Some might ask the why of it
all. Why did Baubo really come to New
Jersey to be by Mrs. Scattergood? And
how did she manage to move into the stream of her being so easily? Mrs.
Scattergood might have been open to things she wasn’t before. Deep losses will
do that to a person. It will move the
center of their being away from the door allowing others to enter. It brings its own colony of thoughts and
existences. It is like what the dusk and
dawn will do for the day. Or what
Halloween and other special times of year will do for the great chain of beings
that swim through the openings in reality when daylight’s reign is less
restricting. But this day she had no questions about it just acceptance.
~
There is always movement from
one ending through to another opening. The magician’s rings pass through each
other without any metal clanging. How
does it work? Who knows? But that is how
Baubo came to be with Mrs. Scattergood.
The why of it is hardly the matter.
It was one of those sweet times when light brings beauty and forms are
more fluid than the agreed upon world of the everyday.
~
In her off handed way, by not
stopping the conversation to ask Baubo who she was, it allowed Mrs. Scattergood
into Baubo’s world. There was no formal
introduction. There was just the
streaming that some can tolerate, some are aware of, and some find to be a kind
of heaven, streaming that is the psyche’s grease and the soul’s release. Whoever is present is meant to be.
~
A friend told Mrs. Scattergood
that she remembered when her lover used to fulfill her life as if there were no
room for another experience. That was
never the case. But Mrs. Scattergood did
remember the pain when her lover left.
It was as if that ship pulled the moorings from her being. Everything in her life seemed to be pulled
through the water. The only way back to who she was would be to follow the line
back to shore. The red thread was
longing.
~
She knew that ghosts had come
alive because of Baubo’s presence. Baubo
who brought raucous laughter to Demeter when she was frantic with the loss of
her daughter. Baubo, with her burlesque
heart that goes boom, boom, de-boom generates atmospheres where memory and
longing circulate like clouds in the jet stream.
~
When engineers build dams they
also have plans for taking the dams down.
People aren’t nearly as prepared.
Neither was Mrs. Scattergood.
When she was opened by grief questions came loose from every place in
her being and none were paired with answers.
She experienced tempo changes, the rhythm of her home shifted. Her love found new ways to flow. She
remembered writing, “I am undone.” The world was unfamiliar.
~
Baubo wasn’t responsible for
bringing about this state. She wasn’t a
part of the structure or deconstruction.
It was something else. We don’t
even know that it can be named. The only
thing that mattered was that Mrs. Scattergood had to keep on keeping on. For a while, she didn’t want to.
~
When you’re stirring the soup you
might see some parsley spinning around on the surface; or you might see your
thoughts. There are mirrors everywhere, even in soup. The wooden spoon starts the spinning process
and memory comes curling up with steam.
Mrs. Scattergood’s thoughts came home with her but the soup brought them
to her awareness.
~
She learned nothing, nothing at all from
being a bookie’s daughter except a fear of being outside the law. Not too much
respect for the law, but the fear of it, oh yeah. Now it was a question of waiting for the
spring. Hoping the plovers found shelter
and were able to nest on the back shores. She looked out her window longing for
it.
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