The Knowing: Awake in the Dark by Nita Lapinski Page A

sometimes.” I said.
    She didn’t ask what I saw but said, “Of course you do,” and chuckled. “It’ll be alright. Do you know how to meditate?”
    “No.” I said. 
She said ‘of course you do’ like it was perfectly normal.
I thought.
    “Meditation is the highway to enlightenment,” Boots said. “You should meditate every day to ground your energy and open up to your inner guidance. It will help you.”
    Boots instructed me to bring in light through the crown of my head letting it flow down one arm out of my palm and into the other creating a circle of light. I found comfort in the practice and would meditate sporadically throughout my youth. While nothing in my behavior changed at the time, I tucked away the information and would use it later in life. I’d eventually learn countless other methods of meditation until I made prayer and meditation part of my daily life.
    I wanted to believe Boots. I wanted to be special. I liked the idea of being a “Mystic” although I didn’t understand what the word meant, but it felt good when she said it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t ready to embrace all she told me. I simply couldn’t allow myself to believe I harbored anything good or special.
    On the drive home Maggie chirped, “That was really cool. Boots told me that I will have three kids and, she said I will never be rich, but I won’t have to worry about money, either. Cool, huh?”
    And then Isla said, “She said I was an Opera singer in a past life.” We all laughed because Isla was tone deaf and couldn’t sing at all.
    “I guess that’s why you can’t carry a tune now, huh?” Maggie teased. 
    My mother said, “We talked about my past lives, and I remember one where I was an Indian and had such a happy life. Not like this fucked up one. She said I don’t have to come back and reincarnate if I don’t want to and I’m not. After this life, I am done.”
    What pure bullshit
, I thought. I didn’t believe what Boots said about past lives.
Anyone could say that kind of crap
. I thought.
    I kept my thoughts to myself and said, “She said that I am a mystic, a seer. She said I will use my gift in this life to help people and she showed me how to meditate.” 
Let’s see what they think of that.
    Silence rang in the car and I assumed nobody believed me.
Maybe it sounds like such bullshit they think it’s a lie,
I reasoned. I had been dubbed the “flakey” child early on in life. My mother would look at me and say, “Jesus, Nita, you’re such a flake, you live in your own world.”
    And I did, but it was because of the Clairs, not because I was unmoored or stupid which is how the judgment felt, but no one would know about the Clairs until years later. It would turn out that Maggie’s predictions came true and mine did too. I didn’t tell my family about the
light-bodies
and voices because I worried I was crazy and I suspected no one would believe me anyway. I didn’t believe it myself. It seemed to be just like the past lives statement, impossible to prove. Still, I held onto the information, burying it in my subconscious.
    I felt hopeful after our time with Boots, though I wasn’t sure why.
    Maggie and I sold drugs so we could get ours for free. A new type of pot was on the scene called Thai-Stick. It was touted to be better than anything available and potheads wanted it. We were told only one man had it, a family man who lived nearby. He was a friend of an older couple Maggie knew so we went one Friday afternoon.
    The man’s name was Roger and he lived in an affluent part of town where the homes were large sitting in neat rows climbing up steep hills. We parked our crappy car in front of his tidy house and rang the bell. We were greeted with the smell of pot-roast and Fleetwood Mac’s “You Can Go Your Own Way” rang from strategically-placed speakers making the carpeted floor beneath us pound with the music’s beat. The matching furniture looked unused and perfectly placed.
    Roger stood