travellingchel

By me. I wanted the rain. I pictured a sea in navy blue rolling above, a fragment of moon still haunting the day. I got instead: a cold, blank sky and a sun hiding somewhere behind it all. When I left the hospital room, I looked down at my lap, my pale green gown bunched on my thighs like so many wrinkles on an old, disused woman. My legs motionless beneath it. They have men and women and other survivors come and talk to you in track suits, or pin striped business suits, or linen pants and pink cashmere sweaters, to tell you about life after an accident. “It’s been a blessing, really, losing my legs.” Or “Since my own accident I see everything differently. It filled a hole in my life I never knew was there.” But her voice is raspy and it sounds like her holes have found their way into her speech instead. I’m supposed to visualize me walking again, or kicking a soccer ball. I’ve never played soccer. And my visions don’t include me with two working legs. My first day back...

The egg beater, so small and untidy, laying among it all. The flour, that huge bag, sagging under its own weight, flour leaking from its coners and those eggs. All neatly in line, but two-two empty spaces there. The tiles beneath are glossy, and I know will be cold. Egg yoke spilled, just more gloss on gloss. My dishwasher open, the lid hanging loosely. The dishes inside somewhere-behind in the dark. And my fridge. That big mass of stainless steel, but not so stainless after all. There, in the corner, a smudge. Grey meeting black meeting grey.

Speckled There was bright light in a small garden, and shade beneath a few trees. A small nun sat speckled dark and light, on a bench beneath a tree, space on all sides of her. Soon a taller nun joined her. Here they sat outside of the sun, knees almost touching. Their faces were plain, unassuming. They looked the same. Anonymous under black robes and wimples. ‘It’s God’s gift to us.’ The taller nun shifted her wimple, showing dark hair that framed the white of her face. Dark circle around light. She moved closer to the small nun. Their feet touched. Their knees. Their shoulders. Their bodies angled together. Heat rose to pale cheeks, marking them both. ‘A gift, or a test? ’ She paused, then, ‘If Mary knew-‘ ‘Mary won’t.’ ‘She’s the head.’ ‘God’s the head.’ ‘That isn’t any better for us.’ The color slipping away, then, softly, from beneath curled shoulders, ‘It’s not natural. This is not natural. We. are not natural.’ ‘No. God always has chosen special people. The Israelites, the Apost...

Devin had rituals, you see. To ward off bees, to distract Thomas, to bring sun. He grew up in a Catholic home; perhaps this obsession with rituals is not so hard to understand then. But it was not Hail Mary’s that Devin said. It was not the Lord’s Prayer. Devin repeated maxims he had read in a book called ‘Small lives, Big Lives’ found in a garbage near his house. Devin and I grew up in Scarlton, an area that smelled of rotted wet wood and grey smoke. There was row after row of buildings, houses, shops, and somehow they all looked the same: blackened, with holes in likely places, and window panes missing, or filled with shattered glass. I met him from the other side of a broken window pane, as he touched with one dirt stained hand each of the four corners in turn, saying, “Don’t cry over spilt milk, don’t cry over spilt milk, don’t cry over spilt milk.” I didn’t even have to ask. “I’m keeping Thomas away.” Thomas. The boy who has my lunchbox, who put the tear in my dre...

Hoje eu fui a caoceira-I went to the waterfall fall today-with Fagane and it passed the day sweetly-like waking again at 6.30 am and seeing more of the beautiful Brasilian sky and mata and talking to Mona easily-sleepily-loosely about who knows what because I can´t remember-the tiredness around my eyes distracts my memory a lot these days- I read over my journal entries as another homeless dog got to know me in this soft heat in the Brasilian evening in Muriae- and read my famished road again-and it almost made me cry because I relate bits of my life to the books I read during that time and the Famished Road belongs to Iracambi and Marcelo and thunder like war.. and say goodbye to the Iracambi gente- once the car of them left in Gustavo´s cute little for Iracambi and Iracambi´s homemade bread in the mornings and afternoons and nights with peanut butter and that special white cheese and goiaba and for Iracambi´s life and breath -I didn´t feel it jump me until it hit my throat-sadness an...

I´ve just said goodbye to the Iracambi team for good. Virjilo made it sweet sweet sweet for me-he talked to me-and touched me on the arm or face or shoulder and connected with me-shared with me and let me share with him-as we walked to the bank together in the dying heat of Murie dusk-people still everywhere and kids just getting out of school-filling the narrow sidewalks so we could play ´meet again after the car´as we connected in portuguese. He was lovely. Alexandre tamben-as well-was lovely as he showed me his soaps at the rodoviaria in Murie where we all had met together-and spoke in english for me-the heat and time passing over me and me hardly aware of it passing. Gustavo and Karen came too, and Neia was there with her notebook for me to write in about Marcelos shirt which I wanted-and which they will make another for me. It was perfect-so perfect like so much of Iracambi for me-like dream or a book or good tea-too short and too long and just fine in the end-fine demais-almost t...

Bitter thrist in my throat always. Slipping down feef first, short backs painted brown with earth and mud-feet and legs torn up with scrathes-decoration ´de mata´-cathcing quasi falls by grabbing bamboo branches with both arms raised above me and feet nearly lifting off the ground and the bitter thrist in my throat always-a gift from the palmita like tree we cut open and chewed -and chewed more when it couldn´t kill our thrist-and more until it left us like this-always with the bitter taste of thrist in our throats. Stopping with Virjilho who thinks I´m lovely and me him-talking in portuguese and listening to the water close by-close by and guarded by thick and steep mata-learning the name of the fruit he is painting my face with and me his face in return-and always-the bitter taste of thrist in my throat-making these moments sweeter in contrast. The descent is so much faster than our rise-which was perfectly brasilian-Tony leading us to the path he thought he knew-and us blazing our o...