Archive for January, 2010
This
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
I’m sitting in the center of a darkened room, but sunlight leaks through the dust at the base of long curtains that cover the far-flung windows. The building is being pummeled by a windstorm. My eyes are closed. I’m listening for birds, but all I can hear is the muffled, desperate surging of the wind and the creaking of the floor.
The birds are hiding: in the rafters, behind objects, under the floor. I don’t know why I’m in this place any more, I’ve been here so long, thinking of so little except for the birds. Since I don’t remember what I’m here for, I don’t remember what I’d do even if I heard one.
Then I remember: I’d capture it, and the rest would come to me.
I let go of the thought of capturing a bird, let it tear away and blow off like a drying sheet not well-pinned to its clothesline. I try to let the wind blow through my mind. I’m trying to let go of everything, to not worry about the things that I’ll need to do when the time comes, when I catch one bird–if I can catch it.
The floor feels cool and stiff under me. There’s a faint breeze from above, and I don’t know if it’s a ceiling fan or some remnant of the wind that has made its way inside.
Here and there around me are rolls of carpet, boxes of neatly-stacked books with cardboard covers, piles of old candle ends, letters half rotted away with time, a bed covered with dusty silk sheets, an old view camera, a music stand.
I forget the music stand first, wipe it away, then the bed, the letter … and the rest is already gone, melted away until my mind is pure and focused only on the moment. The birds won’t come near if they hear thoughts. I will be nothing for a little while.
This.
This.
This.
How will I know when to stop being nothing? Shh, you’ll know, I tell myself.
This.
This.
This.
I open my eyes, at peace, ready. In the darkness around me I hear the rustling of five hundred wings. Tiny, dark eyes glimmer with flecks of sunlight that have made the journey from the feet of the curtains. I am surrounded.
Small Secrets Kept By Goddesses
Monday, January 18th, 2010
“Your wolves have no names,” Cybele remarked.
“That’s true,” agreed Artemis. “They all know each other, you see; it’s not important to them.”
“So how do you call any of them when you want them?” asked Cybele.
“I never feel the need,” replied Artemis, coldly this time.
“Let’s race,” Cybele suggested.
“No, let’s not,” said Artemis. “You know how that sort of thing just gets to be a myth.”
“Oh, come on,” said Cybele.
“All right then,” Artemis sighed, and swung her quiver over her shoulder.
“Go!” cried Cybele.
They shot off like moonbeams, and the wolves (named and unnamed) followed them, down mountainsides cheering with wildflowers and rockslides, through the sudden quiet of pine forests, down to the roar of the sea.
Artemis stopped at the water, but Cybele kept running, and when she saw the other goddess standing on the shore, she called, “Don’t be an idiot! Are you a moon goddess or what?”
Artemis remembered how lightly the moon walks on the waves. She looked at Cybele’s slender dancing feet, and then down at her own, high arched and silver-ringed. (All goddesses have perfect feet.)
Artemis took a deep breath and stepped out across the water. In a moment she began to run, and in another she had caught up with laughing Cybele. They ran all day, and came back at sunset with a tuna to grill on the beach, together with crabs and oysters they pulled from the pools. The wolves, not caring for fish, got themselves rabbits in the rocks.
“I think I won the first half of the race, out onto the water,” said Cybele.
“But I beat you to the tuna,” said Artemis. “Thank you for teaching me to walk on water,” she added.
“No problem. Hope you don’t mind if it becomes a myth,” Cybele replied.
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” said Artemis.
“Agreed!” laughed Cybele. “Pass the aïoli, please.”