WOMEN GONE MAD Part One

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WOMEN GONE MAD Part One

 

I have grown up as if you were always beside me. When darkness falls over me, I feel like I am in a boat drifting into a fog. I want to step off the boat and sink and sink forever. Without you, I felt so confused. Father would sit in the garden for hours, in silence. He said you were so much like our mother. All I had was your letters. You talked about the size of the school, the classes you took, the trips you made to Detroit, the friends made, the books read. It all sounded so exciting. There was a lovely urgency in your quest for order and truth. The world and you were so desperately in love. You were like one of the great explorers reporting back to me, your queen, your benefactor. Finally the only thing to do is to remake yourself. That is what you told me. The old has to be buried in the new. You must wear a suit that charms and excites. That’s what an adult is. That’s what you told me. The world of the child is chaos. The child must be buried alive. Michael, I don’t want to grow up. I want to stay here with you.

Remember grandpa’s farm. I loved those days. How our teeth would ache from the cold spring water. And the fun we would have in the hayloft when you pretended to be a werewolf. And the buckboard with grandpa riding over to the Leaming’s farm to buy a Crispy Crunch for each of us. I used to sit on the fence for hours watching the cows graze. A soft breeze would stroke my cheek, rustle my hair then hide in the blossoms of the nearby apple orchard, Standing in the long grass, looking down the sloping fields of grain to the river in the glen where the mill stood, you could hear the grinding sound of the saws, and the slapping of lumber against lumber and the men in the mill yelling and laughing. There were other sounds: the screen door of the house swinging open and slapping shut, the bawling of the cattle, a truck kicking up stones on the road, crows in the back lot crying. Turning toward the silhouetted house, shielding my eyes against, the setting sun, I could see mother’s long shadow crawling up the long hill toward me.