Part I

(This crazy Log first began to unfold beginning Mar 2001, when I felt prompted to proceed jotting down pieces of information here and there. When I began to see a pattern of events emerging, I decided to marry these up appropriately and commence thereafter maintaining a regular continuity log to see how the picture would turn out. It was finished (or so I thought) in Oct 2001. These are actual daily occurrences I experienced within the indicated time references, and my resulting/occurring thoughts centered within those illustrated events. Now I can say, "I wrote the book" on something!)

FORWARD:
I am able to stand on solid ground in support of what I publish here. The reasons why are as follows:

There is enough trickery in the world, due to the very nature of its capacity to be thwarted, compromised and maligned.

Hocus Pocus operates only through the capability of any one mortal man's use of verbiage to sway the convictions of his fellow mortals. Hocus Focus works by the same principle.

Intent becomes the most important thing, then, behind any one individual's efforts.

No claims, assertions or suggestions advising readers to draw their own conclusions or think comparatively in regards to any one similar or separate account of a different named subject that would eventually prompt them to incite a challenge to this writer on "trial by jury of interested, doubtful or plain old curious onlookers" is offered in this effort.

Herein is authentic accounting of a progression of incidences I consider all related that affords myself revelations of realizations: a direct result of having had the described experiences which I am willing to share.

I leave it open to the readers to believe or doubt, or question, if they so choose. The decision made will be no doubt based on similiar feeling situational scenarios of their own they might relate to or they will doubt due to a lack of one or more instances of familiarity, or simply because there is no presentable, "hard evidence supporting documentation". The selection of the choice here is a sole prerogative of each person.

While I cannot prove what I have to say, it is equally true that no one can disprove what I present for consumption: wholly unlike biograpers with their products resulting from facts based on theories and "evidence".

Therein is the difference between a first hand account and a second (third, etc) account.


I voluntarily self-certify then, that it is incumbent on me as a writer presenting information for public divulging, to take the high road and make the effort towards honesty, inasmuch as I realize my capability of doing so. Why? Because Truth has a really interesting long historical track record of making itself known, despite the efforts of many to obscure, conceal or contort it to the end of personal gain.

I have no end goals for personal gain out of telling a truth that I know, other than that as Einstein quipped: if you have knowledge of something, or you discover knowledge of something, then share it.

I believe that is a great idea, so long as long as doing so does not impede the evolution of others, nor brings personal harm down on one's fellow being or oneself.

It has been said, "Have an open mind, but do not let your mind be so open that your brain falls out." I have strived to maintain that attitude, myself, while going through these experiences, so I would naturally implore anyone else to do so likewise.

So, enjoy the consumption of this documentation. Or not. I leave it up to you.


Sometime around Mid-November 2000….

Maxwell AFB, AL. I was on active duty, while still enlisted in the Air National Guard, and working at the Air Force Historical Research Agency. My then current tasking was a project called, "File Reading". This was for the purpose of ensuring that WWII documents had been replaced in their respective containers after use. Prior to that, I had held a temporary civilian position as a security assistant to the Gulf War Declassification Team Project. Now, once more, I was back in uniform and on the job.

One morning during that time, while taking a 10 minute break at my desk, slurping on coffee, I was going through some of my old files that I had saved on a 3.5 disc. I discovered a piece of an article that I had written a year or so earlier. Why I kept it I never really considered even then. I had simply typed it out one day when it crossed my mind for the umpteenth time, because, I noticed, that for some reason, it had this habit of bubbling up out of my unconscious in a way so as to interrupt my thoughts at when I didn’t need for it to, on quite a few occasions.

Since then, I had often thought, “Well, maybe one day I should begin a diary”. I never have, so this is my first attempt at “journaling”. But, as I read the blurb of information, I closed my eyes. Once more, as many times before, my mind effortlessly drifted back to a scene wherein a feeling held me in complete captivity only for a fleeting moment a moment so filled up with something I still could not quite understand why. I thought, "How long is a moment within the eternal if it can be felt time and time again?" It proved still to be one of the rarest crystal-clear moments in my memory. A noise nearby brought me back to my desk.

"Put this away now and forget it! It's a dead issue, and history to you. Pay attention to what you're supposed to be doing," I firmly instructed myself, before anyone else had the need to tell me. I took the disk out of the computer. Tucking it away in my top center desk drawer, I turned my attention back to more pressing “present day” matters.

It was around this time that my sister-in-law had emailed me about a "candle-light party". For whatever reason possessed her, she had simultaneously emailed Paul. My first impression was that she had tried to sneak this on me, since I knew that she liked Paul, but knew that I didn't. I phoned her immediately. "Hey! What is UP with you emailing Paul on the email you sent me?"

"What do you mean?" She asked, confused.

"You emailed me, but you included Paul too. Why? You know that I cut that umbilical cord on purpose, remember?" Long pause. Then, in an almost embarrassed voice she said, "Oh, I'm sorry Lisa, I wasn't thinking. It was an accident". "Nope, no accident", I thought. I'd learned much earlier to embrace the notion "There are no accidents in a universe of Law and Order". Rather than try to explain and succeed in furthering her confusion, I said, "Well, okay, just don't worry about it." I didn't say, "No harm done."

I quickly switched over to her other subject matter, as I'd turned over a clean page after he left in '97. I knew from experience that we didn't exactly bring out the best in each other, so I figured it would be easier on both our nervous systems if I simply cut the communication cord as soon as I could. I had not regretted so doing.

But, on that particular day, I could sense "something in the air” which I worried might preclude anything that I didn't want, or need.

Next morning. Exactly as anticipated, upon reporting to duty next morning, as I switched on my computer and checking the accuracy of my suspicions (as I knew how Paul was), I opened his email to me.

"Well! How are YOU doing, my dear Lisa??" His salutation was almost embarrassing to me, because it was so not like him to greet me like that in the five years I'd known him. As I read his mail, he explained how things had been with him: how ‘dull’ life was at his home in West Virginia, "because I don't have anyone to reminisce about Arizona with". He had asked in the message for my work phone number. He told me that he had tried to call me at the house in Wetumpka, Alabama after he'd left out, but couldn't get a response.

As his moving trailer was pulling out with his parents’ vehicle, his parting words were, “I’ll keep in touch.” But I had promised myself earlier on that that if he ever did leave, I'd reduce that bridge to ashes. I’d about decided after all had been said and done that I’d gotten more than I bargained for, and too long enough, to boot. It was “break free” time for me.

Mid-morning break, same day. I rode down the elevator out of the "vault" I worked in, to go outside, since there were no windows on the floor that I worked on. I was trying to justify to myself all my reasons that I had to guard myself from becoming tangled up with him again. However, I considered, since this weird twist of fate was already in force, for which there could be a good reason for it, I reasoned sometimes in order to effectively investigate something from as many angles as it possessed in to know "why the what", it might be fruitful to allow myself to become immersed in the process to a degree. Just go with it and see what happens. I could turn it off if I needed to: I had the power to do that.

When I came back from my morning break, after thinking about what I should do, I emailed him back; but hesitatingly so. I felt compelled to give him my work number against my own self, but I made no mention of Arizona at that time.

For me, there was enough discomfort surrounding many memories I had of it with him to want to relive-reliving with him was like reminiscing living with him as a roommate. I recognized that it was a special time for him in so many ways, but for me it was not so much. It’s not that we didn't also have enough fun times out there to be accounted for, but, for me, it was in my past; and as far as I was concerned, there it should stay. I was happy--or happier, should I say--where I was at time time-being.

Reminiscing on my own, about other things that interested me? Now that was a horse of a different tune....

Around the beginning of lunch hour, 1130ish, I got up from my desk because I needed to consult with a co-worker across the room about the current project we were working. When I had finished and walked back over to my workstation to check out for lunch, Cathy, a co-worker and fellow guardsman, had already intercepted a phone message from him to me. "He said he'd really like to talk to you. He sounds like a very nice person", she told me, smiling and offering me the note.

I thanked her, smiled and took the note, thinking to myself, "Yeah….sounds. You just have no idea, my dear lady”.
I did not return his call right then-I had not expected him to call so quickly. He must have been sitting right at his desk, watching and waiting! I had not had enough time to think things over yet, as I wasn't sure I was ready to bury the hatchet with him (in the right place, this time). He was persistent, and I was not one who liked to be pushed. So I decided that I would wait until I got back from lunch. By the time that I did, I figured that I would call him on my terms when I got good and ready. So I sat down with intention of resuming my duties.

