Got a new tattoo yesterday. Sitting on the corner of my left wrist, I see it every time I look down; it's there to remind me of my commitment to living the hell out of life. Not that I need a tattoo to do my mental butt-kicking, but being such a visual person, it's a nice little replacement for a permanent string on my finger.

The Back Story
When I was about eight, my mother was a member of a spiritual, meditation group led by her best friend, Betty. They met weekly to channel in the good spirits and sift out the bad. Sometimes I would join in, peering out from underneath a table in the candle-lit dark, "ohhm"ing along with the rest of the crowd and trying to sit still in the lotus position. Most times, the night would end with my mom shaking me out of a snore coma and dragging me home while I managed to linger in between my dreams.

Unfortunately, it turned out that this "meditation group" was more like a cult (i.e. best friend Betty began to starve herself-one of the less crazy things she did in the name of religion), and my mom quickly saw the signs and left. She and Betty eventually lost touch, but we still held onto the positive aspects of spirituality, especially since it had already been a large, but subtle, part of my mom's life before me. I will always remember that one evening when Mom told me about Poda.

When I was really young, like three or four years old, I used to always stay up late to watch the moon. I could see it very clearly from my window, hovering big and white just over our house. Many nights, I would stare up at that moon until it disappeared. One night, while I was sitting in bed, looking wide-eyed into the midnight sky, I saw something move in the corner of my eye. When I turned to look, I saw the tiny figure of a boy peering from behind my bedroom door. His skin was very pale, he had an unusually large forehead, no hair, and large playful eyes. I wet my bed and screamed until my mother ran into my room and turned on the lights. I told her about the boy, sobbing in fear, but after a thorough search, there was no boy to be found. With a sigh, my mom tucked me back into bed, and turned out the lights. Looking out from under my covers when she left, I saw nothing in the darkness.

"Who was it, mom?" I interrupted.