I Ran Away on Mother’s Day

I ran away to the Oregon coast on Mother’s Day week-end.

I am not so fond of this day that singles out and demands we pay attention to mothers. For one thing, I think when mothers are loved, they know it. There are a multitude of signs families provide all year long, their deep affection expressed in comments, a touch or a look, small gifts of time and random treasures offered. The day commercializes what should be a celebration any old day. I believe random acts of love are better than ones that happen on a calendar basis.

But the main reason is that this day is a time of melancholy reflection for me. A longing rises up and grabs hold of me hard. Tears soften my vision and I pause.

My mother died a few days before Mother’s Day in 2001. The funeral home viewing was held on the date meant to enjoy our living mothers. I remember most her hands from that day. In peculiar repose when I knew them so intimately as hands that created and worked every day, they were still lovely. She lived a robust, demanding life into her nineties and was possessed of a quick mind, a vivid imagination and a generous soul. Only when she could abide no more discomfort did she slip out of flesh and bones.

I still miss her, as daughters always do miss their mothers when fortunate enough to be loved by them. To have shared stories with them that last long after the leavetaking.

So off I went to the sea. Edna Kelly Guenther did not like water very much, at least not moving, spirited water. From a distance she admired its power; she could not swim and feared drowning. But I am drawn to it in every form and when the forest gathers around it, I am pulled even more. My husband and I have been staying in humble, old-fashioned cottages near Yachats, the emerald coast village, for twenty years. We were happy to return last week-end.

Every year I do things in memory of my mother’s dauntless curiosity and joie de vivre. She was fascinated by natural history, botany, entomology, and geology as well as the creative and domestic arts. As I roamed, observed, rested and hiked I felt her presence. It was a soul-satisfying time, even with bittersweet moments.

On childhood trips we stopped at wooden bridges often. This one was built in 1918, 9 yrs. after my mother was born. The wind in the trees and the river made gentle sounds.

Wild iris on one of the trails. Her favorite flower.

A strong athlete in her youth, she would have been as impressed as I by the wind surfers.

At Cape Perpetua, a look-out built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Depression. She loved the grandeur of nature.

She’d have found this visually interesting, and wondered over the great distances wood travels before adorning the sand.

I can see her place her index finger on her lips and gaze at the horizon: more presence of God, she would have thought. Like me.

We sang the old songs for you, mom, like “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” I love you.

Two of Many Women

I was inspired by a colleague this week. I watched her work with someone nearly broken, a woman who still says she cares for the man who harms her. She is ambivalent about what to do. I had thought my co-worker might be soft-voiced and exceedingly careful but was illuminated by her ways and means. They are of a different culture than I am and I had asked for assistance, her insight so I might better understand. I watched her at work.

She was first polite, with few words. But soon she became bold and frank. She was insistent while respectful in her pleading for change. She didn’t cover the truth with easy lies or elaborate good will. The reality is: this person could lose her life to domestic violence. My colleague had seen it happen and so she was clear: “Save yourself, your children. You are a good woman and you need to stay alive.”

And then there is another client I work with whose face has visited me all week. She is slipping back into a lifestyle that demands violence as a ticket to live. It is this or possibly not survive, and she mostly believes it can still work right now. It is what she knows, and it is her default when she wants to give up. With her I am calm and gentle. I have to wait. I note the signs of her anger and speak about the depression that keeps her numb and listen for the moment when she will stop fighting life, herself, me, everyone. When she will remember how much she wants a little peace, a small kindness. Then she may look at me with eyes unguarded, the door open a crack, for at least an instant. I will have to be ready to respond. It has happened before. It can happen again. I know who she thinks owns her; she is hostage to this belief. But I am not afraid of her anger , just for her weary and scarred life. I am patient as one must be with any badly wounded creature, so that she will raise her head and see a hand not to maul but to accept.

So, four women, two of whom care and want to make a difference, two of whom are riddled with confusion but have so much to offer this world.

Later when I took a long walk after work and saw the century old trees shimmer in the light and heard the birds carousing, I thought, “this, this, this wonder!” But then the women came to me with their sorrow and need and a poem made itself with each step: This this this wonder that you survive….

Two Women…

This this this!

Wonder that you survive brutality.

I see you kneel:

your heart like a cup dipped

in shallow bitter waters.

But the well is so deep

you cannot see the bottom

where light spreads itself over the universe.

You have been tricked with blindness

that dark fruit of ceaseless disregard.

Let me see you stand

and reach into the sweet unknown

pull up that mysterious power that loves you.

It speaks your lost, blameless name.

This this this

wonder that you

survive brutality.

I see you kneel,

one day will see your cup running over

I will see you rise up

with blazing-white wings

and your eyes will not weep

o yes your eyes will so shine

                                  Love should not hurt. Help stop domestic violence.

