The picture here represents a considerable part of my reality–I love beautiful tables and flowers and visual and performing arts and so very much more. But beyond this frame there is more than meets the eye. This day I feel a quiet desolation and seek solace.
Despite my embrace of the captivating fullness of life, real happiness arising from even transitory moments, hauntings can occur in my life unannounced. Nights hijacked by old suspects and worn out frights, mornings stolen by that which I believed were barest of images within vast, more interesting records of memory. I am at times caught unprepared and that makes it harder. This!– despite years of education and therapeutic insights, despite solid training on how to maneuver within frightening contexts both literal and figurative. I still must chase away ghosts that, though vaporous, insist on inhabiting my space. I keep thinking I should no longer have to slay those dragons, corral and banish those memories. It is only the intangible past, not the present reality but it yet survives to varying degrees, right here, within me, despite my best intentions and hard work. Mostly I am not that person with that kind of suffering. And then it comes around again.
It was a conversation that veered suddenly into dire places. But it might be a terrible movie scene. A certain car and truck passing by. A stranger on the street who moves and watches like a predator. People who spit out hard, bitter words. The sounds of someone shoving or hitting another. A knife flashed. A fierce warning to say nothing, to make no sound. Another song that disparages women. Seeing a child whose face appears frozen rather than round with contentment. A youth whose eyes reflect a ruinous something, an emptiness where once was excitement for life.
And then I may start to free fall deep within, and the falling ignites travail and its grief. I have moments to stop the fall or it could accelerate, even if for a few moments, an hour. Or a day or two. But I am fortunate. I know what it is and I know what to do.
Anyone who has experienced significant trauma knows what this is. It has a clinical name many abbreviate, as if this might make it seem less distressing and it has been more and more tossed about for all sorts of things: PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a great deal more its name denotes at first glance. It represents an array of internal and external responses to internal or external stimuli that carry the person back to the initial trauma and feelings associated with it. It can be experienced even as difficult–or more–than the original events. Because it is never quite entirely over. We sometimes don’t care about greater understanding of the originating cause and complicated effects. We are more invested in trying to live beyond both. And our intellects, our will, tell us we can do it when emotions are busy issuing their own commands.
This thing we feel is a razor-sharp grief that resurfaces, a shock that feels like a grab around the neck. A nebulous fear that fools and undermines. A threat of hopelessness that seeks to badger one into believing there is no point to faith, courage and persistence; that peace and joy are wretched fables. It is the vivid remembrance that harm came and there was no rescuing and that this remains a possibility. It is a mirror you look into, seeing only devastation behind blurred eyes. It can take a person and transform him or her into someone unrecognizable. The tragedy of trauma injures badly and even cripples– and although healing seems complete, aging wounds can reopen to threaten the wellness that has been recreated. This is life with PTSD, even when it is familiar territory: experiencing old and new dangers, standing your ground despite renewed distress and becoming more resilient. You further determine to become and/or to remain whole.
I have often written of emotional and spiritual programs one can engage in to live beyond the harm done, to overcome trauma’s effects. And also how often in my counseling work I have seen people not only recover but come alive again (for it is a kind of rebirth to get better) in powerful ways, and move forward. I’ve spoken of my childhood abuse and adult abuse/assaults including domestic violence to help establish the honest reality of what I have lived. I haven’t written of specific events because sometimes graphic exposure does not make the story more powerful or worthwhile–nor the storyteller feel any better nor reader more truly informed. Violence against children and women: this tells of the crimes.
But trauma did not negate the happiness of my growing up, the fond memories of family cohesion and caring and many wonderful experiences I’ve freely written about. I’ve shared the fact of abuse to also demonstrate how it has become an impetus to change that led to growth. A serious challenge I took up spiritually beginning in early adolescence. It has been part of what fuels my creativity as well as strengthening empathy and compassion for others. I have deeply wanted to assure others that there is the potential for joy beyond the burden of past abuse–because I have found it, myself. This is the truth as I have known it, as well. But it doesn’t mean that my life is easy and that all that pain has vanished. It is more that I have learned to manage PTSD symptoms and know my limits as well as my potential to be a braver and healthier woman.
Survivors of abuse need to know where our responsibility begins and ends. I was not responsible for what happened to me. I was not responsible for parents and others nearby being unable or unwilling to help me. I was not responsible for the fact that there was too little clinical knowledge forty, fifty and sixty years ago to appropriately treat children and young adults who had been violated. I was not responsible for a culture that accepts and fosters, even glorifies violence against females. I was not responsible as a teen for becoming gradually dependent on potent barbiturates, tranquilizers and amphetamine the family doctor prescribed rather than ask what was wrong. I was not responsible for feeling abandoned and thus not loved, and making poor choices that sprang from a grave sense of worthlessness. I was not responsible for the horror and pain, years and years of it. And I was not even responsible for longing to die, for nothing else made any sense. But I stayed alive. Held on to what mattered. Perhaps because I yet believed despite the seeming evidence that God had not forgotten me, that God had always offered a steadfast love.
But at some point I saw–we see–there is much work to be done and it is time to stop the blood- letting and crying out. To stop just enduring–and to get on with it. As an adult I am responsible for taking back my life. For seeking help when I have needed it, of informing myself of options available and then taking reparative action. I can be, must be, far more than a survivor. I am a human being who is living a life that I value. Making mistakes, failing to accomplish all I desire but striving to do even better, to become more enriched, kindhearted, even celebratory than yesterday. There is no other choice for me, anymore. I have lived much longer than I had expected; I have come close enough to death a few times. I know that the present offers me opportunities to be fully present and to be of good use, no matter that suffering might pair up with exultations. And in between the peaks and valleys there is just the business of life to attend to; it is my intention to attend to it as all deserve to have done.
But there are still weeping days. And the weight of hulking nights. There are memories that still twist my heart. Losses that can track me down like mad dogs. I have to take hold, take greater care. Take the time to heal that spot more again. To be patient with myself. Create kinder moments and reach out to friends and family. Remind the anguished child (who became a woman, a caretaker of other wounded ones, an adoring mother and a sort of writer-warrior) that she is never truly alone nor unloved. I must look into the ogres’ faces from time to time and find it in me to forgive as often as it takes. And maybe one day they will not materialize at all. Or I will have left the haunted premises, truly free. But if they do, I will manage.
I have questions that have no discernible answers, yes. It is disconcerting since I have a great need to understand, to embrace the truth. There are prayers I pray that may travel beyond forever or land on far planets or crowd among the prayers of millions more. But it is our human nature, too, to send a floating globe of light into dark-draped skies and with it a fledgling hope, a heartfelt longing, a silent but resounding word to God. And so today I have let the aching just be here for a bit. Acknowledged what it is. Now I remove it from my center. Hold it in my hands, raise them high; breathe in, breathe out. Let it go once more. Step out the door, move on.
