I watched her disappearing behind the giant saguaro
cactuses, her white garments flapping in the breeze, fading into the desert
like a shimmering mirage. A cactus wren whistled in the distance. The sun
rising over the Catalinas warmed my back and lit up the sea of yellow palo
verde blossoms in the valley below. I squinted, searching for her, but she was
gone. Closing my eyes to savor her afterglow, I pondered her words, wondered
where to begin and how much she wanted me to reveal.
Perhaps it's best to start with
the swans. I was five the year I saw them, white and glistening on the water.
My father had left home that same year, and that fall my grandfather died. My
mother took me to the funeral, to Minnesota on a Pullman train. The old man lay
with pasty face and bushy mustache in a strange wooden box. When mom lifted me
to look at him I stared, unable to figure out why he was so plastic looking,
why he didn't really seem to be there at all. I felt the sticky stillness in
the air, but the fact of death was meaningless to me.
One gray
afternoon a few days later, we drove with my aunt Gretchen to a lakeside park
where I was free to roam as I pleased. Swells lapped onto the shore, different
from the rush of ocean waves I was used to in California. Then out of the mist,
three swans floated towards the beach like majestic beings out of some fairy
tale. As they drifted closer I imagined myself riding one into the sky, my arms
clasped around its neck, the wind blowing into my face. Now, reaching land,
they waddled over next to me. A thrill ran through me when one poked its soft
beak into my palms, tickling, nuzzling, then tugged at my coat. In my mind it
was playing and wanted to take me to its magic kingdom. But all at once my
mother shrieked and raced towards us, waving her arms, apparently afraid the
swan was going to pull me into the lake. My throat got a lump in it when the
great white birds flapped their wings, honked, and glided away. I won't get
to meet a swan princess afterall.
In California we often spent
week-ends and holidays at our mountain cabin in Pine Hills, where my mother let
me scamper outside to wander the mile-long pathways to neighboring houses.
Lithe and quick, brown hair always slightly disheveled, I often searched the
path for animal tracks. Occasionally I would hear cries like wolves howling
through the pines. I would imitate them, answer back, hoping one day to call
one to me.
One winter day after a newly fallen snow, I paraded down
the trail among the firs and oaks laden with white. The only sounds in the soft
silence were my boots crunching through the drifts. Bubbles of joy swirled
inside my chest. Spontaneously I burst forth in chant-like repetition: "Walking
in a Winter wonder land. . .Walking in a winter wonder land."
Suddenly I froze dead still, hypnotized by a pair of yellow eyes that peered
out of an ice-laced manzanita bush. I was held down as though by some invisible
force. My breath stopped and my heart pounded against my chest. Then tufts of
fur sprouted out of the red branches; a pair of ears rose above the slanted
eyes; a black nose punctuated a grayish ruff. It was a wolf!
A
tingling at the back of my neck sent chills through my body. I want to touch
it. Like aspen leaves quaking in the wind my hands trembled as I struggled
to pull off one mitten. The wolf stood still like a forest sentinel. I freed my
quivering hand, held it out, palm up, the empty mitten dangling from its
string. The creature inched forward. "Come on, Mr. Wolf. Don't be afraid," I
whispered. "Come here."
It tiptoed closer. I crept forward, putting
my foot down gently into the snow. The wolf raised its pointed nose to sniff. A
puff of cold air rushed from its nostrils. I stepped gingerly forward. Suddenly
the animal sneered, showing fangs, like a dog protecting its food dish. I
jerked my hand back with such force that I fell onto my back into the snow.
I lay there for what seemed like a long time, eyes pinched closed. I
could hear the beast trotting around and around me. Everything inside of me
trembled. If we could just play. . .Maybe angel wings. Yes! If I lie here
still as a mouse and then move my arms ever so slowly, the wolf will want to
play, too, just like our dog Dandy. I moved my arms and legs in the
familiar windmill pattern across the snow, up and down, back and forth, softly
singing, "Angels in a winter wonder land. . . Angels in a winter wonder land."
Up and down, back and forth, I continued to trace shadows of angels in snow.
The animal growled like a puppy, leapt, grabbed my loose mitten in
its teeth. I giggled and moved my arms faster. The creature pounced on my furry
hood and tugged at it, dragging me slowly through the snow, shaking its head
like a dog pulling on a rag toy. Then my parka tightened around my throat and I
got a little scared. Reaching back to let it be known that my neck was hurting,
my bare hand brushed against fur. I'm touching the wolf!Right away , my
body went limp like a Raggedy Ann doll, and I could feel a warm curren racing
through my fingers.
I could hear the wolf jumping around, making
swooshing noises in the snow, stopping and starting before attacking my knitted
mitten again. Then as he held it in his teeth, I pulled my arm just a bit and
all at once a pine branch released a pile of snow on top of my chest. At first
I thought the creature had jumped on me, but the feeling wasn't big like a
wolf. Then again, it didn't feel like snow either. It was soft like a cloud and
gentle like a breeze and fragrant like, the night blooming roses in my back
yard at home.
