Tag: bones

Down to My Bones

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I visited my long deceased mother a couple of days ago through an article I read in the Los Angeles Times. It was about a Korean Spa in L.A. where in a uniquely 24-hour spa experience families get together in what looks like a reunion picnic, or summer camp. Some families even spend the night. But on the floors where the men and women part company, there is only one rule: you must get naked.  And here’s where I got snagged into connecting with my mother. It was the closing paragraph as described by the author: “I retreated to the darkened room on the women’s floor, passing robed bodies lying end to end, and a mother with her limbs entangled with her daughter’s, all sound asleep.”

small_2250395225That image of the mother and daughter, naked with their legs entwined set up a deep visceral longing within me, a palpable desire to have had that kind of loving intimate relationship with my mother, a relationship I never had, never wanted growing up, not consciously anyway, because I just didn’t trust her. She made me feel all wrong. Sure, I was headstrong, cheeky, and not a boy like she’d wanted, but why couldn’t we connect, cleave together in our femaleness in the African male-dominated society in which we lived? A society she railed against. Did it all boil down to courage and her own disconnect with self; did she just not know how to go to the next step, how to relate to me, a living piece of herself? I’ll never know. We never had a chance to work it out, what with me emigrating to America at 22, and her in Africa and then her death three months before I turned thirty-six. But in my own way through much introspection, I’ve forgiven myself and her for what we didn’t know how to do. This article struck a deeper level of my long path to heal; this time I felt it down to my bones.  (photo above courtesy of Alicepopkorn)

This is my first Trifecta writing challenge–33-333 words on the word of the week (mine is 332). This week the word is “heal” in the context of restoring purity or integrity.

Passing The Mantle

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First Campaign Challenge from Rachael Harrie’s Fourth Platform Building Campaign

This is where we’re supposed to write a short story/flash fiction in 200 words or less, in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “Shadows crept across the wall.” As an added challenge, do one of the following: end with the words, “everything faded,” use the word “orange,” write in the same genre as we usually write and make the story exactly 200 words. I hit them all in 190 words. Here’s my story.

Shadows crept across the wall of the old witch doctor Anashe’s hut. Outside, a ghostly full moon hung in a sky splashed with fuchsia, gold and orange above the remains of the sun. Anashe’s once robust form barely creased the thin coir mattress on the floor where she lay. She knew her time was short.

An assortment of yellowed animal bones lay scattered a few feet away on the well worn dirt floor, magic bones that kept her informed of her seventeen-year-old grandson Tururu’s movements six hundred miles to the north in the copper mines. She thrashed from side to side in agitation. He was not ready.

Her vision dimmed and she felt her mind drifting. She struggled to focus even though she knew it was useless; the Great Mother Amai Vedu Africa awaited her. A part of her had thought she would live forever. Sighing, she closed her eyes and felt the pain and tension in her body and heart begin to ease. She knew what she had to do. She whispered the words that would take her to where she needed to go one last time. Everything faded.