Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [37]
As his car dipped down into a small, breezy village, Yolo found himself bringing up the rear of a long line of slowly moving vehicles. The ones farthest from him were turning off the road. When he drew abreast of the turn he found himself at a small green church that looked like a child’s drawing of one. Some of the cars turning to park in the church parking lot had their lights on. He realized he had come upon a funeral procession.
Driving very slowly he gazed at the gathering of people getting out of their cars. He recognized Jerry and the brother of the young man who had died. Out of surprise and respect, he slowed the car even more and pulled over to the side of the road.
What Is Missing from the World
What is missing from the world is the grandmother, Anunu had said. Oh, there are plenty of grandmothers, little g, but Grandmother, big G, is impossible, some women feel, to find. That is the absence that makes us afraid, she added.
It’s quite an absence, said Kate. And will we find Her in time?
Looking out the window behind Anunu’s desk she watched a blue jay pecking at a banana slug. The slug was the largest she’d ever seen and the blue jay was making a joyful meal of it. Soon another jay came and they began to fight. Another arrived, and another. Soon there was a general melee. She was amazed to see the much-pecked banana slug slowly gathering itself amid the confusion and making its getaway. She laughed.
Anunu gazed at her.
Life, said Kate. It doesn’t pay to give up on it too soon.
Someone had told Kate that Anunu was sixty-five years old. She looked thirty-five. Her skin was smooth and vibrant, her eyes clear and twinkling. Her body strong and lithe. How could this be? Kate scrutinized Anunu carefully.
There is a time in every woman’s life when she realizes the absence of Grandmother, Anunu was saying.
Every woman? asked Kate.
Yes, said Anunu. Although sometimes, most times, the woman will think of it as something else. Some women will suddenly begin to dream of horses. Some will find big black bulls all over their dreams. Naturally this seems quite shocking to them, she said, laughing, though the bull is an early symbol of the Grandmother’s ability to provide sustenance. Preceding the bull would have been the cow. Some women will find themselves entering a dance and not knowing how to do it because there is no teacher and the music, though hauntingly familiar, is impossible to follow. Some people will dream of water, vast expanses of water; they will not be able to swim because they don’t know how and there will be no boat. Some people will begin to dream of rivers, but they will be dry.
I began to dream of dry rivers, said Kate. I took myself down the Colorado in a boat.
And did you find Her? asked Anunu.
Kate thought for a moment. That journey seemed to be more about emptying myself of the past, she said. A lot of my past lives came up, literally, in vomiting, there in the depths of the canyon, revealed for what they were. Dress rehearsals, in a sense, for some later phase of life. I felt, at the end of the trip, as we walked away from the river, that everything I’d carried up to that point that wasn’t necessary to my life had been shaken loose. I was freed into this part of my life which, amazingly, has people like you in it.
Why is that amazing? asked Anunu.
Once when we were journeying, maybe eating peyote or mushrooms, said Kate, I saw you as I feel you’ve always been, through countless ages.
Really? said Anunu.
Yes, said Kate. It was during the period when I was just beginning to understand I no longer needed to take any kind of medicine. I lay there, wide awake, for the most part, unengaged by whatever that particular medicine was. But there was a moment when I glanced over at you and Enoba and you were wearing your headdress of feathers.
A headdress of feathers?