The Solitude Which Longs for Me and I, It…

Last week-end, I did  something wonderful that I so often do: I took to nature and filled up. I was hungry for the smallest mundane and stunning wonders. It has always been vital to move within a canopy of trees and meditate by running or still waters. To lay my head upon flower-jeweled grasses or lay my hand atop the chill, ancient bulk of rocks that line a trail.

Sometimes it is more crucial than others.

All the work-week long I sit in small rooms and attend to people who bring me eruptions of tears; stories that unravel like epic histories with no beginning or end; silences that throb with such swirled feelings and accompanying consternation that all they can do is… wait… for more language to tame the rawness of the telling.

Grief they carry in on their backs and then hold it tightly as though afraid it will vanish and leave them lonely. Invisible murderous things done by word and hand. Gaping voids where love once lived and then was misplaced or forgotten or ruined.  They seek healing, small stitches over wounds that feel good instead of bad, like fine, strong embroidery that will hold for a lifetime and eave no more scars. They hope for magic, the one key that will make the doors spring open and reveal the reward for the suffered moments of lives derailed.

And I am only one woman sitting in a chair by the window, the light falling across folded hands, my eyes seeking theirs, my heart by turns breaking for them and beating strong. I can honor their tellings with respect and attention. I can assist them with escape from lifelong addiction into new freedom from slavery. I can lay compassion before them and hope it is discovered, caught, taken home at the end of the hour. But I am only an ordinary woman sitting by a window, the delicate spring light falling across my shoulders, illuminating their bewildered faces. I listen because that is what I choose to do. I do not flinch, unless you count the closing of my eyes when the pain requires a prayer for mercy. Anyone knows I cannot save lives, unlike the EMTs or surgeons and others fitted with skills and tools I do not have. The only answer my clients receive is that they can and will learn to save themselves. Or will not, as they ultimately decide. I can and will stand watch over them. Steady them when they allow me close. Tell them: risk this step.

I wait to see who braves the 0bstacles in order to move toward a richer life. And who does not. The suspense keeps me alert, drives the quiet detective work. It keeps me awake some nights, revisiting clues, the storylines of these wandering souls: Let me be a good, sturdy signpost, I pray.

And so when the weekly work days are done, I go to the woods or the marshland; the hills and mountains; the coastal spaces. When I call out from my center, the waters answer, mountains echo, and  creatures like salamanders, crickets or redtail hawks, deer and coyotes take note but continue their work. I am coming for cleansing, for replenishment and to learn, a pilgrim on my own journey. They see me arrive before I see them; they hear me as I slow to interpret flowers and currents. My breathing quiets. Their noses test the drift of air and find me there.

And I am welcomed.

I  finally can stop thinking and begin to emulate a mossy hillock or a luminescent stone caught in seafoam. My ragged life rises and falls with my steps, gets stronger, brightens with refocused vision. It slips along the edge of a pond and stretches in the sun beside snake and snail. It is put on pause by orange starfish clinging to a basalt wall. Yet, too, my life becomes blissfully smaller, is condensed and rolled about so that it changes. I can feel it. The dirt, ferns, bees let me pass over trails. The brush of wind against arm and cheek lifts my spirit above treetops. My feet familiarize themselves with sudden ruts, delight in empty shells or broken branches; they greet valleys or agate-strewn beaches. A banana slug ignores my dance around its path. The birds offer a lyrical call and response and it is as though God, yes, God actually breathes Breath into emerald-hued air.

As I move through shadow and light, all that I brought here, all that is compressed by sorrow, distorted by anger–all that makes humans haunt each other and themselves–has been left to the ether. It has abandoned me to the deep solace of an earthly refuge. I am anonymous, unimportant, yet held close as though I belong just as spider and trillium. And as in that other life–the one that is full of people who create both good and ill will–my intent is to do no harm, to meld with the design.

A  moment longer by a river. The water tells me: Do not let the thorny banks encroach. Let life open, soften, deepen you. Bring your thirst, fill up, for there is enough for all. This holy solitude longs for you as you for it. Rest. Then be fearless in love.

The music of the gentling waters comes to me like a symphony and I reach within to a still, small point. Vanish in plain sight.

Then through the lattice of branches and leaves flow many voices: children making their way and laughing, grown people finding their footing. Locating beauty and being amazed. I move quietly and disappear into the sun-dappled sanctuary, taking with me the pleasure and sanctity of many living things, and peace renewed. Reluctantly, I turn to go. As the world returns to my consciousness with all its transformative, difficult knowledge, I am ready. Until I seek the embrace of solitude once more.

