Category Archives: Journal

Today my ex-husband showed me an opal set in sterling silver he intends to give me as a gift. For our former wedding anniversary.

But we don’t even kiss. We haven’t for probably almost a year. We still care about each other as friends though… And, we still celebrate our former wedding anniversary. Our lives are less depressing that way. It’s a grieving process.

…And we won’t kiss on our anniversary. Or hold hands. Nothing romantic other than possible pleasant, thoughtful gifts. …I’ll get an opal ring this year I guess. It was $20 at Goodwill. It’s probably worth more…and it looks 1950’s or 60’s…and it’s my ring size. He found it wasting time to unwind shopping there online.

My ex-husband isn’t a bad person and thoughtful gifts like the ring…remind me of why I once fell madly in love with him over ten years ago in 2010. …And the fact that it’s not at all my style and feels almost alien to my usual aesthetic other than it’s authentic parts and vintage patina remind me of why we didn’t last. I hated the ring earlier tonight so much I almost wanted to cry and I never usually cry. I found it so ugly it was actually triggering… He never understood my tastes and I often felt deeply unseen in our marriage…

…

Oh well.

…

Then tonight I watched Tik Tok again. And a late 20-something young man who reminds me a startlingly amount of Lem Billings…showed-up live on my feed.

I’ve followed him for a short while. Prayed for him… He reminds me so much of Lem. And I find that utterly delightful as more people like him should be alive…but also…it scares me. Lem was used a lot. His kindness was often taken advantage of. His brilliance ignored or maligned. His rare masculinity misunderstood and disrespected. You could call it homophobia…in a way.

And I’ll have to pray for him. And Catholics would claim I should pray for Lem too.

…Wait. He reminds me of Lem?

“Yes. And you think he’s good-looking. But truth be told, you’re worried about us.” Michael says.

“What if you’re real?” asks Lacey.

“You’re not manifesting us right now, by the way. You’re confused.” says Lem. “And no, he could never have been or be your son, in case you’re wondering. You’re too young for that.”

“Well…if you’re not demons…and you’re seemingly real…what does God expect of me? Of this?” asks Lacey.

“I know.“ says Lem.

“He’s probably too young for me and I rationally doubt he even knows I exist. But he begs a question of God.” Lacey decides.

“You’d like us more.” says Michael with a smile.

“But you’re both dead.” says Lacey.

“Do you hear us?” asks Lem.

“Yes. And trying to explain that to anyone is terrifying.” says Lacey.

“You smelled my old cigarette the other night in your kitchen.” Lem responds.

“Did you smoke it in my kitchen?”

“No. But I wanted you to smell what I smelled like.”

“I think it smelled like you…and smoke. It was surprising smelling actually.”

“And that’s the thing. If I’m a demon it’s a very clever trick. Like when you heard my audible voice and then heard the recording of me that sounded quite similar. …Or other even more irrefutable things. Things that might scare your readers. …And, of course, you’ve prayed me away if I’m a demon. Repeatedly. But I’m not a demon, Lacey.”

“We’re praying for you.” says Louis to Lacey.

“And I have no way of knowing.” says Lacey.

“He does look like me. And sound like me. You’re right. He’s less messed-up than I was though. Far less messed-up. Thank God.” says Lem.

“I’ll pray he stays that way.” she says.

Silence.

“What would would you do if our situations were reversed?” she asks Lem.

“I’d haunt the Asmats.” says Michael sweetly “Or I’d be obsessed with them to try to figure you out.“

“I relate to that.” says Lacey.

“I’d love you. But wish you were just slightly different.” says Lem with a smile. He means he’d love the living likeness of Lacey but sense she wasn’t quite Lacey.

“That’s brutal.” says Lacey, feeling bad for this woman.

“She’d not be you, dear.” he looks at her.

“But you’d marry her anyway?” asks Lacey.

He laughs.

“Who ever said I’d marry this woman?” asks Lem.

“Well…I know you. I bet you’d win her heart. Easily.” Lacey responds.

Lem smiles. Michael looks suspicious.

“He’s-He’s not me.” says Michael.

“Am I really that romantic?” asks Lem.

“You are to me.” says Lacey.

They disappear and Lacey possibly senses the Holy Spirit bringing a moment of peace.

…

And in the distance a light glows near her window like a static spark…and then it disappears. She rebukes demons in the name of Jesus as per usual.

Jesus from Heaven…not somewhere in Pennsylvania. No matter how great Pennsylvania was or is.

