The Furious Spinner

I keep falling to sleep as I’m writing about my older sister and me when we were kids and an uncle babysat us but did not care for us. It is nearly dark and the owl has began hoo-hooing. I give in to the sleep and fall on my side thinking of my older sister and how I love her, how we allow each other to remember our own lives without censorship. We shared that time with my uncle but I cannot remember it because I was too young yet I’ve always encouraged her to talk about it, despite all the other fingers to the lips that warned, “Shhhhh!” Outside the owl is hoo-hooing, as it had been all day yesterday, then quiet today, now dusk and it is calling out, and I can tell it is calling out for something—someone—and I fall to my side, eyes closed, and my sister and I are reaching for this bird as it falls out of the tree, reaching to save it, only it is on the ground with us, right side up, blinking, and it is an owl, white with spots. A spotted owl. Endangered.

I open my eyes from this fugue dream and sit up and see the gray that dusk is tonight even though last night was a spectacle, with clouds in so many shapes and colors I was certain an artist was behind it all, but tonight I see the gray and hear the owl. I step outside and hear a low moan, then another owl, two owls now and the palm leaves are moving up and down, reminiscent of that old saying “don’t come knocking if this trailer is a rockin’” and I’m certain some owl lovin’ is going on even though I haven’t a clue as to how owls actually mate. I wish Mario, who is back home in Washington, was with me to ease drop on these wild things doing the wild thing.

The nearly full moon rises above the Rincons. I go out toward the wash, and I think about a playwright I heard on NPR yesterday. I can’t remember her name. But she said we each had a right to our own story. No matter who doesn’t like it. No matter who tries to make us tell it differently. It is ours. She also said that every childhood is traumatic. All the more reason to tell the tale?

Is that true, I wonder, that every childhood is traumatic? I was frightened so much of the time, but no one ever knew. I know this because I’ve asked. At night I hid from my parents so I wouldn’t have to sleep and face the demons in my dreams. During the day, I sometimes hid until the bus and my father drove away so I wouldn’t have to go to school and face the teacher who promised to whip us if we didn’t behave. Yet I stood nose to belly button with bullies. I wrestled with boys who gave me lip. When I look back at my childhood, it was one long quest for safety and happiness--the search for the grail. And I was the hero, always. Each child is, isn’t she? My sister trying to protect me from a child molester. Me trying to protect my younger sister from bullies. My younger sister trying to live through daily taunts and bullying and frustration because she could not learn the way others learned.

I think of all this as I go out into the wash. The moon is the eye on an alligator cloud. The wash feels dangerous tonight. All the canine prints look like giant wolf prints, hungry for little red riding hood, only I’m little blue riding hood. (What does that mean? Red hood when I was a girl, blue hood now that I’m older?) The man prints are prints of psychopaths, surely. Nevertheless I will not let any of them take the wash from me. It is my sea on the shore of the desert. The pale dirt has the consistency of sand. Cactus guts ride the dry middle like flotsam thrown up on the beach. Too much dog shit, just like at the beach. I am La Llorona, gnashing my teeth and wailing as I stride through the wash. It grows darker by the second. I remember rattlesnakes come out at night, and I just learned today they don’t always rattle before they strike which is something I have believed since I was a child listening for that rattle as I ran through the woods near our house, hearing it at least once and telling my sisters to run, run home, while I stayed behind to peek at the snake, her head raised, tail up, the rattle swinging back and forth so fast I could barely see it, me feeling the thrill of being that close.

Now the coyotes howl in the distance.

I left Mario at the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix on Friday. I cried so hard I could barely see. People turned to look at me. I couldn’t find my rented car in the ocean of other white cars so I used the panic button on the key chain. The car beeped and flashed its lights. Everyone in the garage was looking around in a panic. Except me. I was relieved.

As I drove away, I saw the smog that had settled over the city, nothing like Carl Sandburg's Fog coming in on little cat’s feet, unless this was a mutant cat spewing out smoggy breath. I got to my parents’ (currently unoccupied) townhouse in Scottsdale but couldn’t get the key to work. I went from door to door, lock to lock. I was about to leave when I tried it one more time, scraping my hand as the door finally opened. Now I was bleeding and I went to the sink to wash my hand but there wasn’t any water.