The phone rang. I let it continue, as my gut signaled it could be him. We didn't have caller ID at the time. I turned around to see that Cathy , whom I hoped would pick up the phone instead, was not at her desk. So I had to answer it. After all, it could be the base commander calling, for all I really knew.

At first I was uncomfortable speaking with Paul. The conversation seemed like an ice-breaker effort. I had not had contact with him in three years. But, after a few minutes, my powerful stubborn grudge began to melt and I relaxed a bit. I will admit that he did have the ability to do that to people: get them to relax and talk, since he was well trained in salesmanship tactics along with a minor college degree in psychology.

We spoke fifteen or so minutes on re-introductory terms and getting current with other’s lives in genera terms, and ended the conversation on a friendly note. I found myself thinking, "Now that wasn't so bad, after all", then started feeling guilty for holding out as I had done intentionally. Suddenly a thought put me back in check: "Hey! What's going on with you? You never did anything wrong to him. All you did was run his ass off before you wound up killing him in self defense and in so doing you did HIM a huge favor!” Suddenly, I felt much better again and dropped my guilt tripping. The follow-on weekend, I spent down at my mom's house.

Saturday morning was clear, cool and q-u-i-e-t. I was awakened by mother at 0600 sharp. Rather early, I thought, for her to be up on a weekend. She opened my door and put her head around the side of it to tell me she was going shopping. "At 6 AM?" I wondered out loud to her. She laughed lightheartedly and winked at me. "Okay, mom", I reminded her, "Just remember that everyone else on the road is an idiot"; a well meant expression to remind one to please be extra vigilant.

Having the house to myself encouraged me to get up earlier than usual and prepare a fresh pot of coffee. I had never cared to have my initial first cup of brew for the day sitting across the table from anyone else or to engage them in any sort of conversation. That time was mine, time that I needed to compose the day and set the tone for the morning the way that I pleased to do so. Was I spoiled of my own accord? Perhaps, especially from having exercised the same ritual for a great length of time on my own-I’d grown accustomed to having it my way. Sure, now and then I could concede and deviate from that path, but it also depended on the mood I was already in.

Cup in hand, steam rising from the surface of the custom-prepared to taste liquid, I walked outside and sat down on the steps of her porch amongst her four legged family. I was/am a cat person, and I had this habit of making cats think that perhaps they are more than dumb animal and they would act like they were people when I was around; much to the disagreement to the rest of my own family members.

The kittens tumbled and pounced around me as if they were spring-loaded. I never could resist the charm of a kitten, until of course they began crawling up on me with their dainty little needle-like "claw paws" asking me to share my coffee. I graciously declined the offer and excused myself from their benevolent little presences to go back inside.

I began, out of habit, mindlessly snooping around her living area to see what was new for discovery. There was almost always something different, however significant or insignificant, to mom’s house, on each visit. Mom was a mystery always waiting to be discovered. I think she liked being that way to amuse herself, as well.

She had a cabinet of a growing collection of videos and music in the living room. I'd not been down for a while, so I looked to see what might be new or interesting to me. Nothing but "Step Mom," "Grumpier Old Men-Out to Sea", and an ominous sounding title that stirred my curiosity, "Immortal Beloved".

I curiously and slowly pulled it off the shelf, trying to visualize an aged Beethoven as even being in love with anyone at all. In fact, I'd always regarded him as a “grumpy old man”, himself. So my perception of him just didn't go with the title. I didn’t know anything else about him, I didn’t think. So what was to love about him?

I had no idea that I was about to step onto the path of discovering exactly that.

As I examined its cover and story overview, my mind flash backed to some offbeat weird regard that Paul had voiced about Beethoven during a hypnosis experiment I did with him: "He says he doesn't like synthesizers."

As back then, I once again thought how far removed is the man Beethoven in reference to something that he could never possibly have known about. I guess that is, “in part”, what has always partly held me in suspension about the whole thing. Just remembering that comment brought back to me the memory of a feeling that gave me a sharp "cold" feeling (not a "bad" feeling, just something I could not define) inside again that could still make me squirm for a reason I still could not understand why. That was “the other part”. That “other part” continues to mystify me, in that this was the most enigmatic moment of my life that I can still recall so clearly on an emotional/intellectual level. It happened about eight years ago, but I could still feel at that instant what I did within that "moment" back then.

“Why am I right in the middle of the moment all over again, just as clearly as I was then?” I wondered (again).

I wasn't 100 percent certain, that it was in fact, Beethoven as being the subject of interest in this picture, upon having written that little blurb I’d saved on the disc. It was my distinct impression however-but I know by experience that impressions could be a bit misleading, if one isn’t exactly sure of oneself. Too, eight years is a long time in trying to remember all the minute details that far back—interesting to note, was, however for me on reflection of it, is that 8 is the metaphysical symbol of Time, itself.

I knew that Mozart was Paul's favorite compose, one he referenced more often than any other musician, and I do remember that he poked a lot of fun at Bach's facial expressions more frequently than not. So I was at least pretty certain that the man had to be one these three: Mozart, Bach or Beethoven. Thinking that “Immortal Beloved” was bound to be more of the same of Amadeus, I stuffed it back into it’s placeholder.

I walked down the short steps to the den – the sunny side of the house - and settled on the sofa with my warm cup in front of the TV. The 2000 elections heated debates that the media was agitating the public over finally found a raw nerve after a few moments-since I too was steeped in politics at the time, so I went back to the video cabinet to choose something fit to watch.

"I've already seen Grumpy Old Men-Out To Sea is an extension of that fun stuff-later maybe. Step Mom – nope, I think that might be too much drama. Immortal Beloved. Hmm. I dunno. Well, if I don't like it, I can disengage it, too!"

I didn't think that I would sit through it, being a ‘period movie’; but it turned out pretty good after all, I found myself thinking. Afterward, the thought of Beethoven lingered and produced a "nagging" in my mind, something I didn’t expect or count on. But what, exactly, I didn't understand.

I would find my mind becoming seemingly gradually insanely possessed with thoughts of him from then on out. “Obsessed by a dead man”, I thought. Little did I know that I would begin to wonder just "how dead" he really was, and what death really meant, after all.

BACK IN TIME AGAIN:

June 1992 Chanute AFB, IL: This is where I met Paul D. Dixon, III. Paul and I both had been tasked as class leaders; my class sister class to his-that is more to the point as to how we met. I personally didn't want to be a class leader, I didn’t like telling others what to do, but being the ranking enlisted student, it was automatic appointment. I was doomed, I thought. It’s so much easier to get into trouble with the senior rankers when you have the scepter of responsibility over others. I didn’t have the energy, either, I thought. But I managed a day to day effort and got through it for a while.

I actually met Paul one afternoon early into the first week of the AGE (Aerospace Ground Equipment) Course of Instruction. There was a group of students from my class who agreed to meet with some buddies from his class one afternoon to help each other study for the first block test. We immediately became fast friends after that night’s introduction, and we hung out together, going everywhere, along with another buddy of his in his class who was from Jamaica, who was surnamed named Webster. We always referred to him as simply “Webster”. He was a cool guy…in more ways than one…an amicable disposition with his personality, but always wore his winter field jacket in the hotter months – he claimed he was always feeling cold. On occasion could we coax him to take it off. Or maybe the solar rays was what convinced him.

In July of that same year, I had to have foot surgery (a bunion-ectomy). I was in constant pain wearing my steel toed boots and because of this necessity, I was washed back a whole "block" from my class into one with an Egyptian Lieutenant – who looked really mature for his junior rank-he appeared almost 40ish. This put me back about a month’s time behind Paul’s and my class. The Egyptian Lieutenant I regarded somehow as the "high point" of the new class I was in.

One day after lunch, I came back to the hall where my class was waiting to go back in the room and found some of the members gathered around the Lieutenant in the hallway. To my amusement, he was reading palms: an officer and gentleman telling his classmates their fortunes! Ha! I couldn't resist it, and I asked him to read mine. He turned my hand over, explained the lines and so forth. My first palm reading experience: "Interesting!" I thanked him and started to turn around. He still had my hand in his, and looking at it in seeming deep thought, said slowly, "You will meet your true love soon."

