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.)
The rain is generous here,
manifesting its chameleon ways.
It beguiles and rages,
tap dances and waltzes,
arrays the city’s narrow streets
in a rainbow of taupe, bisque, slate;
calls cyclists and walkers
to come nest in cubbyholes
with a strong coffee or beer
and ponder from windows the
voluptuous clouds, their churlish rebuke.
Rainfall does not bother to cease
for rewards of joy or taxing sorrow,
will not flee farther eastward
to high desert, rocky buttes.
It commands, feeds bloated earth
and rattles the awnings
and rushes headlong into
mountains and rivers as if
it must bury every crevasse
and slick down every abutment.
And, too, drench our souls,
which pine for small luxury–to step
onto pathways with no slimy mud,
no gutter a shocking flood, to avoid
more wreckage of yet another
month that may miraculously
reveal fine blue horizons,
emergent from that muck and drear.
So as the brazen clouds regroup,
restrain deluge and drizzle,
we enter gardens long at rest,
see anew the rewards of wetness,
how it does right by its duty:
sumptuous blossoms, chittering birds,
the trafficked pond, waterfalls’ chorus,
our hearts hitched up again
as senses feast on seasons
defended, recreated by copious rains.
As a small child I experienced no consternation when getting up in a thicket of darkness to pad across the hall to my parents’ bedroom or the bathroom. Darkness was as comfortable as daylight and I liked its ways. I was good at maneuvering around objects as I made my way through childhood. I was then a happy innocent; it never occurred to me why I was unable to identify whether things were animal, mineral or vegetable farther than a couple of feet away. Everything was marked by a gentle softness; colorful forms melded into a haze of lush beauty. I had very good hearing, taste, touch, smell. Life was good just the way it was coming at me. I enjoyed the bounties of my senses every day like any healthy child.
One weekday morning in my seventh year my mother and I were walking along the sidewalk, soon to meet up with my best friend (also my first crush), Bruce H. I always met him to walk the half dozen blocks to school. I looked forward to it; we often held hands and chattered away and made plans to play after school.
“Oh, there he is! Hi there, Bruce, you’re early!” She waved at him and hurried me up.
I looked across the street. I saw the towering evergreens that partly lined his big yard–it took up a big chunk of the block. I saw cars whizzing by and heard the familiar voices of other children congregating outside their homes, getting ready to walk to our elementary school. But I didn’t see Bruce.
“Where? Oh, yeah, there he is!”
I had noticed Mom and others saw some things that I did not. Or perhaps not quite in the same ways. In fact, I had noticed this at school as well, only a little. And it bothered me, though I was not about to mention it. I just saw things a little differently, was all.
Mom bent down to look at me more closely. “You can’t actually see him, can you?…You’re squinting– again. And you hold your books up too close to your face when reading. Your teacher says you asked to be in the front row. I think you have trouble seeing–you need a vision test. I’m going to call and make an appointment for you today.”
“Well, he was so far away! I see him now–hi, Bruce!” I waved wildly, tried to shake off her hand.
Mom made that face that said her mind was firm on this and the gig was up–I should not try to fool her again. But to be honest, I didn’t know I was trying to do that. I had simply thought my eyes were a little fuzzy and there seemed little harm in that, overall.
That walk to school was filled with quiet worry. The eye doctor was special; seeing him was not like the usual doctor visit for sore throats. I was going to have to be tested? What if I didn’t pass? Did that mean I’d have to change things, even get glasses like my father and my brother? I shuddered at the thought. I liked to race other kids, play Kick the Can and Red Rover and a bunch of other outdoor games–and go swimming and bike riding and I wanted to learn how to water and snow ski some day. What if not seeing right interfered with those? And what would I look like if I had to wear the awful things….? It ruined the day just thinking about it all.
Dr. Cummings was a patient man; he had lots of experience with families, with kids like me. He examined my eyes every which way as he explained what he was doing. You’d think we were having a friendly chat on a sunny patio but I didn’t like it. That bright light he kept holding up to my eyes, the eye drops he squirted in, those letters on the far wall–it was so disorienting. I strained to read each letter, felt a bit dizzy and nauseous at the effort of getting them right. It was a very hard test and I was certain I wasn’t doing very well. Why couldn’t we have left things as they were? I was just fine with soft edges to things, to my life. And I could still read fine, no matter what anyone said.
