Romance

    We believe that things will turn out right in the end.  The sadness and the tragedies will have an ultimate answer, the wrongs will be avenged, the pain and the loneliness will be imbued with incredible meaning.  All the terror and the solitude will be assuaged and we will emerge triumphant and strong.  Romance is living with this strange, audacious belief while dying inside knowing that it is a lie, a deception. Men are not chivalrous, they are not the knights of your dreams, they have no interest in your fantasies and your heart's desires. Dear Lord Jesus, help me to endure.

Myrddin

 For the woman to hear the soft snuffling under her hands is a wonder. To see the emerald green scales that have not yet hardened into the horned skin of adulthood, and to peer into those lambent eyes, the golden orbs of the gentle serpent who has no place of evil in his kind and generous heart, all this is beyond a dream, perhaps beyond a fantasy. Of course, Myrddin would be a flesh eater, a habit of yore and hard to eradicate, but then what is the value of a guerdon easily won? However, if the simple diet of nutmeats and milk chocolate is properly and carefully maintained, the future tenderness of the dear creature is assured, and he will enter the Cathedral of Sighs a sweeping testament to the vigilance of his keepers and the goodness of God, having grown to his statuesque honor without the slaughter of man or beast. Then, when the Great Meeting occurs, and the Deep Song encompasses the place of old sighing in the souls of the willow trees by the river, and the Weaver of Wings stands ready, the silver mist ascending to the height of the chosen one’s grown stature, the sapling would be truly prepared for the form, but not the substance, of his nascent adult wings, and the color of them would flash suddenly and imperially, an explosive surprise, and  Myrddin’s muscles would ripple in delight at the prowess he possesses. When he sweeps to the dome of heaven, leaving behind the thoughts of almonds, chocolates, children and cats, then, a wee hatchling, the merest slip of a dragonet, would squawl in triumph, snuggling tenderly into the accustomed spot in the filing cabinet, awaiting the footsteps of the brave guardians and the silky fingers of the woman at the desk beside.
 

    You might ask me, do you have other stories like these? I would answer, akin to these or of the same nature? For, you see, this is a true story, the others are the subtle phantasms, the delight of my heart in the darkness, and the things I tell myself so that I will not weep.

   How can I tell you how Myrddin came to me, scenting Rachel, my cat, on the windowsill, her green eyes surveying with mild interest the baby-winged figure looping awkwardly toward our eyrie ? The glass panes were no barrier to their bonding, they regarded each other with quiet, animal caution, then Myrddin simply passed through the window, landing in a soft somersault on the quilt, dazed by the feel of the downy fabric and the smell of lilac. Rachel was stunned by the intrusion, retreating to her safe haven under the bed, crouching watchfully in the shadows. She was unprepared for the scrambling of smooth, golden talons along the blankets as Myrddin followed her, trusting this older creature to lead him to safety. After all, Rachel was at home and seemed happy and unafraid of any harm, surely a tiny being like himself could find security under the dark cherry bed in one of the clean and silent corners.

    Myrddin hung, tangled in the quilt edge, his face peering anxiously into the dim light where Rachel knelt like a mandarin, ears perked forward in absolute feline intensity. Tears blurred his vision for a moment, fear gripped the trembling heart of him, curious smells overcame him, no wind, no sunlight, no bird calls, nothing. Just the stillness, the glowing eyes of his watcher, and the terror that he had done triumphantly the wrong thing in coming here to this alien place.

    

II

   The discomfiting moments ticked by like terrible hours.  Slowly, the heaving of Myrddin’s chest grew less, and he became very still. One rear talon remained implacably caught in the hand stitching of the quilt, and, even at his tender age, he knew that only a quiet and logical contemplation of his predicament would lead to release. As he considered, there was a sinuous movement of approach, and a warm, unfamiliar scent poured through his delicate nostrils. He raised his front limbs in an instinctive, defensive gesture and made his first assay at would become a deafening roar upon his reaching adulthood, but was now a hopefully terror-inducing hiss of defiance. Rachel started at the sound, and hunkered down again on her haunches, regarding Myrddin with more respect and not a slight amount of pity. Having survived similar situations in her mischievous kittenhood when lace curtains and frilly tablecloths were objects of extreme attraction, she sighed inwardly remembering the exhilaration of discovery and the humiliating and sometimes frightening results of her explorations of the world. She knew that at this point the upside-down posture, exhaustion and fear were taking a rapid toll on the muscles in Myrddin’s snagged foot. She recalled the hard-won ability to allow herself the freedom for the beauty and agility of falling by retracting her own razor-sharp claws, and longed to communicate this knowledge somehow. Would her guttural purrs and metallic clicks speak plainly to this golden-eyed creature? Did they unknowingly possess the unutterable language common to hearts so different?

