Contingencies

Every day in the land of masks and subterfuge, I think at some point or another about where my people might be.  They are lost to me, if I ever had them.  And here, in what we humans call “the rat race”, I actually brush up against so many things I find completely off-centering on a daily basis that it all comes back to a fact that that I have known forever.

These are not my people.

My people are feral and real.  Witches, poets, rebels, passionate horsewomen with soul and a promise.  My people get their hands dirty, and their hair is a mess.  They walk around in muck boots, cloaks and pointy hats and talk to frogs, save spiders and safely transport them to dark places.  My people are so decidedly imperfect that they are absolute in their perfection.  And they are out there.  Somewhere. 

I’ve searched for them before and on more than one occasion I have been lucky enough to glimpse a version or two of them, even if only for a little while.  And then they disappear by one means or another, back into the corners of my mind, my memory, my many traveled roads of ground up bones and pebbles.  Still, I’m grateful for the glimpses because at least I know that there are versions out there also struggling to find their way in this world.

I’ve always been alone, and I’ve never minded it overall.  I need aloneness to feel safe, to be myself, to wash away the smut of each day with a prickly brush and good soap.  But sometimes it would be a kinder thing, a novel thing, to have someone to howl with and talk to in a low voice about all the things that witches talk about.  To listen to all of the things we love to hear ~ music, chanting, drums, wind and storms.  To conspire for world peace with poetry, spells and magical enchantments.  To watch every movie based on Arthurian legend ever made and argue about which one is the best, the most magical, the most beautiful.

Where are the others that bury the dead, plant the tree, eat the fruit, cakes and honey?  What happened to those I dreamed up?  The ones that talk to bugs and sit in tangled swamps marveling at tadpoles and dragonflies?  Why is no one in awe of a fawn, quickened by a coyote’s howl, convinced that horses are talking about her as she walks away from the barn?  Is there anyone else out there searching for the Fae, for dragons sleeping in a forest, for her own lost soul as she hides behind the marsh and moonlight because she just cannot stand what she has become on the outside.

Find a way back to her.  A path beyond this world full of distractions, conveniences, uses, users, posers, players, pretenders.  Remember how to feel instead of a way to strategize, coerce, make contingency plans.  Remember to listen, not chatter, challenge, charge ahead.  Find a way back and we will find each other.  Meet me beside the old oak tree with the twisted trunk and hollow hole that leads to the cave where good souls hide.  Crawl into the darkness with me and we will go together to the bottom of ourselves.  Step to the edge and begin again.