Mr. Beech and Little Joys

“It is a day of little consequence,” she said, then whistled some of  “Girl from Ipanema” to make herself feel better. It worked. Her hands disappeared into a big turquoise bowl. “Some ripped romaine and red leaf lettuce and fat cherry tomatoes, almonds unsliced–like ‘em whole and crunchy–fresh smoked turkey on top. Avocado. Herb croutons.” Lara licked her fingers, then wiped them on her jeans. Looked around the kitchen which was barely large enough to hold the basic appliances and herself. Her brownish, increasingly-white hair was swept back for a change, opening her pale face, showing off the loopy gold earrings she had found at an art gallery. An extravagant gift for this rude day of days, more a lapse in judgment. She rinsed her hands, then decided to add a  bit of the fresh purple-red onion, admiring the concentric rings, their tangy-sweet scent as she sliced.

“For Mr. Beech,” she said, and added the slightest drops of garlic oil, then tossed the salad. She took down the good glasses for mint iced tea. The round table had been set an hour ago. Down the center ran a sparkly silver-and-rose-threaded runner, something she liked despite the small stain on the edge. Large antique white bowls were at the ready.

The grandfather clock in the living room heralded noon. Lara took her sweater and sat on the porch, the better to watch for him. He always came down from the north, two streets up and two over.

He had been coming that way for the last year, ever since they had met at a neighborhood summer street dance and feast.  “A minor bacchanale, but worth attending,” he’d said to her smiling, taking her hand. She had noticed he’d lost two fingers–”yes, to a band saw some years back”–and yet he held hers with kind regard, and wondered if there was more where that came from or if it was just good manners. Then he cheerfully danced with her around the street, clumsily at first, fumbling a bit as they passed the children with their happy wildness and teens displaying restrained boredom that looked like contentment from a distance. Their parents were mostly youngish couples with brilliant smiles and flat bellies that held enormous amounts of chicken and potato salad and cookies without seeming to show it at all.

“They all seem terribly young, I hate to say,” Lara noted when they had sat on chairs at the curb, tart lemonade cooling them off.

“Not me, I say it often–they in fact are ‘terrible young’, which interests me a very little. But once it mattered, of course.” Mr. Beech turned to her, eyebrows raised. “Have you not noticed this before?”

She was panting slightly from the rigorous dance, and tried to hide it with a laugh. “Well, of course, but I have avoided the reality.” She lifted her hair off her neck, let the breeze take the dampness. “I’ll be sixty-two next spring and somehow that sounds older altogether than sixty-one did. I know it is foolish but…”

She felt embarrassed by the intimate slip of information and sipped her drink. Here was a  a man of good will and good mind, and she was blithering on. But that was her true thought, and she no longer had the habit of pretending otherwise.

The night went on and Lara and Mr. Beech–”call me Jordy if you like, short for Jordan, I know, I know, but it is what it is”–sat and talked. They both liked Pearl Buck novels, (which astonished her since no one mentioned her, anymore) and both had fallen into reading mysteries of late. They enjoyed classical music, especially string quartets. They liked water, any sort of water. Lara would rather meditate by a lake or swim in it. Mr. Beech–she couldn’t stop calling him that, she liked the sound of it; it felt safe–preferred creeks and rivers, the more obscure and humble, the better.

When it was time to go, they had one another’s phone numbers. It had been very easy to exchange them. But then they hadn’t talked again for two months.  Lara had even called  but there had been no answer. He had no answering machine. She was disappointed but that was that.

When she met him in the grocery, he came right over.

“It was my mother, you see. She became quite ill and then passed in October.” He shook his head. “It’s okay. I’m home again. Let’s see what we can find to do.”

And one thing led to another: lunches, small hikes, then holiday activities, art museum outings, films. By January he was spending a lot of time at her place on the week-ends, even overnight twice, a surprise. The rest of the week she worked at the insurance company and he was more than a little busy being retired.

It had been pleasing to spend the wintry rainy season with him. They sometimes did nothing much,  just sat by his fireplace and dozed. Read bits from their books. Lara wrote stories; he read what she wrote and found it mostly good or better reading. Mr. Beech worked word and number puzzles that fascinated her.

“Little joys,” she told him one night. “Life is made of them more and more. Thank you for reminding me.” He kissed the top of her head and held her close, as though she fit. And perhaps she did, better than before.

Now it was April and the time had come: the persistent rumor of sixty-two had turned out to be true. It was her birthday lunch she had fixed. Simple, easy, nothing to make a fuss over whatsoever–that is how she wanted it. They would attend an afternoon film, something foreign and full of intrigue.