    Rachel rose , stretching her front legs luxuriously, flexing her claws, then extending the hind ones separately in a sensuous, unstudied manner, so that her graceful body inched closer to the dangling dragonet. Myrddin, his body tingling in rapt anticipation, felt the first fugitive touches of silken, dark fur brushing lightly over him. The cat massaged his entangled foot rhythmically with her left cheek. Myrddin thrilled to the soft rumble of her purr, and listened intently to the unfamiliar voice that seemed to be urging a deep relaxation over him. Gradually his clamped talon opened, and he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the terrible pain of slamming into the wooden floor below. To his great surprise, he sank instead into a warm, breathing blanket of welcome. Rachel embraced him tenderly on her belly with her front legs, then rocked him, lowering him gently to the floor beside her. Myrddin lay stunned, an opalescent mist of connection eddying to and fro between them. The gentle cat yawned, showing her pink tongue and white teeth, she then settled into quiet contemplation, her eyes dreamy and thoughtful. Rachel’s black whiskers twitched, delicate messages travelling their length to the heart of her curiosity. The dragonet remained fearful, yet ensorcelled with the creature before him, his sensitive snout vibrating.

   

Forever

Forever ... imagine having those eons to explore the eccentricities of the feelings and passions  engendered by the beloved. What bliss! The human heart and the mortal soul have no boundaries for devotion, and the tenderness and the aching, melancholy desire for complete possession of every fleeting glance and each trembling breath of the precious, treasured one will ensorcel the one enraptured by the luscious pain to the point of delirium. Not for the faint of heart or soul is the tortured delight of true love.

Finality

    When we face the ultimate parting, it is a formality that catches us unaware. There are no words possible to encompass a life, and certainly no comfort for those bereft. It is simply over for those left behind with their deep sorrow and grief. For the person who has died, the mystery is solved, the riddles gone, all questions have been answered. They have made that startling transformation and now know what has tantalized man from the dawn of time. The enigma of the meaning of our sufferings here on this earth remains for us the living. That and the terrible knowledge that we will have no resolution until we have followed where that loved one has gone, that road they have travelled, that dark valley with its cypress trees and soft winds, that journey of faith that we will all make alone.

    We wake suddenly in the night and cry, remembering. The incomprehensible is our comrade now, and it sits silent, eyes cast down in reverence to our human frailty.

    We invest this life with such import and such significance, yet ultimately it means very little or nothing compared to the dawn of wisdom and reunion that begins with the drawing of our final breath. There is now a celestial river of light where the person we loved lived their life, their agonies and struggles quenched in the brilliance of Divine Compassion, their soul embraced by a Love of which we have only a shadowy human conception.

   They stand well and strong in heaven. They laugh at our fears and troubles because they are face to face with God.

Leitmotif

Just beyond the welcoming, wide doorway it sits, shuffling its feet. Perhaps it listens, that I have always suspected, but it thinks certainly, blinking there in the hallway, bold enough for life. I am tired, too tired, maybe I open myself to it. If I open, I can close, and the dry, watchful thing need never be noticed. Yes, sit there, move your fabulous feet and see what it gets you, my old friend.

It always is just where I cannot catch the glimpse, or it leaves the room as a shadow on the floor as I enter. But lately I was just too weary. Oh, let it be there, let it. I hate the thought of it, the different thought, and I cannot take it anymore, this way I have of just being outside and hoping. It is in the dark as well, the shadows of the creeping, sly wretch with those deathless eyes following my heartbeat. Who in the world could simply stare like that, what is the marvelous thing in my breathing that fascinates?  It is a patient presence, and most of the time the feel of its awareness is slight, so I dream it is gone.

I had actually forgotten it. The first morning was like light on the water. All that disorientation, the dizziness of there being windows and doors in the wrong  places . Then the rush of wonder, I am free, and this is new. And I ran my eyes over the kitchen, plates and floors shining with promise. This is my dream. I swaggered through the door into the dining room and suddenly there it was, oh, God, what is there? A large, lace medallion under the whirlpool bowl, where I had seen myself floating pink, blown roses, was swirled up in a confection of linen, perfect as a vision. It rose in an impossible configuration, tall as a church candle when the incense crawls, and there it was, not breathing, but alive nonetheless.

I had never liked that stupid bowl. It was a hand-me-down, and I had seen it and thought, oh, my very lovely thing, why did someone give you away?  I had squirmed inside. It was too pretty, too heavy, and that whirlpool motif was strange, like walking a labyrinth. And I don’t care that there are labyrinths in cathedrals, they are evil, they lead you down paths and strand you in open spaces  in dark forests, surrounded by watchful eyes. But, true to my new way of thinking (pushing the feeling down)  I said, it is so beautiful, picture it with the sunlight hitting it on the table, Queen Elizabeth roses floating in it. I forgot the windows faced north, I forgot everything I swore I would remember. I heard the sudden voice of my older sister, “Not again, stop this, it’s so perfect.” So I spread the lace medallion and placed the bowl.

Now, look what had happened. I was in this brand-new place and it was starting again perhaps, and I was angry. St. Michael was standing there, but he was concentrating on satan, and  I had this thing facing me, white and defiant. But, it turned out there was nothing to it. The medallion unwound, the bowl in hand, both in a plastic bag and the Fatima water sprayed, the prayer said, I slammed it on the top of the trash barrel. When I heard the truck, I waited behind the lace curtain, even the cat came out for this, and we watched it being handled and smashed, thank you very much.     

