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7. IN CIRCULAR TIME
In
the fall of my junior year, once again without warning, I was drawn into
another frame of mind. My days at school and at home were now like beads strung
on a spiraling loop of time.
On
some days I was back where I'd been many times before—helping Mom clean the
house or wash the dishes, or helping Dad rake the lawn and wash the windows.
Doing the same things year after year, I went through the same motions, sifting
through the same thoughts over and over again. Small changes—a crack in a dish
or a windowpane, an acorn rooting in the lawn—caused much excitement. On other
days I'd get ahead of myself, thoughts leaning into my future, as when I
entertained thoughts of what awaited me when I graduated from high school.
Routine at home and routine in school—my personal world and the world outside—were
running on parallel tracks.
Routine
wove the cloth of my existence. Though all sorts of unexpected events were apt
to upset the daily rhythm, activities at home and in school readily adjusted.
When the inner and outer worlds intersected or collided, as happened from time
to time, changes had to be made, priorities had to be set. Quick orientation
helped to decide what adjustments were needed to restore a functional daily
routine.
Days
came around like a recurrent dream. If in personal time a wound up inner clock
would tick until a duration reached its appointed hour, in a circular frame of
mind time flowed like sand in an hourglass—hours passing through the narrows of
the present slipped from the past into the future hardly noticed. And when the
sands of time ran out and the glass was turned over, the future carried over
into the past. The hypnotic steadiness of days, tasks, and seasons, generation
after generation unbroken, gave a sense of security: repetition made the world
seem predictable and stable.
At
home the routine seldom varied. Yet even at breakfast neither Mom nor Dad were
ever quite the same. Some mornings they exchanged furtive glances and talked
hurriedly, at other times faint smiles washed over their faces as if they
shared a secret, an exchange of lingering glances meant an unwillingness to
part. I too was never quite the same. On some days I was eager to go to school,
while on others I wished I could stay at home. I was never truly indifferent to
the day ahead, for there was always something to look forward to or to dread.
Repetition
was the key, yet numerous small events hinted of what was in the air. Mom had
taken a part time job at a nearby nursery, and upon entering the kitchen after
school I'd look if there were flowers on the table, a sure give-away of the
mood at dinner that evening. A cut geranium bloom or a few pansies in a small
bud vase meant a simple meal, nothing out of the ordinary; a rose in the same
vase meant Mom had something exciting to tell. Flowers saved from a larger
bouquet spoke of leftovers to be served tonight. No flowers meant she was
distracted with something weighing on her mind.
True,
there were days when I felt like a squirrel in a cage, running round and round
and getting nowhere in particular. But in those days life struck me most
profoundly—the squirrel's cage was the best place to observe what others said
and did, for then people hardly took notice of me when they talked about their
lives. Envisioning myself in their place, I "graduated" from high
school as did my cousin, "entered" the world and "met" new
people together with the girl next door who took a job, and heard how it feels
to get married, pregnant, give birth, and have kids. I heard a lot about what
makes people fail or succeed in life.
As I
watched others going through various experiences, I learned that the world out
there was throbbing with changes that none seemed to escape. Such thoughts made
me leap into the future, and when daydreaming I felt the most alive. Nothing
human was foreign to me, as if a certain range of experience were inherent to
all, as if sooner or later everyone ended up in the same waters. And while some
waded into treacherous depths, others merely skimmed the surface.
A
significant change took place between me and my parents. They stopped treating
me like a child. Instead of telling me what to do, they now discussed with me
what needed to be done, and there was much to talk about at dinnertime. And as
the days went round and round, home became an oasis removed from the turbulent
events in the world outside. Slowly I realized that change was the keeper of
patterns I was learning to read, and time merely marked the durations of the
different phases in our lives.
One
evening I was already in bed, not sure whether awake or dreaming, when a gray
barn owl glided onto my windowsill.
"Had
a good day?" she asked softly.
"Yes..."
"Ready
for tomorrow?"
"Yes..."
Now fully aware of the owl's presence, I asked, "And how about you?"
"I
slept most of the day. As usual."
"Is
there much difference between sleeping during the day or at night?"
"Not
really. Your clock never stops and the world goes on, regardless of night and
day." She fluffed her feathers.
Dozing
off, I said, "Good to know..."
But
the owl did not stop talking. "Even a mouse spends its life in a loop of
time assigned to mice. And so do stones and cows and people, and the stars and
planets in their orbits—all their life spans are fixed in a time-loop allotted
to their kind or species. Who knows? Maybe the universe itself is moving toward
a marked ending to begin again. In circles small and immense, every single
thing in existence is constantly becoming something else—either more of itself,
or part of some other thing. Nothing is ever gained in this world. Or lost, or
wasted."
