Love Story: In The Cloud

by Ken Renshaw

  The next evening, I called when I was a few blocks from Tina's apartment building so she could meet me downstairs. As I turned onto her street I saw her crouched down petting a dog, apparently being walked by a neighbor. As I drove up she patted the dog on the head, gave it a small kiss on the forehead, smiled at the owner, and turned toward me with a big grin.

  I reached across the seat and opened the door.

  As she slid in she said, "Oh, I love Goldens. They are such loving dogs."

  "You look beautiful,' I said. "that shade of purple is perfect for you."

  She looked at me questionably for a second and then brightened into a smile and said, "You surely are in a good mood tonight. Full of Sierra sunshine...or moonshine. You must have had a really good week."

  "I did, indeed. Rocky Butte was an interesting place. I really met some interesting people.

  "I have to go up there next Wednesday for the trial. I want to be there, acting like a local for a while before the trial starts. The trial shouldn't last more than a week."

  As we drove, I told her about Rocky Butte, the Judge, Agnes, and the gold pans. She listened with great interest. I was about to tell her about Steve and Georgia when we got to Hernando's.

  After we were seated and had ordered margaritas and food, I started to tell her about Steve and Georgia. "Steve is my main witness in the trial, the remote sensor that tried to help find the lost girl. He and his wife live in a mountain cabin, almost off the grid, at the end of unnamed dirt roads above Rocky Butte. They have a fantastic site with a view of the mountains. They are a wonderful, loving couple; amazingly comfortable and affectionate with each other. They are quite a contrast to the uptight lawyers and trophy wives I meet here in LA. Georgia seems to have unusual psychic powers. When I was talking about my mobile home in the desert, she seemed to pick up pictures of you being there."

  Tina smiled in a kind of surprised way. "They sound great. You now seem to be quite comfortable with these ideas about psychic powers. That is a big switch. We couldn't have even broached the subject without you being uncomfortable a few weeks ago."

  "Since my first contact with Mason, I have acquired an immense amount of information that has altered my viewpoint. The physics, the logic, the people, and my personal experiences have all come together. I have no trouble with the subject. I used to think all this stuff was outside the realm of science and was simply delusional. Now, I think all of this stuff is within an expanded realm of science. People in the scientific world are delusional if they hold onto the conventional four-dimensional view of reality and say psychic phenomena is nonsense!"

  Tina replied delightedly, "Although I don't understand all this mathematical stuff, I think it is wonderful that you are having all these new understandings. Who would have believed.... Wow! The energy level coming off your body is amazing."

  "I haven't got to the best part yet. I told you about Dr. Candice Montgomery. I visited her and her husband in their home in Altadena. Her husband, Tom Watson, a Hollywood-type composer/arranger, also does personal counseling in something he calls space-time therapy. He explained to me how we are like spiders in the center of this web of information, with filaments connected throughout The Cloud. Some of the filaments are connected to what we call conscious or subconscious memories in our lifetime. Some people in therapy trace filaments to other space–times. Tom doesn't call them 'past lives' because that implies the reincarnation thing, souls transmigrating from body to body in a timeline. Tom says that filaments connect people in space and time that have an emotional connection for some reason. He thinks there are a variety of reasons for this connection.

  "I asked him how it works, and he said for me to do it and find out. We started with a sore knee, which bothers me when I play squash, and ran the thread back to a childhood injury when I fell on my knee. Amazingly, my knee hasn't hurt since the session with Tom. Then, we did some emotional threads, like the last time I was really pissed at Zaza, which went all the way back to my second grade. I was kind of on a roll so Tom kept going on a variety of things. After, two hours, a strange thing happened: I went earlier on a thread, through childhood, and then I saw a vague picture of another young man that I thought was a brother-not my brother in this life-standing next to an ancient biplane, the kind they fly in movies about World War I. The vision didn't last long so I didn't get much information about him. At that point, we had to stop because I felt an incredible surge of happiness. I was blown away, so excited about this exploration I booked another session tomorrow afternoon."

  Tina looked startled and asked, "Was that a past life? I have a friend who did past life therapy and claims she was all kinds of people."

  "Not exactly. Tom says it was a connection to another person in space-time. No DNA or reincarnation implied. It is connection with a space-time that holds some idea, emotion, unfinished business, or physical injury that I need to address. Tom says it is unnecessary to understand the big picture of why this connection exists. We can get rid of all the web attachments of information with negative emotional power."

  Tina observed, "I have never seen you like this. Is there more? Your energy is about to blow me right out of this chair."

  Then, our margaritas came. Tina told me about her week teaching. I gradually settled down from my high. We chatted while we ate, and I observed that Mexican food was very grounding.

  As we finished, Tina said, "I love how you are changing with all this space-time stuff."

  "I also learned how these new friends have homes that express ideas in space-time. The log cabin above Rocky Butte, the surroundings, the love, the solitude, and privacy are unique in space-time. Candice and Tom's place in Altadena is very true to the Bungalow Style and the Craftsman idea of detail, workmanship, and integrity. When I walked into the place, I felt intense feelings that this was somebody's loving home, a caring creation, a unique place in space-time.

  "In reflecting on the subject, I recalled that my mother tried to maintain the family house as it was at the time when my brother and I were in high school, my father was alive, and we were a close family. When she passed away, our rooms were about the same as when we went to college, with drawers filled with our high school sports jerseys, Boy Scout uniforms, and silkscreened T-shirts from the various events we had attended.

  "When I look at where I live now, my apartment, all it says is 'expensive address,' 'talented interior decorator,' and 'big furnishing budget.' The place is no more to me than a suite at a five star hotel would be. I am not connected to it as the people I visited are connected to where they live."

  Tina grinned and added, "You are changing. I'd like to meet Candice and Tom and see their house sometime."

  "I'm going there tomorrow for a session with Tom. You could come along. I'm not sure if Candice will be there. You might have to sit around alone for a couple of hours."

  "It sounds great. I have a pile of unread books on my Kindle to entertain myself. I'd like to see Altadena. Maybe, we could stop by the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena on the way home. It is time for me to have another Impressionist fix. Have you ever been there? There are good places to eat in Old Pasadena, sidewalk cafes and bistros. It's pleasant to wander around and shop this time of year. Have you ever been to the Norton Simon?"

  "Not for a long time. It might be a good way to ground myself after spending an hour or two traveling in space-time with Tom."

  I paused and then said, "One of the things I like about you is how much space you occupy, how you can mentally go to Altadena and then flash over to the museum, go through it, probably visualizing some of the paintings and then move through the list of sidewalk cafes, probably recalling the menus, and then go shopping, all in less than a minute.”

  Tina tilted her head down in mock coyness, glanced hesitantly at me and said, "You left out how I started the day, I was in my place, making breakfast for you."

  I felt that pleasant glow around my heart, raised my hand, and said,

  "Waiter, check p
lease."