Takeaway Story #1 ~ *Makeshift Bowl Helmets and the Popcorn Ceiling Constellations*

For more on Takeaway Stories, click here:
http://stainedglassconfessional.blogspot.com/2007/07/whats-your-takeaway.html


Takeaway story #1

Once upon a time, my friend Curt used to live at his grandparent's house. He lived there and paid the utilities and kept up the house while they were away in South Bend, IN, which was most of the time. Curt's grandparents have a high living room ceiling with sparkly, 'popcorn' texture, much like my own parents' living room.

One night when Daniel and I went to Curt's, Daniel fell asleep (surprise, surprise) while Curt and I stayed up talking. Somehow, for reasons that elude me, we decided to gather up two flashlights and two large bowls. We laid on the living room floor with the bowls on our heads like helmets and all the lights off. We shone our flashlights at the ceiling and pretended we were astronauts, inventing constellations with the sparkly points of light.

I love that moment because we didn't have to be anything in particular, and I think not having to be anything makes us more of what we actually are. It was just Curt and I in our makeshift bowl helmets, staring up at the popcorn ceiling constellations - just being and letting each other be.

For a moment we were like children with an innocent childhood friendship. We forgot about the pain and rejection that drew us together - the doubts and the questions that troubled our souls. We were just us, having fun like any other children in the world. It was nice.
This is one of the things I would tell you as my soul left my body, trying to recount the moments that mattered. This is what it's like to be alive.

P.S. Again... my 'Currently Reading' selection rocks. Favorite quote?
" '...sad to see a man's faith fail,' the vampire Kurt Barlow had said,
and then he'd plucked Don Callahan's dark and useless cross from
his hand. Why had he been able to do that? Because - behold the
paradox, consider the riddle - Father Callahan had failed to throw
the cross away himself. Because he had failed to accept that the
cross was nothing but one symbol of a far greater power..."

Currently reading : Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, Book 6) By Stephen King Release date: By 23 May, 2006