drawn on a sheet of A2 paper,
in fine black ink,
and coloured in with caran d’ache,
labeled with more care than usual,
a window on an inner world:
‘enigma code-breaker’
‘French resistance worker’
‘Businesswoman-globetrotter’
‘Rebel with a cause (there’s no rebellion more radical than goodness)’
‘orphanage worker – or orphan’
‘good little girl’
‘Poet queen’
‘secret lover’
‘storyteller-pied piper’
‘speck’
‘dancer-choreographer’
‘Mountain climber’
an inventory of subpersonalities.
There comes a point in time in the life of a
brave old oak
when its cloak
gives way,
bit by bit,
to wind, to rain, to age, to the
inevitable pull of
seasons.
When its much loved array
of green and gold
leaves it, forever,
to the nakedness of
cold.
When its acorns, once full of
anticipated joys, of life,
of potential, of
infinity,
are entirely gone.
When even its very last cherished leaf,
the one to which it finally
clings with all its might,
takes flight.
Then the voices in the winds wuther:
‘Call yourself an oak?
Where’s your cloak?’
‘Where are your acorns?’
‘You’re a joke.’
And so the old oak stands,
vulnerable and grey,
lashed by storms
and frost and even
heavy with snow.
And hopes.
I take my place
in Degas,
one knee bent, to
slide my foot into pink leather.
I wish I had ribbons and a tutu.
I walk over to the barre,
stand in a line with
Pauline, Petrova and Posy,
but the self I face in the mirror,
is a grown-up woman.
My head turns into
Coppelia, a line traced
through generations.
My toes point with
Bull and Bussell,
Pavlova, and Guillem,
almost.
I plié and rise,
and I am in a
pirouette of dancing
bliss. The landing is askew;
I am alight.
‘And one and two
and three and four’
echoes all around
me and all around the
world. A hundred little girls
and companies of swans and mice
and courtiers and peasants.
Did someone just call me a
ballerina? Oh!
I am pregnant
with my own younger self.
She is waiting to be born in me,
an adult, almost forty.
I see her playing in the past,
skipping, smelling flowers.
When will she turn around
and step into her future?
I move closer,
hold my breath,
and I can hear her singing
softly to herself.
She sings the music
of the trees, the words
of butterflies,
and hums along with bees.
Held by the moment,
attention ripples
from her skin, her eyes.
She is utterly alive.
I call her name.
She looks around perplexed,
cannot see me,
scans the sky.
I call again,
regret the urgent tone.
How did that
fear get there?
And so I spread a blanket,
set out cups of tea and cake.
I read my book and let my presence
gently draw her close.
Yes, I sit and wait.
Last weekend, tucked away in a corner of my city, surrounded by beautiful handmade jewellery, a goldsmith friend and I worked together to create something in writing about her work.
A goldsmith’s workshop is a metaphorical and literal treasure-house. Scattered all over the place were tools, little bags of silver wire, strange little ladles and dishes. As we talked, she showed me gem stones from distant mines and pearls from seas in far flung places. As our conversation explored the events and moments in life which are marked by things made in precious materials, the goldsmith told me a story, one of the many secrets of the workshop…
The goldsmith had a customer who had recently become divorced. Still distraught, she brought her rings to the goldsmith; could they be remade, she wondered? Hidden in the liminal space of the goldsmith’s workshop, the customer and the goldsmith worked together to melt down the engagement ring and the wedding ring that had symbolised love, and commitment and hope and friendship. As the metals turned liquid, so tears flowed down the face of the customer. Something was dying; pain, disappointment and loss seeped out of the cracks of the broken heart. In the crucible of the molten gold, impurities from the former life of the rings burnt away.
And then the process of re-creation started. Moment by moment, the customer and the goldsmith designed something beautiful from the raw materials of the old. What had been was no more; what was left was a becoming. Slowly the customer watched the goldsmith work with her designs and her hopes to create something new. Wonder took the place of tears, and then joy and hope and delight. The new ring slipped onto her finger and with it new meaning, shaped from the wisdom of experience, for a new life.
The fire crackled, the conversation went on…
extraplorer 