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St. Paddy's Day. 2003. When I was a little girl, I dreaded the cry of the banshee and the dark carriage and the promise of death from the movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People. I spent years in my imagination following the bent bone finger into the carriage and then up through the trees and past the darkening moon. I spent summers watching moving spotlights in the sky, believing them each night to be the coming of death's dark carriage. And then each night exposing them with our daring. My friends and I would conquer by playing hide-and-seek with the roaming lights, feeling ourselves cunning and powerful. Defying our fears and defying death's bony hand itself. It's March 17th. A day I've been dreading with the horror of September 11th still fresh in my dry mouth. A day of threats and waiting and sinking stomachs. Blood will out, I suppose. The festering wounds on this planet, brooding in dark corners of people's hearts, cannot be long forgotten. Even by those of us desperate to see the love and the bravery and the beauty of this place. Yes, Celeste. You have to watch the world spin in confusion and ugliness. You cannot stop it and sometimes you feel you cannot bear it. But you will. You can bear seeing and feeling the dangers of the barbed zone separating north and south. But you will cry. And you can bear waiting as your leaders unleash more violence and death. But you will cry. And you can bear the fear of their suicide threats and more violence and death. But you will cry. And wonder where in the hell is safe anymore. A rash of deaths passes through Asia, and people scurry with white masks, and I'm already afraid for my next breath. And when will the yellow dust come? The inevitable sickness from China? When will it wash the landscape and the lungs? Cough, Celeste. Cry. Wonder. As kids, the sidewalks around the cul-de-sac were safe zones. We were invisible to the dark coach then. We'd race across the dark circle of pavement, flushed with fear and excitement and inevitability, and then we'd hop onto the sidewalk. Never feigning our relief. Kids have such imaginations. "Safe zones," after all. We loved the risk and the danger, but we liked knowing that we could tromp back indoors at our mothers' calls, take off our fear, and sit snuggling next to parents, as THEY watched the news. Well, I'm still running across that dark circle. And i feel the approaching lights of the ghost-lit carriage, and the banshee is screaming in my heart, but as far as where I'm running to, that part of the game has become less clear... The Little People [2003-03-17]
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