a story of wind
The fields whisper testimony of it, and the trees bear witness of it.
I was 9 years old, sitting criss-crossed in a patch of soft dirt.
It was the middle of August as I looked out over the amber sea of wheat stalks swaying back and forth, like graceful dancers it was as if they'd bow to one another and continue in their waltz of heat stroke and exhaustion.
Pearls of sweat collected on my hair line and neck, when I used the back of my hand to wipe the perspiration away, it was then I first felt the effects of what an hour in triple digit heat can do to you.
My limbs were lethargic, my head flooded with anticipation, I thought if I waited long enough in the immense heat, I would see hellish angels rise out of the wheat rows to dance with one another-- I was convinced our house set atop the gate way to hell. It was the only explanation for our bad luck, for my night terrors and my mother's sickness. Demons never frightened me, God was always the source of my fear, and I was always in a petrified state because I was never sure what test of faith he'd ask of me next.
I was 9 years old and I had already learned that the better you are, the more divine, the more holy, the more you are prone to suffer, so daily I questioned the existence and the benevolence of a just God, and nightly, kneeling beside my bed I'd beg forgiveness for my doubts, my insecurities and my lack of faith.
I could never figure out if my mother was a miracle or a punishment from God. Here was this woman who I loved more than life itself, and she was dying more obviously every day. Was her life, her brief presence in my life the point? Or the awareness her death would bring? and the amount of sorrow that would forever seal my fate more certain in emptiness than in loveliness?
I was 9 years old in a heat induced delirium, my body possessed by the enchanting movement of the wheat stalks I swayed with them--I swayed with them until the waves of heat that you only briefly see rising off the asphalt become more extreme in their definitiveness, I watched them rise from the earth, each an independent movement from the next, though all of them in a universal unison as enchanting and as dangerous as an Indian snake charmer's lullaby. I watched them until they became both devils and angels, until both heaven and hell collided. There I was at 9 years old, fighting to maintain consciousness, arguing rationality to my disillusioned eyes that perhaps were seeing a vision beyond the semblance of this world, or maybe were so desperate to find the crack in reality I had created it out of nothing at all, nothing tangible anyway, only heat, wind and grief.
Then the voice of my mother calling me finally broke the trance, and when I hadn't enough will to answer her, calling to her would have meant exhaustion to a deadly extent, she came to me, helped me from the dirt and told me to go inside and take a cold bath. Which I did because I was a good child and never bucked the instructions of my elders, even if I disagreed.
Then later on, in the early evening when day sets almost into twilight, my mother sat under her favorite tree, drinking her coffee and writing her thoughts in a letter to God she would later burn. She was still wearing her straw sun hat, her feet were bear and her eyes beautiful in a shade of intense blue, though dull from working so hard in her garden all day long, straining to envision what the world she planted would look like after her job of cultivating the soil and watering the seeds was done--that, and the wind had burnt them.
I watched her and wondered what tomorrow would bring, more tears no doubt, and probably more loss because when you have nothing to hold onto except the love you feel for another person, you will eventually lose that person as well because life will take everything it can from you, laugh in your face and not think twice about compassion.
I was 9 years old and too young to understand what loving in-spite of indifference meant-- and mother walked to meet God her in garden and I followed behind her (too closely)-- and she told me she needed time alone to write her thoughts and I always wondered if I was in them.
I was 9 years old, sitting criss-crossed in a patch of soft dirt.
It was the middle of August as I looked out over the amber sea of wheat stalks swaying back and forth, like graceful dancers it was as if they'd bow to one another and continue in their waltz of heat stroke and exhaustion.
Pearls of sweat collected on my hair line and neck, when I used the back of my hand to wipe the perspiration away, it was then I first felt the effects of what an hour in triple digit heat can do to you.
My limbs were lethargic, my head flooded with anticipation, I thought if I waited long enough in the immense heat, I would see hellish angels rise out of the wheat rows to dance with one another-- I was convinced our house set atop the gate way to hell. It was the only explanation for our bad luck, for my night terrors and my mother's sickness. Demons never frightened me, God was always the source of my fear, and I was always in a petrified state because I was never sure what test of faith he'd ask of me next.
I was 9 years old and I had already learned that the better you are, the more divine, the more holy, the more you are prone to suffer, so daily I questioned the existence and the benevolence of a just God, and nightly, kneeling beside my bed I'd beg forgiveness for my doubts, my insecurities and my lack of faith.
I could never figure out if my mother was a miracle or a punishment from God. Here was this woman who I loved more than life itself, and she was dying more obviously every day. Was her life, her brief presence in my life the point? Or the awareness her death would bring? and the amount of sorrow that would forever seal my fate more certain in emptiness than in loveliness?
I was 9 years old in a heat induced delirium, my body possessed by the enchanting movement of the wheat stalks I swayed with them--I swayed with them until the waves of heat that you only briefly see rising off the asphalt become more extreme in their definitiveness, I watched them rise from the earth, each an independent movement from the next, though all of them in a universal unison as enchanting and as dangerous as an Indian snake charmer's lullaby. I watched them until they became both devils and angels, until both heaven and hell collided. There I was at 9 years old, fighting to maintain consciousness, arguing rationality to my disillusioned eyes that perhaps were seeing a vision beyond the semblance of this world, or maybe were so desperate to find the crack in reality I had created it out of nothing at all, nothing tangible anyway, only heat, wind and grief.
Then the voice of my mother calling me finally broke the trance, and when I hadn't enough will to answer her, calling to her would have meant exhaustion to a deadly extent, she came to me, helped me from the dirt and told me to go inside and take a cold bath. Which I did because I was a good child and never bucked the instructions of my elders, even if I disagreed.
Then later on, in the early evening when day sets almost into twilight, my mother sat under her favorite tree, drinking her coffee and writing her thoughts in a letter to God she would later burn. She was still wearing her straw sun hat, her feet were bear and her eyes beautiful in a shade of intense blue, though dull from working so hard in her garden all day long, straining to envision what the world she planted would look like after her job of cultivating the soil and watering the seeds was done--that, and the wind had burnt them.
I watched her and wondered what tomorrow would bring, more tears no doubt, and probably more loss because when you have nothing to hold onto except the love you feel for another person, you will eventually lose that person as well because life will take everything it can from you, laugh in your face and not think twice about compassion.
I was 9 years old and too young to understand what loving in-spite of indifference meant-- and mother walked to meet God her in garden and I followed behind her (too closely)-- and she told me she needed time alone to write her thoughts and I always wondered if I was in them.