Mind, no mind

[Emily Littleton] It is a lovely Spring afternoon, with the mercury rising into the high fifties, threatening to scale onward to the heights of summer ever sooner, ever nearer. It's after Easter, and the world is reborn. Emily comes to the community center with a little trepidation, as it's been weeks longer than she intended to be away. Life has a way of intervening, and the young (still [for now]) Orphan has been heavily tossed around by the currents and whims of Fate.

She comes. Eventually Emily comes back to see him, crosses the athletic courts and makes her way toward the building. Her messenger bag comes with her, like always, but there is a lighter jacket now and a brighter splash of color to her clothes. There is a difference, too, in the way she carries herself : gracefully. There is a slightly different cant to her smile (centered [calmer]) and less turbulence in her eyes.

She is softer, like the quieter footsteps and gentler knock on the door behind which she expects to find him. Something has changed, subtle but true.

[Charlie McGee] The rec center is primarily working outside today...the actual advisers and workers outside doing things ranging from touch football to the broken asphalt basketball courts with chain nets rather then cloth. Charlie was not getting to enjoy the slightly breeze Spring day though. Instead, he was right now beneath the ice making machine...grunting a little as he had little room to breathe.

A woman stepped outside..glancing to Emily she gave a smile...then pointed towards the machine as well. She had a guess the girl was not here for recreational sports...she wasn't too far from Charlie's age either...though that was just an assumption of a fellow employee to the resident handyman.

It was easy to make out that it was likely Charlie beneath the machine...primarily the fact that his cap was next to the cobbled together toolbox.

[Emily Littleton] "Might you need a hand?" she asked, and among his acquaintances Emily's accent is unmistakable. It's a little heavily canted toward British at the moment, tasting more strongly of notes that had always been resonant and clearest amid the muddle of far away and not here.

She crouches, careful to tuck her skirt around her knees in a well-practiced motion that appears largely thoughtless. Emily can almost get her head low enough to find him under all of that, without breaching impropriety.

"I can hand you spanners and things, if you like," she added, clarifying her position on helping somewhat. There is a warmth to her voice, less tentative now than before. Again, it is a subtle thing. Largely left unnoticed with the time that has passed between their discussion -- or possibly more apparent for that separation.

[Charlie McGee] "Much appreciated....ugh...hard to breathe under this monstrosity. I need..."

He pauses for a moment, eyes squinting up into the guts of the thing.

"...I need a hammer...there should be a small one...the head should be still intact though the back of its broke...blue handle I think."

Charlie said without skipping a beat as if he had expected her to come in...though he really hadn't. But he rarely let things throw him off guard.

"Also...hello...greetings..glad to see ya...how's life? And how about those Cubs?"

He chuckled some when his hand darted out for the tool before grunting as the brief humor had impacted his chest a bit against the tight space.

[Emily Littleton] She finds it, the broken-yet-functional hammer, and places it into the hand that darts swiftly out from under the monstrous ice machine. With mild amusement, she watched it disappear into the void that had half-swallowed Charlie.

"Oh, things are well enough," she answered without really answering. Her tone of voice was lightly wry, but not encumbered by other weighty things. It was light and comfortably playful. "I've been home for a week, catching up on a few things I left undone for too long. And now I'm here again, and finishing my flirtation with jetlag."

There's a beat. Just a little pause. Nothing too remarkable except that it's followed by: "I still haven't gotten the knack of following sports clubs, here. How are the Cubs?"

She had no idea if it was even baseball season. Wait, the Cubs were a baseballer team, were they not?

[Charlie McGee] "..spring is kicking in. They beat the Brewers just the other day...next game...urk...is tomorrow against them again."

A small rattle as he worked the hammer into the space...having to drag the hammer between the space of his chest and the cooler...which was an almost impossible feat in itself. He breathed in and out, regaining his breath and composure before there's a few clanks here and there...before a sudden hum began from the ice machine.

"...finally. Grab my feet, will ya?"

Charlie couldn't drag himself out if he wanted to at the moment...the space was that cramped.

[Emily Littleton] "Pardon?" the young apprentice asked, somewhat surprised by the request. Then something must have clicked for her, as she quickly amended, "Oh, right. Will do."

Not that she is much in the way of help. Emily takes up his feet, as requested, but when it comes to helping ease him out from under the ice machine a child might have been more helpful. Charlie already knows this, though, in some part of his mind. He'd assessed her before, when she'd first come to him for help all those weeks ago.

[Charlie McGee] Charlie most needed just a little assistance to help him dislodge himself. He didn't have traction at the moment. A few tugs though and he was free. He stretched, fingers clenched together and pushed forward with his arms outstretched as he rolled his chest until he felt...heard..the pop of muscles and bone. He sighed, moving his arms around a little in the fluid movement that seemed natural for Charlie to adopt so easily.