I laughed - true love--for me? That was a new line of thought for me to engage, as I wasn't used to thinking like that of myself. In fact I wasn't even sure I knew what it meant, really, other than perhaps a loose "catch-phrase" slung around carefree style too often. "Sewww," I leaned towards him, giving him my best low voice southern-belle tease tone and deliberately sporting a silly grin, "Will he be tall and handsome too?" His onyx black eyes glittered at me as he laughed, "Probably not!"

Later in the week, I'd introduced my new comrade to Paul. On that Friday, the LT invited us both over to his quarters for a drink. We met his roommate: a short-stature man, same ethnic origins as he, who kept cutting his eyes over at me and smiling. Him doing so made me uncomfortable. "Okay," I thought. "No more palm readers!"

September 1992. Paul graduated, we attended. He journeyed back to Phoenix. Two weeks prior to my graduating in October, I learned that the unit I was in at Greeley, Colorado was “on the chopping list” for deactivation. I almost panicked. When Paul called me again that week, I told him about it. In that same conversation, he told me that he'd just learned something himself the same week that coincided with my bad news: that the unit he was in at Phoenix, AZ, the 107th ACS, had just lost a member to the Buckley ANG unit and so there was an open slot in the AGE shop where he was. He asked if I'd be interested in coming to Phoenix.

I had to reel back a moment at the question. I would never have thought of Phoenix before. But that night, before hanging up the conversation on the phone with him, after telling him I would give it a fair consideration, I thought about it and tried to see the positive side of things since the idea of going back to Alabama with no promise of a job just after cross training didn't appeal to me. Paul had stated he'd let his supervisor, the AGE Shop foreman, know about me. So I said, "Yes," without one considerable thought either way the probable consequences of my decision. It was both exciting and frightening at the same time.

I had already had an encounter with the shop foreman in my own unit back in my Alabama squadron, when I asked him about getting into the shop there, who declared emphatically to me that he didn't want any women in his shop. No if ands or buts about it. Jimmy was a good old feller, with a heart of gold otherwise, but his inability to open his mind to the idea of “a wench with a torque wrench” in his shop wasn’t going to win me over.

So, alas…I was going to Phoenix instead of back to Denver on a “no notice” drop of the hat. Lowry AFB, we learned afterward the Phoenix unit gaining me as a member, was also decommissioned. It was like bridges were burning and I didn’t realize it until I’d leaped off of them one by one. No turning back, now. I had no idea what was ahead of me. But I knew that what was behind me was already something I didn’t want or could not have anyway.

Paul called me back the next day and I spoke with the shop supervisor at Phoenix, and I was accepted immediately and gladly into the ranks. Paul also offered that he'd ask if I could stay with the family he resided with until I could find a place when I did get there.

He phoned me again later that same day, telling me that he had Ray R. the man of the house in which he stayed, on the line and he wanted to introduce us. Ray and I had a delightful conversation and I promised him when I got down to Mesa the first thing I was going to do was put a face to my voice and his.

So, after I graduated in October, I traveled by train back to Lowry AFB, Colorado, out-processed my Greeley unit, and boarded the bus for Arizona. Never in my thoughts, before hooking up with my friend from West “By God” Virginia, would I have ever dreamed or anticipated going there-but, I was on my way…

The very next morning, arriving by bus into Phoenix I was met by Paul and Ray's son, Chip. I was immediately informed that Ray had died unexpectedly the night before, as I was enroute. I thought at first that they were joking-they had to be! Because why were they here at the Bus Terminal instead of there? They assured me that it was so, and that sucked. I was tired, and needed some coffee along with some cheerful news. I had planned to meet and greet this gentleman, but it wasn't to be. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a real family crisis, and people I didn't even know. Ray had collapsed and had died in Paul’s arms, while they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive. That certainly had to be crushing, I imagined. According to Paul, he was very close to this "alternate father" figure" that he had found in the person that was Ray.

Several days after Ray’s funeral, when things had calmed down a bit, Paul and I were talking about the then current situation we both found ourselves in and how he himself wound up in the Phoenix unit with no anticipation of being there at all: a communication mix-up between Guard unit recruiters. He had intended to go to Colorado, himself. But, upon arriving to Phoenix, he decided he liked it, and that he would stay. Besides, he could attend Arizona State University to get his education in Music.

The member leaving the position open for me that went to the Buckley ANG unit, the one I left out of, I thought of how strange that was –things seemed to be shifting around for Paul and I to be in the Phoenix area-despite each of our original plans. We both thought that was comical and perplexing at the same time as to how all of that fell into place for the both of us.

Time rocked on. Eventually, all the while we were situated in Arizona, Paul and I had one hell of a time trying to convince others we were nothing else but just close friends-something we mutually insisted upon. But, we both found out something about people in general: that they just can't wrap their little pea brains around the idea that a man and woman can be good friends without being in each other's drawers (or anything else that belonged to the other person).

We were becoming very close, like a brother and sister kind of association, but at the same time we were doing so, it also felt and appeared to us that there existed an opposing force that wanted to interfere with our friendship-showing up mainly in the form of jealousy from those closely associated with us. We agreed that there was never a need for anyone to behave according to their thoughts of envy towards us. We figured it was a territorial thing with Phoenix area inhabitants. We could feel more and more the negative impact that it was exerting on our friendship. That was the price we had to pay.

The Summer of 1993 (June or July): Our Guard unit was tasked to go to Germany for our annual two week training. Oh Boy, Germany! I never dreamed I'd ever be going there either, hadn’t entertained the idea of such-heck I was a home girl to boot!

But, here I was, stacking and racking packing for this trip too! On the day we were to fly out of the 161st ANG (PHX ARPT), the whole unit was informed upon arrival at the ternimal that our flight would be delayed for an undetermined length of time that morning.

While sitting and awaiting further instructions, Paul told me about a dream he had the night before. He said that our unit was flying over the ocean and that he and I were sitting side by side. We were talking as usual and he turned to look out the small port window of the C-5 he was close to. He said it seemed to him the ocean was getting closer to the plane, but couldn't understand why. Then it dawned on him that the plane was going down into the ocean.

As the plane’s fuselage touched down on the water, the aircraft quickly started to flood. Paul got out quickly along with everyone else. He started looking around for me, and when he didn't see me, realized that I was still in the aircraft. He went back in, got me out, and that was when he said he woke up.

I said, "Boy that is some dream to hear about right before flying. I think you and I should cancel our trip." He leaned over and asked, "What's your plan, GI Josie?" In other words, forget it.
About three hours had passed when finally one of the flight crew came into the terminal and talked to our senior ranking officers. They in turn called the unit to attention and informed us we'd be boarding soon, explaining the reason for the delay: a hydraulic oil leak had been discovered during a pre-flight inspection. We had to wait until another aircraft would be available to us, and only when it arrived to the ARPT, they were able to let us know with certainty. Upon hearing this, Paul and I immediately turned to each other in stunned silence, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

The first weekend after arriving in Germany and working our 12 hour rotational shifts (Paul had wound up on nights with me on days), we were all granted a three day pass to tour the local area of Reinmein. Back during our Tech School days, he already had this annoying habit of lagging behind me and putting his foot between my ankles to try and trip me up. He did this, for what I don't really know: but obviously it amused him greatly. By this time, we were learning alot about each other, and some of our habits had already begun to play badly on each other's nervous system at times.

Usually I would regain my footing at the expense of my lower back, and I would do unpredictable things to him in return that equally annoyed him. But this time I didn't make it. I put my right hand out to protect myself from the sharp cobblestone path. The heel of my hand suffered a scrape as the thick gold ring I wore on my right hand cut into the quick of my ring finger.

I was in pain, humiliated, and what was worse: he was laughing. I got up and we were walking again, he had almost stopped laughing. All of a sudden, I was uncontrollably hurt and angry with him. "You God-damn prick!" I thought to myself with teeth clenched and hit him in the stomach out of pure frustration as hard as I could. I didn't know what else to do to make him understand that I didn't like what he did continuously and disregarding my feelings about it. His mood shifted just as quickly and returned the favor with increased force into mine, his facial expression very dark and angry.

After a brutal exchange of crosswords, I found myself going in an opposite direction on another pathway without him. I walked, crying, feeling numb, and with a very heavy heart at first, not knowing where I was. I just knew that I was walking in the complete opposite direction of him now. It wasn't long, however, that I began to regain some sense of self contentment and peacefulness, as I found myself pulled in by the Charles Dickens' summer scenery of another world.

