Waiting for Autumn (2 page)

Around the same time as on the previous day, I returned to the Co-op, excited to see what my new friend would have for me. Robert was sitting crosslegged, with his back propped against a conifer and the little black Lab sleeping at his feet. He was still wearing the same ripped brown clothes from the day before, although it looked like he might have found a brush for his hair. As I approached, the puppy opened his eyes to briefly acknowledge my presence, but he quickly squinted them shut and returned to his seemingly perpetual sleep.

“Hi,” I said as I walked toward them.

“Hello, Scott.” Robert stood up quickly, gathered his belongings, and began to put them in his large canvas bag. He casually tossed the freshly lettered cardboard sign he was holding to the ground.

His sign challenged me. I knew I could find a pair that would clearly disprove his apparent premise of equality and started running through various odd couples in my mind. Giraffes and alligators. Debutantes and automobiles. Windows and feathers.

I finally said one aloud that was sure to stump him: “Elbows and mushrooms.”

“Pardon me?”

“Your sign—there is no difference between elbows and mushrooms,” I said smugly.

“I agree.” He continued packing. “Of course there’s not.”

He then slid the sign into his backpack and carefully arranged a family of miscellany within the drawstring bag. He held it out to me and asked, “Do you mind?”

“Sure.” I grabbed the cloth bag and slung it over my shoulder, although my ego was still a bit dented from his dismissive response.

“Let’s go,” he said as he swung the puppy over his shoulder like he was burping a furry baby. The small dog let out a soft whimper of surprise as his underside landed on Robert’s shoulder, but his eyelids remained shut, and he quickly returned to his state of indifference.

We walked up the hill to Main Street and turned right at the base of the hill next to the large gray library. I had never been inside the public building before, but its imposing presence confidently presided over the south side of downtown.

“Where are we headed?” I asked.

Robert shot me a sharp glance, making it clear that my question wasn’t going to be answered. For a brief moment I wondered if I could trust him, since he seemed to have a habit of being secretive and cryptic on occasion. But the truth was that I felt comfortable when I was around him. It was as if all was as it was supposed to be, and he conveyed a certain childlike innocence that made everything seem okay. Although it didn’t make a lot of sense to trust someone so completely whom I’d just met, I decided to write off my apprehension as leftover mistrust from L.A. If I was going to stay in Ashland, I would need to make some friends anyway, so I tried to put the doubts out of my mind and enjoy the day without thinking too much about it.

“Where are you from?” I asked, changing the subject.

“I’m from all over, most recently from Eugene.”

“And what brought you here?”

“I came to meet you, of course.”

I laughed, not sure if he was joking.

“I travel to wherever I’m needed, and Ashland always seems to have people who are ready to move on to the next level.”

“The next level of what?”

“The next level of consciousness. Because Ashland is in a vortex, it traps people who are on the path. And many, like you, don’t realize they’re on a path until they meet someone like me.”

“Someone like you? What does that mean? You mean there are other people like you?”

“Of course there are other people like me, just as there are other people like you. You are on the verge of a spiritual awakening, and I’m here to help you through it. Thankfully, many people are on their way, now more than ever. It’s finally time for this planet to wake up so we can collectively progress to the next level.”

I didn’t think I was on the verge of a spiritual anything. I simply thought that my car had broken down in a small mountain town, and I was trying to make the best of it with what little money I had. I’d never really thought much about spirituality before, and although my parents had both been brought up in religious families, they decided to raise their kids to be agnostic, so I didn’t have much experience with such things. And although we celebrated Christmas, it was much more “Santa & Rudolph” than “Jesus & Mary.”

As we continued to walk up into the hills above the town center, I finally realized why Robert was being so nice. He was evidently a religious fanatic trying to convert me.

“So what religion are you?” I thought that it was time to get it out into the open.

“Religion? I’m not religious!” he answered indignantly. “Who said anything about religion? Spirituality and religion are two very different things.”

“Sorry, I just thought—”

“Are you saying that religious people aren’t spiritual?” I was confused.

“But if religion is the knowledge of truth, how can so many religious books contradict each other?” My agnostic upbringing was starting to show.

