CURRENT MOON

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Twisted Fate

It has a certain symmetry to it, and while I have always liked the word rather more than the definition, I may be coming to appreciate the concept.
I'm about to buy a house in the one place I never wanted to live. And I somehow couldn't be happier after being handed life's lemons.
In the scheme of things, it is not that long past that I left the district, the capitol, the beltway boys behind. I spurned the traffic and the emotional gridlock and the fraternity of men who run think they run this country. I intended never to return.
For work and for marriage, I broke the promise. I broke down crying. I broke with personal traditional and I begged my husband in the middle of the night to pledge I wouldn't have to die in this place, where everything seems corrupt, where everyone becomes pasty and gray-eyed with work. I broke.
And in the candlelight, I sat and I faced the shadow in the inhumanity of the tower of white-walled, beige-carpeted luxury apartments. The months lengthened and when my spirit bent and bowed, it was not the goddess that saved me.
I did it. Day by day I learned to live in the body I am in, to inhabit my own self truly at last. I learned to find the women who would stand with me in the face of that fraternity, women who would not settle, who would not give, who would not only hope but act and laugh as they did.
And when my husband asked me what I thought my heart would long to hear, `Do you want to go?' I was almost disappointed. Why should I be chased away by men with a penchant for hostility and their fingers on the button? How could I leave now, when I have so much work to do? Plus, I'll take it as a sign that our realtor runs a Chinese medicine business on the side.
We stayed. We sang. We thanked the wolf and the spider and the symmetry.
The lemonade tastes good here.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got goosebumps reading that.

A Witch

Anonymous said...

Cerise,

How did you find those women?

Hawk

ntodd said...

I'm confused: are we talking about Toledo?

VforVirginia said...

Lovely, and a good thing to ponder when some of us are near letting these people push us out of our own beloved country.

I'm glad you've found some happiness where you least expected to.

Anonymous said...

O how lovely, and o what a wonderful outcome. But how could you say

The months lengthened and when my spirit bent and bowed, it was not the goddess that saved me.?

Sure looks like Her fingerprints all over the whole situation...

also I second Hawk's question about how you found your way to the circle. Probably isn't a method that would be of much help to a solitary in west Tennessee, but ya never know.

You can fill in for Hecate any ol' time you like. So I have spoken, so mote it be. :)

--xan

Anonymous said...

C. congrats on you guest blogging. As one in your circle I am thankful and blessed that you stay.

K.

Anonymous said...

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

-Muhammad Ali

Congrats!

Anne Johnson said...

Oh! I had to look at that twice, cuz I was confused - thought Hecate already had a house!

I wept when I had to pack up and leave a high-rise apartment building in downtown Detroit. It's never where you are, it's who you are, and who surrounds you.

The last place on earth, except for maybe Cleveland, that I ever wanted to live was New Jersey. I've been here 20 years. Longer than I even lived in Appalachia. But you know what? 13 years ago I planted a tree that was less than 12 inches high. It's totally gorgeous now. Every time I look at it I think, "What Would Druids Do?"