Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart_ A Novel - Alice Walker [71]
I felt the bed shaking, he said.
Kate had been writing on her laptop, something she’d never done before in bed. She’d resisted the feeling of being in bed with a machine.
I’m writing what I can remember of what Grandmother Yagé taught me, she said.
How’s it going?
Rough, she said, her fingers limp on the keyboard, her eyes fixed on the screen.
So much happened in those seven hours. I felt I learned more than I had in my whole life up to then. But it is such a different way of learning, of being taught. After we were brought out of Grandmother’s presence by Anunu and sat having tea and a slice of toast to settle our stomachs, I sat there stunned speechless by what I had experienced. I thought I’d never forget a single thing. But by the time we finished our tea it had started to fade. I asked Anunu about this. She said it was the same for her, and that in the beginning she’d felt bereft, to have been shown so much and to have been patiently taught so much, and then to feel it evaporate. But she’d realized the teachings simply became a part of her. They became hers.
And do you feel that way? asked Yolo.
Yes, said Kate. To some extent I do. But I’m a writer; I want to manifest the experience; I want to see what it would look like as art.
She sounded unusually passionate for five o’clock in the morning.
Yolo laughed. Okay, he said.
Kate looked at him. The truth is that I miss her. Grandmother. I miss her terribly.
What was she like? asked Yolo. Though Kate had described her many times before. He liked being told about Grandmother the way a small child likes to be told about angels. He sank farther under the comforter and wriggled his toes a bit.
She was so loving, said Kate. And patient. But brisk too. No nonsense about her. And she didn’t focus much on what was wrong. It really was like sitting in the lap of a gigantic tree, breathing together, and accessing a knowing that would never happen in a high-rise apartment building.
She’s more like: This is like this because that was like that. He did this because earlier he’d done that. She acts like that because where she’s from nobody understood this. And the main thing is that she makes you see that the magic of the mystery we’re in just goes on and on. After all, you realize you’re sitting there, enthralled, being taught by a plant. There is no end to wonder! Yolo, imagine. Even if we live forever, we’ll never get to a place where we can honestly say: There’s nothing happening here; I’m bored. Or, you can be bored, I guess, but you can never say it’s because nothing is happening. Something is always happening. In fact, everything is always happening. It’s amazing, she said, closing her eyes.
Gosh, said Yolo, you really make me want to try it.
It tastes like shit, said Kate. You’d hate it.
How ironic, said Yolo. Something so good tasting so bad. But life is like that too, sometimes, he added.
She decided to tell him about the last part of her time with Grandmother, which she remembered clearly in every detail. But first she had to admit something to him:
Yolo, she said, I think I went searching for Grandmother because I am afraid of growing old.
I’ve always thought you very brave, owning up to your age as it comes, said Yolo. I also think it’s natural to feel apprehensive. We live in a culture that is afraid of old age.
I know, said Kate. What I didn’t know was that I too had this fear. I thought I had escaped it somehow.
Yolo chuckled. How can you escape when every commercial you see advises you to hate the gray, hide it away.
I almost couldn’t see a point to living beyond middle age, said Kate. I mean, what is there to do, after that? Had anyone told us?
We could “retire,” said Yolo.
Yes, said Kate, and enjoy “hobbies.”
I can’t imagine having a hobby, said Yolo.
I can’t either, said Kate. Everything I do I want to be essential.
After seven hours with Grandmother, said Kate, I finally got right down to it. I was in this huge jungle, not unlike the Amazon. I was going all over the place desperately