It was a little like following a trail of beautiful blood, Percy thought as he stared at carefully dropped blossoms and then wondered what was wrong with him, anyway. They were lovely camellias yet surprising, somehow a bit shocking as he plodded along. He did hope no one just plucked them off the branches willy nilly.
He had decided to get out since his miserable cold had abated but he hadn’t gotten too far. Buster Keaton, his lame Jack Russell terrier, was more eager to walk him than the other way around. He gave a firm command; his dog heeled. The red petals seemed to interest the dog very little, while Percy found them by far the most intriguing event of his day. But it was only noon, no telling what was next, he had the rest of the day ahead of him to look for something, anything, of interest.
This was the trouble with the aptly yet oddly named “sunset years.” He’d been warned that unless he rediscovered or developed new hobbies, took a couple of classes or an exotic trip, he could end up bored beyond tears. He waved off the suggestions; he was a homebody at heart. He liked to cook, he liked to read and write meandering letters, he liked to listen to opera while tending his vegetable garden. And he went out on (very easy) hikes now and again in good weather. He had Buster Keaton and some human friends.
Although being bored to tears was a silly saying and an overstatement, there was something to be said for at least having a fine dog that engaged attention. If you could call taking him for brief walks twice a day and explaining to him the finer points of antique and flea market treasure hunting during favorite t.v. shows–as Buster gazed at him with barest interest–actual attention for either of them. His well-behaved dog was amenable; he was a quieter canine, being twelve and sort of gimpy (a broken leg had not healed correctly). He liked to snuggle beside him on the sofa, but not too much. The truth was, they were both a bit humdrum these days. The sunsets they witnessed had not been so utterly wonderful as what the later life forecasts had insisted.
But this flower trail was interesting. Percy gently poked at the first flower with his walking stick. It had been plucked or gathered a couple of days, he ascertained, as it was not quite browning about the edges but more wilty than fresh should be. They were placed in a deliberate pattern, each one set upon the intersections of sidewalk slab lines. It was puzzling out red dots with occasional dashes, a sort of code. Every now and then one was off-mark. Percy wondered if this was due to walkers or creatures kicking aside a few. Or perhaps the flower dropper got distracted.
Percy sighed. This sad little activity he was undertaking! It was a relevant summation of his life since leaving his active position. He was the founding half, the Rowell of the co-owned Rowell and Randall Interiors. So little to get excited about yet his doctor had warned that peace was essential for a long lived heart. It was only himself at home, he affirmed when inquisitive people pelted him with questions about his private life–except for good Buster Keaton. He had never been deeply moved to marry. He had frankly not really met a singular woman–oh, he’d known a few, if he only could have melded them into one–more interesting than his four best friends. And his varied dogs, let’s face it, they were the most loyal of all.
Perhaps this had resulted from staying too close to home. He’d worked long hours, sometimes arriving home around ten at night, exhausted. His business partner, Wilkie Randall, still found plenty to do with a wife and three kids and now those grandkids he never stopped talking about. And they traveled and they entertained a slew of relatives and friends and so on. Percy had been to a good many dinners, was quite fond of the colorful family. It was all well and good for Wilkie but it usually left Percy desperate for fresh air and resounding silence after two hours. They had people coming and going all day long at the store, wasn’t that ever enough? But Wilkie was nearly twelve years younger, he had yet more steam.
And now every day Percy had all this substantive, variable… quietness.
Good grief, the blossom trail kept on. Buster sniffed here and there after he completed his task. Absolutely no one was about–no, wait, there was a fully grown up skateboarder cruising along with purple helmet and plaid Bermuda shorts, for goodness’ sake, and the trusty mailman was scurrying from house to house. But no person was strolling about with a basket of camellias on her arm. It might be a girl of perhaps seven or eight who’d been playing the evening before, he had about decided. Sunlight brightened sky and streets longer since spring. Children were often outdoors past seven-thirty, about when he was sitting down to dinner.
It might have been created with a friend or for a parent close behind or for her own simple entertainment, he thought. To intrigue people like Percy, the ones who had nothing better to do than look about and dawdle. But it seemed intentional, as if it meant something more. He and Buster Keaton kept on, following until they rounded a corner and the trail changed. It got more flowery, small groupings of white as well as red in a pleasant if quite artless design. Now it curved at a driveway, made its way to the base of a tree. Percy gawked and recalled the attractive contemporary house belonged to the Saransons. They had additionally built a well proportioned, two-roomed tree house. It perched in an ancient chestnut tree in the side yard near the garage. It was built when their sons were born. He stepped onto the grass. What were their names?
Something fell onto Buster’s head; he shook it vigorously and the tiny twig somehow caught on his collar, bounced off. He then barked right up the tree. Another object struck him on the back, this time a green plastic cap off a drink bottle; it slipped off Buster’s back, then rolled down the driveway.
Percy was worried about what might be next so stepped back into the driveway, yanking at Buster.
“Ahoy, there! My dog doesn’t like being thunked. Show yourself.”
“This isn’t a boat in a tree, it’s a very small house if you take a good look.” The disembodied, irritated voice was not easily identifiable as male or female. More branches rattled for emphasis and ensured movement was being made to likely disembark. Or climb down, more realistically.
“Well, Captain, I can see that, home interiors is my business!” Percy tried again, this time lowering his voice. “Sorry for the misnomer. I’m Percy Rowell of Taylor Street”–he gestured in the direction from which he came–“and this is Buster Keaton, said dog. Which of the Saransons are you?”
“Oh, hey Mr. Rowell, I know you. It’s Jeremy.” There was a creaking of wooden limbs, a jiggle of more branches. “Sorry to bother Buster. It wasn’t on purpose. Really.”
There was a pause, then a thud as the boy’s weight made contact with decking around the tree house. Percy could just see flashy tennis shoes, then frayed hems of jeans. Jeremy bent down, poked his head between bright green leaves and put on a fair smile through which very white, slightly crooked front teeth showed. The boy turned around, backed down a handmade ladder nailed to the old tree.
When Jeremy touched ground, he plunged his hands into back pockets, long arms now all jutting elbows. Nodded his head. “Mr. Rowell.” He bent down and slowly reached to Buster, then patted his smooth head. “Hey Buster you survive, little buddy? I was just cleaning up junk.”
“Don’t you have school?” Percy asked, eyeing both houses suspiciously. His parents worked, he knew.
“I had a cold. One more day to recuperate.” With his sneaker toe he pushed a rock onto a hole in the concrete driveway, then gave it a swift kick.
Percy thought he looked well enough, hair tufted and unclean, perhaps. A gangling boy on verge of growing up. Nothing at all like he, himself, appeared when he’d hazarded a glance in bathroom mirror a couple of days ago between sneezes: drawn, sallow face with reddened bulb of a nose smack in the middle of a saggy mess. But Jeremy was all of maybe thirteen or fourteen. Kids bounced back from most everything.
