St. Cecilia and the Sparkly Girl

St. Cecelia, Patroness of Music

As you all know I have a lovely friend named Harry. He is my best friend and was the first person in my life to give me the gift of words. He also gave me the gift of music. He is a man but I tell you he has the gentlest heart and a song lyric can bring a tear to his eye and a catch in his voice. I love that about him.

He was the one that told me to send my entry I’ve Become the Lionhearted Girl to Florence + the Machine’s peeps. Little did he and I realize, they were having a contest, so of course I entered it. The winner is to be selected in the middle of September (now!!!!!).

I emailed him last week, freaking out because I hadn’t heard any word from them yet. He set my mind at ease and told me to hang in and wait. To know that the winner had not been selected yet and they were probably trying to select the proper limousine to bring me the news of my win. I tell you the man always know how to make me laugh and not take things too seriously. He told me to just relax. For some reason when Harry tells me that, he calms me. Not many men have that effect on me.

When I arrived at work the next day, I found this wonderful story in my email inbox. Like I’ve said before, Harry can always set my mind at ease. I love him and I love his words. He told me I could share his story. It is below. Please check it out. I know you’ll like it. I sure did.

St. Cecilia and the Sparkly Girl

St. Cecilia knew of your eventual success as a blogger.  She told Emperor Marcus Aurelius of a majestic goddess of blogs, Renee of Michigan.  She said your words would be read by people the world over. At that time, the preferred method of quickly spreading knowledge was to send a runner with a message, as far as he could run, until he died.  The Emperor thought, that’s not scalable.  How will Renee of Michigan’s words reach so many people?  The runners we’d need to send to their deaths just to distribute these writings will deplete the population quickly.  So the Emperor declared her insane for babbling about blogs, whatever they were, and calling for the mass deaths of these marathon runners, so he had her beheaded.

After she was canonized, St. Cecilia felt this burning desire to tell the world of this eventual woman of worldy words.  So she spent a millennium preparing for the perfect time to unveil her prophecy. After toiling for over 1000 years in a desperate attempt to do you justice, she knew it was time.   In 1310, there was a Maori tribesman from what is now New Zealand. Bone Bekke was visited in a dream by St. Cecilia. She foretold of your impending arrival to the tribesman in great detail. In the dream, she used scrolls to explain your writings traveling the ether and reaching the four corners of the world.  She created vivid imagery, invoking a color palette never before or since equaled in it’s vibrancy, in an effort to evoke to powerful emotions yet to be exposed to civilization.  And she sang him songs she composed herself to make the world aware of the day when your blog would be.  

Being an artist, she was a little flighty, and hadn’t considered that an isolated Maori tribesman in the Southern Hemisphere wouldn’t understand Latin. She was to be greatly disappointed to learn that he had no idea what she told him.  All he got from the saint was some yellow haired woman with a mouth to match the size of her boobs visited him in a dream, and she was coming.  He thought to himself, she’s not the only one!  Whoa, baby!  I’ll never be able to look at a grass skirt in the same way again!  So St. Cecilia said screw it, I’ll just work on inspiring musicians to write songs.  Hopefully that’ll eventually lead to Renee of Michigan to discover blogging.  She decided giving presentations wasn’t one of her strengths anyway, and wondered what she had been thinking.  Luckily though, St. Cecilia, patroness of musicians, was successful, and Renee of Michigan found blogging, and the world found a new voice.  🙂

The Suicide of Snow White

I found out she hung herself from the wooden beam in her kitchen. Her neighbors saw her swinging back and forth through the window. When I heard the news I was devastated. I became a 14 year old girl again and she was 16. It was like I had  just talked to her at the locker we shared. And then she was dead. I cried for my friend. For the life that she couldn’t handle anymore. For her children and her estranged extended family. I wept, like I had seen her just the day before, at her house. I wept for the days that we sneaked smokes on her roof outside her bedroom window. The sips of booze we took. The weed we smoked. The boys we chased. The laughter. And for the fight we had.

For most of my Freshman year we shared a locker, friends, and secrets. She was fun and beautiful. With ebony hair. I swear the birds sang as she walked by. The boy’s tongues wagged too. She took me, this young, scared woman under her wing. I was a baby, and she was a goddess. I wanted so badly to be like her. She seemed so strong. I was a doormat; a follower. Little did I know she was fragile, like meringue. The peaks seem so sturdy but dissolve instantly when placed on your tongue.

She and I had a falling out and the friendship fell by the way. I lost my standing with the “IN” crowd. She tried to sabotage me with my stoner crowd. It’s what we girls did back in the day. We lived in a small town, and we we’re very competitive with one another. I don’t even remember what the fight was about. After high school, she went her way and I went mine. She was my neighbor, so I would get updates from her parents about her. She went into the Army. She married, had children, and moved out West. I graduated high school. Married a good man, had children, worked my way up from receptionist to office manager. I had my issues but for the most part life was pretty kick ass.

20 years later she and I re-connected on Facebook. We private messaged each other regularly. We shared our stories and forgave each other for the past. She asked me not to tell her family she was on FB. I agreed to keep her secrets again. After all we had a history, and I still loved her. Cared for her. She was still an ebony haired beauty. Still fragile. She was a meth addict. Estranged from her family and her children. Eventually she lost her job because of her addiction. She gave in to depression and addiction. Found no way out but to hang herself, from a rafter in her kitchen. I miss her. That ebony haired beauty.