I felt freed up from the mental and emotional burdens I had learned to associate with him, and was really enjoying myself while exploring the village. Germany was new unfamiliar territory to me that commanded a sublime attraction with me to it at the same time. I had no geographic bearings on where I was headed. I just knew that I was "at ease" because a gut feeling told me that I was alright for the moment – almost as if I had a presence walking beside me and guarding me. That was an experience that I well remember how quickly I lost myself in, to make me forget about the bad flow of feeling minutes before-how very quickly I shifted from one to the next was interesting to me, because normally I didn’t have the capacity to do that. I was used to wallowing in frustration until it dissipated over time. But an equally interesting thing I noted right in those moments was that I certainly don't remember feeling entirely alone, although no one was with me. I was very much alone, but not feeling that way at all. It was nice thinking that someone could actually care, even though that someone wasn't in sight. An imaginary source of comfort, no doubt.

As evening approached, I met up with a small pack of some of the older and senior ranking gentlemen in the unit who had been walking around the village together, and I thought, now THAT’s the way to do this—not with one person, but a group of like minds. They were quite surprised to see me all alone, walking around with no escort, and asked what I was doing by myself. I told them, holding in heavy tears. I didn't want them to see me breaking inside that. But I think they could tell by listening to my voice that I was very unhappy with how things went earlier.

To console me, they quickly shifted my emotional ears for me and gave me a hearty slap on the back, without further mention of Paul, and joked with me as they marched me in the direction of a local pub, where they sat down around me and bought my first taste of German beer. That is still the best tasting brew I've ever experienced. It might have something to do with the good camaraderie, but I can still taste the sweet aftertaste of it-a dark sensuous solution to drown my woes in. I began to unwind and found myself pulled into some good clean fun with great company. My scuffle with Paul was so totally unimportant now. In fact, I felt much stronger inside after being with these groovy old fellows who knew how to treat their uniformed family members.

When we arrived back at the sit, I discovered that Paul had done so about three or so hours earlier with another group he found walking the cobblestones in the village. H walked over to me and asked, "Where did you get off to a while ago?" halfway grinning as if he were still amused with the turn of events. "You seem overly concerned too late”. I snapped. I felt safe with the other guys and was intentionally less amicable with him than he expected of me. I wasn't about to fold like a cheap tent and let him off the hook.

I had already been on edge with him for nearly two weeks. That was too much punishment for any retribution that might have been served to me for whatever constituted it. During the flight into Fairfax, England after our two week training had ended, where the unit was scheduled to board a C-130 for returning to the states, I had cooled down, and we were talking again, but cautiously so. We had gotten over the tiffs earlier, mainly because Paul had insisted on it. But, we had another falling out. I had lost the English Pounds we'd exchanged for US Currency, and that made him mad at me all over again.

Airborne once more between two continents, we'd had another stinging disagreementover something insignificant, as I look back on it. I could no longer bite back bitter tears, and by then-they were free falling. Those sitting near us knew the reason, later I was told, by several guys, and so they felt no need to bring it up. We just couldn't seem to get along anymore, and we couldn't hide it any longer.

At one time during that flight, I remember wishing that the boom window he was lying on in the rear, looking out the glass down at the earth below us, would open up and deposit his ass from the plane. I imagined many a time Paul free-falling, too.

By the time we finally made it back to the states and touched down in Phoenix, I was in a super major sulk mode with him. I didn’t want to recycle the ‘let’s be friends again’ act. I was tired of the familiar routine, and I was more so damn tired of struggling to understand why he was the way he was: me being the butt-end of his jokes, then his punching bag when I retaliated. I decided it would be easier on my nervous system to cut my ties with him as soon as possible. I didn't care anything about being around him any longer. I could not think of anything else except one thing I wanted except one: emotional and mental relief.

Back at the Reese's home, we were alone. Myrtle was still at work. He tried to convince me to cool myself down and stay put at least until she, the head of the household, had returned home. Manipulating me again, eh? "Why? So you can both corner me and convince me to change my mind?" I countered. "Not a chance!" I felt that if I could not have space from him no later than NOW, I was going to murder him while he was awake and could witness it first-hand.

I finally learned something about him that I didn’t like: he could blow off a fight or disagreement within five minutes after the fact. I couldn't do that. It was too flaky for me. So I jumped up and down, my angry voice rising and falling as well, and spitting out fireworks, intentionally making an unmistakable ass out of myself to him until he finally got the message: "Lisa wants out, NOW". Not when the woman of the house gets home. Not that I didn’t like Myrtle-I did. But I didn’t want to be this way in her home so she would have to see me behaving as such under her roof. I thought better of her than that especially since she thought well enough of me as a person to allow me to be there in the first place.

So without further argument, we put all my things in his truck. I had to make a great effort to restrain myself and do so without throwing things and raising my voice any more, since he was at least providing the cargo capacity. We rode east it seemed for the longest time within the shortest distance, on the Superstition Freeway without any exchange between us, not even looking at each other, until he spied the first convenient drop-off: a Motel 6. Then we both sighed relief, I think.

"Well, this is the end of the road, I don't know what you are going to do, but you're on your own," He warned me. I said nothing, because I was not going to pace backward at this point. In fact, I began to feel like I could lighten up if only a little bit. He helped me unload my belongings and then he took off without another word. After he disappeared into the distance going west, I checked into a room. When I began to mellow out, I realized what a predicament I might have put myself in during my haste to escape the turmoil. I instinctively turned my mind to God and began to pray.

It was then that I remembered an older gentleman I had met while working as a movie extra on the set of the remake of "The Getaway" (Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger) earlier in the year: April or May- who told me he was a member of a Mormon Church in the same vicinity that the motel was in. His stage name was Milton but his real name was David. I could not remember his last name so I prayed again and picked up the phonebook, remembered his surname and contacted him.

I told him what was going on with me and he contacted a lady who attended his church that he already knew had a room for rent. “How providential is that?” I thought to myself, feeling much better. So, as the time wore on during which I rented from her I was afforded personal space and time to be able to calm down emotionally, and I focused my energies on my work at a restaurant I was employed with at the time.

Around the end of June, my shop supervisor told me that he had placed my name in the hat volunteering me for Joint Counter Narcotics Task Force active duty work. I thanked him and prayed for a call from them. Active duty mandays never hurt a guardsman looking for work.

Mid July, same year. One evening, while still working at the Shoney's Restaurant, without warning, I became very sick on the job, throwing up massive amounts of watery fluid. Judging from the gray grainy-like substance that I was throwing up in the latrine that looked like what was in the large pills, I figured that I was having some sort of reaction to the trace minerals I'd been taking, but wasn't very certain that I was-maybe something else was wrong? My lips had turned a slate blue from the fluid loss and constant up chucking. I was taken home by a co-worker as I became progressively worse, who stated to my boss that "She needed to be home yesterday".

I was alone at the house after she left. I was so afraid of not knowing how to remedy my problem by myself-I was still throwing up water and expelling it from both ends now. So I hesitantly picked up the phone and called the paramedics, knowing that it could cost me more than I had money wise-I was not concerned about what else I might lose, but then again I was not thinking constructively at the time-I was very sick feeling. I had no medical or life insurance.

The Paramedics came quickly, and checked me out thoroughly; all the while they scratched their heads, trying to figure out what was wrong. The team leader's first assumption was perhaps I might have gotten food poisoning from the restaurant, aside from me telling them that I had been taking a supplement.

I had become so tense from vomiting and my pulse was racing so fast they could not get a reading on my blood-pressure. My temperature shot up to 102 from all the fluid loss, and I felt totally dehydrated. I tried to drink water but it was thrown right back up-cold water going down made me feel more nauseated. My whole chest cavity ached.

Finally, one of them gave me a regular plain strength generic brand aspirin and told me, "I don't know what to tell you to do, except to take this and see if it will help you."

I sensed he was being precautious with advising me because he was legally limited on providing treatment to me since I had no medical insurance other than the SGLI that I had with the National Guard. I tried to stand up. I could not balance even halfway without feeling like I was standing sideways, so I rolled off the couch and crawled to the refrigerator. I felt they were unintentionally laughing at me. I didn't care as long as I was still breathing in and out.

One of them quickly grabbed a glass off the shelf for me and filled it with water from the refrigerator dispenser. I drank it down in one movement and lay on the floor-I almost went to sleep, before they helped me move back to the couch. I didn't want to move because that cold hard floor felt heavenly; as I felt I was burning up. But they encouraged me to do so and get back on the couch.