"Any case...what's up? I imagine this isn't just a social visit...if even those are far and in-between."

He grinned some, joking at her expense.

[Emily Littleton] She winced a little, at the audible crackling of Charlie's body reassorting itself into more proper positions. It was a sympathetic thing, for those snap-crackle-pop moments were both pleasure and pain. The crease in her features faded quickly, replaced again by the warmer smile and milder expression.

"Plenty," another answer without answering. "Though I don't know how much of the general mayhem you want to hear about...?" A raised eyebrow, seeking. If he wanted a status update, she could offer it, but that's clearly not why she's come.

"And I suppose I thought I should come say hello again," there's a slightly sheepish cast to her expression. "It's taken me a long time to clear enough out of my head that I could work on the study you gave me." This is said plainly, without any indication of how serious or frivolous the uncluttering may have been.

"Though I have no real agenda, this time," she admits, shrugging off the joke now and laying this out bare before him. Emily, who is a doer of things, who will someday be a mover of mountains, is comfortable (now [only just now]) being still and unplanned in his presence. Isn't that an oddity?

[Charlie McGee] "Mmm...I don't mind hearing about it. I might not do anything about it though..."

He smiled a bit, stretching still before finally finishing.

"I think I'm just out of the loop cause honestly...no one likes my stance on things so I just take it as it goes."

He bent down, picking up his hat and sliding it over the white bandanna wrapped over his head as he grinned to her, the almost cheesy cake-eating grin that Charlie never seemed to lose for long.

"You got anywhere with that exercise by the way?"

[Emily Littleton] "Ah, well, there's Henri's sentient toxic waste goop..." Emily starts, wrapping the fingers of one hand around the strap of her messenger bag and shrugging, as if they were talking about the events of a serial television programme, not real life.

"Which may or may not be connected to an evil mega-corporation developing weapons of mass destructions." Again, said plainly with a little gesture from her free hand.

"And there's the demon nephandi thing that showed up in the park, which may or may not be hunting down Nathan's friend Kaya..." This brought a crease to her features, as if she'd been personally affected in a negative fashion. Emily's free hand balled into a loose fist before she realized it and released that tense gesture.

The Orphan looked down at the concrete floor for a moment, drew a small breath, and then shrugged again. It didn't quite roll off her, but it didn't all seem to burrow directly into her soul and eat away at her calm quite as quickly as before.

"But yes, I've made a little headway on the practice. It's going better now than before." There's a smile, offered up in his direction, almost proudly.

[Charlie McGee] Charlie just arched a pierced brow...for a moment his mouth opening as if to say something before he ultimately just shook his head.

"Okay...yeah...I think I'm sorta glad I'm not in the loop. Cause that's just...what the fudge?"

He smiled again, hands going into the pockets of his cargo pants as he rocked onto his heels for a moment.

"Made some headway? How so?"

[Emily Littleton] "I... frankly... have no idea," she replied, echoing his sentiment rather succinctly. There was a little nod, then (enough of that), and a smile to meet his renewed smile. Emily's other hand wrapped around the strap of her messenger bag, too.

"Well, at first, every time I sat down to focus on the lake, all of the other things I had to do, or needed to sort out, or was avoiding -- all of that came rushing in to fill up my head." A little shrug. "At first I tried to ignore them all, but the same things were turning up in nightmares and whatnot, so I decided to go home and deal with some of them."

This was said clearly, firmly, and without further explanation. Unless he asked, and she was feeling particularly bent toward self-disclosure.

"After that, it was easier. Worries about school, or what to make for dinner -- those are easier to set aside to focus on the lake. And what the space around it is like. I spent an hour working on the exercise on my flight back to Chicago, even, and was able to ignore the upset toddler a few rows away."

[Charlie McGee] "Good...good."

He bent down, putting some of the tools back in the box before eyes turned back to her for a moment.

"Keep doing the exercise...but...I want you to start trying to do it without meditation. Sort of like breathing...keep doing it while you are doing other things until the point where...you don't even need to focus on it...its always there. But don't just keep it to a lake...you can think of it as an empty room....put furniture there...people...music that might be playing...what the room might be part of...what the building itself looks like and what sort of people live or work there."

He smiled, knowing the exercise was the same as the lake in ways but it was a different adaptation. It was another part of the few Akashic practices he knew...though most of the learnings were self-taught. An Akashic had to find their own way eventually.