“Going around. Just had it myself.”
He studied the tree house now he was up close. It had screened windows, green shutters. Two folding camp chairs were on the deck. Peaked roof with a circular window at the point. Compact, made of redwood like the grown up version next to it.
But he thought about the flowers, how they’d petered out at the driveway; this was why he’d stopped.
“Impressive–it must’ve been fun for you and your brother.”
“Me and Todd. He graduated last year.” He shifted his weight, as if deciding whether to take off now or keep chatting with the neighborhood retiree. “I still escape there sometimes. Like last night, then today.”
“I recall he’s at Notre Dame. Say, Jeremy, I was wondering…” His eyes turned toward the camellias, a few bunched up flowers here and there, some crushed by the tires that ran over them as the boy’s parents left for work. “Do you know who dropped these around the neighborhood? They put effort into making a pretty trail. Maybe it led to you…?”
When he looked up, the boy’s head was hanging. “Uh, yeah.”
Percy’s eyebrows shot up but spoke with nonchalance. “Oh, I see.”
“Yeah, I was making a fun thing for a friend of mine, you know, wondering if she’d notice it, then–well, I was just fooling around, that’s all, it was actually stupid to do. Dad said to clean it up today since I’m basically playing hooky as my cold is actually gone.” His cheeks pinked up and he sounded almost angry as he bent down to rub Buster’s ears, who playfully barked twice. “They were mostly fallen, so I was moving them out of our yard!”
Percy picked up a couple of deep pink blossoms, smoothed their silken thick petals. Curious flower, luxuriant, strikingly vivid for a short time and then a fading, slippery mess as they plopped to the ground. And with nary a fragrance.
Curious thing for Jeremy to do.
“I have to walk Buster back home and get him a treat. Want to walk with me as you pick them up? I sort of wish you didn’t have to, they make the sidewalk more attractive.”
“I can do that, I guess. They were supposed to look nice–to get her attention.” He threw Percy a half-smile as they started off. “But it didn’t work out.” He folded inward a little, loped along beside the rotund older man and a re-energized, limping dog, then began to pick up blossoms and put them on the side of the walk.
“Here’s an extra doggy bag to put them into. Less mess by the sidewalk as they decay.” Jeremy took the bag and stuffed more flowers in it.”I can’t imagine what was wrong with that girl you mentioned. It seems a good idea, following flowers to a nice boy who has an interest. She live around here so she could see even the trail?” He glanced at the boy, who looked sullen. “None of my business, sorry.”
“It’s okay, I don’t care. It’s Loreena, on your street here, across and down a few houses from you.”
Percy strained his memory to bring up a picture of Loreena and could only get the barest hint of a tow-headed child on a small red two-wheeler. He had no idea who she was now. He saw all the kids at the annual summer block party and on the street at times, but their faces apparently had either blurred or never evolved as they aged.
“I’m sorry. I do remember a blond child of maybe eight or ten? Always racing her red bike with the rest of you up and down the streets?”
“Yeah, she’s still athletic. Anyway, she’s fourteen now, like me and I thought, I mean, we’d always been really good friends, and at school we talk sometimes and then…” He smashed more blossoms into the plastic bag then stopped. “Dumb ideas I get! That maybe she liked me, too, you know?”
“I see. Well, it was a thoughtful thing to do, I’d think anyone should like it. Maybe she was just not around?”
They were close to Percy’s house and he wondered if he should ask Jeremy to sit on the porch with an iced tea, would that be an awkward thing to do? Buster was starting to tug at the leash.
“She was out, alright, with her girlfriends. They sat on her porch talking and laughing–they saw me– and when I got halfway up the block with the camellias they went inside. I just tossed the rest and went back home. I’d left a note in her locker to follow the trail…” He kicked at the blossoms before him. “I saw a movie once, there were rose petals that led the girl to, well, bed, but that wasn’t what I was trying to do, I just really like her. You know? She’s special. I thought.”
The hurt had surfaced now, was spilling out despite a small shred of dignity left, and bottled up outrage. Percy didn’t know what to say to him. It was such a romantic thing to do that Percy wondered it Jeremy had the heart of an artist or poet.
Well, yes, his father had mentioned he played piano and guitar, and said he was quite good. He must have true leanings of a dreamer. How hard it was to be fourteen.
Jeremy had gone on to gather the rest of the flowers and now turned back to Percy, face blotchy and eyes half closed, downcast.
“I’m just so glad she’s at school so she can’t see me doing this! It was bad enough that she knew I was outdoors, all those lying there for her!”
Percy reined in Buster who barked impatiently. It was time for his treat. Percy would read the historical novel he had just begun, then they might doze a little. Still, something nudged him.
“You like an iced tea? It’s so nice I thought I’d sit on the porch a bit.”
“What?” Jeremy looked at the man he’d been talking with so openly as if he saw him for the first time. “Oh, Mr. Rowell, I have to, well, I should–” He rubbed his messy hair with a knuckly fist then let his whole trunk go slack. “Yeah, why not? I’m sort of thirsty. Not much else happening.”
Percy arranged two medium-sized glasses–he didn’t want Jeremy to feel trapped there by a full taller glass– with a bowl of sugar and a spoon on the small metal table. He set down a plate of Girl Scout chocolate mint cookies as well. Jeremy took a seat in a matching chair, then Percy sat opposite. They sipped and ate cookies, watched the cars go by. There was a decent view of the house where Loreena lived, Jeremy said and pointed it out. They talked about the warming spring weather and all the dogs taking over the neighborhood and then a little about his school.
“You married, Mr. Rowell? I think you live alone here, right? Sorry if I shouldn’t ask.”
Percy looked down at his glass in hand. He shook the ice cubes around, felt the wet chill of the tumblerin his warm hand, how it meant summer was coming, too. “It’s alright, everyone asks. No, I never married any gal, Jeremy. No, I’m not gay.”
“I didn’t mean that–I wouldn’t care. To each their own.”
Percy lifted his glass and Jeremy lifted his as well in a gesture of solidarity.
“No, I never found the right one, so to speak. They say there is a someone for everyone but I’m not entirely convinced. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. I was driven by my work, I’ve really loved interior designing. Then there was the store’s solid and growing success. I guess I dedicated my life energy to making things look and feel aesthetically balanced and exceptional–to following an artistic sensibility.” He looked at the boy, who nodded.”I dated some when I was young.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, there was one girl.” He took a quaff of tea. “She was always on the arm of another college man, a football player, of course, right? We had been in classes together a couple of times. I got her attention by painting a watercolor of public gardens she said she liked. She loved it, fell all over herself with appreciation and gave me a kiss… on the cheek. Though she liked me, I was not him, not the right guy, it was that simple.”
