The Awareness

Melody Champney — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:32:00 GMT

It wasn’t until my mother slipped and fell for the first time that I realized how fragile she was becoming. And it occurred to me at that moment that I may in some distant future become the parent to my parent.

She came to visit this last time and brought along a beautiful cream and taupe suit that she inadvertently left in my closet when she departed for home. I glanced at it tonight and thought about how beautiful she looked when she wore it to my sister’s wedding. It was good enough to make a statement about her space in this life. It was classy enough to make a powerful and individual statement.

For a moment I thought about what exactly would be the last thing that she would wear. Then it hit me that I may be involved in selecting her last fashion statement. I may have to go through her closet one day and lovingly select the last suit that she would ever wear.

Living in Florida among so many of those spirits who are gradually letting go of their hold on this world – well – it creates a special appreciation for life at any stage. That heightened perception actually thickens each day, so that each moment is closer to lead crystal clear.

This is the beauty of living here, so close to Heaven’s Door. Some of the radiant awareness actually slips out to the rest of us, standing here just outside, and purpose-fully in line.

The Awakening

Melody Champney — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 22:41:00 GMT

"We're here."

These words still echo softly in my mind when I drive down Wilkinson Road late at night, in the spring, when the sultry air is still thick with the perfume of some exotic species of vine or bush or tree. We used to arrive late at night, during Spring Break, after driving sometimes twenty four hours from Washington, D.C. to my aunt's house at Beneva and Wilkinson.

At that time there were hundreds of orange trees in commercial groves, from Cattlemen Road almost to Beneva. I would inhale their perfume in response to my mother's soft words, awakening me and my brothers, in the back seat of the car, still hypnotized by the long drive south. We would emerge from our exhaustion to the excitement of seeing our relatives, of experiencing Paradise in the midst of winter, of being someplace indescribably beautiful and exotic -- and warm.

When I was growing up (and my mother's sister, and her husband, and my six cousins lived here), at the intersection of Beneva and Wilkinson the roads were only two lanes each. The atmosphere much more simple by comparison than it is today. One half mile south, at the point where Beneva met Proctor (currently a place where twelve lanes of traffic negotiate their intercourse on a moment by moment basis), the roads were at one point only "shell pad". If you haven't lived on the Gulf Coast, you may not be familiar with that term.

Shell Pad is a road bed or driveway surface made of perfectly formed miniature sea shells. There are few places in the U.S. where people have delivered in dump trucks those tiny treasures that most children seek during their most revered vacation.

Sarasota is one of them.

The Sarasota High

The Awareness

The Awakening