Opening the Knight Sky

Opening the Knight Sky

Part I


It all began when I was a little girl somewhere around the age of 3. My Mom and Dad had divorced and I was sent to live with my Dad and new step Mom. The first evening I recalled being so sad that when my Grandparents came to visit and to be there to check on me and my older Brother, I had already escaped into my room and pretended to be asleep rather than share my grief with them.

Everyone played the game and told me how much I was loved and how everything was going to be just fine. Well, soon after they had left and everyone settled in I tip toed out the door and headed home to be where I felt I would truly be just fine, my Mom's.

The only memory I have of that distant walk was crossing into a playground and heading towards the merry go round.

It took me only a few minutes to arrive knocking on the screen door of my mom's house. She was shocked and yet happy to see me and looked outside for the rest of my Dads family, and when she discovered I was alone became angry and perplexed to say the least, how could this have happened? How long could a little 3 year old girl be gone before someone noticed?

Making a phone call she discovered that it was even more curious as I had barely had time to make the drive let alone walk alone without knowledge of directions...

Like a cat who once satisfied of attention, I jumped down off her loving lap to begin playing with some empty boxes Mom had out for packing.

Soon my Dad arrived and they took me home and this time put me to bed for the rest of the night. I had agreed to remain at my Dads and not to go back to my Moms as she was leaving for a short time and was moving out of the old house anyway.

I suppose this is where it all began, the alien friends who would come to play each night as I slept. For many children at that age, going to bed was a chore and something which brought fears of the dark or an unwanted separation from the light of day.

Not so for me, I was always first to hurry into slumber as it was the time to meet on the playground and visit with my friends. They were like me and I them, we were different to look at but connected at the very heart of a child's imagination and innocence.

Our favorite ride at the park was the merry go round, we would all sit and be spun around by an invisible but gentle hand which always knew just the right speed to get us laughing in unison but not so fast that we would be dizzy.

It was always a huge let down for all of us when the time came to awaken and go our separate ways.

It was at this point I would find myself sitting in the window seat of my little room staring out into the afternoon twilight and breathing in the fresh clean sea air which always seemed to blow gently through the curtains and tickle my bare arms and dream of going home.

There was no doubt that I would eventually go home.

On several occasions I would see in the distance a single point of light, like a bright shining star twinkling just for me, and giggle to myself as the light would dance and sway as if attempting to help me relax and feel good about life.

Sometimes the rainbow colored lights would swoop down and rise back up above the tree lines and I would move to another part of the window to catch it in our game of hide and seek.

Once in a while the light would turn a bright golden color and dash rapidly like a ball of energy zipping it's way closer and swish past the window sill so close I could reach out and touch it if it were not so fast. It would dart back again into the distance from where it had originally come from and I would see the brilliant colors change from multi to red and then it would simply disappear.

From that time forward I would regal my family with stories of past lives, things that they would invite friends together to question me about, their favorite were my memories of having been a college professor.

For me it was natural and part of living in the dream world which spoke to me from other lives in eternity. It was all there in one place, the pinpoint called now.

Moving forward to around 5 years old, I was in school and yet each morning I somehow managed to miss the bus. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how insistent my determination, regardless of the threats from my parents, it was simply impossible to make it the 100 feet to the bus stop without becoming completely mesmerized by nature and this beautiful planet.

Rocks, birds, tree's swaying just so in the breeze would lead me into another dimension, one filled with marvel at the simple yet amazing world in which most take for granted. For me it was a cornucopia of sights and sounds, of collectibles in the form of small pebbles, shells and twigs.

One day while walking along the street with my older brother after a hard rain, delighting in the water's course as it flowed down the street as high as my knees, I fell into a manhole which had been swept open by the rushing rains.

Like a diver feet first I plunged into the sewer and as I did my arms naturally went up above my head, thinking for an instant that this was fun, and before I could begin to miss my first breath, I felt a strong hand reach down and clasp my hand firmly and pull me up back onto the street.

I at this point was spitting out the terrible taste that was in my mouth, something like hairspray and watching as my brother was pushing against the flow to help as he later said he turned around and I was gone. He instinctively knew just exactly where to reach down at the precise moment of my bobbing to grab my hand.

Impossible that I was not instantly swept away and sent through underwater tunnels and pushed into the sea a mile away.

Around that same time frame, my brother and I went to stay for a summer in Las Vegas with our Mom who then worked at the Sands Hotel as a masseuse. There was a large swimming pool with an outside bar which all the big names at the time would hang out at daily. They were our babysitters. The Ratpack.

One guy I enjoyed swimming on his back would give me a Shirley Temple each day and by the end of summer even attempted to talk my Mom into allowing he and his wife to adopt me. One young snobbish aspiring actress interjected at one point in the discussions and said "what's so special about her? I mean she's not even all that pretty?" Well, Rod Serling turned to her and shouted "You! with your 10 pounds of black eye liner, fake lashes and hair are going to tell "Me" what's beautiful?" "This little angel (what he called me) is beauty, naturally."