I was starting to get dizzy, and I waved for Robert to stop so that I could catch my breath before continuing. I’d thought that I was in pretty good shape, but all those years of sitting in bumperto-bumper traffic had clearly taken their toll.

Robert put the small black puppy down on the sidewalk and continued: “But for those of us who are open to tapping into the wisdom of the universe that already exists, we can embark on the path of truth in much less time.”

I resumed walking slowly up the steep hill, and after making sure the puppy was okay, Robert flung the black Lab over his shoulder and effortlessly jogged up the hill to catch up with me.

“That sounds hard,” I finally said.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I didn’t have any energy to pretend.

“That’s what I like about you,” he laughed. “Your honesty is refreshing.”

I didn’t know what to say that would make it any clearer, so I finally asked, “How long have you been helping people with their spiritual awakening?”

“About 1,200 years now.”

I nearly tripped on the curb, not sure if I’d heard him right. “You look pretty good for 1,200 years old.”

“How new?”

“Just a few weeks now. I got it in Eugene from Don here,” he said, gesturing to his small furry companion, whose eyes were now half open as the puppy’s head bobbed up and down with Robert’s every step.

“Puppy Don gave you the body you’re in now? How did that work?”

My head was spinning. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not, but I had to admit he wasn’t boring.

“And what does Puppy Don have to do with all this?”

“This body I’m in was previously inhabited by Don. Unfortunately, the cancer got to him, and he couldn’t afford the treatment. And since he was so entrenched in the illusion of modern medicine, he didn’t realize he could treat himself. So when he was on his way out, I made a deal with him that I would give him another body and take care of him if I could use his human one.”

“So you turned him into a dog?”

“Of course not!” he laughed. “I just gave his soul some options that were most practical, and after some convincing, he selected the body he’s in now. I’m not going to be in this body very long, so he needed to pick one that was on the same cycle that I was.”

“He needed to live in dog years.”

“Exactly.”

After scaling the second hill, I was nearly out of breath again and wasn’t sure that I could make it up the third. Robert handed me an unopened bottle of water, and I took a sip, which gave me a chance to take in the beautiful vista of the valley. The water was exceptionally refreshing, and looking down the hill, we paused long enough so that I could see the floor of the valley below that seemed to cuddle up to the hills like a hand-woven rug next to a stately stone hearth. There were many places I had never been to in Ashland, and I was always taken by the town’s beauty when I discovered a new vantage point to view it from.

“Here we are,” Robert said when we arrived at the top of the third hill. In front of us was a large cement-covered water reservoir, and to the right the road turned from pavement to dirt and meandered through what seemed to be a horse pasture. I followed Robert off the main road to the left and came to the top of a hidden stairway that had been obscured by several full bushes. We carefully descended the precarious steps into the most magical meadow I had ever seen. Shafts of golden light danced on the moss-covered fallen logs, and the ground was carpeted with a combination of long green grass and the most delicate of ivy.

“This is incredible,” I gasped while taking in the magical beauty that appeared to have been lifted from a Maxfield Parrish painting. The light that engulfed the meadow was in constant motion, and the hues of the trees and grasses changed from blue to green to purple to orange and back again.

“Yes, it is. This is the largest fairy meadow in all of Ashland. Be sure to stay on the path as you walk—you don’t want to crush anyone’s home.”

I sat on a rock adjacent to the path and closed my eyes to see if I could sense what he was talking about. Almost immediately a tingle in my stomach forced an uncontrollable laugh.

“Yes, they’re quite playful. And they sure are curious about you! Do you feel that?”

“Dragonflies!” I was nearly speechless as my heart raced with excitement. I had always been attracted to these graceful creatures, but I had never seen so many in one place.

“Yes, fairy spirits take the form of dragonflies when they want humans to see them. Aren’t they beautiful?”

“There are so many! What are they doing here?”

“Every tree in the forest has a nature spirit to look out for it, and since we’re in the mountains, there are lots of tree fairies to take care of them. Everyone has a job to do on this planet, and that’s theirs. They are lucky: they are born knowing what their destiny is. It’s harder for humans, since the first part of their journey is discovering what they are meant to do.”