Read Online All the Dancing Birds by Auburn McCanta - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Auburn McCanta
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and you miss his hands so damned much you would give up your ears and all they know for just one more touch. Still, all is bright and lovely with your ears as they listen to sounds so normal you forget you are now often a reluctant outsider. You assume that soon you’ll constantly be paragraphs behind in conversation, not to mention what will happen to your understanding of nuance, your flagging imagination, or that silence will sit on your head like ash. One day you’ll have nothing but stillness in your mind. Today, though, you bless your lovely ears because you hear and discern the language of your children, and you tightly embrace the crackle of this bright and sparkling moment. Still smiling because you’ve discovered your ears, you walk outside and clearly announce that, Damn it, your strawberries can grow in the asphalt if they bloody well want and—furthermore—you’ve decided to buy a bikini for Hawaii and you’ll not hear another word about it.
After we’ve eaten dinner and the dishes are washed and put away, after Bryan and Allison blow goodbye kisses across the room, leaving me to another silent evening, I once again find myself at my writing desk, scrawling words onto paper. It’s becoming harder to select words, to find the order in which they should occur, to spell those words, to especially hold my thoughts long enough to make sense. It takes a good deal of time to formulate something into a cohesive conga line of words dancing after words, dancing after more words.
When I’m finished writing the day’s thoughts (I use the last of my rose-embossed stationery), I take the papers to my closet, fold them carefully and add them to my growing collection of letters. I consider moving the box to a more convenient location, but decide moving it would take away the ritual of reaching for answers in the dim of my closet and, as an adjunct, I might very well forget any new hiding place. I decide life is mysterious enough.
I add my latest letter and then select an older letter to read; it’s written on plain vanilla-colored stationery and folded in thirds. I open it and read.
My children,
This morning I sat on the patio with my coffee, watching as one puffy white cloud seemed to snag momentarily on the corner of the eave as it passed on its way to wherever clouds travel on Sunday mornings. It struck me right then—in that delicate and mysterious moment of a cloud’s passing—that you were raised by a particularly neglectful mother. That’s when a piece of that cloud broke away from itself and found its way into my throat, thickening it and making tears rain from my eyes.
After swallowing that piece of cloud, I considered things in a more rational light, realizing it wasn’t neglect I inflicted upon you, but rather my own prejudice of Sunday mornings and their practices. A mother’s influence is indeed great! I’m afraid I squandered mine with you and for that I’m sorry.
I could have offered you a different life. Instead of merely breathing in the sweet scent of your hair as I kissed your dear heads throughout the day, I could have filled those perfect heads with thoughts of all the churchy things that live in clouds and prayers and little squares of Jesus bread. I could have passed on stories of the Glad Tidings Holiness Church of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where I sat with your MeeMaw every Sunday morning. That was her church. Outside it was a simple square structure made of staid and conservative brick and mortar, but inside, that little building was filled with shouting, tongue-talking, arm-waving, Psalm-singing people who swayed as one to what always seemed a frantic, drumming rhythm. People ran up and down narrow aisles, shouting, crying. They danced and twitched and fell to the ground in gob smacked ecstasy. It was amazing.
It was frightening. It was glorious.
The Glad Tidings Holiness Church of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, sang all the way into your MeeMaw’s
After we’ve eaten dinner and the dishes are washed and put away, after Bryan and Allison blow goodbye kisses across the room, leaving me to another silent evening, I once again find myself at my writing desk, scrawling words onto paper. It’s becoming harder to select words, to find the order in which they should occur, to spell those words, to especially hold my thoughts long enough to make sense. It takes a good deal of time to formulate something into a cohesive conga line of words dancing after words, dancing after more words.
When I’m finished writing the day’s thoughts (I use the last of my rose-embossed stationery), I take the papers to my closet, fold them carefully and add them to my growing collection of letters. I consider moving the box to a more convenient location, but decide moving it would take away the ritual of reaching for answers in the dim of my closet and, as an adjunct, I might very well forget any new hiding place. I decide life is mysterious enough.
I add my latest letter and then select an older letter to read; it’s written on plain vanilla-colored stationery and folded in thirds. I open it and read.
My children,
This morning I sat on the patio with my coffee, watching as one puffy white cloud seemed to snag momentarily on the corner of the eave as it passed on its way to wherever clouds travel on Sunday mornings. It struck me right then—in that delicate and mysterious moment of a cloud’s passing—that you were raised by a particularly neglectful mother. That’s when a piece of that cloud broke away from itself and found its way into my throat, thickening it and making tears rain from my eyes.
After swallowing that piece of cloud, I considered things in a more rational light, realizing it wasn’t neglect I inflicted upon you, but rather my own prejudice of Sunday mornings and their practices. A mother’s influence is indeed great! I’m afraid I squandered mine with you and for that I’m sorry.
I could have offered you a different life. Instead of merely breathing in the sweet scent of your hair as I kissed your dear heads throughout the day, I could have filled those perfect heads with thoughts of all the churchy things that live in clouds and prayers and little squares of Jesus bread. I could have passed on stories of the Glad Tidings Holiness Church of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where I sat with your MeeMaw every Sunday morning. That was her church. Outside it was a simple square structure made of staid and conservative brick and mortar, but inside, that little building was filled with shouting, tongue-talking, arm-waving, Psalm-singing people who swayed as one to what always seemed a frantic, drumming rhythm. People ran up and down narrow aisles, shouting, crying. They danced and twitched and fell to the ground in gob smacked ecstasy. It was amazing.
It was frightening. It was glorious.
The Glad Tidings Holiness Church of Blowing Rock, North Carolina, sang all the way into your MeeMaw’s
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