It’s 1987. I’ve been dating Gaunt Murdock for about 3 years now. We’ve lived together for awhile and we’re in a comfortable loving place with each other. I’m 34, he’s 24 and my son Julien is 7.
We’re relaxing in each other’s arms and I hear a child’s voice say “This isn’t my real father. You have to go find my real father.” Whoa! Too surprising, yet in my heart I know it’s absolutely true. I’ve been longing for another child and Gaunt isn’t ready for that. And he might not be until I’m too old to be pregnant again.
The reality of our age difference becomes painful. “Love is not enough” becomes theme for writing in my journal. We’re just out of phase in our life paths. So after contemplating that voice for awhile I know I have to follow it, for my sake, that child’s sake, and even for Gaunt’s sake. In this way he too would be able to find a partner who was in phase with his younger life. So I begin the gentle, slow pulling away process. I move into my own apartment so I have the space to explore other relationships. I suggest we start dating other people. And I begin, looking for the “real father” of my next child.
There are definite side tracks now and then. One gentle and thoughtful man had already had a vasectomy – so we are out of phase. Though I knew I could love him I broke it off to continue my quest for the “real father.” I told my spirit child, “You’d better help arrange this from your side too.”
Halloween night, when the veil is thin between the spirit and mortal worlds, the moon is full. The original plan was that Gaunt, Julien and I would go to a potluck and party at a friend’s house. But Julien begs to go trick or treating and then stay overnight at his buddy Anson’s house. Then Gaunt calls to say he has the flu so needs to stay home but that he’s heard there’s a fun dance at Naropa. He encourages me to go to, knowing how much I love to dance.
Suddenly I feel like someone in West Side Story—singing out loud as I dress--
"It’s only just out of reach, Down the block, on a beach, Under a tree. I got a feelin’ there’s a miracle due, Gonna come true, Comin’ to me! Could it be? Yes, it could. Something’s coming, something’ good, If I can wait! Something’s comin’, I don’t know what it is But it is Gonna be great! With a click, with a shock, Phone’ll jingle, door’ll knock Open the latch! Something’s comin’, don’t know when, But it’s soon-- Catch the moon, One-handed catch! Around the corner, Or whistling’ down the river, Come on -- deliver To me! Will it be? Yes, it will. Maybe just by holdin’ still It’ll be there! Come on, something’, come on in, Don’t be shy, Meet a guy, Pull up a chair! The air is hummin’, And something’ great is comin’!" Who knows? It’s only just out of reach, Down the block, on a beach. Maybe tonight.
I put on my traditional Halloween costume as a gypsy. Excitement fills me—is it just the full moon, the chance to dance, or someone I am about to meet?
I live downtown so I walk in the clear, warm night to the Boulder Mall. There were some groups and individuals wandering around the Mall. Their strange and exotic costumes further build the sense of going into a new reality. I sashay my gypsy way up and down the Mall and then head to Naropa. I’m the first one to arrive at the dance and when I enter the empty gym I wonder a bit if I am dreaming. This evening is surreal.
People begin arriving, the music starts and I dance around the floor. I’m checking out everyone, to see where the “real father “ pull might be. I whisper to my soul baby, “Show me, so I know for sure.”
Then I see a group dancing together, a couple of women with three guys. The most assertive of the group is attractive to me immediately. But my heart warns me that with him it would be short lived and unfruitful. Then I see Charlie, dancing in the shadow of Mr. Personality. He’s tall and slender, with a T-shirt and mask decorated with stars and a moon. I begin flirting with him from afar. I vow to myself that he must come to me, making the first move. That would be the sign.
All too soon I hear one of his friends say that they’re leaving to go to the L. A. Diner. The man dressed in the night sky seems torn, and starts to leave with them. At this I go lean against the wall, a bit discouraged. But he quickly returns and comes directly over to me.
“Hi, I’m Charlie. Would you like to dance with me?”
I smiled. “Sure. My name’s Terra.”
“Oh and can you give me a ride later. My friends left me here so I could dance some more.”
“Yeah, of course.”
We dance for about half an hour and then leave to get my car and meet his friends at the Diner. He laughs as I start my rusty, orange Toyota by vigorously pumping and pumping the gas petal. I joke, “My car, Joe, always makes me jerk him off before he’ll take me where I want to go.”
At the Diner we run into his friends just before they leave. They invite me to dinner at their house tomorrow night. Charlie and I hang out longer, talking and talking. We’re surrounded by clowns, axe murderers, fairies, nuns, and uncountable other strange beings. The waiters and waitresses roll by on their roller skates, trays precariously balancing.
When I drive Charlie home and drop him off, he gives me a sweet friendly kiss and makes sure that I’m planning to come to the dinner party the next evening.
Charlie hadn’t mentioned that he already had another date for the party. It’s a bit awkward when she & I realized that we are both supposed to be his date. When I take him aside, he confesses that she’d been a blind date set up long before but he really wants to be with me.
That was the beginning of my relationship with Alana’s real father.
A week later we dance together after an intimate day of hiking and talking. We both want a child and soon. We dance to Tina Turner. I have a very transcendent feeling of oneness with Charlie and experience the spiritual conception of our daughter.
We are engaged that Christmas. Ever practical, Charlie gives me a car instead of an engagement ring. We celebrate our marriage April 20- Beltane, another pagan holy day. At our rustic wedding outside in a field, surrounded by flowers and friends, we have an ostrich egg on our altar to symbolize our child to come.
We immediately give up using birth control. Each month feels like I’m pregnant, and each month my period comes and it’s like having a miscarriage. Each birth I attend as a midwife I half-jokingly ask, “ Are you sure you want this baby – and if not, could I have it?
One fall night after teaching my midwifery class I feel exhausted. Yet this is that time of the month to try again. I am fertile. When we make love that night, something is different. I have a vision—first I see fireworks, then two dolphins, leaping out of the water together. Then I see a child’s face- morphing back and forth between a girl and boy.
I keep this in my heart—it was too unusual, too private. I feel pregnant again—yet the pain of past times makes me too anxious to look at the little pregnancy test stick to see what it says. I make Charlie look. It’s Positive! Our dream is coming true!
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