salty women and women who crave salt

from the sea (5) - Old birds ludes by freda karpf

  We have to talk about our hopes and dreams with our friends and listen to bird songs as they were meant to be heard, a part of everything, including our hopes and dreams. They are not backdrop or incidental. They are a part of everything.  Borges is right, “All writing is dreaming.”  All dreaming is becoming part of the song.

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     All the world over, all through the centuries, and that’s a lot of days, women have craved salt. Somehow, being in the here and now with Mrs. Scattergood the sort of bantering she had with her, in and out of her head, sometimes an emotional staccato, satisfied her need for salt.   At one time the moon was part of the earth. When it was lifted up from the ocean bed and cast into space it never went too far.  It orbited the earth.  Never too far and in cycle with its home in the ocean it rules the waves along with the winds. Friends fill our orbits with the moons we lack. An elemental need is met in these relationships.  Our friends bring out the truth in us.  It might seem like we're skimming the surface here but we're not. The truth is simple.  Baubo has heard others say this.  And she witnessed it herself. Though it generates rings of emotion and touches everything that is vulnerable and salty in all of us, the truth is simple.

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     The blessed memory works in many directions.  As long as someone is remembered they live on. The virtue of our words, the energy of our thoughts bring life. These words, like the bird’s songs, are companions to our soul. Baubo remembers Rachel Carson. She can call her Rachel now. The freedom that we have from the leaving. When she thinks of old birds, she remembers Rachel, always Rachel. Human as she was, she gave birth to our big birds. Osprey, eagles, the birds of prey are all Rachel’s grandchildren.  Her words in Silent Spring left us the wings of the mighty to bless the winds, push down on the currents and to rise with the rising thermals.

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     Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.  Now all of us can write Rachel affectionate letters. She cannot demure.  Her bones more bird than human.  Without gravity she might fly off into the sky, not knowing when to land or, for that matter, where to fly. How do you thank someone that has changed everything so that everything isn’t changed? 

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     It was with an uncommon kind of gratitude that Baubo felt toward the old birds. It felt like a privilege just being in the same place with them.  They took wing, they crossed bodies of water, and they protected their nests in storms. Is there anything more amazing then to see a bird, any bird, large or small sail through the star dust, the pollen, the clouds, tree lines and reflections all mirrored in their eyes.  It’s an uncommon kind of gratitude because you don’t often think to express this sense of love that is a recognition of grace and beauty, which makes the way through the days sweet, even magical. Birds move through space the way we do in our dreams. We try to hold onto that feeling.  We push down against the ground and they push down against stardust, pollen, clouds, and reflections.     

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf