Who’s there?

I’m not psychic. I have those moments where I get that feeling that something is wrong out there in the universe and I start calling everyone on the family tree to make sure everything is okay.

However, I have been afflicted over the years with hearing or feeling someone close by me when there are no other worldly people in the general vicinity. And occasionally I hear a whisper of a voice say my name. The kids find it hilarious. When they are in another room and I walk in and say, “Did one of you call me?”

But the voice has been useful. There were times when the voice stepped in and possibly changed the direction of my life.

Once when I was small I was running after a ball that had gone into the street when the voice yelled my name. I stopped to look around, trying to find the person who had called out to me. At that instant a car ran the stop sign in front of our house where moments earlier I had been stepping out.

The second time, I was walking on High Street by the Ohio State Campus, at night, and possibly a little inebriated. I decided to take a shortcut through an alley behind one of the more popular establishments. (Papa John’s for those old enough to remember.) As I turned the corner I heard my name called, same warning voice. I stopped and looked down the alley. There was a gang of guys hanging out and the situation did not look like one a lone female should walk through. I back tracked,kept to the main road and walked safely back to my friend’s apartment.

The third time I was driving through South Carolina on my way back to Florida from Ohio. The kids were asleep in the back and Kirk was dozing in the passenger’s seat. I had a tootsie roll pop that I was sucking on, trying to stay awake. We decided to stop once we got into South Carolina but realized there weren’t many hotels on 77 between Rock Hill, where the rooms were sold out due to a softball tournament, and Columbia. I was exhausted. I had the music turned up loud enough to keep me awake but low enough so the kids could sleep. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel because the voice all but shouted my name. I woke up before my tires hit the gravel strip beside the road.

I’m not sure who the voice is. As many of you know I am not a very religious person. As a child I named the voice Thomas.

And I’ve learned to listen when the voice speaks.

Yesterday, I was writing. The words were flowing in a way they haven’t for awhile. Words were coming to me from a myriad of directions. Cacophony, effervescent, abhor, aesthetically, egregious; words I love but somehow am never able to remember with my addled post menopausal brain. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow pass by the French doors of the den and heard my name. I turned, but knowing I was alone in the house knew it was just my friend stopping by to check in.

“Hey Thomas,” I said. “I’m all good, go help someone else.”