She grew restless on the porch, put the salad back in the refrigerator, noted the clock struck twelve-thirty. He was not one to be late. In fact, he was early in general. Lara wandered to the mirror over her vanity and smoothed her hair back again, secured the sides. It was getting wispy and greyer and not as pretty; the barrettes looked faintly ridiculous but she liked their golden accent. She reapplied the soft coral color to her lips and made a silly kiss in the air. The pale blue scarf at her neck was re-wound, then discarded. It had gotten warm the last couple days. The spring heat crept up her neck and gave her skin a generous glow.

But where was Mr.  Beech?

By one o’clock, she grew hungry. She stared at her phone and thought of calling him.There must be something, some reason why he couldn’t get here on time. Unless he had forgotten. They had last talked a week ago. He had gone to the coast for a day or two to visit a friend but had been due back this morning.

Time passed slowly. Her work friend, Anita, called to wish her happy birthday, then her neighbor friend, Deanna. She chatted a bit, told them she was expecting Mr. Beech.

“Really, Lara?” Deanna laughed.  ”You don’t still call him that to his face? How oddly quaint! But I can see it, I can. He’s a bit old-fashioned, but then he’s older, isn’t he? Well, tell him I said hello and have a good time!”

Lara thanked her for best wishes and ended the conversation politely. Why did they not understand him?  He was generous with his time and paid attention to conversation. It meant something to him, their talking, and also the silences. He was a man of compassionate reserve, careful opinions. He liked her easy frankness, her sudden questions. It all had made him very important to her, she realized, and the thought made her peer hard out the window. No one out there but kids on their bikes.

Lara looked in the refrigerator, nibbled on a piece of romaine, and worried. He might have fallen down the stairs of his rambling two-story house; he had a faulty knee. He might have had an accident on the way back from the beach, for all she knew, crashed into the sea. Who was his emergency contact? Who had he visited? Was it Stan Tallman or Henry Conner? He was fishing, too, wasn’t he?

“Lara!”

He was there. She was at the door and let him in.His arms held flowers and a small cardboard box.

He kissed her cheek and peeled off his jacket in a rush. “I am so sorry I’m late, what a poor substitute for a man I am, it’s your birthday and I had every intention–but–” he led her to an armchair and motioned for her to sit. “Wait until you see what I have found.”

This was so unlike him, his shirt wrinkled, pants dirty at one knee, his words a bit feverish, and now he was picking up the box and placing it at her feet as though it was some great treasure, his movements suddenly deliberate. He looked at her and made a funny face, one that told her there was something here that was unexpected and he was truly hoping she would be glad of it. She held her breath.

He opened the box and lifted out to her a small grey tabby kitten with four white feet. He put it in her lap and her hands went up in the air.

“Oh.” She looked at the kitten and saw its scrappy beauty and was speechless. “I…”

Jordy Beech frowned. “You don’t like it.”

“No, it isn’t that…” she felt the prickle of tears and willed them back.

“I found her in this box by the side of the road in Manzanita when I was visiting Stan. I looked everywhere for a child or someone else who might be selling the kitten, but no one was around. I drove away, thought about it, went ten miles back. Then a woman came out of the house and said there was one left from a litter and would I please take her.”

Lara stroked the smooth ball of fur as it curled onto her lap and settled in. She felt it purr, the small rumble of its voice strong but sweet. A kitten was something one needed to watch over. Enjoy. She stroked its perfect head.

“I named it for you but you can change it if you want. Little Joys. Remember what you said once?”

Lara placed her hands on the kitten and wondered how he knew this much of her. It had been a long time since she’d had a creature. She hadn’t been sure she even wanted one again. It meant more attachments and thus, naturally, more loss. It seemed harder than necessary the last few years.

Little Joy looked up at her and languidly blinked, yawned.

“Yes, Jordy, it’s more than alright. Thank you for bringing her to me. I”ll take good care of her. She’s an excellent surprise!”

“Ah, good,” he said and took her arm. “Let’s eat and drink in celebration of salad days  being here again, your sixty-second, Little Joy and your use of my first name…”

Lara cocked her head at him and they went into the kitchen. She whistled a little to herself as she poured iced tea; he brought the salad to the table and put the flowers in a vase. It was good to be in the midst of one more year leaving and another arriving.

Gathering ’round the Tree of Life

I awakened this morning feeling something nameless but haunting. Familiarly rich with uncertainty. There seemed to be sunshine leaking from behind the clouds and I awaited a surge of happiness. It was the first day of my three day week-end. It was also Good Friday,  soon to be Easter, and that meant a time of gentle meditation on the death and then resurrection of Jesus. I thought of Easters past and for some reason, the memory of white patent leather shoes and floral, full-skirted dresses saddened me further.

