Dancing Blue Trousers

"Can I wear my blue trousers today?"

Shanna's deep brown eyes look at me beggingly. As if I would refuse her anything on her ninth birthday. I wouldn't dare!

"Of course you can! You might combine them with your red shirt and yellow scarf. I know how you like your bright colors. You'll look beautiful."

She smiles her beaming smile. And I close the door behind me.

Shanna knows what she wants in life. And she's very determined to get it! Just a few months ago, we landed in the south of the Netherlands. In a nature reserve near the German border. The Maasduinen. Riverdunes. Woods. Lakes. Fungi.

I can feel the tangled mystery landing in me already. Forests have that effect on me. I miss the Mexican smell though. And the warmth!

Holland is a bit too cold for my liking. But we plan to stay here this winter and spring anyway. Combining work and leisure. We're nomads, you know. We go where purposeful projects call us. The two of us. Together. Adventure in our bones and skins.

Although we've been here shortly, Shanna invited five friends to her birthday. Two sisters from three doors down. Their cousin. And two girls from the next village. She only met them once.

But that's no problem for her. She's clear and straight. Yes is yes. And no is not yet. She knows when the timing will be right. And then she says yes with full conviction!

She's a real 5D girl, my Shanna. Time and space are part of the equation. Like the other day, with our neighbor.

"I know how to dance with the water, you know," Shanna said to her. "I talk to the lake and she responds. When I give her intense flow, she gives me waves. And she's calm when I make my breath a breeze."

"You talk to the lake? How?" Our neighbor asked with a frown between her eyebrows.

And Shanna showed her. Her knees slightly bent. Her toes curled into the sand. Making round eights with her hips. Grown woman pelvis movements. Not exactly suitable for an eight-year-old. But what could I do? What Shanna has in her head, lands in her dancing ass.

She's a time-and space-girl who knows no shame, or guilt.

I giggled. And the neigbor had looked even more disgruntled. An eight-year-old who dances like a seductive woman with her water. And her mother just giggles. She mumbled something I didn't understand. But I stayed in my curious energy and smiled.

No time for daydreams now. I have practical things to do. The girs will be here in an hour. I have cakes to bake and lemonade to buy. Get on with it. Just get on with it!

When the girls arrive, it feels a bit uncomfortable at first. Shanna really looked forward to presents. And they brought none. Not even handpicked flowers or some fruits. Must be the custom here. Cold, fantom country! Luckily, Shanna gets over her disappointment quickly and yells,

"Let's dance!"

They go into the garden to have all the space they want. Our house is a little cramped for six dancing children.

Shanna swirls and sways and swarms in red, yellow and blue. And after a few hesitations, the five girls are dancing with her. She's a Mexican scarlet macaw in between a Dutch flock of grey doves. Her rainbow colors infect them. Her vibrancy mesmerizes them. Soon, they will be macaws too.

I just watch and wait. And lick my salty cheeks.

"Six, six, six," one of the girls whispers. "Six is the number of harmony." And she balances on her toes.

Arms stretched wide, touching her sister's. Who is looking far away into the sky. The mood gets lighter and fluttering. The roses, who survived a harsh, hot summer of climate change, are giving their last fragrance to my nose before they die and become compost for fertile soil.

I sigh a deep, dark intake of breath.

The music in their heads seems to pick up the pace. Faster and faster they swirl and sway. Their voices are getting louder.

"Golden circle. Sun is all," one of them cackles.

"The moon is in full flow..."

"Pull. Pull. Pull!"

"Ebb and flood..."

"Like there's no tomorrow..."

I lose track of who sings what, and what it all means. My head spins.

"Scary sacred smelliness," I hear them chorus. And a subtle waft of cadaver enters my nose. Very subtle. Nearly unnoticable. But I know what it means. The mirage will cloud over soon now.

"Spiral, spiral, spiral," Shanna's voice sing-songs. And I see all six of them spiraling toward the horizon.

All six macaws are gone. Just gone.

After a minute or two, I take my reek out of the shed and start shoveling poo out of the horses' barn. Thunder and Storm, the two Fallabellas, are watching me from their meadow.

There's no grief that a little poo shoveling can't lighten. It's all that's left for me now. Restoring ecosystems with compost and terra preta, the dark soil of my Mexican forests. I know the fermentation recipe by heart. And it lightens my soul to make fertile soil with my bare hands.

I just love to heal wounded earth with micro-organisms, fungi and organic matter. Create living soil. No need to think. Or hear the pity of people.

Storm approaches. Like his namesake, he has no destructive intentions. He just wants to make space for new things to emerge. And before I know it, I fall to my knees on the wet grass. Clinging to his fur.

An aweful sound pierces my ears. My own howling scares me. My grief. My despair. My loss. In soundbites and salty streams. Storm waits patiently. Like he did so many times before.

Three, six, nine. All the magic years have passed now.

And still, she's gone.

Suddenly, I notice one sunray reflected on his frozen nose. What's that? Do I feel a breeze on my cheek? Or? No, it can't be! I feel more deeply and realize that her breath is entering my heart via my left breast. Her favorite breast for feeding.

The blue resonant night starts to fall over the woods and the lake. And I know it's time for a next step in my purposeful life's journey. Grieving time is over. It's time to start writing.

And let the joy take over again.

As my Shanna would say, there is a time for everything...