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“Hi Natalie, this is your little sister Isabella.”
We sat at a picnic table, shivering in the spring wind, and watching children play on the playground, this 84 year old woman and I. She was beautiful, with her thick, curly gray hair and stylish sunglasses. She shared, with her sister on the phone, memories of their playing with paper dolls together. My mind went back to my childhood, wondering what I would talk about with my siblings when we reached our later years. Our favorite Saturday cartoon was The Super Friends. I wanted desperately to be Super Girl, but I would settle for Wonder Woman because of her invisible airplane. As soon as the program was over we would turn off the t.v. and race around the house saving imaginary people from pretend villains. It was a chance for our mom to sleep-in, or simply get a break from four active kids. My older sister and I had a record player that we would blast after school in our room. We would sit in the open window and consider ourselves rebels as we sang along to Mickey Mouse. Later the record player was used to play songs that went along with a paper stage and puppet set. I am still haunted by one of the songs, “I Can’t Dance”, especially when a new song with the same line comes streaming from my daughters mouth as she listens through earphones to her High School Musical download. Now we have busy lives, my sisters, brother and I. We have children and jobs and husbands. We have friends that steal us away, and live far apart. But I like to think that we are connected by games played, television programs watched, songs listened to… so many years ago. I like to think that at 84 we too will be on the phone discussing which Wonder Twin power to activate.
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“Now she is embracing her loved one.” We were watching a Hawaiian hula demonstration and a woman next to us was narrating for those around her. It was ironic in a way, since we had just come from the Portland Chinese Garden where we had been called to: Listen to the fragrance. It was from the poetry of Charles Wu and invited visitors to use all of their sense to experience the beauty of the garden. Listen to the fragrance…I watched the hula dancer convey her story through gentle movements and rhythm. We are so trained to only interpret our own language symbols that it is difficult to ascribe meaning to movements in the same way we would to spoken or written words. Language, though, can be silent; something that those using the American Sign language know. As well… I think experiencing language takes a real presence that is often missing in our high decibel, media oriented world. It demands that we think three, or even four, dimensionally; surround ourselves with the volume of life and emotions. Take, for example, THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, which I just finished reading. Immersed in the story I could feel the thick, wet air in the second arena… or hear the chirping of the deadly insects. Through great storytelling we know the feelings that go along with these sensory inputs, so that not only do we read the words, we smell the scent of fear and anguish that goes with that chirping or feel the rapid beating of the heart giving the dense air a pulse of its own. We may even sense our world narrow to the pinpoint at the end of our arrow, whether we have ever shot from a bow or not. This is when we know great writing. So that the archetype of arms crossed over our body in hula smells like warmth and home… like love. |
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Deanne WilstedLink here to Betting Jessica on Amazon.com Archives
June 2020
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