The med team stayed with me a little while to ensure that my situation had stabilized at least; they offered me more water and this time I was able to retain it. They were satisfied that I was going to be alright, and departed. Amazing still, when I remember that one plain non-brand aspirin seemed to be the resolution to a potentially serious health crisis. I say "seemed" because I know God as supreme power and not inanimate substances. I try consistently to maintain prevention of myself slipping from that truth.

The next day, I stayed out from work as I was still feeling "washed out" from all that fluid loss. As I relaxed around the house, without eating-I had no appetite-except for coffee and toast, I got a phone call from a Captain working with the Drug Interdiction program – the Joint Counter Narcotic Task Force. He told me that he had been trying to contact me for 2 solid weeks, and that if he had not been able to contact me on that day, he was going to give up.

Needless to say, a violently ill evening led to a stroke of good fortune for me the next day to receive a phone call I would not have been able to take while working. I won’t say I’d be willing to go through a crisis like that again to get a job, but I felt better right away when I did get that call. I felt so good in fact that I quit the restaurant that same day. Being on active duty improved my situation all around.

End of August 1993. My summer tour with the Counter Narcotic Force (affectionately referred to as "Druggies" by the rest of the military) came to an end. By then, the Department Head of JCNTF had, without my knowledge, recommended me to the Air Staff at the HQ Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, and I continued on active duty for the first two weeks of September. In the middle of the second week, a very pleasant looking, tall lady with an air of grace and confidence about herself entered the room and proceeded straight to my desk.

She smiled at me very pretty and sweet, and introduced herself as the Joint Army/Air State Public Affairs Officer for Arizona, and with a lighthearted tone of voice, asked if I would like to work for her when my time was up with Air Staff. "Yes, ma'am, I would like that." I responded enthusiastically, without even thinking. There I went again making decisions based only on a whim. I didn't know who I was talking to-a perfect stranger, but I sure did like her soft spoken voice, classy demeanor and professional disposition!

While employed with her, I learned a lot from her about public relations, and she offered moral support many times. She was like a soothing balm to my suffering nervous and emotional sense of being. I worked for her for about two weeks. Then an opportunity came up that I could not turn down. For the first time I really felt that I could actually believe in "angels watching over people" that so many times I'd heard others talk so much. If anything could make me believe, it was the string of events that I was experiencing now.

October 1993 – Jan 1994 I was accepted to work as a temporary AGR technician for the USP&FO in the same capacity I'd held during my Counter-Narcotics tour. I visited Shoney's to see old friends there. One sweet young lady in college, who worked with me, asked, "Where's your friend?" and I told her I knew he was still with the guard unit, although I had not attended UTAs for nearly a month. I told her why I didn't want anything to do with him and had stopped communication with him.

"Oh, but you really should get back up with him," she insisted. "There's a lot of history behind your friendship – you don't want to lose all that do you?" I would not understand why she put it that way until years later this day. She kept on at me, finally I said, "Okay, but I'm only doing this for you." And truth is: I was. She was kind and caring-he seemed so far from being like that with me. I'm a sucker for anyone who treats me with kindness because the result is that I will do anything for them (within reason of course).

Fiscal year end-October. USP&FO personnel worked the same weekend that the unit was drilling, and I nervously picked up the phone (I'd not heard from Paul since June) I asked for Paul. When I got him on the phone, he was surprised to hear from me. I explained to him we (people I worked with) were all going to dinner the next day, Sunday, and asked if he would he care to come along. He accepted immediately to my surprise, and even brought a buddy along that was in Tech School with him.

During the luncheon, Paul told me, "You made a lucky phone call yesterday”

“Why’s that?” I wanted to know.

“If you had not called me this weekend, you would never have gotten hold of me again, because I am out processing the unit Sunday."

"Oh, really? This is your last drill, then?" I asked.

"Yep, sure is”. He then asked for a way that he could stay in contact with me-a phone number. By then he was into the dating scene, something he'd been wishing for, as I remembered the last time we talked. So, we exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in touch.

Mid October. It was cooling off a little in Phoenix; not much, but any degree of temperature drop in that zone was always noted and appreciated. I still resided with Pam in East Mesa. Paul called me up one day to see if he could pay me a visit and see how I was doing, he said. Pretty soon were "old friends with a fresh start".

He told me since we were both in situations that we would like to get out of as far as living with other people were concerned, that he had been thinking of asking me if I would like to be roommates in an apartment. He was tired of staying with the family he was currently with at that time.

I was tired of my association with certain members of the Mormon community, as nice as they were singularly and collectively, trying to entice me into their ranks, as well as trying to get me to quit drinking coffee: "No coffee? Are you mad? Coffee is an essential nutrient for me!" I corrected them. I was fond of their friendships with me, not so much so their style of religion-but especially not being able to accept “NO” from me as an answer supplied unto them about certain things regarding the difference in mine and their belief systems.

After a lengthy discussion, Paul and I worked out a verbal agreement to give rooming together another fair try. We found a halfway decent apartment, Sun Crest Apartments in Mesa, AZ. It was in its own way of possession, rather nice--an upstairs unit on the quiet end facing away from the main drag, with a noticeable beautiful green English ivy swag of growth covering the balcony fence, that covered our end of the terrace, and crept up around the door facings at times—and our end was the only place in the apartment complex it grew, I noticed.

This was our first apartment as roommates, (“The Apartment” that we always referred to in later on years after leaving AZ) and before settling in, he informed me up front, "If you are going to live under the same roof as me, you are going to have get used to some things: I am a composer, and I have to have things a certain way, and I do have a temper. Can you handle that?"

"I guess so," I answered, thinking already again, "You snotty little bastard. You waited to spring that one on me until we got to this point….” I had already checked out of Pam’s dwelling without her ‘approval’, so to speak—as if I needed it-NOT -so leaving without her knowledge was, I figured best for both of us…

"Do you have anything for me?" he asked. "Oh yeah, and it's uncomplicated. Give me my space and I will give you yours, and we'll get along fine." It was agreed, and we jointly signed the 6 month lease contract. In the beginning, we got along great as when we first met; this time, but a cooler more cautious approach, due to a little better insightful about each other than before.

Paul and I were of two different temperaments: similar backgrounds, yes, but with a marked difference in interests. He was high strung energetically, and I was metabolically lazy. He was more of a "social butterfly" and I could take people only in small doses. He loved to talk to people-converse about a very wide variety of things. Because of that, his interests "seemed" to out-range my own. Talking continuously, I noticed one day, started taking its toll on me--energy and breath wise. I never felt that way around others – just Paul. I realized later that he was just being who he was, but it's just that he talked a lot!

More and more, I grew lonely for my alone-ness: I preferred sitting alone all wrapped up in the infinite possibilities of one's own mental world, just letting my mind wander. So, it may have seemed to him that I was withdrawing, shrinking away from his direction. Maybe I was. I only knew that I could not revel luxuriously in that comfort space if I was talking all the time. I was a dreamer-I liked to come completely alive and live and exist in my own dream-constructed world! And what he talked about more than anything were electronic toys: the constant newsflash of "what was new" within the wonderful world of gadgetry. While I didn't hold this against him, eventually I just started 'tuning him out' as he talked. At times I didn't mean to. I just found myself becoming more and more bored.

Many times he knew my mind was wondering by the look on my face and would ask me suddenly if I was listening to him-and he would test me if I said yes by asking me to recall the conversation just seconds before. I failed that test on many an occasion. He'd catch me drifting out into space frequently thereafter and never missed the opportunity to express his disappointment in my obvious lack of interest in his side of the conversations. Only when we were discussing metaphysics and/or the mind could he keep my attention riveted on the discussions.

Over a given amount of time, we realized that wherefore we would talk hours on end freely and comfortably with each other-not holding anything back, that now we barely talked on a level about anything anymore other than surface friendly conversation. No doubt, this had a lot to do with the fact that the more we discovered about each other, the less it seemed we liked one another. I had enough of my own bad habits that chapped his good side, but I would leave it up to him to comment about me however, whenever and to whomever, as no doubt he will.

Paul grew up in a wealthy family, and so to me, tended to be a spoiled brat type. Still somehow I was willing to overlook that. Until of course when I noticed that he would make unflattering remarks about others who sat in public and tried to play piano. I know firsthand, just by being myself, that although many of them couldn't even play a radio, that they were just getting a great thrill doing what little they were able to do--just enjoying themselves-oblivious to him and his critical disposition of them--good on them, I thought.