Finally I hopped down from the big chair; we got my mother and met in his office. Diagnosis: myopia. nearsightedness. Not just a little bit, a lot. “Significant amount,” Mom murmured. So I needed glasses. Wait–it was true that things far away were not clear–okay, even identifiable–but so what? This was my immediate reaction plus a desire to run off, though I’d never have said it aloud to two grown-ups, important people. I meekly followed them to a wall of frames, picked out pale blue ones that looked a bite fancier. But I was not happy, not at all. When I finally returned for the fitting, I wore the homely things out of Dr. Cummings office, filled with an odd relief as well as grave uncertainty.
Yes, I could see. Really see like other kids must see! It was peculiar seeing like that–everything was in extreme detail, full spectrum color, like it was with a hand magnifier. Unless I glanced out each side. Then all went back to fuzzy mode, the familiar one. Distracting. Forward, clarity; side, fuzzy. But it was far better than before.
My first glasses in second grade brought everything into such vivid focus that it was like learning to live two different lives. One more rounded and out of focus, a lovely impressionistic view, less than practical or safe, but what I knew best. The other was clear, sharp, crammed full of faces, objects and movement that was glorious but also difficult to absorb, even harsh to body and mind. Incredibly tiny things I’d never even noticed unless I put my eyes up very, very close to them now popped out. I was astonished. It was as if I had not had real three-dimensional understanding all that time; now the world was full of corners and curbs, tiny seeds and leaves and faces with distinct features. Everything moved and changed or stayed completely perfect and still and I noted it all. Well, life suddenly had a literal perspective to appreciate, one that made things seem jumped out at me and into my new vision field. But it was beautiful to learn, satisfying to fully realize what before I had only guessed at.
But this was a given: I got teased at school. I was called “four eyes”, ridiculed by a few in my class but more by the meanest older kids about having “pop bottle bottoms” upon my face because the lenses were quite thick. I realized people were calling me by other names accidentally, as if for once no one knew who I was from a good distance. I was not the same Cynthia, apparently, and I was embarrassed, mad and disappointed that being able to see well somehow created bouts of ridicule. Bruce, loyal friend that he was, just smiled and shrugged; we got on as before. My good friends got used to them faster than did I. And since I was much better at seeing, also better at playing games– a partner or foe to be reckoned with– among other good things.
Yet I also found them a hindrance when engaged in physical activities. When I sweated in gym or on the playground, they slipped down my nose and sometimes fell off. If something–a ball, usually– hit my face, it hurt and the glasses came off. I quickly checked to make sure they weren’t bent or broken. I began to shield my eyes instinctively. When it was cold and I went into a warmer environment, they fogged up. This was a nuisance when ice skating, as I was in and out–and the snow made it hard to see, and they sometimes flew off when executing a spin or jump. Rain was always a bother. When sunny, there were no good sunglasses to plop on–my parents wore the flip-up kind and I wasn’t going to do that. In any sort of weather, they were not the accouterments I wanted to wear.
I sometimes went home, took them off, put them in their case and sat on my bed bothered and fussy, but more at ease with them off and in my room. I read my books lying on my belly and propped up on elbows, hands holding up my head, face just a couple of inches from the page. And felt relief as the words came into focus, took me away with stories. Later when I went to bed my eyes roamed the darkness and I felt at peace. I knew exactly where things were in my house. I could, I believed, find my way in the darkest of places anywhere. My normal semi-blindness felt a familiar comfort in a more vibrant, confusing, cacophonous world.
But each morning I put on the glasses. My eyes adjusted a tad more. I got used to seeing them appear smaller behind two oval lenses. The frames redefined space around my features, as if a pricey plastic and glass magnifying device was facial jewelry of a peculiar sort. And I got used to the strangeness and wonder of remediated sight. I took them off, put them on again and just like that, so much changed. Thus, I had both the obscured but comforting vision of myopia plus intense clarity of corrected vision. I would learn how to navigate better wearing glasses with practice and time. Apparently many before me had, as I was not the only one in the world who needed them. They managed as if nothing was amiss, as per my study of my parents and brother and others indicated.
After a few weeks, no one said anything more. It turned out my mother’s advice to ignore the foolish schoolmates worked its magic. The improved vision made a real difference in the classroom or when reading music, when looking for friends, when crossing the street alone, and when trying to identify someone’s facial expressions, hence, feelings. The “positives” list kept growing. But I still was jolted when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
At fourteen Dr. Cummings suggested I switch to contact lenses. The idea thrilled me but my parents weren’t convinced until he stated such lenses were thought to help improve myopia over time. I had also become more active as a figure skater and these made any sport easier. It was 1964; they weren’t very popular in my town even then. Although in 1508, Leonardo da Vinci first imagined something similar, it took research, trial and error for the next five centuries. In 1949 the first truly wearable corneal lenses were developed. In the sixties they were yet being refined and were also expensive. I couldn’t believe it when the parents agreed to the plan.
