I turned the car around, looped back around the block: the strangeness of my life — certainty / mystery / marriage / divorce / loneliness / liberation / paperwork /delight — had just caught sight of each other like two cats in the street in the blue evening light, and I wasn’t ready to go home yet. I could feel the whiplash waiting for me if I pretended I could just dive in and out of worlds without even a whiff of jetlag. So I circled back and knocked:
The white house, the pink and yellow trim, the warm light within. A friend in a purple jumpsuit. An old soul and kindred spirit who I can’t quite believe I only met a short time ago.
We sat on the steps, I caught her up on the last four years that had taken place since I saw her (on another set of steps) just last week. She offered me tea. I said, “no, I can’t stay long,” and then did anyway.
What happens when we speak out loud what we feel, and when those feelings are seen and heard? It’s the most human/animal thing: life may make no sense, but I am not alone in the wilderness. I have a tribe, however small, and we are powerful and scrappy and witchy and smart and tenderhearted. It’s not time to be eaten by the wolves just yet– maybe tomorrow, but not just yet.
Before I left she said, “I have something for you,” and handed me a faux leather jacket, short and buttery and burgundy: beautiful. In line with every other change and transformation in my life these days, I drove home looking totally different than I had when I’d set out. I left our meeting fortified, within and without.
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