Happy Halloween
Stay safe, be magical, speak through the veil and listen for your answers.
I carry in my soul a basket of generations of women. I carry their trauma and drama and make them my own in a long string of paper dolls that I get to dress up on Sundays. It’s not enough that I carry their stories with me. There’s a string of paper dolls that are all me as well. The basket has been full of Saturday’s laundry for so long that all those women are suffocating under the weight.
Yesterday the laundry got done. Today I stare into the basket and hold their hands. I’m surprised at how happy they are to see me even though they’ve been neglected for so long. A month of Sundays at least. They are ready to retell their stories. I hear the women’s voices as they pull my elbos to keep my attention.
Two- year old me, isn’t reaching out. She isn’t smiling. She’s sopping wet stuck at the moment of almost drowning. I remember that day. I long for the peace of it, that instant before I was rescued. When the water surrounded me like a womb, still like ice, but warm like a bath. The terror that rained in my heart when someone dove in for me and break the silence with bubbles,and eddies, white surf and ripples. I scoop into a heated towel and hold her til she cries. For what she’s gained and what she’s lost. I comb her hair and put it in one thick pony tail, secured by an elastic tie with plastic baubles that will cling tight to each other but will also bite any fingers in there way like a snapping turtle. We hum soflty together, which is an invitation to 3.
Threes favorite place was to sit at the end of the hall in front of the golden hamper in front of the long mirror. She’d sit there for hours creating words and worlds. She put the most beautiful sounds together to create the perfect word that she said over and over “obituary”. She’d teach herself face yoga from one of the older women in the basket. She planned to teach it to Four, but the mirror went with daddy when he moved out. Three forgot where the old ladies lived.
Today I stood with myselves in front of a full length mirror and introduce ourselves.
“ You are loved, beautiful, intelligent, inspiring and safe.“
