In the beginning I was a mama. I remember an image from when Ariel was an infant, the image I had of myself as an eagle or a hawk, some bird with a magnificent wingspan, beating my wings against the walls of my 1860 Vermont house and sneaking away every chance I got to smoke by myself. That was six or so years ago.
Now we live on a little street about a mile from everything else in our lives - Ariel's school and Wren's preschool, Red's office, the library and the YMCA and the synagogue we don't go to much and the pedestrian mall that fills up with tourists in the summer when it finally warms up around here. Our neighborhood has deep lots and roving packs of kids under ten and more swing-sets than you can shake a stick at and woods where the dogs can run off-leash. It is a little small. I miss walking alone in New York City, living alone somewhere Spanish-speaking, surrounded by abode and sand.
I've chosen this, to plant somewhere. Wanted this. Still do. And yet, and yet - Red and I can't shake the fantasy of ditching it all, some days sooner than others, to drive around and live out of a camper van. We're both business owners with no paychecks and no trust funds, living on faith and fumes and hard work and patience.
Ariel’s going on first grade now and Wren is three. Ariel is plowing through the same Judy Blume books I loved as a kid. She’s agile and strong and sensitive and immovable. She is self-possessed unlike anyone I've ever met. She’s autumn in New England, that changeable, sometimes startlingly beautiful. Wren is sturdy and funny, finding her place in this family constellation of ours. She is early spring, a little fragile and yet inevitable and steady and subtle and unmistakable in her own timing. She races along the gender spectrum, causing me & Red to wonder if maybe she actually is a boy. Time will tell.
In the beginning I was alone, writing like mad and smoking like mad and pining for the man I was convinced was out there somewhere. It never took long to determine who wasn’t him and I never was all that interested in dating. At the risk of sounding totally narcissistic, more men have fallen in love with me than I have been in love with. There have been only two, actually – Beam, when I was eighteen, who rode me around back country roads on his motorcycle and gave me dahlias in huge bunches and was maddeningly unavailable emotionally. And Red.
Red and I met a year or so after college. I was all about trusting the universe and he was all about being miserable with his long-time girlfriend. We met and walked in the woods together and couldn’t stop talking, although I truly thought we’d just be friends. It wasn’t until a year or so after we met that he kissed me, pushed me up against a wall in my parents’ house and kissed me and put his hands on my body and I knew I was home. Our tenth anniversary is coming up. A friend of mine recently told me that “we marry our enemies,” which has caused me to do a lot of thinking. And I can see it, where Red and I hold each other to our best selves, which sometimes cannot actually be accomplished without confronting our worst, our ugliest, our most painful corners.
I have two recurring dreams: one is that my molars are rotting and falling out, falling out in the same way clumps of hair would fall. The other is that I discover a long-forgotten room or even wing in my house. The former is always awful, full of panic, unstoppable. The latter is wondrous and always a little disappointing to wake up from.
I flew cross country nine months ago to meet these Sirens. There was no agenda. There was not even a practical explanation for making such a big trip for such a short time to meet a bunch of (for all intensive purposes) strangers. But there could have been nothing less strange about our time together, which was both effortless and challenging, full of yes’s, of newness, of sitting with my own judgments and then moving through them, of myself as much as anything. Most of all, those few days together led to our check-ins, which gave birth to this Siren Song. My voice is an alto. Sometimes I feel like I talk too much, but at the same time, I am discovering silence, my own power in sitting, waiting, creating space.
I don’t know how to introduce myself, when there is so much I want to share. And yet the stories are just stories; they will come out as needed, usually surprising even me. (That’s when I know I’m getting somewhere.)
Here is what my Siren Sisters have to say about me. Oh, to be a jewel with these faceted sides, as seen through the eyes of four of the most powerful, exquisite, complex, earthy, fiery, fierce, smart alive women I’ve ever known – Lila, The Empress, Foxy & Zita.
~
Lila: Seeker, the constellations in the night sky. tenderhearted, curious and inquisitive. wild daisies and evergreens. feisty and wicked smart. poet, excavator, weaver, the dance of the spider, the movement of the air. numinous and nuanced, jeweled and beautiful. vulnerable and creative and practical. The space where things conjoin.
The Empress: Glimmering, poetic, prancing, delightful, watchful, tentative, bold. She is runner and thinker and poet. She is afternoon swims at the YMCA and walks in town. She is intellectual and environmental and political and thoughtful. She is reformed smoker and hopeful thinker and late-at-night husband romancer. She is brave and provocative and distinctive. She is ponytails and curly hair and bright eyes with endless lashes. She is petite and dainty but hearty. She is talkative, sincere, tender, deep. She is brave and forthright and friendly. She is sneak-away-to-the-coffee house for precious anonymity. She shows up willing and open-hearted and generous. She is both stream of consciousness and succinct. She can wander wide-eyed in innocence or piercingly focus as she chooses. Her ability to paint images with words is stunning.
Foxy: White Willow is all around you. From what i understand and feel about this tree is that it brings clarity. Your prose is never complicated or a puzzle to place together. You are clear in your path as bringer of balance and bliss. When I see your smile, I feel love welling up, and nothing is a better cleanser than love.
Zita: The Poetess, word juggler, cinnamon toast and life shapeshifter. This woman is mammoth amounts of dynamite in a petite package. The corkscrews of her hair could alone entertain for hours on end....constellations, slight though they may be, make their home across her nose. You are a fresh voice, you are a hot-off-the-press woman, you are an untouched journey, you are fierce acceptance, you are love.
~
As for me, I still pinch myself that I’m part of this circle. Literally pinch myself. Can't wait to see them again in person, dream of painting each other's nails and howling and sobbing and laughing till crying and cooking giant pots of soup and running naked into bracing cold water, or an ocean as warm as a womb.
