imperfect prose
random thoughts strung along for inner releasebeautiful ballerina
her silhouette is black against my kitchen doorway. her back, turned. she’s swaying, head bobbing, to the music on my laptop. i see the outline of the oversized cardigan i leant her when she arrived. it swallows her up, save for tiny white hands which conduct the air, keeping time.
she’s aware of no one. prefers to stand and stare out the window while she dances. no doubt remembering childhood dance lessons. childhood dreams of becoming a professional dancer. picturing herself pirouetting across the lawn in a lavender dress, her mind perfectly whole, her feet completely cooperative. it’s the picture i have of her when i think of heaven.
there, she will remember how to cook. how to walk. how to form sentences. there, she will recall the names of her favourite flowers. the way it feels to drive a car. to bathe herself.
in heaven, my mother will be a beautiful ballerina. inhibited by nothing. propelled onwards by the song only she can hear.
becoming the other
she, the author of ‘white oleander’, sits humbly in black dress and loppy hat. her face gently amused. i watch her from across the table. the air smells like lake-water. she leans in over the first of our five-course meal and asks me, “who do you suppose they are?”
we turn, two writers, one mind, to watch the couple across the way. together we imagine their lives: she, a tired professor who demands too much. he, a successful businessman, phone glued to ear. we become lost in playing the other.
janet fitch and i. she, who took 10 years to publish a short story. she, who authored a bestseller whose characters find haven within me. i learn from her during the day under italian silk-sky; i, along with 14 others. i, the only canadian, joining the only australian, and 12 americans… together, ink to pad, we form characters which ‘pop.’ narratives which drive. plots which sizzle.
and at night, we imagine alongside our mentors. make muses out of como’s countryside. practice the art of becoming the other.
como’s cobblestone roads
they stand side by side along the water, tall man in red pants, short man in blue. shirts tucked in, watching the sky unfold like laundry. i tiptoe past but they see, turn, watch me go. silent in the creases of a foreign land, my flip-flops skidding the surface of a cobblestone road.
morning is an anxious lover here: it doesn’t wait for invitation, but steps brightly through my hotel window. i welcome it. pull back the white blinds, step out onto a balcony inch-deep in warmth. below me, the lake, blue as my baby’s booties which i bought in an italian store downtown. around me, a cradle of mountains. i never tire of the way the rock tears jagged into clouds, pulling out white stuffing which floats softly into lake.
later i’ll eat spaghetti alla carbonara (spaghetti with bacon and eggs), or perhaps an entire ‘personal pizza’. wine is cheap, dregged straight from the grape vines which straddle rooftops. i watch my friends’ throats; see grapes slide down in a wash of clear liquid. yearn.
as we walk we pray we won’t die for the unmarked roads and the cars doing 70 miles per hour down side streets. i tuck a hand around my womb, hold my baby tight against me. “i love you aiden,” i whisper. he is my lifeline. i feel his tiny heart beat through my cotton dress. his feet tapping gentle, saying “stay strong mama.” and so i do. even as i weep for the beauty of the place i smile, a rainbow, strip of oil in foggy rain.
and flying home i read over notes inked down from days’ full of writing, sentences which scratch the essence of words, lessons taught by teachers so humble-bestselling authors who know well the rake of rejection-and i marinate. in what has been, and what will be.
little life
Aiden Gray…
courageous little fire…
sweet son of mine
i met you today, wiggling about inside my womb,
flesh of my flesh, you remind me of your daddy the way you move
constant motion, curious about the world you’re in.
i’ll embrace you and let you go–into the Father’s arms…
He who designed your precious toes–
your beating heart, tiny ventricles pulsating blood
i stand
astounded
bow humbly at the wonder of it all
little life, i love you.
my teacher
my mother sits wrapped in an afghan in my kitchen. i’m painting at an easel nearby. she’s reading a karen kingsbury book. karen is her favourite author.
we share a bowl of sliced apples.
there is silence save for the flip, flip of pages turning and the scratching of brush against canvas. it’s a comfortable silence–like a bowl of chicken soup when you’re sick, or a hot water bottle.
eventually she says: “i love my mochas.”
mum has ‘mocha time’ every day at 10:30 a.m. it’s her favourite time of day. “i think i like them even more than i enjoy karen kingsbury books,” she adds thoughtfully. “in fact, i’d be hard-pressed to choose if someone asked me to decide between a mocha and a karen kingsbury book.”
mum surprises me every day. her head might be floppy; her legs wobbly; her hands unable to grip the book tight, but her words are flawless. her thoughts, achingly honest. real.
for a while she dozes over the pages, the book slipping from her tired, 56-year-old hand. then i creak my chair and she awakes. “mochas are supposed to be caffeinated,” she adds sleepily, “but for me they’re quite soporific.”
my paintbrush slows; i turn. “soporific?” i ask. “i don’t know that word.”
“i learned it when i was in grade school through Beatrice Potter’s books,” mum says. “it means, to mellow. to make quiet. sleepy.”
soon, she’s asleep again, and the book falls to the floor. i sit remembering… being homeschooled by mum until grade 5. being taught a new word every day, sometimes five. becoming passionate about language.
cancer may be robbing her of her mind, but my mum still teaches me, every day. in a language more unspoken than not. in more ways than she’ll ever know.
small rubber boots
raindrops kiss the ground. form puddles. i look down, see my face reflected in pools of sky tears.
breathe deep the air fresh with watery growth.
dream of you in small rubber boots splashing around clapping your hands, dimpled skin in yellow rain jacket.
laughing.
i wonder what you’ll be like… an artist like your mom, or a jock like your dad? will you cry when a bird hits its head on the window? will you think in poetry, or in mathematical equations? will you savour a walk, or prefer to ride your bike? and will you know God so deeply you hear his thoughts?
baby, precious extension of my soul, i wait. bated breath. to meet you.