The first time I got them in, right onto my eyes (with much aid and cheering on from Dr. C.) I found them uncomfortable: irritating, almost gritty and it felt as if my eyes wanted them out. I blinked, wiped away the streaming tears, glanced about. Gradually my vision cleared; I could see most everything in the rooms quite well. Even my own unadorned face which looked once again different, quite unexpected. Added to this was the excitement, for the first time ever, of enjoying full peripheral vision.
Contact lens wearing was a magnificent hit. At first this was only allowed for a few hours daily as eyes adjusted to alterations, until both corneas accepted the plastic and glass amalgamation floating about on them. Oddly enough, it didn’t take more than a week or two before I could manage it all day ’til bedtime. It wasn’t too easy to put them in or take them out and I was always fearful of losing one (which happened innumerable times over decades, causing panic until I got a back up set) but overall I adapted well. My life became considerably enlarged simply by being able to see–from all angles at any time. Not many weather issues (though windiness can be a trial), no perspiration problems; no blindness peripherally, anymore; and no glasses to often clean or repair when dropped or keep track of and just put up with. It was a whole new world. I felt older somehow. More confident.
The first time I went to a youth dance at our large, busy community center, I was nervous. It had been only a few weeks since I had gotten the contacts. My eyes still teared a bit; I worried it might look like I was weeping. In eighth grade and in the throes of adolescence, any change a young teen undergoes is fast news at school.
I’d had plenty of reactions as I walked about in my junior high, participated as usual in classes, acted in theater and musically performed, chatted with friends–who still stared at my face. I was a cheerleader for our sports teams (“Go Cavaliers!”), as well. And reactions were pleasant if it seemed like I was now perceived differently; that was weird. Even though I had plenty of friends (and didn’t often physically “less than”) who cheered me regardless, I was taken aback by the extra attention this garnered. Flattery generally embarrassed me, put me into a near-frozen state only to be saved by very well-trained manners of a passable smile and a “Thank you.”
But I also was teased for these things: my so blue eyes had to be fake blue, were too big, really “bug-eyed” (large blue eyes: family traits), I was “getting stuck up now that you don’t have glasses”, I was “not really pretty just cute” and so on. It was way too big a deal, not appearing for years as I had behind glasses. I nearly wished I’d never gotten the contact lenses, despite being happy otherwise with their performance.
How could I be someone else, anyway? And maybe this person was who I more truly was, anyway–or becoming. It was confounding. I tried to ignore the fuss.
Then, when walking down the school hallway a handful of boys were hanging out, lined up in what we girls archly called “eyeball alley.” I fast thought of how I could avoid it, walking there alone of all things, but it was too late. It felt like passing through the gauntlet as they taunted me: “Make way for Queen Cynthia! We will let Her Highness pass this time!” They laughed and whistled and hooted and clapped.
What?! It deeply frightened me. Because I had changed one thing? I had also grown up some over the summer and returned with more curves, and now everything was more out of whack by being glasses-free. It was a horror getting through that day. I felt vulnerable in a way I had not with glasses and when a bit younger. I found myself protectively turning inward more after that. Inside that shiny, bouncy, performing teenager was a girl also wounded by life, given to creative endeavors and way too much thinking.
So I had more than a usual mix of feelings on the way to that Saturday afternoon dance. It was the first time I had been allowed to go, and with my girlfriends. We wore skirts and blouses with matching Capezio flats. We felt grown up even while preparing for such an event and when we entered that darkened basketball court, heard the pounding music, saw the mass of kids moving about and laughing, we stepped into an unknown territory. I love to dance and did, then, so as the records were played I “Twisted” and “Watusied” away with my gal pals and then, bit by bit, the boys began to ask me for a dance and we worked it out there on the floor. The Monkey, the Mashed Potato, the Pony, the Hully Gully and the Freddie”–it got fast and frenzied and was more fun as we all had in a long time. But when people gathered around and called out and clapped, I finally stopped, walked away, faded into the edges of the swaying, packed crowd. I just wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not to get whistles though I was having a blast. My eyes were starting to smart and tear more, my feet were tired, and it was suddenly such loud music and such a crowded space. I wanted out and to f ind a cold pop. A couple of other friends agreed and we trickled out, laughing and gabbing as we reentered the blinding afternoon light.