They sat in silence a few moments.
Jeremy turned in his seat. “Was she smart and cute? Loreena really is… But you just let her go, huh?”
“Oh, she was more than cute and smart, she was elegant and brilliant and sporty all in one. I thought she was about perfect. No, there was no hope. We both became interior designers, remained friendly after college. She married someone else entirely. But except for our paths crossing now and again, that was that.”
Percy felt emptied. Felt sweaty, a bit breathless, as if telling that nearly forgotten story had hollowed him out. But he remained calm and waited for Jeremy to say something.
“Yep, I could about see Loreena come and go if I sat here. Well, not a good idea, either.” He turned to the aging gentleman. “I guess we all have this stuff happen. I’m sorry for us both, kinda, you know?”
“Jeremy, just give things in your life a chance, some patience. You might see her in the future or you might find another girl. Or you might end up with just your music and be entirely happy.” He glanced at the boy, who looked surprised. “You dad told me you’re a musician.”
“Yes I am, Mr. Rowell, or sure hope to be.”
“Good.”
Percy fidgeted. He was feeling a smidgen self-conscious now and restless. He longed to go in, jjust read that next chapter in his book. Buster Keaton was scratching now and then at the screened door.
“Well, I should get back home. I’ve got more cleaning up and honestly, I’m sorta tired out by the mess I made of things.”
Jeremy finished off the tea and one more cookie then stood up. It was clear he’d be a taller man, likely gaunt like his dad, perhaps a good thing as a moody musician. But he had honest and quick brown eyes, a good way about him. He held out his hand to the much older man.
“It was nice talking to you. Really, thanks.”
Percy grasped the strong hand. “I’m glad I was curious about your camellia trail. I’d like to hear your music one day. I’m a quite good cook. I need to invite the three of you over for a meal. And by the way, if you ever want to make some cash doing lawn work…” He gestured at his grass and bushes, in need of help.
“Both sound good, catch you later!” Jeremy ran down the steps, waving.
Percy watched a fine boy, a soon-to-be-young-man, a decent human being in the making. He felt quietly happy. Entered his house, scooped up Buster Keaton who put his damp, cool nose on his double chin. Found a treat for the creature and then his book. They settled in for who knew how long. Percy knew they had just the right amount of time left in the day and any others to come.
This life keeps turning turning over,
a common stone in a common river that
courses through long arms of earth,
slippery banks that will not hold
more or longer than a flash and scurry.
The river stones have no choice either,
traversing chutes of roaring cold
that take also broken wood,
vestiges of winter bleakness,
a few unfortunate creatures,
detritus along the waterway.
Rock and root, the mossy sponge
seize comfort in a frail fall of light
in one last March morning.
Its bright bloom transforms edges
into something more forgiving,
attracts the elements as skin
does touch, familiar yet startling.
I surrender for the sake of these:
a holiness in lucent depths
and heights that make me smaller,
bring me closer to God even
as forward movement leaves me
gasping, clamoring for the riverbank.
Each requisite cut from climbing and
sliding drains my heat while
river royal decrees a new direction.
Stone and I so quickly spin into
vortex of darkness and primal muck,
sink and settle, make ourselves a home
when invisible to this human mind
some mighty change retrieves what sinks:
a fine stick or leaf, a lost living thing
is brought to the lambent surface
weary, ecstatic, once more gleaming.
Afloat.
The voicemail was brief and to the point. She’d called to let me know her phone had been inoperable or she sure would have called me sooner to see how things were. I’d left her a voice mail a few days earlier about my spouse’s new worrisome medical issue. Just hearing her voice brought a sense of relief. I knew we would talk more and soon. B. is always there for me and vice versa, even if we must miss each other a couple times.
I had met her 25 years ago when working with addicted, gang-affiliated, abused and generally high-risk teens in a long-term residential facility. B. was about as different from me at first glance as one might imagine: big and tough, boisterous and prone to swearing, full of jokes and quick to aggressively make her views known. I often found her obnoxious while I gained respect for her insights, her firm boundaries yet good rapport with the clients. We often clashed over the simplest things. Then we began to share a smoke during our breaks, talked more, and became cautious friends, then good friends. It turned out she had a tender side, was often considerate and could be very good natured. We made each other laugh a lot. I was still new to Portland, and having her friendship helped usher me into a more welcoming, hospitable adjustment. In time she calmed down a little, got a bit softer though her boldness and strength are never in dispute. She has shown herself to be generous with time and resources. We are very close friends and I cannot begin to say how much I yet admire and appreciate her.
Developing friendships has never been easy as it was when I was a child. I moved a lot in my twenties and thirties. Life circumstances have often created barriers– living in the isolating country, lack of free time (five kids), work demands, health problems, a spouse who prefers to be more of a loner. I have had to more often carefully root out potential friends, and sometimes have even advertised for them (more on this later). I have also had to be ready to let go of them as work and life have demanded yet another move. Luckily, I have been in Portland the longest I have lived anywhere–and some good friends have remained here, as well.
Making friends used to be clear and simple: bumping into someone at the playground while playing catch, being asked to join a group or team, perhaps finding one’s self sitting next to the new kid and wondering who she or he was–so offering a smile, asking her or his name and maybe from which street, town or state the person had moved. One was connected in a neighborhood just by being present or from engagement in school activities, church events or attending a good weather picnic and special parties that grown-ups organized. In my childhood city of Midland, population about 28,000 when I grew up, it would be hard to get too lost in a crowd for long. We knew who lived on our blocks but even beyond, who delivered mail and newspaper (as well as their families), who participated and how in school or town events. I might make a new friend because an old one invited that girl to a pajama party. And we might even know of one another already. We inhabitants of smallish hometown were familiars more often than not, knew people via family name or accomplishments, as well as other basic information like who had a big family or had lost a parent or grandparent to illness or accident (with perhaps details of same). It was a fairly friendly town, (though it could be a closed place, as well–other cities found us a bit exclusive) and finding new connections was just a part of ordinary living and doing.
My first significant best friend (beyond my several neighborhood “besties”) attended the same United Methodist Church. We met in the fifth grade in Sunday school. We noticed we shared the same first name (somehow I was dubbed “Cindy” by my teens; I didn’t like it, though, and reclaimed my birth name at 18). We sat huddled in the airy balcony during services, passing notes back and forth as we scribbled away on church bulletins. We developed a Sunday afternoon tradition of meeting at nearby Nugent Drugs’ lunch counter to enjoy a cherry or lime Coke and split an order of steamy hot French fries and gab for an hour. I’d sometimes spend the night at her place and she, at mine. We hung out in junior high school, walking arm in arm down the hallway, both of us turning when our names were called out since we answered to both. She had dark wavy hair; mine was a light auburn and she was a few inches taller. I felt part of a set of unmatched twins.