(*photo from Design Pics)
a dance of offerings
her face is flushed. her eyes are glassy.
“we’re in grave danger,” mum tells dad over the phone. it’s sliding out of her grip.
mum is convinced her father, Grand-dad, is standing outside the door. armed and dangerous. despite my protests, she wobbles towards the door and opens it to find no one.
on the radio, the worship song ‘blessed be your name’ is playing. “when the darkness closes in, Lord, still i will say, blessed be your name…” it croons and my eyes tear up as mum stands there confused, wondering where her father’s gone.
“he’s coming on sunday, mum,” i tell her quietly. she sits back down beside me.
a few minutes later, “he’s wearing black.”
“who, mum?”
“grand-dad. i can see him by the garden.”
she’s peering out the window. the flowers wave in lonely array. no one is there.
after a while we stand up and dance to the music, but it’s hard. she keeps staring at the door. then suddenly, “let’s go home.”
“we are home, mum,” i tell her quietly, but suddenly i realize she’s not here. she’s miles away.
i remember his voice on my walk amongst the leaves and sunshine: “every good gift i give you is an offering,” he’d said. God’s voice, a whisper on the breeze. “and then you give it back to me,” he continued. “it’s a dance of offerings. and the world will watch, mesmerized, by the beauty of it all.”
so now as i watch my mum’s brain being ravaged by cancer, i give her back to him, an offering. and trust he’ll return her, a new creation. healed, and in her right mind.
dandelion seeds
she hands me a long, seedless dandelion. its petals are faded–missing, like teeth in an old man.
“um, thank you?” i say to my sister, who’s come over for evening tea.
she laughs. “he told me to give it to you. i prayed, asking what flower to bring you, and God told me to find the tallest dandelion–and so i did. then he said to tell you that just like this flower, whose seeds are on the wind, your book is out of your hands–its seeds are in God’s hands, to be planted and bear fruit, in good time.”
tears sprout. she’s talking about Mum’s Dance–the book i’ve written for mum. the one with my agent. lately, it would seem, there’s no hope. rejection after rejection. “strong story but not right for our list”… their words dangle, cold and meaningless. like the dandelion, my book appears dead. withered. i haven’t had the strength to pray to God about it lately; so discouraged. so instead, he spoke to my sister. and she carried his words, like seeds on the wind, to me.
they fall on the soil of my heart; take root. hope, on spindly stems, reaching up for the sun, daring to grow. daring to believe.
later that night i pick up my Bible to press the dandelion between its pages. it opens directly to psalm 20:4; “may he give you the desire of your heart, and make all your plans succeed.”
once again, i weep. for small miracles like dandelion seeds.
the children
i’m standing at the line wind in hair unclipping clothes pins, wood between fingers. the sun makes my face look like a strawberry. suddenly he’s standing there amongst the folds of linen, home from work. shirt unbuttoned, feeling the kiss of summer air.
“how are the children?” he asks, first thing, after kissing my belly where our own child lies.
he’s referring to the peppers and tomatoes we transplanted earlier this week. his forehead is wrinkled like the furrows in our garden. together, hand in hand, we step bare-footed amongst our rows of ‘children’ observing their colour of leaf, their tender heads struggling upwards from a bed of black soil.
“i think they’re okay,” i tell him softly.
“and mr. wilty?”
mr. wilty is our one tomato plant who was dry as cardboard upon planting. somehow he’d missed my daily waterings. we’d been taking extra care of him, since. “he’s getting stronger.”
i look forward to these afternoon moments of walking bare-footed in wet soil checking up on our little ones. soon we’ll have grown a different kind of plant altogether–a human plant–to nourish and feed, to pray for and love. standing here in the garden, womb protruding, hand in husband’s, i know we can’t do this alone. i have to trust that God is with us now, and always.
the ultimate Gardener. the everlasting father.
tending the roots…
looking after our children.
the final word
Please listen I say, in a scratchy voice through the wooden door, but they keep praying in high, fluted tones from their straight-backed pews. Pretending not to hear the naked man standing outside. They’d taken one look at me, shuddered; turned away.
It’s no wonder. I’m so hungry my ribs are splitting through my skin. So thirsty my lips are cracking dry. Not a pretty sight. All I want is a sip of wine from their communion table. A slice of their loaf of bread. But no, it’s holy. And I—an abomination.
Their words are gibberish to my bleeding ears. I’m so tired of words. So sick of people who say they’ll help you—who promise to be there until the end—and then leave when you need them most.
I begin to cry; hear the people inside slide the dead-bolt across, begin to pray in louder voices so as not to hear my wailing.
I turn, hobble back to the hill. Climb back onto the cross. The sky is black as I yell out with one final, feeble gasp, It is finished. A phrase which will enter the Hall of Fame as soon as I rise from the dead.
But what I mean is: Language is futile. Every sentence with its punctuation, finished. For I am the Word. And no one is listening.