But it wasn’t the particular day, it was me. I mused over the inhospitable territory of my thoughts and feelings as I completed my morning chores. I read over Psalm 100 about joyousness and God and thought as I scrubbed, laundered, tidied. I worried that this would be one of the rare days when I had nothing to write. Stories crept about in my mind, seeking higher ground as I toiled but still, relief was fleeting. The gloom partly diminished but my internal light was thin so I got my camera and headed out, hoping to be inspired.

The truth is, springtime, with all its extraordinary wonders, has not always been the best time for me. Growing up in the Midwest, it signified dreaded stormy weather and sent my family scurrying to the basement when tornado warnings sounded. In the Pacific Northwest, the long winter rains carry us on an upsweep of windy drizzle, tantalize with a pause or two,  then resume with a ponderous, damp trudging into April and May. The bright hyacinths and tulips sometimes seem to mock through gauzy curtains of rain.

Spring has often been the time when difficulties have spiked, also. Among them were raging tonsillitis that left me helpless and lonely in the hospital as a child;  abuse becoming a complicated misery made monstrous by a teen-aged haze of drugs. There was an incandescent love that failed, making springtime the premiere time for love seem like a terrible joke. I much later experienced a second stent implant in my artery when the first one failed and after, a very slow return of fitness. And there was loss of both my parents. I recall writing a poem at around fifteen in response to the so-called glories of spring. There is one line I still recall: “Beauty bites the broken heart.” Such angst and despair were sharpened by the abundance of spring. And so each April can bring a reminder of trials as well as a plethora of creativity.

Meanwhile, the rain held off all day. I started to snap pictures randomly and kept noticing trees, their small tender leaves unfurling, their fragrant pink and white blossoms shaking in the breeze. Bulbous, mossy roots captured my attention. Lithe limbs reached toward  heavens crowded with clouds. As I took photographs, sudden blueness leapt up and danced across the sky. All shone under the fine heat of sunshine that lingered on my shoulders, face, hands.

It was being lifted, my ratty cloak of self-sorrowing. Each step brought a line of poetry, a wafting of song, a simple prayer or two–certainty that this day, this time was good and could be better: ”May my hands be useful, my words be balm; may my heart be open, my soul be free. May my mind be clear, my body be true.  May I welcome life and shape it in love.”

I strode down the center of a street and ogled the arching branches above. The trees watched over me as I rambled. They always have, since the first time I bravely climbed the big maple in the back yard as a child. Everything looked better from up there. I could see the bigger picture, all the way past crisscrossing streets, across the busy tree nursery to neighbor houses, into the dazzling, ever-changing skies above. Humanity lived on while I observed and took notes. The rough maple branches held me steady and gave me a seat upon which to wait and rest as I watched, imagined, pondered, problem solved. It let me cling to its smooth and scarred skin when crying and supported me as I sought solitude. I  could speak and not be heard by anyone except the whispering maple, and so I told it my best secrets. That tree took me away from the clanging, messy, unpredictable world below. It made me stronger and more courageous as I navigated its crooks and found favorite footholds, its brittle and sturdy branches. At the uppermost limbs, I hung on with one hand and held my left, flattened hand above my eyes and squinted into the radiant light. I felt like a hearty sailor in the crow’s nest, a bold adventurer. I was a girl who knew her way or would find it. Nothing could stop me.

But, of course we know the reality: things do stop us, at least temporarily. There is a vast and complicated web of stories in this world. We often weave them without thinking and at times walk into each others without a second glance. Even at our best, we make logistical errors, utilize surprisingly poor materials. We promise completions that cannot be finished for one reason or another. And regrets can work their way in and erode the most stalwart of souls.

But still, we can always gather around the tree of life. The idea might have sprung in part from the old maple but it graces many works of art, religious texts, poems and prayers worldwide. I know it is a compass and anchor. A shelter. Touchstone. It is the font of wisdom from which I gain knowledge and find succor.  To many, myself included, it is the divine mystery but I also see it as a community of those who are united by shared strength, hope, and experience. Call it the place of gathered lessons that every person carries on their journeys, then can teach. Perhaps it is the great collective unconscious. For me, the tree of life is like finding God alive and available right here on earth, rooted in ordinary fecund soil, rising to the celestial beyond, granting us all manner of needs while sharing the elegance and drama of creation. Within and around this tree, the truth unfolds. And it  thrives within me as long as I care for it–steady light, breath of air, affirming touch, love and respect for its power.

Last week-end I went on a short trip to Seattle with my youngest daughter, Alexandra; we met her sister, Naomi, an artist who had flown in for a ceramics conference. We enjoyed ourselves, walking and talking, eating and seeing fabulous art, laughing. We went to Pike Place Market one afternoon, perusing the variety of delights. Among the flowers, fish and hand-crafted items, I found silver earrings that had as their a design massive tree. They reminded me of the pewter necklace given to me by my husband a few years ago: another immense tree. I promptly purchased the earrings. It felt right, being with my daughters and enjoying our time together. When I returned home I thought of another tree of life that adorned a table runner, and took a picture of them together which I share with you.