Often enough, when I'd heard enough of his downgrading comments regarding strangers, I'd tell him directly that perhaps they had something vital in being a simple minded person that compensated for what he lacked: a sense of humility. That just because someone didn't have money/means to keep him/herself up didn't take away from the fact that they were somebody. That is the impression I got from him. And I couldn't live comfortably with myself: the way it made me feel how such a gifted person could look down on others just because they weren't as fortunate as he thought he was. It grated sorely on me.

One day not too long thereafter while we were discussing, he told me that he was bi-polar. Of course, he had to explain to me what that meant. He had me in his corner many times afterward, but my nerves were becoming frazzled in having to deal with this so-called "problem" of his. I think I tolerated him so much that this might have become our problem, but I tried to be patient and deal with him-I guess one could say he bought a little sympathy from me by talking about it. He had an education in psychology he talked about often. One day while he was talking about this, I realized how well he used it on me without me being fully aware-manipulating me, in other words. So I began to exert extra effort of guarding myself against him with this-which naturally resulted in more conflict.

During intervals, the dwelling and even the truck rang with fits of laughter from both of us between the fighting - that was a joint effort. Pretty soon, however, I began to feel like I was constantly on an emotional see saw, and didn't know how to get off of it. I began neglecting myself, because we were constantly going. I never had time to myself anymore. It was like he could not enjoy his own company but often complained that he could not date because of me. Those were the times that I dreamed of strangling him in his sleep. I was not the barrier to his social life. I think that he used me as an excuse.

He had agreed-in fact it was he who brought up the idea-of the two of us getting an apartment together. So now I was his reason that he could not get out and enjoy mingling with the opposite gender? I truly began to resent him, and so it was that the conversation between us lost its sparkle. I declined to go out on the town with him when he would say, "Let's head out”. I truly was just tired and didn't feel like I could jump up and go when he snapped his fingers.

Paul seemed to resort to accusing. He said, "You never go with me anywhere anymore". That was not true. I had gone everywhere with him up until that point. So I decided it was a good time to bring up what I had wanted to corner him over, "Paul, why can't you just go out by yourself? How is that going to hurt you? You may not believe this, but I am seriously depleted of energy right now." There was no turning back after that. I made my point.

Paul began to sulk for sure when he realized I really meant that I wasn't going anywhere, and so he got himself together in a hurry and left out without another word. I was baffled by his attitude towards me. It seemed to me that he would WANT to go places by himself; that is: if he really was so interested in trying to get back into the dating scene. He had just been in it not too long before we got the apartment and talked me into it: so I didn't understand.

Later on, during our stay in the apartment we were in the light stages of debating an issue. I can't remember what it was about exactly, but it seemed to be of a personal nature, because I remember him distinctly saying to me, "You need to do something with yourself." "Like what?" I asked, in a sharp tone as I knew where this was going. I was already in a bad mood with our conversation. "You need to fix yourself up to look nice, that's what." That was the wrong thing for him to say to me. "Say, dammit, when do I ever have time to do that when I'm constantly on the go with you?" I shot back, ready to pounce on him with all fours if he crossed the line. "Besides what do you care whether I do or not?" I demanded.

He replied, "Because I don't like being seen with you when you don't keep yourself up. I try to look my best-so the way you look is offensive to me. I try to groom myself to look nice because I never know when I will meet my future wife."

I wanted to see what was the motive, so I exposed myself to any harmful comment to find out, "If you think you stand the chance of meeting your future wife at any possible moment, why are you always asking I get up and go places with you? Why can't you just get out and go?"

"It doesn't happen that way, Lisa".

"What do you mean?" I asked, trying to follow his seemingly bent “logic”.

He said, "I ask you to go with me because it is a known fact that women are more open and receptive to a man when they are seen with another woman, not by themselves."

I frowned at this comment. It seemed more like sick psychology than anything useful, as I know firsthand this isn't true. At the same time it sounded as if he just informed me that he was using me as a prop, at the expense of my energy and stamina. I was pretty slow much of the time catching onto things, but I got that clearly calloused message.

I could only look at him for what seemed the longest moment, void of any ability to effectively respond.

I then asked him, warily, "So, pray tell me, how will you know for certain when you meet your wife?" He said, "I will just know."

"I don't understand how you would 'just know'." I really didn’t. I wanted to know what he meant-something that might make sensible sense could possibly come out of this chaos.

He replied, sarcastically, "No, you wouldn't, would you?"

With those words, the conversation further deteriorated, because it was apparent that all he seemed interested in doing was to put me down. If that was how he was going to play, I was going to serve him up some hardballs.

I was "in the mood".

I started, "At least I know how to treat people. As a piece of advice to you: before you meet anyone that you might imagine would be your, "future wife" you need to practice showing people already around you that you love them."

Apparently, he had this all thought out before he started, but I didn't realize it at the time.

He shot back immediately, "Let me tell you what: when I meet and marry my wife, I will love and respect her. Most women I know act like women are supposed to. You are not a woman!"

"I'm not a woman? WATCH YOUR STEP, bastard!"

He got in my face and yelled, "I am NOT a bastard! My parents were married when I was born!" I yelled right back, "Men aren't born bastards! They get that way through their own efforts!"

He gave me a sudden hard push backwards with both his hands as if he was waiting for the moment to do so, and I fell back sitting on the floor with my hands bracing against the impact, which jolted my wrists. Though I now was slipping into size 8 dresses, still it was a painful landing on my hands like that.

"Get out of my face", he snarled. "If you were not a woman, I would bash your face in!"

I returned fire, "You just told me that I wasn't one! And since you are using me for bait as you indicated," I said, making sarcasm as obvious as possible, "the sooner someone will bite at your lure trap; and the sooner you can get the hell out of MY face!"

That did it for him. He stormed out, slammed the apartment door shut so hard that it rattled. Only seconds later did I hear the familiar whine of his Toyota truck as he accelerated out of the parking lot.

It was quiet in the room where moments before it was the complete opposite of peaceful. Only it wasn't a nice kind of peaceful. It was an uncomforting kind of deafening quiet. I was hurting quite sharply inside of myself.

I sat down, numb with grief. I began to realize just how very unhappy I was becoming in just being in the same space with him, and wished I had the courage to just LEAVE! But I didn't have it. I really don't think he had it either. But this pattern was so familiar now to the point I think that it was like a security blanket.

Being on a "lease" together, we found that we could always started fresh after the storms. Still, I started looking at my "friendship" with this character differently and began questioning if it was really friendship, or something I didn't need.

May through August 1994. Since my temporary position with Contract Administration had ended in January, I went directly to work at a telemarketing company-which I hated-bugging people at their homes with a telephone to earn a living. Oh well, I had to have SOME sort of continuity that would keep me afloat.

About that time, I discovered a bus route that accommodated me very well, since Paul's route to school took him mostly the opposite way each day. This made me happy, because he would take me to a certain point, drop me off, turn onto his route, and I was on my own thereafter to figure out how to get the rest of the way to work. Before I got onto this new route, my creativeness in getting from the apartment to my job was becoming, shall I say, quite gnarly in a fascinating way in that I didn't know what the next day might be like.

One day, while I was off, I got up and decided to break my usual routine. I thought that I would just get on the bus and ride around Mesa for the fun of it. That particular and fateful day, as I remember it being, was a turning point. A lady about my age group I sat beside seemed rather pleasant and receptive to everyone around her-she was talking metaphysical language-something I enjoyed relating to. Had she not been, I’d never have said a word to her. So I thought I’d come out of my shell and try making some new acquaintances. I spoke up first, commenting about the subject she had been on, and that set off an interesting conversation between us. We began conversing and I learned that she was a paranormal researcher by her trade. She briefed me on the nature of her work; it sounded pretty interesting. Right down my alley “sort of stuff”!

She asked me if I would be interested in conducting some research with her as her subject. As she had mentioned earlier on in our initial discussion that she did regressive past life sessions, I told her while I wasn't sure about the "past life" stuff she mentioned, I would definitely be interested in discussing some other aspects of her line of work. By that time, I wanted to make some friends of my own and break my stifling routine with my “dear sweet roomie”-relationship that I had become so used to-so to the point of wanting to get out and away and far above the clouds of it.

Before we departed the bus for the rest of our schedules in that day, I made certain that we didn't lose contact. I invited her to the apartment for tea and talk about her area of specialty. She came to see me about noon the next day. I was delighted. She wanted to try inducing a relaxation technique on me to bring out any 'past life' episodes from me. I didn't really understand why she persisted with the past life stuff possibilities, because I was not all that certain that there was such a thing possible. To have lived before. I do believe my beliefs were impacted a lot to by my background and rearing and the environment I grew up in. I didn't argue that. But I didn’t know enough to say no to it either.

