from
mosaic (4) by freda karpf
When you need soul
material like a fire needs wood, what’s better than mirepoix, or garlic
frying? That’s what attracted Baubo to
Mrs. Scattergood’s neck of the woods in the first place. You have to love
someone who’s always making soup.
~
It was the longest time, years, which Mrs.
Scattergood was writing about Leah and Sarah.
Leah travelled toward Sarah in Telltale. This is the way Mrs.
Scattergood wanted it. She had no idea they were working out her longing for
her mother. She had no idea until she was telling someone, of course it had to
be a therapist, about her book. “Well, I’m working out the myth of Demeter
looking for her daughter and then this woman appears. Baubo.” “I never heard about a Baubo,” the therapist
said expecting more information. “Well, I didn’t either. You know, can you
imagine losing your daughter, then searching the world over, tearing up one
landscape after another. And the pain.
The emptiness. That ache that is hollow and eternal. Oh, Demeter’s pain. What do you do with all that pain? At that
point it is not even of this world.
That’s beyond what a human can take. So Baubo comes along. She’s
what? The fence, the mediator? You can’t
tolerate the pain and she comes along and is this creature, this wild and
inappropriate, raucous creature that shocks you. Turns your mind to something
else because of her behavior; and mitigates the pain which had become too much
to bear. Baubo, the emotional fence, taking pain in and giving in exchange lewd
behavior; but also a kind of compassion that slips around your brain and pulls
on other memories so you’re not thinking of the loss, for the moment.
~
“I never heard about a Baubo,” Baubo
mocked in her repetition. She heard everything the way people do that hold onto
one thought. Everything else was tied onto this thought like a kite string.
This is how Baubo heard that she was the star of Telltale. She came to
be with Mrs. Scattergood in her time of need; and she also came to hear more
about this book. She knew about Demeter
and Persephone first hand. As it were
she was one of the first to run off to Eleusis – when everyone else ran off
there, it was already second season. She
popped the champagne on that festival.
It was a sacred time. Wild too.
She went back the next year to see, as many did, who would show up. Now
she can recall those days the way someone drawing down on a cigar can blow
smoke rings, ingesting the air, the past and holding the present with perfect
equanimity. She claimed, as one of her feats at Eleusis, the creation of the
hanging gardens of farts. Recalling how
she strung up, for anyone who was willing to participate, their chains of
intestinal airwaves like paper rings to decorate around a room. But Baubo could
work in multiple mediums so there she took farts from the famous, the
philosophers, temple virgins, rulers and gods and goddesses. Or so she claims.
~
It was actually at Eleusis, when everyone
was celebrating the loss of consciousness and dipping into the sacred pool of
beingness that Baubo first learned about Demeter’s search for her
daughter. She had her mischief making
time there long enough and decided to help Demeter in some way. There are your conventional searches. Seek and ye shall find kind of searches.
After a loss, after a magical event, after this and after that. After the world calls you forth and after you
go to Eleusis. After you’re in the
darkest night and after you’ve lost all hope. After you’ve gone back and forth
across the land, desperate as Demeter was. After the animal kingdom has helped
you. After the insect world has carried
you to a fresh state of mind. After all
that, you find your place among your community. This includes the land, the
water, the air and the fire in your heart.
But you are not alone with this burning desire. Even though Mrs. Scattergood felt so alone.
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