"Not
even my life?" I asked dreamily.
"Not
even your life or my life, regardless of how insignificant they may seem.
Continuity is at the heart of life, and change in time keeps the world in
flux."
Saying
this, the owl hopped onto my bed, stooped, and winked. I took the hint, climbed
onto its back, and cuddled up in the soft neck feathers. She hopped onto the
windowsill, spread her wings, and leaning into the night rose high above the
sleeping world. Lulled by the rhythmic flap of wings I fell asleep, and woke up
only when the first glimmer of light brushed my cheek.
The
owl landed on the edge of a cloud under the tall rafters that held up the sky.
Supported on sturdy light beams, the rafters cast on the cloud an intricate
network of shadows. Human voices filled the air, and listening to the sing-song
I recognized them—further down my ancestors were weaving the family tapestry,
light beams spotlighting different work areas. They worked in groups, their
feet in a cloud, some moving about, some seated at the loom, others looking
over their shoulders. Those sitting in a circle were spinning yarn and telling
stories, repeating the old ancestral tales over and over again. Their fingers
moved in rhythm, their elbows at acute angles.
I was
to learn the intricacies of every task, starting with the spinning of yarn.
Seeing Grandfather, I sat down on the empty chair beside him. Next to him sat
his nephew who had died young. Seated on the other side of me was a woman in a
lace bonnet, a face I'd seen in the family album, and next to her an old woman
I didn't recognize. Dressed in attire of different eras, men, women, and
children of various ages were spinning raw wool from a heap which lay inside
the circle of chairs.
A
middle-aged woman was telling a story, the pitch of her voice tinting the yarn
crimson as it passed between her fingers. "... Soon after Cousin Ursula
left the house, the darkness of night fell upon her, and relying on the mare to
find the way, she entered the forest she had to cross. Listening to the clip-clop
of hooves, she did not dare rush the mare for fear of waking the bewitching
powers that lived in the forest and led people astray. Our cousin had to bring
back a black rose no later than the next evening—"
"A
very challenging task." another ancestor picked up the thread of the tale,
an embroidered bonnet over her hair. As she spoke, the yarn between her nimble
fingers spun blue green. "Because the knight in whose garden the black
rose grew was a disagreeable fellow, not easy to talk to, and that was the only
place in the whole world where a black rose could be found—"
At
this point a bearded man took over. "Ursula was about to leave the forest
when a wildly screeching fury jumped in front of the mare, and as the horse
backed up, Cousin fell to the ground. Cackling, the fury jumped onto her
chest."
"You
are not fit to see or touch the black rose," it shouted, poking fingers
into our cousin's eyes. And as the yarn in the teller's hands turned shocking
pink, everyone's elbows started moving faster, balls of rainbow hues bobbing up
and down in rhythm, heads nodding in agreement.
"But
then a good fairy leapt out of the forest to chase the bad one away,"
continued an ancestor wearing a leather cap, the yarn in his hands tinted red
with excitement. "The two fairies were still wrestling when a rooster
crowed, announcing sunrise, and so dear Ursula was saved."
"She
knocked on the door of the knight's castle in time for breakfast, and no one
knows how the conversation went at the table, but—" and as the yarn in the
hands of the narrator turned yellow, the pretty ancestor sitting next to him
continued:
"She
had to leave without the curative rose because the rose was still speckled with
moon-spots, not yet pitch black. Told to come back the next day, Ursula turned
homeward—" As the teenage girl smiled to herself, the yarn in her hands
turned a bright orange.
"And
that evening a flag went up on the roof of our dear cousin's house, to announce
that her ailing father was still alive," a teenage boy continued,
"the household still hopeful that the black rose would lift the spell that
made him ill. Next morning Cousin Ursula left early. Promising to ride as fast
as she could, she mounted the mare and departed humming a happy tune." The
youngster saying these words was interrupted the moment the yarn passing
through his fingers turned purple.
A
young mother with a stillborn infant in her lap, picked up the thread.
"But she had a long way to go, and although the mare cantered, the journey
took longer than expected. Before sunrise Ursula was still in the forest where
the bewitching good and bad fairies lived. Our brave cousin, the sixth
granddaughter of Genghis Kahn, rode faster." At this she started sobbing,
and the yarn in the young mother's hands turned a somber violet.
The
stout matron beside her broke the spell of sadness and continued the story.
