First and foremost, there is something I must get off my chest. I have a confession to make and although I am filled with shame and remorse at the moment, I am sure to ease my burden and lighten my soul by divulging the truth, no matter how it may tarnish my reputation as an honest and open Person of Faith. There are very few people in my life whom I do not welcome with open arms, and fewer whom I am too embarrassed to associate with in public. "Live and Let Live" has always been a motto I could proudly announce, regardless of the person in question, be it a Muslim, Transsexual, Right-Wing Republican, or Vegetarian. Still, even my dearest of friends have been hereto unaware of a skeleton I've kept hidden deep in the recesses of my family closet for years. Her name is Dottie.
Well, that was her name, when she was a sensible, God-fearing Christian like myself, but still, she is my baby sister. Now she goes by the name Rain Ra Yin and lives on the outskirts of a small village near Mt. Shasta in a yurt. Dottie and I were once very close siblings and we even sang in the Gospel choir together every Sunday at the 8 am service, twice on Christmas and Easter; she a contralto, me a soprano.
Those were the days well before she met and fell in love with Louie, a lazy jazz musician who played sax in a Yoko Ono cover band in the seventies. I didn't care for Louie and his overwhelming patchouli odor nor his experimental "music". But Dottie fell head over heels, which, to this day, remains a mystery to me. Pretty soon, Dottie dropped out of the church choir, started taking Kundalini yoga classes, moved into a commune with Louie, and stopped shaving her legs. Although disgusted with her self-initiated exodus from Organized Religion (and Society Itself!), I earnestly tried to keep in touch with my baby sister. But the commune didn't even have running water, let alone a pay phone. Over the years, I heard through the grapevine of Dottie's eventual escape from the commune, her tumultuous break-up with Louie, and her dabbling in various and sundry so-called "spiritual movements" such as est, The Forum, The Program, Dianetics, and Star Trek. Never once did she try to contact me. In a few years, she had sold all her worldly possessions, bought a Volkswagen Vanagon with a hippie named Fran, and moved out of Texas.I feared I would never see my baby sister again. The shame and guilt were too much to bear, so I soon "forgot" that I even had a baby sister, lost soul that she was. Then I got a phone call out of the blue while trimming my Wisteria about two years ago. You guessed it! It was Dottie, er, Rain, reaching out to touch someone. She told me all about her trials and tribulations over the 33 years we'd been apart, her run-ins with the law, addictions to pills and booze, and the difficult and emotional process of her Past Life Regression. She even asked my forgiveness for deserting me, her own flesh and blood, even though I suspect it was prompted by her Sponsor nudging her through her "Amends" (Step 9 of the 12 Step Recovery in AA). We talked, and laughed and cried and reminisced for over twenty minutes that day. Every once in a while I get a postcard in the mail, hoping against hope that it's from Dottie, telling me that she found Jesus, moved out of California or got a job. But, the postcards mostly come from my cousin Becky and her husband Ray as they drive around our great country in their Airstream, trying to cross every state line before Ray dies, bless his soul. Then, suddenly, again, I got a Christmas card in an envelope with no return address. You guessed it, again! It was from Dottie. It was a lovely foil-embossed card depicting Santy Claus and his big red bag on a rooftop, as he was fixing to plunge down a chimney. And nestled amongst the bright paper packages and toys in his bag was none other than the smiling face of Baby Jesus. So cute! Inside was scribbled a single, simple message: "To the future. Your baby sister, Dot".
I nearly fell out of my chair, when suddenly a piece of folded paper fell out of the card itself. It was a gift certificate good for One Astrological Reading from Phyllis Browne, Astrologer to the Stars. Literally! Miss Browne has given astrology readings and psychic advice to all of Hollywood's biggest names, including Faye Dunaway, Vanessa Redgrave, Marlon Brando and Nipsey Russell. However, after the Stock Market Crash of 1987, Miss Browne moved back to Texas and is still giving readings in her apartment in the town of Poe, just a 45-minute drive from my house. As a Believer in the Almighty and a Righteous Christian, I am wont to dismiss tomfoolery such as Astrology, Ouija boards and Global Warming as hogwash, but I have resolved to be more open-minded in 2009 and try to step foot outside of my comfort-zone once in a while. Whatever future Miss Phyllis Browne might predict for me, surely I would be safe in God's hands.
