own self-loathing by bullying someone, and I was that someone.

And, I absolutely could not understand why children were being mean to me. I thought I was excellent company and couldn’t imagine it was possible not to like me! Did such people exist?? They certainly never had in my first five years! And it was beyond me that people could (or WOULD) lie to me. I had only been to preschool and Sunday school, so it appeared that everyone was generally on their best behavior. And, I did not like this seemingly normal behavior in my new environment one tiny bit! However, despite being WOEFULLY unprepared for the real world, who I am was forged on that unshakeable foundation of Love that has carried me through the darkest of times.

And this Unicorn is so very VERY grateful for them all!

Best. Mommy. Ever.

Great Grandpa Johnson & I, Peas in a Pod

Grandma Merritt and I, ready for Sunday school!

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