We began. Per her instructions, I sat back on the couch with eyes closed; she in front of me on a kitchen chair. After a bit of attempting to get me to relax, seeing how her suggestions didn't seem to be working too quickly on me, she then forewarned that she was going to press down on my eyes. I asked her why she thought that would help and she said, "The optical illusions that the pressure on the optic nerve creates actually helps one towards the process of visualizing and relaxing". I thought, "Well, okay, I'll try that".

About the time I was really beginning to relax and feel comfortably numb in my stillness, Paul unexpectedly opened the door and walked in; interrupting the process. He never cut class before. Why was he doing it today on the very day that I didn't need him to? "DAMMIT!" I thought, uncomfortable and embarrassed. "I can't do anything without him knowing about it. No privacy!" Suddenly I felt resentful enough to want to explode; but since we had company, she was kinda my checkpoint for self control at the moment.

Oh well, I decided that since he was here, I got over it quickly and introduced them to one another. I felt obligated too, since Paul share the apartment to explain why she, an unknown to him, was there and surprisingly to me, Paul responded in a surprisingly interested way, "Oh really? Lisa and I have a lot of talks about the mind!" One thing admirable that was about Paul was that he knew how to cross social lines when he wanted to-he did like meeting new people, too, after all.

So we all talked briefly, and although nothing got done with me, we said our goodbyes to her and she left; not before I invited her back, however. But, I never saw her again after that, and I lost contact with her. I never gave her another thought after that day, somehow. Maybe, in reflection today of what happened next back then, I now figure that perhaps she wasn’t suppose to-she was there for a reason and she filled that order.

After she left, Paul and I continued our discussion into the afternoon over this new page turned in the events of our lives that day, and it evolved into my asking him if he would like to try an experiment. I had studied hypnotic techniques in my early adult life, was fascinated by the stories of others with their experiences as well, and my imagination was kinda wanting to get loose right then.

I told him I thought that this would be good for him; to help him learn to calm down and learn to balance himself-I sold the idea to him as if he were the sole beneficiary of its rewards, to get him to comply, while hoping that it would help my nervous system as a bonus. Although we fought like wildcats alot, I sensed that he trusted me in this way. Because he knew this was something that interested me greatly, with all the conversations we'd had earlier, and I had a lot of background knowledge between the two of us, he consented I think because he believed that my intentions were good.

I had Paul stretch out on his sleeping mat that was on the couch that I had been on previously, with his head down on his arms in the pillow. I told him to picture himself in a place he felt most comfortable-a field, perhaps? I gave him time and then suggested that he let me know that he had achieved the feeling of being where he wanted to be, which he did.

I then told him there were some woods at the edge of the field, and that there were a few small rolling hills around him. I asked if he could see them, and he said, Yes, they remind me of my home back in West Virginia" (in "the holler", as they call it, he told me later). I told him there was the faint smell of fresh spring flowers wafting on a warm gentle breeze around him-and to breathe deeply the scented clean air.

At this point I asked him how he was doing, to look around, see everything that he could visualize and experience the scene as vividly as he could imagine it. He told me everything he was imagining and could feel himself out in an open field.

I myself, for my own comfort and sense of well-being, always loved a source of water around me, and so I suggested to him that there was a small stream tumbling gently over pebbles in it. Paul was so receptive to this that he proved an excellent subject for an experiment like this-he eased right into the scenario without coercion, as I had demonstrated earlier.

I remembered then about what someone had wrote before where a man who stated when he "wanted to get his most creative ideas from his mind, he would imagine himself sitting around a table with men whom he considered great thinkers and he admired the most". The author reported that when he sat at the table with this exclusive group of men and asked them questions, the answers that they gave him back were pretty astounding, and right on.

So I asked Paul, since he was involved in music, to imagine himself talking to someone who he thought was the greatest authority on the subject that could advise him about the subject. Having known Paul for some time and by experience, knew that all he could talk about was Mozart in reference to his favorite subject, this is whom I was anticipating he would imagine.

So I said, "Okay, I want you to imagine that you are holding a conversation with someone about anything that interests you-ask them something". "Okay", he agreed. After a moment or so he said, "I see someone. A man. He's slowly walking toward me." "Wow", I thought. "That's not what I suggested, but so what-let's see what could happen here," I mused to myself.

So I said, "Alright, describe the man to me" He began, "Well, he looks sort of ... younger than what I am used to seeing him. His hair is dark with gray. He has a scar on [some area of] his face..." (I parenthesized the 'area' of the face because I myself--can't remember what part of his face that he said it was on-but I do remember the mention of a scarred appearance of the face-somehow that was significant to Paul, since he made a point of it). "It looks like…..", Paul was telling me who he thought it was.

At this point in writing, come 2001, I must admit I do not remember if he said Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach-but it was one of them, I was sure of that. Back then, I was living life at a much faster and different pace than when I was back in the south where I grew up. A good deal of detail is lost to me, consciously. But then I wasn't figuring on making an effort of accountability years later as I seem now to be compelled to do.

But I do note that I was aware at the time Paul was describing a man that it seemed to me that he should not be there, under the usual situational setting. Because as I understood it, when one visualizes intently, with one-pointed concentration, for a specific reason, the object or scene is an automatic and instant congealment of the thought processes. But the way he was describing this scenario, was that the progressive description of the pastorical scenario of being in an open environment, was like an unfoldment-a visual revelation, of a sort. Like he was watching all this playing out before him, ever since the man appeared on the scene.

So I could not see, obviously. Paul was being my eyes and ears here. I was the narrator of his experience. "So, what's he doing?" I asked, anticipatingly to whatever the surprise answer would be.

"Well, right now he's just standing near a small bush or tree or something looking in my direction", he answered.

Again, I thought, "Hmm, wow". Now I was interested, because as I know the normal process is that anyone who visualizes automatically sees under these circumstances that it is someone guiding the process that informs them what to see, and that is what they "see" as a result.

"See if you can talk to him." I thought that I had asked him to do this earlier, and I didn't want to appear as a pushy agent, but at the same time I wanted to know what kind of conversation could be had in this obviously deepening experience which was initially meant for Paul, but was affecting me at the same time. I was becoming engrossed in the situation and apparently involved, without intending to.

"What about?" he asked, as if he had to be prompted.

"Well", I said, realizing the man was obviously a composer from known history I felt free to take the reins here, "Ask him a question about music!"

"This should be interesting," I thought with anticipation.

"Okay", he said. When be didn't offer anything else, I wanted to know, "Did you ask him?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say?" I wanted to know, as if I was realistically expecting a nugget of wisdom.

He answered back slowly, "He said that he doesn't like synthesizers".

The answer put me into pause mode. I was trying to determine why such an answer from a historical composer was put forward to a question to a figure like that. There was only one possible question that I had for Paul, then:

"Wh-what did you ask him?" I was curious.

"I asked him what he thinks about modern music".

"Modern Music?" I thought. "Why that"? I asked out loud to myself under my breath. "Boy he [Paul] is NOT with my program, here..." I started to think. "Maybe this isn't panning out after all." Then.....

"Hmm." Paul said, seemingly interested in something else suddenly.

So I asked, "What's going on?"

Paul responded, "Well he's looking at the ground in front of me." Paul's description was pulling me in and I was really into this myself so much that I felt a sudden impulsiveness about myself. I felt like there was a something that I should respond to, and remember nodding my head as if in agreement to something, but I don't know what it was.

I only know that this is something that I did as if in response to something. I felt in a way, that I was able to communicate too, at least I believed I could. After all, this was something that I was conducting and in control of, I reckoned.

I thought it would not hurt if I would do something. I began to visualize and actualize that I was looking at the man he described, put my hand on my mouth, took it away in the gesture of "blowing a kiss" in the direction I thought he could possibly be, smiled, and silently formed the words with my own mouth, "I", with my hand over my heart area, "love you", and stretching my arm over and above where Paul was lying face down, pointed in his direction, then smiled again.

What happened next has mystified me for years, to date. I could feel something, but wasn't certain why. But I do know that I felt totally free for the moment to do exactly what I longed to do, from the center of myself. I expressed to the "imaginary character" what I could not otherwise in real life.