It seemed we could talk about anything–from hunky but annoying boys to hairdo fiascoes to the meaning of religion to private hurts and dreams. We lived in different areas of the city–hers was a far wealthier neighborhood. Her father worked for Dow Chemical Company in a higher up position and my father was in music and educational administration. It created a disparity in economic levels though not otherwise; it didn’t seem to matter. We were introspective with extroverted tendencies, loved academics and reading, enjoyed competition, and had four siblings who drove us nuts. Admiration played a part: I thought she was pretty and smart; she thought I had plenty of talent. But mostly we liked each other’s company. Perhaps as important or more so we entrusted each other with our secrets, our real life issues.
We began to drift apart as we got engaged in more serious high school life a few years later. It appeared we’d slowly and radically changed–or I had–and prioritized different goals. She was a debater and class president; I was edging toward hippie/folk singer/poet who explored more liberal politics. I had, instead, become best friends with another girl, someone who seemed to better understand me as I faced various challenges and trials. This new friend, Monica, was an intense personality, a rebel. I found her caring and loyal, while very zany and spontaneous. We supported each other through ups and downs that no one else comprehended as fully.
I was also very close to a boy or two, and one in particular with whom I remained friends until his death four years ago. A year before El passed away he decided to visit all his oldest friends. He flew out from the Midwest and on his itinerary Portland was a stop. We spent the entire day. I drove him to the most beautiful places, and we shared food and drink at a lovely street cafe. His conversation overflowed with happy memories and a generosity of love. It pained me to see him so ill with congestive heart failure, saw how death lurked about him and yet he was vibrant in a profoundly intrinsic way, as ever. We hugged a long moment before he turned and walked away. I watched him go and then gazed at the space where he had been. I knew he was soon to leave us all. Through the decades we’d been first and last kind to one another, shared triumphs and sorrows. Reached out to each other with phone calls, long letters, spur of the moment emails that were about creativity, the great beating heart in music–he was a sound engineer–and life’s madness as well as its ineffable beauty. I so valued and still miss El. I always felt blessed to have a male friend who had remained just that–close to my heart, as my buddy.
Although my first friend C. and I stayed in touch with occasional phone calls and with later random newsy letters, the last time we met a few years ago the conversation felt stilted. At best based loosely on reminiscences, at worst without interesting focus, losing momentum as awkward pauses derailed us. We lived in the same city so I’d hoped we’d reconnect well. Well, she’d become a political professional, had been single and childless. I’d become a mother and wife, a counselor, was deep into writing and the arts. It felt like a second loss of the same friendship though it was a matter of life taking us in far different directions. And time passing–we had quite outgrown each other, I think.
My second best friend left our hometown and found substance troubles and drifted about the Southwest– while I kept up my own drug using lifestyle, then switched track to enter college, write and paint. Then got married, had children just like that, and remained longer in Michigan. We lost track of each other fast, only years later caught up with each other again via email. But that had its limits. Too much had happened to span the gaps sufficiently, despite our deep if brief friendship of yore. I was happy to find out she taught biology and math at a Southwest high school, had two sons she adored. It was good to hear she was well, that she liked her life.
I figured out by age 20 that friendship might not, and need not, last for a whole lifetime–though I wished it would, at times. People (and friends) came and went throughout college and when moving to and living in different cities, even states. When I look back, I realize I’ve had dozens of friendships that have enriched and opened up my life. But they have not all been intimate or long-term or even valued beyond a certain circumstance. They have not always come to a gentle end, either. One or two were wrenching. Thankfully, most have been bittersweet at worst, marked by sweetest farewells at best. I’ve also twice made sincere attempts over months to become part of certain apparently pleasant groups that center around my interests–but finally gave up. Cliques are cliques, no matter one’s stage of life; I have no patience with them. (One gym membership was ended after over a year of trying to make an inroad within a group of older adults. It became apparent most had been members for even decades; their friends were picked and that was that. I found it very odd–it was just an ordinary gym.)
Work is one place to connect with others, though I feel that such friendships function best within work; otherwise, things can get complicated. But such friendships are vital to ensuring a more genial, supportive environment. I could flop down in an office chair and process a half a dozen weighty concerns about work and some of my life with several co-workers, and they would do the same. but never had dinner at each other’s homes, and seldom if ever met partners beyond the family photos on our desks, the tales we impulsively shared. Still, I can name many people I came to respect and feel fondness for, whom I would call friends even now, despite changes in work environments and passage of years. I yet have lunch very few months with a couple of co-workers from the last agency I worked at four years ago. We catch up as easily as we did before, greet each other and say farewell with firm hugs. And that is valuable to me.
Some of my good friends were found using want ads: “Looking for an experienced writer, women preferred, who would like to share/critique our writing projects. Can meet in library, coffer shop, homes. ” Others were pleas for larger writers’ critique groups. I have been in three main groups and have had one-on-one interactions with three writers in the past few years, I also have attended weekly writing groups for various periods of time as well as attended workshops. Those provide a lot of opportunity to get to know people who love to write. The individual meetings have provided good exchanges not only of writing, but also greater discourses and disclosures that led to closeness while always centered around writing/critiquing.
After a year or more, when our projects were each addressed and reviewed with one another, those particular friendships became less important to us both. Inevitably, we met less and less and finally no longer. One friend moved to Arizona and embarked on a whole different life. Another got too busy with her family and her teaching responsibilities. A third friend and I had a significant disagreement regarding the ending of my novel, leading me to think she had missed the point of what I was writing. I think she felt the same way about her poetry and my critiques. That’s how it can go…we never mended that rift enough to be as friendly as before. You never know what will happen when you advertise for writers who may or may not become friends. Most of the time I’ve had great fun and learned more about craft, about communication of ideas and story making than when revising all alone. Writers’ groups can be equally variable while also worth one’s time and engagement.
My closest adult friends have tended to be found in recovery groups. I became involved in Alcoholic Anonymous way back in 1980. I was not glad to attend, didn’t trust it all, and found the people to be sad, touchy-feely, and overly simplistic in their thinking. Eventually I figured out there were more than a few people who knew a lot more than I did about staying sober and reconstructing a rewarding life. And out of those more contacts arose, opportunities to make friends. I could call anyone I thought a good bet for supporting a recovery lifestyle; they would listen on the phone, meet me for coffee. We had lots of satisfying conversations; I well recall the contentment they brought when I was in need of more peace.
One thing the twelve steps promise and make good on is that whenever anyone needs help they will be there, even though we didn’t know one another very well. I found that remarkable and generous. A few women and I just clicked as we learned of each other’s needs/hopes/challenges. We became trusted confidantes as well as cheerleaders for our ongoing sobriety. I knew that just by saying I had a rough day, they would immediately know what I meant and care enough to listen as well as share insights and hope with me–and soon I was able to be there for them.
