Back To School

One of my closest friends asked me a question here lately about visions that he had been having. Some of the pictures confused me a might, so I asked for another family members opinion on them. What came out of it was a lesson. A beautiful one at that. I learn best by two methods. One being LIVING through something, and the other being hands on.

I am going to explain it exactly as it happened, even the conversation is what occurred.

My son told Frank, (It is ok, he granted us permission to tell share this lesson) "You are growing. These are growing pains that you are seeing. Some of the pictures that you can see are pictures of where you once were. You do not remember them because you are old. When you were young all this was in your life. All those people. All those places. All those feelings were yours. Now you have to group them. You have to find out where the people fit into the places. All of them you were with sometime, you just have to fold the pages."

I asked him what "fold the pages" means, and he said something to the effect of: get a piece of paper and draw a picture, when you get all done, wrinkle it, bend it, fold it to make a DIFFERENT picture OUT of that same picture. The FOLDS are our lives. There MAY be hundreds of folds in our pictures, but it ALWAYS looks like a picture. No matter HOW small. JUST as in life. They may be small, but they are still... Life.

So I took out a piece of paper and drew the front of our house. Not that it was a great picture, but you could tell it was supposed to be my house. It was sketchy, at best, but I was trying to get a feel as to what he was saying so...

What the hey, we will give it a try. I folded the picture in half and looked at my son. "Yep, that's it, 'cept you need to add more folds. This is not your first life." I just stared at him as he calmly looked into my eyes. NO thought process. Just staring at him. "Go on." OH. OK. So I folded it again and glanced in his direction. He just shook his head slowly. I folded again, glanced at him. Folded again...

When I was done folding what I could, I held in my hand a ribbon of paper 8 inches long. All that was discernible was the corner of the roof, a smidgen of a bush, and a sliver of a window. (Oh, by the way, the folds do not have to be in half, then half of that half and half of that half. Fold the paper ANY way you WANT to fold it. George explains why in a little bit)

As I sat staring at it, I must have frowned or shown SOME sign of "What the...?" "Uh, Huh, 'cept not ALL lives run on the same line. Sometimes they go 'crost and hide other lines." AH. No. Wait. WHAT?

Just then Daddy walks in. We were so wrapped up in "school" that we did not even notice him standing behind us for a moment until my son says "why don't you ask Daddy?" And looked over his shoulder. I have ALWAYS been told that I have expressive eyes. It IS a curse, because in THAT people can see if my smile is genuine, if I TRULY understand what they are saying, or if a big ol' question mark should be painted there in John Deere Green.

All I did was look at my husband. He saw the picture, listened to my son, asked our daughter her opinion and stated: "The closest distance between two landmarks is a straight line. The closest distance between two LIVES is a direct connection."

WHAT THE...? LET THE FIVE YEAR OLD TEACH ME! I understood HIM.

He picks up a BLANK piece of paper (with me chiding him, "What? You do not want us to see a beautiful drawing?") and performs origami.

WHAT THE?! He takes his index finger and thumb and picks up the... Uh... The... THING at the central fold and says "This is the point of creation. All the other 'folds' are the point of existence. The parts that MATTER are the flat pieces on the paper. ALL of them. Open up the paper."

I struggled to do so. There were a LOT of folds in it, and I was trying not to tear the paper. That was in symbolism of his LIVES! I did not want to "cut one short". I smoothed it out on the desk and looked... AT MY SON. Hee-Hee. Bet THAT made Daddy feel REAL good.

"Count them, Mama. THAT is how our lives are. See that little star?" Putting his chubby little finger on the spot that the central fold once was "THAT is where Daddy BEGAN. See all the different lines going out? THAT is all of Daddy's lives. See the flat parts? Those HOLD what Daddy DID in his lives."

AAAHHHHH! NOW I got it! Yeah. Except, no I do not.

So Daddy drew a racing picture and performed another origami thingie. At the end, you COULD see some of the lines that he had drawn. He handed the thingie to our son. "See those parts of the picture? Use your MEMORY and tell me what they are." I did. That's the bumper, that is the tree behind the car, that is the hood, that is the driver and so forth." What is a car, Mama?" "A mode of transportation, and escape from the real world for your Daddy"- Threw a BIG smile in Daddy's direction. I will not tell you the look I got in return. Bet you could GUESS that one."How do you know?" "Uh. Because that is your Daddy's hobby, and I have learned from him." "No. How do you know what a car is?" "OH! 'Cause when I was little I was told, I guess." And I shrugged. "xactly. You were told. Now IMAGINE that you just KNEW. You wake up one morning and you KNOW things that people don't. You KNOW people that you shouldn't. You can DO stuffs that you couldn't 'afore bed."

Patiently, and peacefully he stared at me. I KNOW I gave him a look like "What the heck does THAT have to do with Daddy's pterodactyl that he just folded out of paper?"

"In Uncle Franks sight" (WAIT a minute! We were talking about ME, NOT Uncle Frank!) when he sleeps, he is traveling on the folds. He stops to visit other 'flat spots'. He needs to see where the people and places fit in the flat spots. He GOES there, he just needs to REMEMBER."

Palm slap to the forehead. NOW I REALLY GOT IT. I hugged my son and told him thanks for Frank AND for me.

LONG way for me to explain this all out, but my son is convinced that we needed to map it out for his Uncle so that he knew exactly what the folds and such LOOKED like on the paper. My husband agreed, saying that the Old Ones use a STRING to help in the visualization process. Because of the lax, free moving properties of string when you "pinch" it off, BOTH my son and husband agreed that it would be easier understood by physically HOLDING the paper.

With a map drawn like that, how could I miss the point?