Back home, I took out my contact lenses, put on my old glasses. It felt so good to be free of those small concave pieces of plastic that hovered over my eyes. I scrubbed my face, got my notebook and pen, began to write. Light beamed through the white curtains as they lifted, billowed, fell and shimmied in the silken breeze. I thought about the boys with their good scents and big smiles, the freeing music, the great fun of dancing and laughing. And about the ways everything was changing fast, like a rapidly turning rainbow of lights on the dance floor, and how to navigate the bends in the roads and where I was going. And then I put pen to paper and was pulled into a poem’s reflective depths and all once more made more sense, filled me up, was on its way to being righted.
I have worn contact lenses for 42 years now. To encourage more oxygen to my corneas, I have tried soft lenses and couldn’t manage to get them in for anything, finally bursting into humiliating tears from the sheer frustration of it. I tried gas permeable lenses and had an allergic reaction of serious inflammation, so I have stuck with the rigid lenses I have worn successfully.
A few years ago an optometrist told me he could hardly believe I’d worn them so easily for that long without one problem, and that most people got Lasik surgery after such length of time as this made it possible to see perfectly without more assistance, even in older years. But my eye health was honestly very good.
“They must have extra money to toss around that I don’t have, to get Lasik,” I said. “Besides, I’m happy with things as they are.”
“Your time in these is going to come to an end, you know, maybe even five or ten years,” he said frankly, “so you better get used to wearing glasses more often again. The adjustment will be trying since there are significant corneal changes with contact lens wearers. And use moisturizing eye drops a couple of times a day, at least, especially since you stare at a computer so long.”
“I know–for a while it was like looking out of a fish bowl. I could barely make my way across a room, it can be so dizzying. So I’ve been working on wearing them more. I’ll up the number of daily hours.”
Even with contacts lenses, I have had to wear reading glasses to see up closer since my fifties. And the trifocals I had to get four years ago, the kind with gradual and invisible division lines supposedly mimic more natural vision, are pretty good. They look nice with a simple blue wire frame; they feel much better now that I’m getting used to them. So around nine each night I remove my contacts and put my glasses on to give my eyes a well deserved rest. I feel the same relief I’ve felt every night I’ve removed contacts even though I have enjoyed them. They changed my life in some fundamental way. Freed it up, allowed me to be more vigorously active and gave me a deeper, brighter view of everything I have perceived. And of course, they did nicely alter my appearance, as those with serious myopia can appreciate.
But I’ll get used to these glasses, my before-bed eyes, before my real night eyes. It occurs to me it has all nearly come full circle. I never have lost my sense of security in the dark, even if there are “bumps in the night.” I’m the one in the house who gets up and investigates as my philosophy tends to the “far better to turn on the light and see what’s to see” sort. Except I don’t really have to fully see. I have smell, hear, touch, taste and also just plain sense things with Mother Wit. So, a tiny bit like a cat or an owl, I make my way in darkness better than many. I am not afraid. It may well be that because I never saw well–not even one’s fully delineated face just from mine, not even a book that wasn’t nearly at my nose–that it was how I was born into world, I just knew no differently. We’re made to adapt, to compensate for characteristics that are weaker or some we may even be missing. Besides, the whole truth of the world does not depend entirely on what our bodies tell us. Sweeping portions of life as I experience it happen in mind and soul–and during exchanges of feeling and information with others.
My oldest sister got the Lasik surgery done when she was in her sixties–she didn’t have poor vision and only got what I considered weak “pretend” glasses in her forties–and extolled its wonders. She kept telling me what a miracle it was to once more awaken and see the world whole and clearly in all its colors and design. And to not have to fool with those danged glasses. I’m so glad she had that pleasure before she passed away; it seemed quite important. And I cannot imagine it. I still see very little when I awaken, mostly varying degrees of light and shadowy shapes tinged gently with a few hues and tones.
But I don’t regret that this is it, contacts by day and glasses by night or whenever I want. I have more worlds to enjoy–without corrective lenses of any kind; with contacts (two kinds as I have a pair for long distance if desired), additional reading glasses as needed and then the trifocals. I don’t mind how the trifocals look, at all, on me. Funny how one’s self perception and needs change.
I’ll do whatever is required to preserve this sight, to see a bit more normally. And when I cannot any longer do so it will be a sad day, I am certain. But remember, I can maneuver my way through blurry realms of sunlight as well as deeply enveloping dark. This earth is a mysterious and remarkable place to live, any which way we can look at it. And I am looking and looking; I am seeing all that I possibly can.
An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune and misfortune at their own private pace like a clock during a thunderstorm.—Robert Louis Stevenson
Tales for Life 
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