But the question as my day closes–now that I am feeling realigned and more at ease– is how I can ever forget to sit at that tree, at the Master’s feet, in the magnetic compassion of God? How can I forget that there will always be shelter and direction given if it is sought?  It is what keeps me nourished. What enables me to give back. So I write this to remember once more that in this life I have the choice to create good will,  seek clarity of mind and soul. Make things a little better for me, for you.

Come, gather ’round the Tree of Life. Sit with me and rest, then climb higher up the branches. Tell me your story as we survey the lay of the land.

Naming the Beauties and Beasts

Sitting on the rickety bench made of well-seasoned wood, I chewed on the pencil eraser. It tasted rubbery but also like words, the little and big ones I had gotten rid of while list-making. I studied my list now: Anisa, Melody, Rena, Roan, Genevieve, Carter, Tupper, Link. There were more. I updated my notebook of names sometimes daily. They were people I had not yet fully met but wondered over, with their singular lives and vast stores of knowledge, their foolishness and kindnesses. Their violent hearts. Little lies. Arms full of flowers for anyone who was lucky enough to cross their paths. Hands of love like birds nesting.

They lived and breathed just as surely as I felt the dampness of leftover morning dew on my bare feet. Robins sang out a morning newscast. The pine trees leaned in to me with their dark greenness; I felt the spongy carpet of old pines needles with my toes. If I was lucky, no one would find me for awhile.

What next?

I wrote in a bigger notebook with smooth, grown up college-lined pages: “Rena and Roan knew their way up the path. They had been out to the mountain many times. Roan whinnied a little as his mistress settled on his back and then he picked up speed. Behind them, Tupper sat on the porch, worrying his pipe, the smoke disappearing into the cloudy sky. Somewhere out there Link was fixing fence and not thinking about anything else. Rena would change that.”

“Cindy! Time for breakfast and then chores!”

I scratched an old mosquito bite on my leg. Why did they sometimes call me that awful name? It was Cynthia. Names were pretty important. I knew that even at only ten years old and kept my Book of Names handy.

I propped my head on my hands and turned a little so that I could see a bright sliver of Stark’s Nursery through the branches. A dirt road cut through the swath of tiny new trees and bushes. It beckoned me. I could wander through the nursery for hours, thinking of girls who ran with Bengal tigers, or a ship of spies sailing to Shanghai. I acted out many parts in the stories in the nursery, away from prying eyes.

Something fell thorugh the branches, then stopped its descent. I suddenly thought of outlaws and shining knives that were hidden in leather sheaths on belts and shivered. That was not the story I was working on although it often came back to me. I hadn’t found a place for it in my notebook yet. No, it was Rena today. So, why was she going to that mountain? To take something to Link? Yes, a letter from far away, the one he had dreaded and wanted all at once…

The bushes parted and the hidden doorway cracked open.  My sister stuck her head in.

“Mom says come in now. What are you up to?”

“Writing a story.”

“Oh. Well, write later. We have to practice our music lesson and you have to straighten up the living room and then dust and I have my stuff to do. Their bridge party tonight, remember? The Halls and Grays are coming and I forget who else. I’ll be gone by then!”

Gloria squinched her eyes and wrinkled her nose, then stepped back, the bushes closing over her. I could see her shoes, mostly white tennis shoes. I reached down and grabbed a shoelace and as she walked off she tripped, then laughed as she righted herself. I waited for her to charge back into the hideaway; instead, she ran across the back yard. The screen door bounced once, twice, and then was quiet.

I sighed. Streaks of sunlight were sneaking in and warming me up. The pine needles gave off a toasted pine scent that made me drowsy. I closed my eyes and soon was half-dreaming, wandering into a woods somewhere far off, maybe the Black Forest in Germany. Where beautiful dragons lurked who could be friend or enemy in a flash, and powerful men kept watch over all trees and food. Where women and girls often fended for themselves. Only the smartest and fastest survived and when they did, they were made Victorious and Wise Queens of Hyacinth Castle.  The one they had rebuilt after the terrible winter storm…or maybe it was the smaller one they had taken from the weeping dragon…was she still around? Yes, Fraxonia.

A fly buzzed my nose. I shook it off and peered between the branches at the nursery. I thought about walking in the forests up north, near Interlochen Music Camp where we were all headed in a few weeks. That was it: the one real place I often longed to be. Interlochen. Where there was nothing but music and art and dance and plays and writing stories. Starlight on water. Sailboats breezey in the sun. Nothing else mattered there. Just letting wonder happen. Making something small become bigger and better, with work. What stories would come to me there?

