I suspect that I shouldn't be quite so subject to the prevailing winds around me, by which I mean moods, but there you have it, I surely am, and it makes me remember when I was in high school and a boy who came to collect his sister from school every day grew fascinated with me because he said he always wondered where I was headed and it seemed to him that I didn't know myself where I would go but that wherever the wind blew I followed it. One night I climbed over my uncle's gate to go to a party with him on his motorcycle and he told me he had watched me for weeks to come up with this theory about me and the wind. We didn't last long, though he was a cheerful sort and we remained friendly, but his place in my mythology was forever secured because what he told me that night rang truer than true.
What a wonderful thing to say to a teenage girl. He saw right through you, it sounds like.
ReplyDeleteI love this photo of you, looking straight ahead, your arms open.
ellen, i have always remembered what he said, one because it did feel as if he had truly SEEN me and two because in seeing me, he felt affection for me and that was a true gift for a 16 year old girl. i sometimes think we get a similar gift in this place, where we reveal ourselves and find people who open their arms and say i see you and all of it, its really okay. thank you for gifting me in this way. you have from the very beginning, you were one of the first people here, and it means more to me than you know. love to you, friend.
DeleteYou are so beautiful.
ReplyDeleteHave you read Octavia Butler's novels? In "Wild Seedd" some of the people are "feelers". They tune into what is happening with people near to them and feel what they feel. It is often painful and depressing and horrible, as you can imagine. They only get better when they can go through the needed changes to go to the next level. It takes a group of the same kind of people to bring them along. I often think some of us are feelers and have not found our group or made it to the next level.
Kristin, i have not read Wild Seed though I have read others of her books. Loved Kindred and Parable of the Sower especially, but cant quite figure out why i never read Wild Seed. I saw the book on my dresser the other morning, and wondered, well how did that get there, it really did ping my consciousness, so perhaps i am supposed to read that now. Thank you! Love to you my feeler friend. perhaps we are the group, endeavoring to help each other to the next level! xo
DeleteOoh boy. I've been thinking about similar things recently. And even that picture of you ties into things on my mind as I wonder what my life was really like when I was that age.
ReplyDeleteYou sure were born with your same-face, Angella. And what a beautiful one it is.
Ms. Moon, i know just what you mean. I look at myself in that state of innocence, when the whole world was still possible, and i can't quite trace the journey from there to here, where my heart feels as if it lives outside my body, vulnerable every second, even to a change in the very air. i have reached a stage in my life where i want to be more self possessed, not so subject to the vagaries of other people, i want to feel the peace of knowing that no matter what happens, i will be, i *am* okay. does that make sense? i love you, dear woman.
DeleteThose little knees!
ReplyDeleteA, haha, those knees look much the same actually. they're less cute on a 55 year old!
DeleteYou are so lucky to have these photos Angella. Treasure them. I love you.
ReplyDeleteps. I second Octavia Butler. One of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteXo
Rebecca, i do treasure these photos. i put them on my blog so i can see them regularly. i try to remember that the little girl i was, so ready for anything, so unafraid, is still inside me. And yes, i love Octavia Butler too. Going to start Wild Seed today. love to you, my beautiful poet friend.
DeleteThat gorgeous photo of you reminded me of a photo that I have been staring at, on and off, all week. My mother(whom I have always had a very difficult relationship with) sent me a photo of myself at just about the same age for my recent birthday. I was thinking about putting it up on my blog as a "reminder", too.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful attribute for that young man to see in you. He obviously somehow realized that you would blow through his life like the wind but he carried such an important message for you. Interesting what sticks with us as we live our own stories.
Love you, dear soul.
PS-It must have been a momentary lapse in links yesterday when I tried to open your page. I am so glad to see you here!
dear Debra, i would love to see that photo of you at that age. i find i studied these photos for clues to my present, if that makes sense. love to you, dear one.
DeleteHow magical and romantic. That would have held my 16 year old heart forever. And my 48 year old heart too.
ReplyDeletexoxoxo
michelle, it was very romantic. maybe that is as much the reason why it stayed with me!
DeleteI think that maybe as we get older we finally realize that we only have those moments of being known and of knowing ourselves as moments and that there's no "getting there."
ReplyDeleteThat photo of you is extraordinary in that it's so you. A moment frozen, but you're in there as that little girl is in you.
elizabeth, this is so very profound. how would i live my life differently if there was only the moment, and no urgency to "get" to anywhere else, or anytime else. because often, the moments can be perfect, and we ignore their shimmer, thinking about, well, everything outside of the moment. wow.
DeleteOh you are such a beautiful soul, and your picture is priceless. I think like you, I never quite knew where I was headed either, I just felt compelled to keep moving, rootless, almost, until the children came. Then with some amazement, I became a different me, one who barely recognized the one who came before. She's somebody that I used to know, but I am no longer her, or I don't really remember her. But that's ok, because a lot of those years need to be forgotten.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a lovely memory like yours to add to my mythology.
And the moods, they are confusing and unwelcome, I know. Be kind to yourself, to that beautiful girl with the big heart.
xo
Dear Mel, when the children came, everything suddenly made sense to me. I knew my purpose on this earth, everything i did was for them. even the things i did for myself were ultimately for them, so they wouldn't have to spend too many hours of their adult lives on a therapist's couch, haha. i think sometimes i came here to be a mother, i have loved nothing more. people come here for different experiences, and this is mine, the overarching one. except there are other things too, there must be, because the children grow up and into their own lives, and we still have to make our days count for something, we still have to make richer souls of ourselves. this is my mythology at the moment. i am once again seeking, following the wind for clues.
Deletelove you.
Angella that picture of you is mythical, the look in your little girl's eyes, so profound somehow, a bit too wise for her age - and is that a bottle of nail polish in your hand?
ReplyDeleteI love that story too and the idea of our personal mythologies.
Never heard of Octavia Butler but she is on my list now.
xod
deirdre, love, you touched on what i am most fascinated by in that photo of the little girl who is me, her eyes look as if she has worked something out, and she's so steady with the knowledge. i often wonder what it is she had just worked out. hugs.
DeleteAre you the cutest thing going? Yes, yes you are! And that is nail polish isn't it?
ReplyDeleteMy feelings about the wind are not altogether pleasant ones, I don't much care for that feeling of being buffeted about, not in control....
but that memory is so sweet and very romantic.
yo, i suspect dear leader is the cutest thing going! xo
DeleteInteresting isn't it the way some things stick with you and the things we forget. I have moments that I know will stay with me when they are happening and they remain.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the picture!
Gary, i think the things that stick are the ones that made us feel most ourselves, or else most as we wanted to be. well, some of the negatives stick too, but that's different. xo
DeleteYou were just like a little doll! What a breathtaking baby you were. This photo reminds me of those you see of people like Elizabeth Taylor, so beautiful right from the start.
ReplyDeleteLove the story about the boy - you must have left an impact on him, too. Do you wonder whatever happened to him?
Chrissy, okay, that is an extravagant compliment! *blush*
ReplyDeleteAnd the boy, we are still friends, believe it or not. i see him sometimes when i go home to jamaica. he is still a pretty happy and carefree guy.
hugs, friend.