No matter where I have moved–to Tennessee, to different cities and towns in Michigan, to the Pacific Northwest–I have had a ready group of friends if I so choose. I can go to a meeting even while travelling. All I have to do is walk into one, shake hands if I want to and offer my first name–not even why I am there or w hat I want out of it. I just can sit there in the midst of others who are redeveloping their broken lives or just refreshing their peace of mind. It’s a remarkable function of A.A. co-founder Bill Wilson’s original idea that one person who has a little more sobriety can and should if possible help out another. And so we do, and in the process, we form bonds that are strong. My three best friends are women who’ve been in recovery for at least as long as I have been if not more. Hard to believe that all these years have passed and that we still love each other, will take care of each other. We have seen each other at our worst and at our shining best.
Sometimes as I sit here pondering or writing, or I run errands and see other younger women linking arms, I muse over the years when friendship making could be a built in-perk of raising a family or going to work day after day. My children are grown and for the most part have moved away–or are swamped with their own work and family matters. In fact, even my grandchildren are nearly grown up or already gone. I think about how I might make more friends; I don’t have a surplus. I do find solitude refreshing, fulfilling, full of creative options I can finally enjoy. But I also miss at times the company of more than the usual crew, the exchange of a vast mix of ideas and belly laughs. I wonder if I might return to working outside home, or dive into volunteer work. I guess as we age opportunities to meet others have to be created more deliberately. But I have such gratitude for the friends I have–even if they still go to work and we have to set a date, time and place to have lunch. They are fine people to know and it sure isn’t the number but the quality of friendships we have, in the end.
Come to think of it, I am going to a meeting to see one of my three best friends tonight; I need to pick a good movie to see on Sunday with another. And I need to get back to B., who left me that voice message. I know she has her own issues and would enjoy a chat over a muffin and herbal tea or just the phone. Thank God for the beautiful saving graces of tried and true friendship. It’s like a seaworthy boat in life’s restless waters that always has room for one more.
(P.S. B. called me just as I was finishing this post–she was in need of a listening ear. I am so glad to still be here to give it.)
It was foolish to expect the riverine deer to come after darkness blanketed both village and countryside, but Naliya looked for them amid a grove of great trees. Firelight flickered over gnarled trunks and the leaves and grasses flushed with its color. A night bird called to another and another, then fell silent. Terl poked at the bursting flames coming from sticks and logs, and talked to it.
“Bring rapturous energy into this night, grant us heat as chill leaves resting earth. Bless us with your beauty and power. And don’t take too long, the weather is fickle again…” She rubbed her hands over it and then held them, palm side down, above the licking, swaying flames. They jumped up in response. She pulled away from the fire, satisfied, and rested her arms on drawn up knees.
“Why couldn’t we stay inside, Mama? Lightning flashes in the east.” Naliya pulled her thick shawl about her shoulders and finely woven green robe. “The birds are still.”
“We need to be here, with fire under the heavens.”
“I know.” She looked at the sky’s tiny starry jewels rapidly hiding behind clouds, and found small comfort as another shard of light carved it into two parts.
“We will stay until I am done. Don’t be afraid.”
Naliya glanced at her mother. “I’m not afraid. When have I been? I want to be prepared. I can’t ignore natural signs; they tell me things.”
Terl looked at her daughter while adding more wood and answered sharply, “Yes, they do speak to you. But I have things to tell you, as well, and it can guide and even save your life if you will listen.”
Naliya, chastised, drew closer to the fire. She was opposite her mother so they could see one another. Firelight illumined Terl the Mistress of Rites, a powerful woman who used well her mind and will, a woman who also had bountiful love for her daughter.
“Of course, please say the words you mean to say.”
Terl sat tall even when she was slumping from weariness but now her height seemed to rival the trees. She closed her eyes and smoothed her forehead and temples, then shoulders, arms, hands, and flicked off the energy she had gathered throughout the day, putting it into the fire pit. Naliya followed suit, then waited. The fire accepted it, grew hotter.
Terl held Naliya’s clear grey eyes with her own deep, wide and burning eyes, a mark of Mistress of Rites.
“The Grand Baraxas’ time may soon near its end. We are in need of retrieval from his poor ruling before another generation ends up with too little nourishment of the soul. Food is never enough to quell the need here. Gemstones are not enough to satisfy. A better dole house for every person would not solve the problem. It is an ongoing, mind-numbing resignation that sinks its poison deep within, a malaise they don’t even recognize as moving through mind and marrow. The Grand Baraxas has every one under his spell, under his ownership of land and the village with his punitive ways and heavy, dour energy. If he had been cruel from the start it would have been alarming enough to raise a good rebellion, but it has been a slow deception, an easy sway of one man and woman after another. Everyone has basic needs met except those who’ve grievously lost Baraxas’ favor. Now it is time to take charge with the Prism again, the sacred Light at our center. To wake up and see the truth and rejuvenate life.”
“Yes, so you have said, so I understand.”
“You understand so little, daughter.” Terl’s voice rang out into the night. Her beautiful face grew paler then darkly bright with manifestation of energies. “This is why we are here, in this place, in this time. You must take heed and learn, experience and discover before you can begin to barely understand.”
The fire leapt into low hanging tree limbs then fell back to a moderate burn. Naliya knew to be silent until she was asked to speak again. Terl looked far past the woods then returned her gaze to her daughter. Naliya was afraid to look though she felt a tug. She was rooted to her place, stilled by the desire to please her mother. And the truth that was coming her way.
“Our great-great-great grandmothers once ruled Quazama with generous equity, with daily lessons from the complexity of music and a fortifying diversity of story. The people knew how to live of their own accord, overall, with little harm to one another then. But in time such good station and its power was wrested from their hands. Many became greedy for a complete sovereignty of self. Not for the common good. The grandmothers thought it best to share more power and responsibility with others of the Prism: men, who had always been our help meets in one capacity or another. There have been such disputes that rendered the collective wisdom weaker. We have always found our way back to harmony. We’ve had just and good Grand leaders of both genders, but then the one Grand Baraxas took his position by force– despite Martram’s efforts to keep steady the trusted balance.”
She rustled her robes in irritation, pressed her white hair back from her temples. The trees rustled, whispered.
“There is always something to tempt human beings away from the peace of good will. It is a waste of vital energy to fight so hard and often for matters and things of so little value. I will never get used to it, never, though some find greed a mere minor flaw of life.” Her charged demeanor gave her a fierceness that caused Naliya to look down, but soon it was replaced by her usual calmness as she took a good breath. “The saga is tiresome, I know, dear one, but it bears remembering that much.” She rolled her shoulders back as thunder gouged the silence. “Now here’s the current situation. You know Martram and Baraxas are bitter enemies since youthful years. And Martram was banished to Rumsfeldt Barriers for grave interference–commanding a band of rebels to conspire against him. He could’ve been executed but the Convening Twelve voted for a banishment to save him. He cannot return legally. But he can yet return illegally with help. And has decided to do so, at last.” She feared her emotion would gain the upper hand, and pressed her lips tightly a moment to regain control.