The notebooks fell off my lap and I opened my eyes. The Book of Names had opened to the center page. And on it was one word: Charlisa. I whispered her name and picked up my pencil, drew the edge of a lake and placed Charlisa there. She held her hand to her eyes and surveyed the towering trees.

“This time,” Charlisa thought, “this time there will be an end to the dark mystery that imprisons our land and we will all walk free again.”

I sat up and studied the drawing. Not the best but no matter, Charlisa was about to…. what? Make a tree house? Find her friend the messenger? I could hear my mother walking across the yard. I reluctantly closed my notebooks and stuck my pencil behind my ear. Then I went through the hidden doorway and into the other world where my mother had paused at the cherry tree.

“I know, I know,” I said grumpily.

But she smiled the way she did when she was teasing, her grey-blue eyes bright in the spring morning, and asked,  ”What did you write about today?”

I put my arm around her waist. “I was naming more characters. But then Rena and Roan came up again–out there on the ranch. But the best thing was Charlisa. The one I couldn’t figure out at all. It turns out she has found her lost country. Now she has to get to work and make things happen.”

“Good, more to come. But right now, food, and then other work,” my mother said and we entered the house where blueberries and french toast waited.

***************************************************************************************************

A postscript: After my mother died in May 2001, I became disheartened when I was  diagnosed with heart disease and was unemployed; I have written of these events in other posts. One night I was watering flowers on the balcony, wondering what to do next– not with my life, exactly, but just how to best live it, especially as I was not sure (and still am not; is anyone?) how long there was left. Sadness seemed to follow me day and night. But that early evening I felt her presence strong and clear as though she stood by me, and she said one thing only: “You must write.”  I suppose she thought I needed a reminder that I have always had to “name the beauties and beasts” and let them speak in Story. So that is what I still try to do, even on those days when all appears to be a shadowy mystery, or when there seems nothing left to say, as it has seemed the past few days. There is always a story waiting to come forward, so I sit down and write once more.

Girls Who Wear Roses

Night was falling over the rooftops and a chill brushed her neck and spread a web of cold under her thin cotton shirt. It had been a long walk to the park but it was a longer way back. She had to skirt the edge of the neighborhood either way but now she had to keep any eye out for Dell, her boyfriend. Or that’s what he called himself. He’d be looking for her; he wanted money. He was like a bloodhound; he always found her. But she needed to give the money to Granny Ella for the telephone. Grandpa Les needed orthotics. She could only work so many hours at the nail salon. It had been tough for a year since her grandfather had lost his job. But Jenna’s other work–the men, the dark, the sudden fear–that wasn’t so new. It had been like that one way or another a long time, and she had just turned twenty-three at 8:07 this morning.

Granny reminded her with a steaming mug of coffee and a giant cinnamon roll brought right to her bedroom on a wooden inlaid tray. Jenna was getting dressed for work, but she stopped to take a few bites,  some sips.

“What do you think, Jenna? Getting your mother up in the middle of the night?And you coming so fast we barely had time to get dressed and say a prayer for smooth passage.” Granny laughed deep and long; it sounded like it came from all the way back to Jenna’s first day. “And then we waited and waited. You looked a little like a mewing kitten, all squinty eyes and little paws, so much hair on your pretty–well, we knew it would be!–head. Yes, and the rainstorm made everything look so good as we drove you home a couple days later, and the flowers started blossoming just for you. Decorated the whole neighborhood!”

Granny put her arms around Jenna. The soft bulk of her grandmother made her think of warm pillows. Jenna wanted to stay there and breathe her dusky rose scent. She didn’t know where it came from. Granny rarely wore perfume. But she smelled sweet, as though she wore a cape of warm red roses. Grandpa Les said it was because she had diabetes, that the sugar in her blood made her exhale sweetness. Jenna thought it was her heart breathing out into the world. She was that kind of person: sturdy and sweet.

Jenna would do anything for them. They had kept her with them since she was twelve.  So she worked thirty-two hours at the salon and added to her income any way she could. She had worked two, three jobs at a time since sixteen until work got scarce.

Another way to make cash was to sell a few drugs, something she knew how to do by the time her mother disappeared. That ended when a detective came to her grandparents’ door. He took Jenna to the jail downtown where she was kept for seven hours despite the fact that she had nothing on her and he had not really seen anything. But they both knew what was going on and the whole ordeal cured her–she’d wondered if that had been the point. He had known her mother once, before she had taken a wrong turn, he’d said with a sneer.