If Lacey’s father with his serious demeanor was born in 1894…it’s possible there’s not a man over 30 alive who could truly love her. Literally.

She’s prayed and asked God if that’s true…and she prayed and asked Him again tonight.

The other night she asked Him and she closed her eyes to hear His voice and saw total darkness. Pitch black. …Like a flash of the absence of light like a near-death-experience.

…And then there’s the night Lacey almost bumped into a man after getting off of a city bus in Saint Paul, Minnesota in Rice Park…and after hearing his friends laugh at her she said, “Excuse me!” and then lifted her head, and he turned to bronze. A statue. Frozen. Lifeless. …But he’d been alive and she’d felt he was annoyed a second or two before then. Searching for a logic to it all she looked around her and saw no man who’d account for it… He was right in front of her and then he was a statue…

Loneliness. In 2008 she saw weddings…and the oil was sucked up from the ground. And by 2009 she heard a spiritual voice ask her if she wanted to die. Lacey was suicidal… “Do you want to die? I can kill you now or you’ll have to live out the rest of your life.” Lacey was scared and shocked…but she assumed she was talking to God and of course she politely declined. …The voice seemed worried by Lacey’s choice.

…

The next day or so Lacey was almost hit by a car at a busy stoplight near a major highway…and a huge cathedral. …It slammed on its brakes as it turned a corner, stopping inches from hitting her. Fumes rising from the tires.

Who was it offering to kill Lacey before she… “got too old” and realized as an art historian in her far too silent, albeit posh, Art Deco condominium nearby…that she’d actually die alone…after all? How did that voice know Lacey was doomed to a miserable spinsterhood despite her charms? …It’s fascinating. Non?

But Lacey lived. Married. Very unhappily. And now she has children. Children she lives to be a good mother to. …Does that make you want to suck their blood and kill them out of spite? Psychopathy? She hopes not… But if it does…possibly you should pray to Jesus Christ to die in your sleep before you try it?

…

Why did Joe love Pat Wilson?

Because she was…nothing like Michael Rockefeller. Absolutely nothing at all. And…Lem would have liked her house. He would have liked her house and the way the muddy air filled your lungs…like a reminder of mortality in a world ruled by God. The God of the Bible who utterly ruins…evil. Retroactively.

…

Could Pat Wilson dance? Yes. Well? No, of course not. Not really…

Why did Joe love Pat Wilson?

Because she was cold. And windswept. And violent. And demanding. And love…

Love? Love?! Yes. In her experienced, once titled…lovelorn…chilly eyes…were hurricanes of gruesome passion.

Titled? Why bother with that description? …Because that’s who Pat Wilson was to her friends. They saw her through the lens of the old British Aristocracy. A people who were no more or a people who brutally lived on…and still do…but not like in her childhood. The Downtown Abbey of actual reality. …Her calculating, shrewd, but seemingly whimsical mind…put him into a trance. A trance? Well…maybe it wasn’t actual witchcraft…but it wasn’t entirely innocent either…and certainly she controlled him. And he was at turns occasionally lost in her hands even as he told himself that he didn’t really love her.

Controlled him like a weak, dim, pedophile priest or pastor? Like a fluffhead user? Like a silly man with a mind he’d rather hang? …No. *I shake my head no*

She controlled him with mystery. It seems…

…

And so to this day…there’s chaos…and far too much mystery for those Joe Jr. can’t let go of. As Pat Wilson holds his hands spinning away, arms outstretched, Lacey is pushed and pulled against her will… Because Pat’s dead. Because Joe’s dead and he won’t let go yet even though he died way back in 1944 and Lacey is only 38… …Because Lacey is laying on a velvet sofa wondering if it’s Hell to talk to ghosts. …Should they appear and turn into statues in parks to give her Heavenly grace?

“How do you love someone you once loved?” Joe Jr. asks.

“It’s easier than you think.” says Lacey cheerfully. With God’s mercy and Christ’s redemption of course.

“I messed-up.” says Lem.

And Lacey asks God to go sit with Michael…pondering “Tiny Vessels” by Death Cab For Cutie until they can be without contortions…or until Lem decides he’s done pondering madness. Until Michael finds someone better?

“What if you’re all there is?” asks Michael of Lacey.

“Only if.” she responds. “Only if.”

And so they lay back in their spirits and stare up at the towering trees limbs. “The world is better for such life.” Michael says, sadly quoting C.S. Lewis.