I am at the end of a girl's weekend; it’s Monday morning and I can hear the traffic building. The fence along the street of this corner lot is lined with a hedge, so it creates a secret garden. I can see into the backyard of the house next-door, which faces another direction. The sprinkler under the huge elm in one corner is gently dusting the grass. Purple sage lines a curved brick path along the side of the house to the front gate. It is alluring and it makes me want to follow the hopeful feeling of this backyard.
I haven’t even looked in all the beds around the edges of this lawn but it is clear someone is tending to this escape. It is lovely; I sense a wise person is caring for this place. The birds seem to love it too. I truly think it’s the best part of this rental.
In the room my old U of A roommate and I shared, a small shelf called to me, not all the books but rather the curiosity of pulling from the books and finding quick wisdom with a flick of my hands: a note on the inside cover of one that said "Arizona rocks!" and a business card from a bookstore in Waltham from another. I smile at the synchronicities and felt kindred to some unseen presence. I was drawn to Earth Song, Sky Spirit – a book I surely have seen before but not read. It's an anthology of Native American writers. I randomly opened to Paula Guinn Allen’s Spirit Woman.
I could barely fall asleep after I read the story. I was charged, felt energetic and anxious. It could have been that Dahlia was gone and I was the only one sleeping upstairs. It could have been that I had just spent the weekend with some old college friends I've known since we were silly kids. It could have been I found an escape I greatly needed. It could have been that I was searching for what to do next with my life. All these things.
I was reaching out for that grandmother feminine energy. I felt encircled by it. It was as if I was waiting for it to deliver a message, assigned to me. It led me to think we are all grandmothers, even tiny Amelia. We all have the wisdom of the ages in our being and the companionship of each other. We are grandmothers from the get go, with our knowing solidified and perhaps just untapped and undiscovered. Age is not the only way we get to the river. Some of us are just naturally connected, some of us wander for years to get there, some of us assert our wisdom and some coax it, carry it like a fine light veil. Still we all have our space, our birthright to the knowledge, to the moment and to the flow of the great river of knowing.
I have come to fear the company of women. I have come to feel apprehensive of a coven of us coming together. Deep inside I wonder if it is because I am not aligned with myself, though I am more aligned than I have been in forever. Perhaps it’s that I sense so much worn out emotion from the women I know: the ones working and raising children, tending a home and taking care of family, frazzled and fearful for the spiraling path our society seems to be taking. I don't fear the world though, this living earth, this grandmother so entrenched in the circle of time, knowing this is but a mere story, a moment, all drips in a much longer lifetime.
I feel these things and yet I do not speak of them to my friends. I sit silent or let their stories take center stage or fall flat without battling back. I hide in humor and use alcohol to relax. Alone I feel free and alive and vibrant but I do not express myself the same way in the presence of others. I am scared of myself, I am scared of others; I don’t know how much to give and what boundaries to draw. I should release all fear of giving and do it with a gracious heart.
I'm thinking now that this house came to us for a girls weekend. The space, not perfect but kind, and just fine for us. Perhaps us too, bringing our energy to this house, as we had to a few others in Tucson, letting it shelter a few kind travelers since it has not had many guests.