But a third way was just selling herself, which was something one of the girls at the salon told her about, eyes averted. Then Dell showed up and Jenna thought, well, he had money and he had a good car and he knew what he wanted. What did she have? Would she ever have? A lousy story and barely enough to get by. But then it was too late to think about again. Every time Dell shoved her out the car door she turned her mind into a blank, a wall, a place where nothing happened and no one lived. Just like when she was a kid and the parties shook the house and her mother’s boyfriends smelled like whiskey and danger. It had all disappeared if she closed her eyes and thought about the starry sky outside her window. When she got a little older,  she learned about the planets and thought of them, how beautiful they were and how far away. How she might live on one someday.

By now she had learned to make time stop. Nothing that mattered dared come near the corners of her mind. She had no name. She had no past or future until she took the money. And gave it to her grandparents when they needed it. They knew only that she worked too much, too many hours and Jenna agreed, but didn’t complain. They needed to know nothing. They had lived through enough.

The moon was shining. It’s light sliced across her path as she darted between cars, disappeared behind Carmen’s  Coffee and the A and P, ran across the darker side streets. Jenna checked her watch: eight fifty-nine. Her grandparents would be looking out the window, worrying a little. They liked to know how she was at the end of a day when they didn’t see her, a quick check in. Tonight there would be no presents to open but they’d be waiting to share German chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. And rainbow- colored candles. It was odd, how they still thought of her as a kid when she hadn’t felt one for longer than she could remember.

Jenna turned down the alley where all the garages were lined up behind the small, shabby houses. She could see Grandpa Les’ Chevy half-in, the red paint looking purple in the night. Her feet slowed down; she was almost there.

“Hey!”

Dell’s hand grabbed her shoulder and it shook a scream out of her. The weight of his body  dragged her down. She kicked until all the kick was gone and her back hit gravel. She saw the sky turn itself inside out and fall down around her. There was Dell’s grinning face right above her as he lifted his hand again. He smelled like good wine gone rotten. Jenna tried to push herself up from the ground but fell back. There were people barely visible behind Dell and he turned away from Jenna and stood up. They all got loud and the words split her head open, made her think of echoing canyons and each syllable felt like rocks falling on her head with alarming speed.

“Jenna, lay still!” Grandpa Les ordered. “I’m talking to Dell!”

Grandma Ella shuffled over and reached down to smooth her forehead. “There’s a girl, lie still, the police are coming, be good for grandma now, that’s my girl,” and her voice was water over wounds, strong but soft, clean and clear yet blurring the edges of everything. Jenna started to speak but the taste of roses stopped her. She put her hand to her mouth and pulled away a satiny petal.

“I’m so sorry, girl, the roses were for you, I had them in my hand when we heard  you cry out. I hit him with the roses…stupid…they’re not much good now.”

Grandpa Les’ voice was the loudest Jenna had ever heard it. “If you put one foot on this property again you’re gonna make me use this rifle, boy!”

Dell let out a low cackle. “We’re in a public alley. You don’t know who you’re trying to save, anyway. You don’t know her at all! Have you ever wondered where she gets her extra money, old man? Do you think she can pay for your bills with nothing? She’s lucky to have me!”

Grandpa Les took a step forward and slowly raised his ancient hunting rifle level with Dell’s eyes. He spoke so quietly Jenna had to listen hard and it hurt.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll save your breath for the cops and judge. The whole neighborhood knows what you are and you took her where she never should’ve gone. You’re the sort that people cross the street to avoid, you know that? You think being poor is the worst thing? You need some powerful help. But your time with Jenna is done, you hear me? Finished.”

The neighbors had gathered one by one to see what Ella, Les and Jenna had going on and saw that they had their hands full, so they circled around Dell, arms looped and locked. Ella wiped a smear of blood off Jenna’s face and put the girl’s head on her wide lap. The police arrived, then the ambulance, flashing lights slipping over rapt faces. They put her on a gurney and Ella and Les gazed down at her. A dozen red, white, and yellow roses were laid on her chest and one unopened bud was placed in a pale curl at her ear. The EMT frowned.

“It’s her birthday,” Grandma Ella grumbled, and he shrugged.

Grandpa Les put his arm around his wife and pulled her close. “Girls who wear roses are the best ones, you know. We thought you were something wonderful long before you liked them.” He half-smiled sadly. “We’ll make up for things somehow. I was waiting to tell you I got a part-time job at the A and P. Yeah, your ole granddad’s not out of commission yet. That was the birthday present.” He pulled out his handkerchief and turned away.

Jenna tried to say that they’d had bad times before and gotten by. That she had made mistakes that would take a long time to get over. But before she could get it all out, Grandma Ella kissed her cheek. Jenna felt the roses warm up. Their scent filled the ambulance and made her dizzy but calm. She knew tomorrow would be terrible, a day of reckoning, with likely many more tough ones to come, but for now all the fear and regret flew away to the perfect beauty of the moon.

Copyright 2012 Cynthia Guenther Richardson