"Ursula passed through the forest unharmed and reached the castle safely.
At the castle gate the knight was waiting, and he took her to the rose garden
where roses of many colors were blooming. But the black rose was nowhere to be
seen."
As
the yarn she spun turned moss green, another ancestor chimed in: "Cousin
followed the handsome knight across the rose garden, and when they came to the
darkest corner of a stone wall, he stopped. Still, the black rose was not
there. Cousin Ursula looked at the knight. He assured her that the rose was in
the black shadows, that she had only to reach for it."
"Bravely
she put her hand into the shadows, and when a thorn pricked her finger, she
closed her hand over it and pulled. The rose in her hand was blacker than the
black of night, the single leaf purple, the stem and the thorns blackened like
silver, the thorn in her finger blood red." The yarn in the old man's
hands spun a metallic sheen.
"Seeing
that the rose had a taste for blood, our brave cousin clenched her fist tightly
and let the thorn sink deep into her finger. And without loosening her grip she
held the rose in her hand all the way back home."
At
this point a sharp-nosed man wearing a philosopher's cap picked up the yarn.
"All ended well," he said. "Cousin Ursula had obtained the
curative flower by promising to marry the knight, and she brought the rose home
in time. And as her father held it in his withered hand, the hand turned pink,
the rose turned pale, and the lord of the house recovered."
But
the telling of stories did not stop there, for another ancestor began,
"Remember the spring when..." And so many other family stories were
told many times over, each time around in a slightly different way, the
retelling of old tales unending, the continuity unbroken, the ever-changing
pitch of voices spinning a great variety of colored yarn. When the story was
sad—an ancestor dying in a foreign land of wounds, the plight of a child orphaned
early in life—misfortune slowed the fingers, the balls of yarn swayed sadly
from side to side, and the colors got darker and deeper until a cheerful
episode brightened faces and colors again. And when the stories were gay—like
the one about the third son of Amragan, the Turk, the progenitor of the family,
who scared away the robbers by scratching the wall behind which he was hiding,
or the quick-witted cousin who, with a small group of friends, tricked the
invaders into entering the marshes where horses and men perished without a
trace—words came fast, faces flushed, spools bobbed as if giggling, and colors
acquired a cheerful shine.
While
those seated in the circle were spinning and telling stories—polishing episodes
of their collective memory like stones in a river—other ancestors walked around
them with scissors in hand. As soon as a yarn acquired a certain shade, they
snipped out a length of it without breaking the flow of words, and took it to
those who worked at the loom.
My
next task was to learn when a color was ripe for snipping and deliver it to the
weaver who used that shade of yarn. A color matured when the pitch in the
teller's voice reached its highest or lowest point, and when I learned to
listen for it, I had no trouble matching that color to the one a weaver was
using already.
Once
I'd mastered this part of the task, I took a turn standing behind the weavers
and watching what their fingers produced. Those of us standing bent over them
followed the emerging designs, every shape and pattern evoking expressions of
exuberant joy. Our vocal responses either aligned a series of individual
patterns or grouped them into kaleidoscopic memory configurations of which the
carpet's design consisted. Not a single strand of color was rejected, not a single
pattern was corrected, as all were incorporated and marveled at. Amazed at the
power of words to give the most ordinary event a bedazzling shape, I jumped
from weaver to weaver exulting in this stage of the task.
Then
it was my turn to contribute to the ancestral tapestry. Seated at a loom with
an off white string of yarn, I let my fingers do the work. The pattern my
fingers created was an angular white patch leaning precariously forward, the
broadside sharply jagged.
Waves
of wind rattled the rafters and someone shouted, "It's hatched, the egg
has hatched! The white bird is flying out to sea!"
The
pattern I had just completed was of a white bird in flight. The myth come
alive, I jumped to my feet. Too late—the bird was nowhere to be seen.
Standing
at the edge of the cloud, I looked down. Far below lay the gold of a hundred
molten suns. And as I was looking at it, the glittering mass started to rise,
and slowly it came up to my feet, washed around my ankles, and then receded
just as gently. Not a ripple on the surface, not a ripple inside me. And the
warm golden mass rose again, again up to my ankles, rising and falling over and
over again at its own slow-pulsing pace.
A
pebble under my toes pricked my attention. I picked up the pebble, wound the scent
of my hair around it, and buried it under my feet so future generations would
know that others before them had witnessed the rise and fall of molten suns.
Stilled
for a hundred years, I asked the Earth. "Are you there? Do you hear
me?"
A
breeze combed my hair.
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