All The Pretty Little Horses

I miss you.  Your memory clings to me.



The last time I saw you ride, Cacia was three weeks old.  I held her as you mounted your stallion, dark flesh rippling.  You were with God, your face lifted towards the light, changed, like a child again.

We used to ride together under the power lines, under the smell of sun.  I remember the cricket song and the hum of electricity overhead; The feeling of my adolescent thighs naked against my gelding's brawn.  We'd return with our legs bleeding from tack and thistle, faces thick with sisterhood and joy.

We were together.
I have you marked on my body.  You are a part of me.
Do you remember?  Do you remember, forever?  We'll always have each other.  Forever.



I remember the lightning and wind.  We'd stand near the windows, watching together.  Mom would come up and we'd stand, the three of us (always the three of us) as the house would crack and tremble.  We'd laugh.  It was exciting.

We'd watch the waves on the coast during a storm.  Often we'd find beaches that were just ours.  Ours.  Just ours.  It would pour down rain in heavy drops and our hair would drip white into our eyes.  We'd slap our foreheads with sandy palms, shiver and giggle, and we'd dance and scream.  We'd build sandcastles that were made from seaweed, broken bits of glass, and pieces of wood that mom would find.  "Look at this wood Rita.  Look.  Do you see the shape?  Look at this beautiful shape Simone, did you see this?"


We'd take your dog and leave dad behind.  You and I would run up the rocks and yell down to each other, "Come up here, you've got to see this," and we did.  We'd poke into the tide pools and pull out star fish.  You'd wag them over my head and I'd scream.  You loved that, to see me scream and pull away and laugh and call mom over.  You adored me.  did you adore me?

We'd swim too.  Mom would stand back on the sand, with her long fingers pulled against her eyes to shade from the light, and she'd go looking for rocks to show us when we got out.  You'd challenge me into the smaller surf, and we'd run back and forth until we'd lost our way and our fear of being cold.  Soon, we'd be under the crashing waves, beat against the sand and tumbled to shore.  I remember walking out of the water in my overalls, covered and heavy with sand and salt, laughing as I emptied pockets of water.  We'd come back to mom breathless with teeth chattering, talking over one another, exploding into giggles, gasping and laughing and she'd smile at us not understanding a word we said, but understanding the moment of forever.

I remember you in the ocean and I remember you in horses.  I remember you when I see sisters and I miss you.  It wasn't always the way it is now.  We used to have each other.  Forever we used to say.  We can always count on each other.  We'll never be alone.  Do you promise?  Will you be there?  I promise, forever.

We always knew that the world couldn't be trusted.  We lived on a hill in the middle of oak and thistle, and we'd go across seas and meet children to play with, but we were different than everyone.  Special and different, but we had each other.

Now I am alone.  You were a part of me.  You're too broken now.  You've become a dream and a ghost and I can't recognize the shell you walk in.   Where is my sister?  I miss your imperfect self.  We were both fractured but it didn't matter.
The end is fuzzy.  I was drunk on grief.  I was drunk.  It was hard and I was so angry at you, I couldn't understand why we weren't good enough for you to want to stay sane.  Where have you gone?  Are you alone right now, or have you taken someone to bed, or are you hunting the streets trying to fill your hunger?

Bonnie and Clyde

My girls are cousins by blood.

My daughter, Opal, is the shorter and younger of the two.  Opal lives in the present moment.  She's funny, not because she tries, but because she just acts like herself and doesn't realize it.  She's serious but not solemn.  Opal is all cheeks, with ringlet curls coming from every end, always as though she has just woken up.  Most of the time she is either missing a shoe, or pants, or a shirt.  Opal's eyes are soft almond and her skin is browner than my own.  She is honest and stubborn and her laugh is deep and throaty, like a jazz musician from the forties

My niece is four and tall and skinny.  She looks like my sister did as a kid.  It's wonderful.  Watching my children adventure, I am able to remember my niece's mom as she was, filled with mischief and love.  My sister doesn't know it but together we are mothering her daughter.  Her memory - her gift of love and the shadow of hurt she left behind and my today; I have the gift of today, of being real and of being something different.

Cacia is sensitive and intense.  She is not innocent like children usually are.  Her big green eyes stare from below her flax hair and she sees everything but remains detached.  When you catch her eye with a look of complete love, she'll melt into herself.  Sometimes she'll let out a sound that's similar to a purr.  She's sinewy, her body tense and strong, and she hugs with a deep, raw, thirst.  When she hugs me her heart is wide open.  "I love you with all my hearts", she says."

Cacia wakes up first every morning.  She will lay in bed looking around, quiet while retracing her dreams.  From there on out she will be singing, or telling a story, or mumbling to herself.  Cacia is an actor, a performer and her goal is to have her audience fully involved.  She digs connection and yearns for it.  She needs to tell you about something so that it becomes real.

Lost.

Cacia says, "Is she lost?  Lost?...Where is she?"

"Lost," I say.  "We don't know where she is.  We're going to keep looking."

"Will she come home now?  I miss her."

"I don't know baby.  I miss her too."

The dog's gone missing.  

Cacia's Mom, my sister, is gone too.  We know loss.  We also know doubt and uncertainty.  

"Where is she?  Does she miss us?  Will she be home soon?"  

Where Cacia's voice is small, mine is steady.  Controlled.  "We'll do everything we can to find her.  We hope she'll find her way home.  Now it's time for bed, so pick a bubby.  I love you."

In my chest, nagging, my voice echos hers, "Where is she?  Is she lost?  What now?  What do I do?  What's happened?  Is she lost?  What can I do?  Whose fault, whose fault?  My fault?  The door was open.  Did I leave it open?  These things happen, it's no ones fault.  mine.  should have known.  should have done differently."

She woke half way through the night when the light was blue and the air sweating.  She was screaming.

I crawled into her bed and we fell asleep, tangled in a shared dream.  "Where is she?"

The Awful Rowing Towards God

Surrender.

Perhaps it comes only of necessity, when we become too tired to fight.

I'd been hanging onto the teeth of duplicity.  

And then, at some point, I found myself resigned and on my knees.  

Anguish as potential; as an opportunity.  This is how it happens.  And how my rowing begins.

Rowing

by Anne Sexton

A story, a story!
(Let it go.  Let it come.)
I was stamped out like a Plymouth fender
into this world.
First came the crib
with its glacial bars.
Then dolls
and the devotion to their plastic mouths.
Then there was school,
the little straight rows of chairs,
blotting my name over and over,
but undersea all the time,
a stranger whose elbows wouldn't work.
Then there was life
with its cruel houses
and people who seldom touched-
though touch is all-
but I grew,
like a pig in a trenchcoat I grew,
and then there were many strange apparitions,
the nagging rain, the sun turning into poison
and all of that, saws working through my heart,
but I grew, I grew,
and God was there like an island I had not rowed to,
still ignorant of Him, my arms, and my legs worked,
and I grew, I grew,
I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyebal,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.

As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it be not sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.