When my brother in law came home from a long hard day, he made me organic scrambled eggs along with potatoes, peas, chives, onions, garlic, tarragon, all cooked in olive oil. It was a great kindness and I appreciated it. I saved half of it for breakfast the next morning. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up at 11:30 p.m., packed up my breakfast, and drove to Tucson. I put gas in the car myself, for the first time in many years (because of the fumes). On one stretch of road with four lanes, I was nearly the only one on it. It felt great. Adventurous. (Thelma and...Thelma. No, wait, I’m more Louise. That was Susan Sarandon, right?)

I got to Tucson about 1:30 a.m. The police were out in force, blocking off several streets. It had rained in Tucson, so the streets were wet, and the street lights seemed strange—preternatural in a way I can’t explain except everything looked fine, as though I were in a One Step Beyond episode, but it would be all right. I hit nearly every green light on Speedway for about twelve miles. The moon was out, reflected in the pools of water on the side of the road. Cotton ball clouds shared the sky with Tinker Bell stars. I was dreaming by 2:30 a.m., falling to sleep almost immediately, not thinking about Mario not being with me. The next day, everything was difficult. Everything I did hurt. I felt half here, as I always feel when I’m away from Mario, as though I’m a ghost, just going through the motions.

Which brings me to the wash tonight, me determined to walk through the monstrous hordes of wolves, coyotes, javelinas, alligator, rattlers, memories. I make it back to the casita, whole, unscathed. I know I was there because the quail flew away at my approach and the rabbits hopped away, their tails like a white version of the red light at the end of a train.

The first week or so we were at the casita, the caretaker had a dream about me. She said the wolves and coyotes were howling and I went outside in the dark—she could hear my feet crunching over the desert sand—and the wolves and coyotes stopped barking and howling and she wondered how I did that and also thought what I was doing was a bit dangerous. My own dreams in the beginning were vivid and odd. Some were nightmarish. Dreams have always been a part of my life in a way I’ve never understood. I had my first nightmare when I was about four and then the nearly nightly occurrence of nightmares was a staple for me for decades. I’ve never understood them and have come to believe they must be a way I relieve stress or blow off steam, or something. Sometimes they are metaphoric and I get “it.”

What do owls dream about? Do they understand love, life, death? As I walked through the wash tonight, I also thought of death. I heard late last night that another person I knew died suddenly, maybe even from asthma; they’re not sure yet. A few days earlier I had cried in Mario’s arms, telling him that death was horrible and it wasn’t easy or beautiful and I didn’t know how to live with this knowledge. Do animals think about death or understand it. Instinctively they try not to get hurt or to become prey. Is that the same thing as consciously thinking about one’s own death?

Today I was thinking that loving someone is such a brave and wonderful thing to do. Being part of a community is a brave and wonderful thing to do, too. Loss is an inevitable part of life. If we remain separate, life is probably far less painful. Yet it is probably not as joyful. I don’t like feeling like a ghost when I’m away from Mario, but I’m not going to stop loving him so that I don’t feel that way. Someone asked me how come I know so many dying or sick people. I said, “Because I know people.” It is inevitable. That doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult. It’s part of going with the flow of life—which I certainly haven’t mastered. I heard a poet on NPR (Paul Levine?) who is 70 and he said he thought by his age he would have acquired some wisdom, but he didn’t feel as though he had. I laughed because I feel the same damn way.

Tonight the wash was full of danger: gray and spooky. Last night it was full of magic, mystery: red and mystical. Probably the only thing different in the wash was me. One night I saw the talons of mortality swooping down on me and everyone I love. Another night the talons are nothing more than the artist’s brush painting the night sky.

Maybe it’s all a dream.

Tonight, Mario and I are going to try and dream together. Meet at Falling Creek in our dreams. It is almost Full Moon. A time to dream. Time for owl love.

Or any other kind of love.

Sweet dreams.

May You Dream and Love in Beauty!

Labels: Arizona

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.