JUL-AUG-SEPT-OCT-NOV-DEC 2021
I spent much time applying for jobs online and trying to envision my next destination. The more I tried, the more resistance I received. I did leave Ricardos’ house at one point but returned a few days later. The days of living in my van were behind me.
My 2005 Astro Van was not in the best condition. It overheated a few times while driving up the mountain to Ricardo’s home, which made me feel unsafe and unsure about hitting the road permanently. Ricardo grew impatient with me and wanted his house to himself, which I completely understood. I asked him to please be patient while I figured things out.
On September 17, 2021, Ancestry.com revealed yet another half-brother. He was 17 years younger than me and biracial. His mother’s African American heritage told me a lot about our birth father. The more I learned about Mr. Ray, the more I learned why I was the way I was. I reached out to my new half-brother, and we exchanged numbers and started having text conversations.
Madonna’s documentary Madame X was released on Paramount+ on Friday, October 8, 2021. Due to a lack of funds, I could not attend the live show a few years earlier, so I was excited to see the movie version.
I watched the show from start to finish a couple of times and, on the third pass, looked closely for any references to numbers 1, 2, and 3 or anything else that caught my attention.
I loved Extreme Occident at the 1:19:23 mark. I cried the first time I saw this piece because it deeply resonated with how I felt during my journey. It hit home. Hard.
I was hooked at the 1:23 mark on the song “Rescue Me.” This song made me feel many emotions, and I watched this piece repeatedly.
Frozen, at the 1:32 mark, was amazing. I wished I had been able to see it live and in person. It had to have been overwhelming. Coupled with Lourdes’s large image behind her, Madonna was pure perfection.
The appearance of Orion at the 1:32:38 mark was another personal highlight for me. The section between 1:23 and 1:32:08 seemed almost deliberate in some way.
But not as deliberate as 0722 on the flashing lights of the police car between the songs Future and Like A Prayer, at the 1:42:03 mark. 07/22 was my birthday. I also resonated with the red and blue lights. I initially thought it must have taken Madonna a long time to get the timing on this right. Either that, or I was completely insane. If it was true, I was completely honored.
But when Madonna reappeared as the image of my mother at the 1:53:32 mark, I knew I wasn’t insane. It was deliberate.
I had no idea what to make of this. I’m sure that if I had taken a closer look, I would have been able to find a lot more hidden messages, but I decided to go with first impressions and leave it at that.
On November 7, 2021, I remembered my many dreams about family the night before. I dreamt that I was attempting to drive up the North Carolina coastline but could not proceed due to highly flooded streets. I then stopped at a restaurant where I ran into my sister (who had died a year earlier) and informed her that the roads along the coast were flooded. I then decided to head to my niece’s in Wilmington, NC.
Then the dream changed to where I ran into my mother (who had died in 2000), and I was surprised to find her alive and well. She was in a nursing facility, and a woman whom I had never met before was her power of attorney/caregiver. And I started screaming at her, saying that I had known my mother for 60 years and I deserved to be her power of attorney, not someone whom she had just met.
The dream then changed once again. I was driving down a country road when the sun began to rise. As I scanned the horizon from left to right, I noticed many suns rising simultaneously at different locations.
On the afternoon of November 13, 2021, while standing on the back deck, a hawk paid a visit by circling directly overhead for at least 4 or 5 minutes. All I could think about was my previous adventures with the hawk and how the universe was putting me on notice every time something like this happened. I wondered if this sighting was connected to my dream a few days earlier.
On December 1, 2021, Comet Leonard appeared over the western horizon below Venus just after sunset. This event also felt like an invitation to resume my journey, but I didn’t trust my van to make the journey. I was frozen.