But, now, the shuffling was here, and the creature had returned. Now it was the same again. It doesn’t happen consistently. If it did, one could make plans and say, well, Thursday, of course, it’s okay, it’s only for a few moments. No, you are pretending to be normal and so much so that you don’t hear it at first. Then suddenly you realize that it is as loud as thunder, and there you are, caught.

Dreaming free...

        I had a most beautiful dream, so unlike any other of my experience. Something so deeply lovely that I am still in awe of a God who gifted us with this type of imagination and reverie .

       I was trying to save a shy, gentle aquatic animal. I called it a dolphin in the dream, but it wasn’t gray, it was a shiny, lustrous dark tortoiseshell, but definitely shaped like a dolphin. I was cradling it in my arms and walking toward a body of water. It wasn’t tropical, but temperate. The water was crystalline and there were huge rounded stones on the bottom which were clearly visible because of the clarity of the water. There were no trees anywhere, but a wall of some kind separated the sheltered lagoon portion from the rest of what seemed an inland lake. I remember being very concerned that the animal should swim, live, survive, be joyous. I had feelings of caring and tenderness toward her. I knew that she would be safe in this water because there were no predators to threaten or harm her, this was assumed almost unconsciously, I obviously knew this place very well and had chosen it carefully.

     I placed the “dolphin” into the water and she immediately started to swim quickly and vigorously through the waves with others like her. At this point some other very curious, incredible animals appeared and joined in. They were bright apple green, like a praying mantis, sinuous like an eel, but they had the most unusual looking flippers which also functioned as feet. The flippers were shaped like squares, except they were attached to the body of the animal with short legs and the opposite side had a point. They were set on the animals’ bodies in opposing pairs, maybe as many as three or four sets on one creature. For some reason I feel now as though these sweet beasts were a cross between a plant and an animal! Despite the fact that they were quite large, they were not predatory, but skimmed through and upon the waters of the lagoon, their bodies rippling and their tails coiling to and fro as they both swam through and walked on the water. The gamboling of the dolphins and these other creatures seemed like play and I thought “how wondrous they are” as I watched them.

     The end of the dream came when someone else behind me said, “Oh, you will never see her again, she won’t come back, you set her free!”  I was momentarily concerned, but then my “dolphin” swam back toward me showing her flippers and dorsal fin in a salute or wave to me, skimming through the soft billows, and I somehow knew inwardly that we were so intimately connected that nothing could ever break that bond of love and friendship,  that she would always return.

   

Life of Mine

I should have expected my life to turn out this way, full of import. There were always the odds and ends that came to me from friends of my father, books, maps and old diaries of strangers. And he himself gave me such odd artifacts of his life, trusting me to examine them slowly and keep silent. I never remember long discussions with him. He would make simple statements, or ask which way to turn the car. We could end up in a swamp or a museum, it didn’t matter, it was what needed to happen, and we would get out, look around, and make of it what we could. I never felt failure or censure, it was our way, he told me about the fish, he told me how to read the sky, he told me what it was like here forty years ago. My mother never asked me, where did you go, what did you do? It was a quiet place, the place my father took me, and we never told and never would.

In later years there was the amazement of discovering that my father and I were unusual. I had of course assumed that all fathers and daughters shared these intimate, miraculous secrets, until the one time I asked a friend about such things and was met with suspicious stares. And I wondered why my oldest sister resented me. Imagine the horror: the eldest princess of the fairy tale, the beauty, the golden one, being supplanted by a tiny gnome in pigtails. No wonder she hated me. I would hide from shyness, people would beg me to talk while I sat sullen, eyes down, and remained mute while she shone and glittered, smile radiating. Yet, the handsome prince, the prize, the valiant knight, preferred the goose girl in overalls. How maddening.

Even my brother was smitten with me, God knows why. I was terrified of strangers, quiet and trembling. I spent most of my early childhood in closets and behind books I could not yet read. Yet, I was the diminutive mascot of his life, he watched me with interest but did not interfere in what made me so different, accepting it quietly. Here had settled this rara avis in the midst of his prosaic family, and he was content to appreciate me.

    Once I learned to read it was all I ever did, and the fantasies trailed from those glorious pages into my life and started moving through the house.

   I was blessed to live in a family teeming with gigantic personalities, addictions and drama. I was very boring by comparison. The incredible battles of wills I witnessed drew silent, passionate responses from within me. I was a voyeur and a critic, weighing the respective merits of the combatants, dismissing drunkenness and fistfights as passing dreams. The mornings would bring a fresh, washed day; life swirled about me.

 I was the collector of stories, the one who listened and absorbed the family secrets and tales. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, the cousins who were so shuttered, not open and clean like those of my friends, all the myriad of characters who made up my world were the archetypal shadow puppets of my fantasies. I created the worlds they had inhabited in the old country, I imagined them as mythic metaphors, icons of vast proportions. They were grand and simple but they had corners and mists. Their lives were epic. And now, I am becoming the creature of legend for the young ones swimming in the shallows of warm seas.