[Emily Littleton] She nodded slowly, and shifted her weight. Emily's hands came free of her messenger bag's strap, then found their way into her jacket pockets. Thoughful, she pondered this for a while, perhaps already laying in the foundational pieces of this secondary awareness.

"That sounds a bit like directed day dreaming, though I suppose you also want me to be mindful of what's actually going on around me as well. Divided attention? Wouldn't everything suffer, slightly, for it?"

Always with the questions. Emily was always thinking, asking, trying to get under or around his task to find its intent.

[Charlie McGee] "It does at first. The premise is that eventually meditation becomes second nature. Like breathing. You don't think to breathe, remember? Its just so ingrained for us to do so now. Its natural. The calming effect of meditation....the ability to focus our thoughts to the point of everything as well as being able to blank out our thoughts. The No Mind aspect or Zen awareness. Those traits both come from these sort of exercises....once you've gotten good at it. Once you can be aware and unaware...then we'll get to what you came to me for in the first place...being able to defend yourself. But the mind is the first part we always focus on. The body is easy to build on...its the mind that takes work. After all, the mind is what limits us and tells us 'we can't do this'. Our body reacts accordingly to what the mind thinks. But...if you get the mind to say 'hey, this could work', the body will try to heed its wishes. It might crap out now and then, but ultimately it will put out more then what it might have originally."

Charlie grinned, once more giving a flourish of thoughts that once again said that he was an Akashic deep down and more then just capable of bustin' a move.

[Emily Littleton] "Actually, breathing's handled by a completely different part of your brain. Part that I'm not even sure is rightly considered mind. It's not so much that you've stopped thinking about it, as that you've never really had to. It's an autonomous function."

Oh, right. Charlie was making an analogy, not a scientific statement. Emily shrugged a little. It was difficult, sometimes, to take figuratively what had little grounding in actual science. And she was both an architect and a perfectionist, which made it even harder.

"Though I take your meaning... " Here, a softer tone, and an understanding smile. She does gather what he's saying, however pedantic she seems in the moment.

[Charlie McGee] "Then we're making progress. You have to remember that you can't limit it to scientific rationale at times. There is hardly anything 'science' to what we do. Others can break it down and try to explain it...but ultimately...we defy the reality of the sleepers. I know very few members of the martial arts who can catch a blade with their bare hands...not deflecting but literally catching the edge on the palm or between fingers as if their very hands were sword catchers."

He finished packing away the tools as he stood again...using the motion to stretch out his legs a little.

"Mostly, what you need to work on is separating that element of yourself from time to time. Or a better analogy is well...Star Wars. You fail to do something because you are already believing you cannot. Do or do not. There is no try. If you doubt here...."

He reaches over, poking at her collar bone though it was rather close to other areas.

"If this carries doubt..."

The hand comes up and pokes at her head.

"...it sews the seed of doubt here...and then...it goes to your body."

[Emily Littleton] Star Wars.

Emily's eyebrow hitched upwards noticeably. There's a wry twitch to the corner of her mouth, forcibly stilled from growing into a smart-ass smirk. Bitten back, too, is the easy retort (I didn't take you for a jedi...). Her gaze tracks the course of his hand as he pokes at her collar bone, then at her head. It's a tight awareness, not quite fear but definitely wary.

"Are you saying that Belief," and when she says it, it sounds an awful lot like Faith, "Directs our abilities more than reason, perhaps even more than Will?"

It's an oddly serious question, more serious yet when paired with the gravity (nascent surety) of her grey-blue eyes. But it's just a moment, and then the gravity fades. The surety falters. Whatever Charlie was momentarily privy to dissolves and steps back from the forefront of her expression.

[Charlie McGee] "I think its both. Granted, I think a lot of things are the same...we separate into different aspects but honestly...I go with the idea that without belief...we would falter. We have to have belief in our abilities...in ourselves. If we constantly look in the mirror and see failure or 'not quite there'..then that's all we ever will be, y'know? It starts from inside...you have to gain that sense of confidence from within. Others can give you a light or point it out...but ultimately the path to be walked will be one determined by you. To me...though there may be old paths to walk...its never taken the same way. Even if I'm going down the same road my prior lives have walked...I doubt I'm going the same exact route or taking the same detours along the way. Don't think they had a Dairy Queen back in Tibet or during the Boxer Rebellion."

He just smiles, not inquiring that brief glimmer across her face...but it would seem something had given her...purpose beyond just learning.

[Emily Littleton] "I would agree," she says, adding quickly but not too hastily, "To a point." There were always reservations with the young Orphan, always space taken and maintained in which she could make up her own mind or add her own caveats. She may be easy to lead, but she was difficult to instruct.