When I opened my eyes I saw a woman in white robes
standing at my feet, arms held high like wings bigger than any I had ever made
in the snow. A swan lady! She was more beautiful than a fairy tale
princess, with eyes that shone black as diamonds, and a smile that danced like
sunlight on ocean waves. Her brown-skinned hands stretched towards me in the
way seedlings reach toward the light. I opened my arms to her and she swooped
me up against her soft breast. Tightly, I wrapped my legs around the her ample
waist, grabbed around her neck, my fingers tangling in her long, wavy black
hair. I cried and shook in her reassuring hold. "I'm not really afraid," I
whispered.
The white robed woman murmured into my ear. "My precious
child, my precious child."
I buried my head on her shoulder for a
while, then unwound my arms, pulled back, and looked at her round face. "Are
you an angel?"
The woman giggled, a brook gurgling over moss. "I am
your Mother."
"You don't look like my mother."
"I am
everyone's Mother." Her voice rasped as if through a muted trombone.
I lifted my eyebrows, smiled, and shook my head. "Not my mom's."
The
Mother's teeth glimmered. I wiggled and slid down her belly, dropping onto the
ground. The wolf had returned and was lying quietly by a granite rock. I looked
up at the Mother and slipped my hand into her slender, flower petal-like
fingers. "I want to play with him again. Will you come with me so I can pet
him?"
The Mother's body rippled with glee. "Yo! Wild animals can be
dangerous!" To imitate a pony, her fingers danced and jumped up and down on my
arm. "A colt romps around, kicks its hoofs to play, and doesn't understand its
game can injure us by accident. So it is with any wild animal." I bounced up
and down on my heels and smiled up at the Mother. She stroked my hair and said,
"In the wilderness it is wise to be both gentle and cautious."
I
glanced over at the rock where the animal had been resting. "He's gone!" I
tugged at the Mother's robes to pull her towards the boulder "Did you see him
go? I want to be his friend. Oh, please." I ran around and around the Mother
and then tapped her thigh. "Will he ever come back?"
"He might. Some
day."
I raced over to the rock, peered into the woods, and skipped
back to the Mother. "Will you cook me some spaghetti for dinner?"
The
Mother laughed, took me by the hand, floated across the snow to an open space
surrounded by pines, and laid flat on her back. Up and down, back and forth she
brushed her arms and legs across the snow. I quickly joined. Then she leapt up
and bounced to another spot. We ran and flopped down in the snow making all
kinds of angels--angels with crowns of pine cones, angels with snow balls ready
to throw, angels with acorns for eyes and nose. Then I tagged along behind my
new friend as she wound her way to the center of the winged creations. She sat
down in cross-legged position. I did the same.
The Mother reached
over to put my hands in prayer position. I looked up at her.
"Why are
you doing that?"
She chuckled and her eyes flickered. "Daughter, when
you hold your hands like this, I will always come."
"Like this?"
She nodded, then closed her eyes. I closed mine, too. In the stillness I
felt like a piece of fluff on top of cotton candy. Then the whispering of the
breeze through the pines broke the silence. When I opened my eyes, the place
where she had been sitting was empty. I jumped up, searched behind several
trees, then darted back to the round indentations in the snowamid the circle of
angels, staring at my spot and at hersall the while noticing the distinct small
of roses in the air. I bounded over to the rock where the wolf had been. My
eyes probed into the forest of snow laced pines and I called out. "Where are
you?" The wind whined like a distant siren.
My bare hand was numb
with cold. Unable to pull the torn mitten on, I put my hands together the way
the Mother had said, and looked up. A dark cloud with black trailings like hair
merged into the solid gray sky. "Are you up there? Come down." Snow flakes blew
every which way blinding my eyes. I squinted, strained to catch a glimpse of
the Mother behind the cloud. "If I find the wolf will you come again?"
I hung my head, pulled the hood of my parka over my eyes, and ambled down
the trail to the cabin. "I will always come" echoed through the chilling wind
as I picked up speed and scampered down the path. Within minutes of seeing
smoke billowing from the chimney of our log cabin, I was throwing open the
door. The smell of spaghetti and meat balls filled the air. My mom stood by the
rock fireplace, frowning behind her glasses.
"Mommy, Mommy. I saw a
wolf and then a lady in white came to play. We made angels in the snow!"
My mom put her hands on her hips. "Luce. Where have you been? Your
mitten's torn and you're soaking wet--you'll catch your death of cold. And
how'd you rip your hood?"
I ran past the Norman Rockwell prints
decorating the walls, past the faded, ranch-style couches and chairs, and right
into the tiny kitchen. "Did she make spaghetti?"
"Who? Honey, you're
chilled. Go change your clothes and sit by the fire." |