While attending a festival in New Orleans called Southern Decadence, my grandson Jeremy paid ten dollars to have his fortune told by a ninety-year-old black woman, claiming to be a Voodoo Priestess, in the parking lot of a laundromat. She "saw" into the future by rattling a cup filled with real human teeth and then dumping them out onto one of those place mat menus from a Chinese restaurant. Depending upon how they landed (root up, crown down) and where on the place mat (Chicken Chow Mein, Schezuan Shrimp), their configurations revealed either fortuity or doom for the aspirant. Jeremy said he never really deciphered her ominous $10 prophecy because apparently most of the teeth in the cup were her own, and her gummy speech was too hard to understand.
The day of my appointment with Miss Browne was dark and stormy outside and the drive out to Poe took over and hour on my Cushman Scooter. When I arrived at her doorstep, I looked like I was rode hard and put away wet, literally! I knocked hard on the door two or three times, until finally I heard a raspy woman's voice ask "Who is it?". Some psychic she was! I was nearly 20 minutes late for my appointment so who else could it be? She let me in and seemed more than perturbed about my tardiness, even when I tried to explain the dangers of riding a two-wheeler on wet asphalt.Her apartment was dark as a cave. Every window was covered in heavy velvet curtains, and the only two table lamps she did have turned on were obscured by purple gypsy scarves. It was so shadowy inside that I nearly tripped over 2 of her 11 cats, which had tangled themselves around my shins. At her dining room table, I gave her my birth date (December 25, 1945) and the time and place of my birth, which she entered into a program on her PC. It printed out a strange circular chart with criss-cross lines, which looked like the dream catcher I have hanging in the bay window of my kitchen. This was my birth chart, which indicated the position of the stars and planets in the Heavens at the exact moment I first took breath on God's Green Earth, and apparently mapped out my personality and my future. She studied the chart for a good while, mostly frowning, and her heavily penciled eyebrows danced around like an Indian at a pow-wow. She looked me in the face grimly and sympathetically. There I sat, waiting in dread. What did she see? Lost love? An untimely death? Financial ruin? "Well," she said at last, "I'm sure glad this ain't my chart." What was that supposed to mean! Then she went on to tell me (in grave detail) my each and every character flaw, deficiency, and ugly personality disorder which I have been unknowingly smearing upon my friends, family and the general public since birth.
I became dizzy, recounting all the times I had come across to others as insulting and rude, all the while thinking I was being helpful and neighborly. Soon, her words were like the buzzing bees and I had lost all sense of where I was. I began to examine the strange room and even more unusual, the strange woman demeaning my character through a nicotine-stained smile. Then I noticed something familiar in her eyes, her nose, her chin...her Adam's Apple. The resemblance to my childhood classmate Phillip Brown was remarkable. And suddenly I realized that it was Phillip, trying his best to sound and look like a real woman! After high school, Phil must have changed his name to Phyllis, moved to Hollywood, and started life over as Phyllis Browne, Astrologer to the Stars. Ha. As much as I yearned to, I dared not mention to him that I had caught on. My grandson Jeremy told me that trying to "pass" for a woman was crucial to a transsexual's self-esteem and final transformation into a woman. It would have devastated Phil so I kept my mouth shut.
A little while later, Phyllis took my gift certificate, gave me my printout and a ballpoint pen with her name and phone number printed on the side, then tenderly escorted me to the door. I could still see a glint of pity in her eye as she waved to me from the threshold. I got on my scooter and started my trek home, thinking about how in the future I will try to choose my words more carefully when talking to a loved one, and tell more white lies instead of bluntly speaking the truth. That's what Jesus would do, I'm certain of it.
Still, while there were two women sitting around the dim dining room table that night, and even with my virtual laundry list of God-given character flaws, it wasn't me who was wearing a cheap blond wig, tacky costume jewelry and a wispy polyester house dress from the Salvation Army.
My advice: if you feel like you're in need of a peek into your future, save yourself a trip to Poe and give a jingle to Juanita Ramirez to do one of her famous toasted tortilla readings in exchange for a cup of coffee.
It being the holiday season, there was no Bingo game this week. Winner's names from next week will be listed at the bottom of my next entry. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a Blessed New Year!
Til next time "ladies", eyes down.
"Bingo" Betty Sanchez
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