"I'm not so certain, any more, that we ever truly walk alone." A curious thing to say, perhaps, when paired with that soft (patient [growing]) smile. Yes, something has shifted for her and Emily has found (reclaimed) a deeper purpose.

"I will work on this mindfulness without being mindful," she added, steering the conversation away from more abstract and personal things.

[Charlie McGee] Charlie nodded some as he lifted the toolbox.

"Fair enough...so...what's on yer mind, M?"

[Emily Littleton] "What do you mean?" she asks, a bit taken aback. Not overtly so, but perhaps she is unclear as to which thing he may be referring. Emily's hands slide out of her pockets just enough that she can tuck her thumbs out. It brings her elbows out a bit, makes her stance less closed-small and humbled. It is more comfortable, and slightly more open.

[Charlie McGee] "You've had this goofy grin on your face since I came out from under the ice box. And your eyes are lighting up more then usual. And while I would love to say its due to my amazing wit, charm, intelligence, and stunning good looks...I hardly think its limited to me...as much as that dampens my ego."

Charlie chuckled as he walked towards the basement area where his own things were at.

"...so...what's doodling your noodle, eh?"

[Emily Littleton] The smile didn't abate, but it was shaded carefully. Kept a little closer. Ah, that's the Emily he better knew.

"As I said. I went home," and now the resonance in that word is clear to hear; it is more than just the bauble she wears on a chain around her neck, though the word and the thing are quite tightly intertwined. "It'd been years, and a lot of very important things were piling up. Keeping me from going home, or feeling like I could."

It's honest, almost painfully so. There's a somber note to her eyes now, and Emily's fingertips reach up for that locket that sings of home, but do not close around it yet.

"I guess I feel lighter, now, for having made peace with it." There's more, of course, but nothing she's said is evasion. It's just not terribly particular. Perhaps the things she'd went home to work through were too private to lay out here, as she followed him down the concrete hallway. "I'm trying to --"

She caught herself, began again.

"I'm starting to build a home here, too. Tentative and slow-going, it is, but it's begun at least."

[Charlie McGee] He got to where his 'bunk' was, setting the tool box down as he reclined down onto the simple mattress for a moment, letting his eyes close.

"Home...that's something I haven't seen or thought of in years. Its been some time since I went home.."

He then glanced over towards her.

"...but it sounds like home for you was...almost like well...an anchor. It was weighing you down from making new beginnings."

He didn't need a story to feel some of the heft of the words...their weight.

[Emily Littleton] "No..." It was a tentative syllable, but also quite certain. Emily's brow furrowed a bit, as she decided how much she wanted to disclose and how much she needed to keep back. "Not really."

This pause is pregnant with the weight of that determination. How much to give away, how much to let in. She shrugged a bit, and tried to clear the conflicted look from her features.

"Home is ... the one place I've felt safe enough to deal with some of things that has happened in my life. It's Sanctuary, a place to retire to and rest, recouperate. It's where my family is, the last person I've known for most of my lifetime." There's a wistful look, swept away quickly under the cover of another shrug.

"I went home, so I could find my way back to God. So I could stop being angry for how He left me, so I could bury my godfather, so I could get perspective on some of the things that have happened here lately."

Emily shrugged again. "I went home, so I could remember how to build one here when I came back. It's not an anchor; it's a lighthouse."

[Charlie McGee] "Ahhhh."

Charlie said, not sure what to say beyond that before he pulled his legs up into an almost loose lotus position as he sat up.

"Well...glad you're back."

[Emily Littleton] "Thanks," she said, shrugging a bit again and trying to push through the upwelling that answering his observation (attack) had brought forward. "I am, too."

Breathe.

"And thanks for being patient with me... I must be your worst student," a slightly self-chastising remark, to go hand in hand with a self-chastising expression.

[Charlie McGee] "You're my only and first student, M. Don't sweat it. Its a learning experience for me just as much as it is you."

He smiled a bit as rolled his neck again.

"Its not like you are completely ignoring what I say either...you are trying. So I hardly would call you a bad student."

[Emily Littleton] She smiled too, and the new-found warmth was beginning to return to her expression and body language.

"Have you met Owen?" she asked. "We've been talking a lot, lately. About the Chorus, among other things. You two might get along," she posits, cautiously. Owen and Charlie both had their differences with the rest of the Awakened community.

[Charlie McGee] "I don't think I have...guess I'll have to meet him down the road."

Charlie finally stood.

"Any case...I'm about to take a nap for a little bit before I have to work on some other projects tonight. Keep working on the mental thing though..."

[Emily Littleton] "I will, thank you."

"Rest well," she said, taking her cue to step out of the room and let him sleep. Emily lingered long enough to say her goodbyes, then made her way out of the rec center and onward.