Naliya saw this, was about to question her then she checked herself.
Terl opened her arms in an emphatic gesture. “You have been chosen by the convening council decision to be the new Messenger and must travel to Rumsfeldt Barriers. You will meet up with Martram and escort him safely back home. Then smuggle him into Quazama. With our help from here. You have the swift feet and legs. The strength and energy. You know how to disappear and how to be well seen for who you are. And you have the protection, it was ingrained in you in your beginnings. You are meant to do this work not just soon but for life. And I suspect you have known that awhile.”
“But, Mama, Rumsfeldt Barriers? That is at the ends of the earth.” Naliya frowned, shook her head so that her ivory and black hair rose and fell.
Terl chortled in spite of herself. “Not to the very ends of this time and place, Naliya! You will go farther… This journey is only two days away.”
“It will feel like a lifetime….and it’s forbidden territory for good reason, inhabited by Roamers, the nameless ones who live there. And how will I find Martram? How will we get out without Roamers creating problems for us, demanding we liberate them all or struggle and die with them? How will we get back into the village without terrible consequences?” She was overcome with throttling fear.
Terl stood, robes sweeping over the fire before settling around her tall, taut body. “A Roamer brought us the needed word; this is an extraordinary thing. You know less than I thought, only what the prejudiced natter on about. You now will need to learn for yourself. You will find the way because, daughter, you are chosen to find it. There is no other to fulfill this pressing need. Even the Grand Baraxas is in agreement with this–so he can defeat Martram, of course. But that must not, will not happen…”
Naliya stood, also, voluminous drifts of hair flaying from her face in the sinew-chilling rush of winds gathering up yet unseen wetness.
“What must I do, then?”
Her mother walked right over the fire to her. “You will engage in the Life Title Ceremony and then you will leave, in just one day. You will bring Martram to us, our truest leader and–”
She seemed to collapse a little under the last words, her body softening, eyes going glossy, arms suddenly enfolding her daughter.
“And..? Mama?”
But her mother said no more. They stood thus, Naliya’s gaze probing the denser spaces between the old trees for her deer. Her soul resounded with love but her mind was nipped and turned by the nuisance of lesser, loose spirits, their trickery meant to distract and confuse her, she well knew. She moved them away from herself but the winds were no longer just winds nor the dark a thing that would only protect and hide her. Changes were bubbling around her. Naliya would have to be far more watchful now.
The lightning sliced the skies into trembling slivers of luminescence and thunder skewed the air with barbarous shouts. The fire blazed hugely and as a torrent of rain descended, they remained dry under the creaking branches, close to the fire pit. Naliya wondered over her mother’s influence even upon a storm. As flames danced inside dry air they told the girl what she could not put into her own words yet: Beginnings and endings, the grand circle will out; journeys unfold, destinations divined. The orange-gold light slipped over her feet, hands, neck, face and her skin tingled, eyes filled with water and rolled off her rosy cheeks. How would any of this knowledge or any title help her? But trust arrived on small wings despite her anxiety.
Her mother led her back to their house, each leaning on the other, each awash in their own imaginings, reaching for different conclusions. And they arrived still dry except for their feet, which tracked in bits of mud.
The riverine deer did not appear. Having watched from the edges, they moved deeper and deeper until they bedded down amid twisty tree roots and the constancy of crickets and rumblings of thunder. They faithfully waited, for the rain to relent and for sunrise to grace a new day. For the girl Naliya to come into herself.
******
“That’s sure not what I’d want to do, so far better you then me! You’re pretty tough, Naliya, you know you’ll be okay.”
Zanz was weaving willow into a small bowl by the river bank and gave her a sideways glance. Naliya fingered the necklace her mother had given her the night before, the small pink tourmaline stone glowing about her neck.
“It’s not as if I asked for anything to do yet–much less being Messenger. I mean, I suspected it but I thought I had more time to choose what I wanted. Instead, I get chosen, like it or not…”
“And what would it be that you’d want?”
“Healer,” she said and realized until that moment she hadn’t been certain. But that was what her heart yearned to do. How could her mother not see it, too? Or had she?
Zanz eyed her with confusion, then with appreciation.”Oh, right, you mean the wild creatures, of course. Yes, I knew that, I guess, you are in love with the natural worlds. As am I, I suppose, but healing is not my gift or desire.”
“No, I think I mean…healing anyone, everything,” she said, coming to sit closer to him but not too close. “I feel strong feelings, as you tease me about. Quazama needs a good refreshing to allow for more happiness. I could help with that, maybe.” She reached across the bank and dipped her fingers into blue wavelets that rose up, coursed over her skin. She thought the day was itself happier since the rainstorm gave of its life and then blew on to another place.
“Yeah, freedom from that rotten old GB. He just needs to walk into the bush and expire.” he made a noise and set his hands parallel to each other and chopped the air.
“Shush,” she hissed, her head swiveling to check for others nearby but he laughed at her.
“I can say what I think out here, with you. But I’m wondering how, when you get back from Rumsfeldt Barriers–” he gave an involuntary shudder–“how it will be. I mean, will I have to make a special request to talk with you? Will you be gone all the time running more messages to far-away places? Will I be forbidden to be your friend, even? Our old Messenger was housed in the Central Place with Sentries and cooks and all others, close to the GB and our little used temple.” He put down his basket-in-progress. “I hadn’t thought of that–but you and your mother might have to go there?”
“No, no, she never said that. We have our singular dole house, plenty good for us. I just have to always be available, that’s all, and train harder each day for long distance running. I think, anyway. I do have to run this morning, be sure all parts are working right. But, oh, I don’t know! All the talk of a clash again, Martram being found by me, no less, and brought face to face with the Grand Baraxas. Then the Living Trust brought forward… a strange thing to contemplate, you and I have never seen that! But this is the main thing so nothing else is being explained. Makes me foggy headed, the entire thing.” She got up, twirled around and away.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow, just like that. I’ll be repairing the looms with my uncle and tending my brothers while you will be off having adventures! I could almost resent all this.”
Naliya stopped, soft purple robes grabbing her legs, then unfurling in the other direction. It was like watching a flower open, close and re-open, Zanz thought. Her two-toned hair was a mad nest, a snaggy, wavy cascade down her back. The way he liked it. His hands ached to touch it so he looked down at his handwork.