In the personal space and place of my own mind, I reasoned that I couldn't possibly offend an imaginary person. So I really opened up and poured out all I felt I had to give minus any measure of "don't do that". In what seemed like the smallest expanse of a window, I felt something that felt a kind of good that effected a smile to myself-I was kinda "smiling all over", or I felt so much so. For, it seemed to me that somehow I had 'touched, or "connected" in some way with a being whom I could not see, and that known feeling of mysteriousness associated with "instant rapport" as those who have experienced it for themselves in order to make report of it, translated into a therapeutic moment for me. I don't know how to describe it except that something was working for me to the point that I could feel it.

I might have continued in that vein, but then I heard Paul's stifled (face down in arm) "Hmm", expression, only this time, the familiar "hmm" I was accustomed to hearing when something puzzled him.

"What?" I asked, puzzled and fascinated, holding fast to a feeling that was growing more intense inside of me at the same time. Paul seemed much more into taking notice of things now than he did a moment ago. "He's saying something."

"What's he saying?" I insisted.

"I don't know. But he's talking faster now and...(Paul paused as if straining to understand)….I can't….make out what he's saying. It sounds like he’s speaking in German. He looks like he sees something, too".

“Sounds? Not only visual but now aural as well?”

I was 'on the edge' now, interest mounting. "What is it?"

He answered, "Well I don't know. But he looks like he's trying to see behind me or through me at whatever it is. He looks kinda afraid-like he wants to run from it."

"What's happening?" I thought to myself.

Suddenly, as if, "back on me", revelation, I instinctively knew the right answer-something I did-and I felt very exposed-vulnerable. Paul had his face down and could not have possibly seen that. This sudden impact of a realization was a turning point for me in the scenario, in that I knew something had happened. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Now, my thoughts had shifted from "oh Joy" to "uh oh". I ‘backed off’ in a manner of speaking-unsure of what had in fact happened, outside what I was thinking to myself what had happened. I wanted to know what could possibly be going on that Paul said he man looked so afraid of. This was NOT protocol in a guided meditational scenario!

So I directed, on impulse: "Well, see if you can turn around, and see what he's seeing, and tell me."

"Okay".

He didn't say anything else, so I asked what he was doing and seeing.

He answered, "I'm turned around, now, I don't see anything".

I thought to myself, "Well, then, why did you say that he looked like HE saw something?

So I said, anxiety starting to muscle itself in, "Well, okay, turn back around to him."

A moment passed with no response, so I asked, "Do you see him?"

He said, "No. All I can see is bright around me. I can't see anything now. It's like he just vanished."

This was Paul's usual response when something disappeared, he'd use that term "vanished".

"Are you sure?" I was feeling a disappointment - kinda like a "loss" of something that I had my arms and head almost wrapped around and I thought that we were going to take this as far as we could go with it—because by now I had begun enjoying the experience. I no longer considered how Paul was faring with it. I wasn’t focusing on Paul anymore. I was focusing on ‘him’, the other guy.

"Lisa", he said, almost sounding impatient with my questions now, "He's gone."

This new information was a 'let down', because I was feeling immersed enough in the process of how things were going and what he was seeing and relating back to me-that I was expecting something more, actually wanted more time with the moment. I will never really know why, to this day, that I, myself, Paul aside, began to believe the man was actually there. It’s such a strong feeling that is supported by something so intangible, and so untouchable unless I go back and relive it strongly enough to touch it myself-no one else can, no matter how much I could try and convince them to.

But I do remember that I was left with the "after-feeling", a residual feel, that there was a presence there that, into the next moment, there was not one. That made a marked difference between one moment and the next one. I have turned this over and over and over in my thought processes wondering if that it had happened .... or not. I still cannot decide. But I am inclined to think that there might have been than not so much so.

So, I said, finally, "Okay, you can slowly come back up, now and just tell yourself when you are ready to open your eyes, and you'll be alright."

He relaxed a minute, then opened his eyes, rolled over, sat up on the pallet. "What's wrong?" He asked, concern voicing itself.

I suppose he had asked because I had been thinking about the whole thing in how interesting it had turned out. I was looking out of a large picture window over the couch he lay on, still feeling suspended and "out there" in a sense-still preoccupied entirely in the ending of the scenario.

"Nothing, why?" I didn't want to reveal anything I was thinking.

"Well, you've got this certain look on your face, that's all."

"Oh, nothing's wrong, I just….I don't know." I never told him what I did, but I couldn't conceal all of it from him. After all these years as I write I can admit that I did know. I just didn't want to speak of the experience I just had-it had felt too real. I couldn't believe it.

So, not wanting to expose my thoughts about it, I changed the tone of the questions.

"What happened that you couldn't see (whoever it was) anymore?"

"Well, when you told me to turn around to see what was behind me and I turned back around to him, he was gone. That's all."

"Oh", I managed, still trying to stay within the feeling of what I had experienced. I really didn’t want to let it go.

Apparently, it wasn't "that's all" for him. He looked at me for a long moment, as if he were trying to figure something out for himself about "what was going on with Lisa".

Then, he finally shook his head, and sort of laughed and said, "Man!" Then, he got up slowly, went over to the piano, and began playing, seemingly with more thoughtfulness and feeling.

Even though Paul was an impressive pianist in various methods and styles, he had this midi-synthesizer he guarded with his life. It was a full "synthesized" concert orchestra, with every instrument imaginable, and could be manipulated to produce whatever sound its operator could invoke from the imagination.

He LOVED, ADORED, REVERED that $2500.00 piece of stuff no bigger than a VCR. I didn't care for it as much as I better appreciated the pure sound of a real piano-I had enough recordings that used synthesizers if I wanted to listen to them, so "synthesizers" didn't fascinate me.

I spent the rest of the afternoon pretty much in my own room, door closed. I just wanted to be alone and keep revisiting my private thoughts on, "WHAT WAS THAT"; and why I got that weird feeling in respect to it in relation to the man not of my own imagining. This incident happened in early or mid 94, nearly eight years ago. But, to this day, in March 2001, I still am not sure of exactly what he saw or heard that he related back to me in those still moments.

Perhaps one day I will ask him. Thinking about that recalls to my mind an incident when my friend and I had begun settling in that first apartment in Mesa we shared. I was sleeping on the couch that he had bought for me, and he was sleeping on a homemade roll sort of bed I had fixed for him on the other side of the room. Paul woke me up from a sound slumber in the wee hours of the morning around 0400. He looked shaken. He asked me if I had seen anything strange. I said, "No". I was annoyed that he woke me up from a good sleep. He then explained that he had been sleeping but then woke up. When he opened his eyes he was looking straight at the couch I was sleeping on under the picture window. He said that he felt himself move out of his body through his head. He then said that he felt something behind him. He told me that as he tried to turn around, something in front of him wouldn't allow him to do so.

It (as he referred to it) was holding him to keep him from looking backward and seeing whatever he felt behind him. He said then that he exerted a stronger effort to turn around, and when he strained to turn his head and look anyway, whatever was in front of him pulled him back so hard that he "spun" one complete revelation all the way around back to the front real fast. He could not move and when he looked towards me again, he said that he saw a large grayish mist move across the room, passed over me and "vaporized" as it was headed out the window. That is when he said that he jumped up to wake me up. I thought that he was messing with me as I was used to him doing that. Of course later he would come back and tell me that he was joking. He really appeared shaken, this time, however.

I asked him if he was sure that he was not having a bad dream, because only several days before he'd had another dream that also upset him awake. He said he was sitting on a bench in a park at night with a "really pretty blonde girl", (he vastly preferred blondes over intelligence as long as they were pretty-he drove that home with me quite regularly too) He was talking with her, when she suddenly looked up and screamed. As Paul said he looked up to see what she was screaming at, he saw this demonic gargoyle-like image of a figure towering over them, holding a lyre in one hand reared back, appearing to be looking very angry at Paul, as if he intended to strike Paul with it. When the figure brought the lyre down towards Paul, he said that he jerked awake.

I considered, while listening to this at that time, that the church Paul attended, (I attended when he could convince me I should go), as is typical of the Baptist, may have succeeded in their teachings to have influenced him on the subliminal level enough with their instructional harpings on demonology, and that this was where it was coming from-I did mention it to him, and wonder if this was what might be influencing his dream world, since he obliged me with a rude awakening that I didn’t ask for.. But with this, he said, "No, I was definitely awake. I was looking right at the chevron designs on the bottom of the couch you were sleeping on."