What We Keep - Elizabeth Berg [4]
We suspected our parents would object to our sleeping outside, so we never asked them if we could. Instead, we would wait until the grandfather clock downstairs bonged midnight in its old, metallic voice, and then we would tiptoe out—silent, we were sure, as any Indian ever was. We admired Indians. We dyed sheets with coffee and made long-stitched dresses out of them, cut the bottoms into unlikely looking fringes, and then cinched the waists with beaded belts. We tucked our parakeet Lucky’s discarded feathers into our hair and put on the moccasins we’d begged for at Christmas, even though their color was an untrue pink. We arranged rocks into circles for a campfire, hunted for squirrels and chipmunks in order to commune with animal spirits, and rolled jewel-colored berries in leaves for dinner.
Mostly, though, we practiced walking noiselessly through the woods behind our house. It wasn’t easy. I thought the best approach was to think yourself very light, and to intuit where the twigs were—if you tried to see them all, you’d only fail.
Our parents went to bed early, as did virtually everyone in our neighborhood. No doubt we would have been safe exiting the house around ten, but midnight had a romantic and dangerous flair to it. Besides, we liked being on the cusp of something, being exactly between days, moving about like ghosts when Monday gave way to Tuesday. We thought if ever there was a time for the extraordinary to occur, this was it. And we longed for the extraordinary. People rooted in security often do.
All along one side of the house were lush white lilac bushes, and it was in them that we hid our sleeping blanket, an old quilt that our family once used for picnics—long after it had been used for many beds. The colors in the quilt—pinks, purples, yellows, greens—were faded beyond pastel; they resembled the bleeding edge of a watercolor, and the fabric was so worn it felt almost like touching nothing. The pattern was of flowers in a basket, and the person who made the quilt had embroidered a bee hovering over one of the roses. I liked thinking about how, a hundred years ago, someone else had been charmed by the sight of a bee and a flower, had believed it worth commenting on in this quiet way. I loved the natural world, too. I loved all aspects of science, in fact—everything I read having to do with that most elegant of subjects thrilled me, though usually I did not understand what I read. It was an oddity about me that the subject I had the most difficulty with was the one I loved most. I would stare at formulas and admire them for their spare beauty without being able to grasp their meaning. The fact that they cleanly explained some higher law to someone else was enough for me. It comforted me.
Sharla and I would spread the quilt out in the middle of the backyard and then stretch out luxuriously. We would spend some time contemplating the constellations, reciting to each other all the star lore we’d learned thus far. It seemed like an Indian thing to do. Plus it required the beautiful necessity of focusing on the dark heavens, letting the phase of the moon register on the back of the working eye. The grass was a deep blue color in the dim light of night; the smell was rich and horsey. The whine of the occasional mosquito was thrilling because we couldn’t see the insect, and therefore our minds made it roughly the size of a little airplane. We wore sleeveless T-shirts and