“I will be going into wilderness, alone…and yet they trust me and my journey. It will be so much more than I even imagine, won’t it? But it’s Rumsfeldt, Zanz! I’m terrified and can’t believe they’re sending only me. But then the worry passes. I’m more excited. It’s almost the same feeling but the second one is much better. Who would have thought, and so soon…”
Zanz was bent over the basket, his fingers pressing and pulling the green willow, working faster. It was to be for her. For dipping water and gathering things she needed along the way. To think of him. “It’s not the best place for your first journey, I agree… In truth, I would refuse if I were you. I will worry.”
“You would not refuse, you’re as brave as they come when it gets down to the hardest parts. I only wish you could come with me.” She knelt in the grass and looked into his serious face as it was altered with surprise. “I really do. You know by now that two minds can accomplish more, make better harmony than one struggling to do much.”
“I know, yes.”
He wanted to say something more and important but instead, he smiled long and broadly at her and in this was his heart which had been given to her long ago. If she only saw it. If she did, it didn’t show itself as she turned back to the river and stepped into it. She walked deeper, even deeper until her body was submerged and only her black and ivory hair floated around her small, open, fearless face, the river lifting and carrying her into its violet blue currents of water magic. She heard a wolf calling her name but she didn’t answer. She would soon meet them on the path, she expected that if nothing else. They ran with her long after the riverine deer fell back, anxious and exhausted.
******
Quazama villagers’ gathering was now completed, in three circles. The Convening Twelve then circled closer about her as she stood in the center of the great room with its large skylight in the dome above. Her arms were out held out by her mother and grandfather, Sentry O. Before her feet was a magnificent white and yellow bouquet of river and forest flowers. She, too, was dressed in bold yellow; her magnificent hair was woven tightly into a long braid. To see her face so entirely revealed was a surprise to most who attended, for some of her mother’s strange beauty was visited upon it, the eyes very deep set, nose small, lips full but pale and now pressed together in a grim solemnity. It was her hair that drew others’ attention before, the wildness of it and the old clan’s coloration, which commanded respect. But they knew her as hard working, friendly with old and young, quick–minded, fleet-footed yet an otherwise as ordinary as any young girl.
This was about to change.
The Grand Baraxas waddled up to the three of one clan and was bemused. How was it that they had managed to survive all the eons? But here they were; now the youngest was to take her place among a gilded few. She barely knew what was ahead. He secretly wondered of her capability, had hoped she might fail the vote, but the convening had claimed her as Quazama’s own new– and first female in a very long while, certainly way before his time–Messenger.
She was to bring his enemy back. That was all that mattered to him.And then– then they would all know for certain whose blood would rule and whose would flood the temple and courtyards and roads in and out.
“Here is the daughter of Terl, Mistress of Rites, and the granddaughter of Sentry O, the longest ever to hold such a place in my service. They bring us the convening choice, Naliya of Terl, of the fourteenth generation. A runner from soon after birth, she is willed here, and now chosen to be our new Messenger.”
Terl steeped into the center and turned her back on the viewers as she moved ina circle about Naliya. She raised her hands above her daughter’s head. The Grand Baraxas followed behind Terl.
“Triumph here and on the journey, eternal Light. Instill the peace of mastery within Naliya. The Messenger’s loyalty will be unyielding. Her health will be of first concern and her life will be well guarded. A Messenger flees not from trouble but challenges it with strength. A Messenger never fails to get up if fallen. A Messenger never fails to forgo the oath of truth telling. A Messenger never gives her life greater value as Quazama villagers’ safety and well-being is her first and last duty. Naliya’s word is now the trusted word, for she carries those words to us, for us, among us. Her Messenger instincts are to be well heeded. The Messenger’s presence will be honored for work well done .”
She lowered and bowed her head at her, touched the lance and lightning symbols on the Grand Baraxas’ scarlet robes. They both lay their right forefingers on each of Nalyia’s arms. And then upon her head.
She squelched discomfort at the Gran Baraxas’ touch, feeling instead the deep warmth of her mother’s hands. The villagers were happy, her body pulsing with adrenaline, her chest heaving with anticipation.
“May Naliya forever carry true words and run far, fast and strong as the winds!” Terl called out.
The villagers and even the Grand Baraxas raised their hands, repeated the words. “May Naliya forever carry true words and run far, fast and strong as the winds!”
Naliya was grasped under each armpit by her grandfather and mother and they lifted her, walked around the circle as each person clapped their approval and then released her onto the floor. She knelt down, facing a view of sunset sky arrayed in luminous colors.
The Convening Twelve lay down, bodies arrayed in a circle around her, making her as the center of a multi-hued flower, they the colorful petals. They clasped hands; their heads were pointed toward her, feet toward the encircled crowd. And then they began to hum. The sound flowed softly, then grew: one note filled the air magnified energy until it split into four notes to create a echoing harmony, then it became seven notes, and the luxuriant chord rose up and filled the temple, flowed about Naliya and then each villager, sonorous and clear. There came peace and pleasure, the sound a sustained resonance, the sound round, rich, dense with meaning.
This was a remnant of the ancient ways. It stilled their hearts, evoked in them forgotten wonder.
The Grand Baraxas felt it as the turning of times, a potential mending of life worn out and broken down, but he told himself it was only a pretty excuse for music, it was the trappings of ceremony and perhaps Martram’s sly influence, still, which he must destroy for good. He also, in fact, ought to consider banning music making to keep everything strictly orderly, to ensure only activities essential to his station and his greater plans were carried out. Such music had a stirring effect and that led to some very wrong, perhaps even traitorous thinking.
Naliya’s body and mind were struck profoundly by the music. It was as if she was made an instrument of new meaning and value she didn’t understand but yearned to claim. She felt courage and faith flow into her, while devotion to her village, family and the Prism’s Light made its dwelling place within, for all the days and nights to come. It was power of a new sort that she felt, if only she knew this was what it was. For now, she only knew to let herself be led by it.
And then the music stopped. Naliya carefully stood up. She caught a glimpse of Zanz as he disappeared into the crowd and he seemed very distant, too far away. The villagers and conveners parted, an opening made. Then came the herd of riverine deer. They stopped before her, the crowd whispering their amazement at such behavior. Naliya followed them out of the great temple room, out of the village, to the forest.
Terl and her father lowered their eyes, fervently and silently prayed for daughter and granddaughter a new prayer.
Blessings on Naliya’s flesh and soul, and blessings on her mind and heart for the Changing is begun, the Changing is begun.
Note to Readers:
(This is Part 2 of “The Convening”; Part 1 was posted last week. I am not certain I will go on with it in the WordPress posts, but if there is interest, I may add Part 3 here, as there is much more to happen in the journey into the Rumsfeldt Barriers, it seems. It has been a fun story thus far for me to write, either way! Let me know if it seems worth continuing a bit.
Please do not share this story without express permission from this writer, as well as all other writing posted. It is copyrighted by this author as noted on blog. Thank you kindly.)
