THE RUSSIAN GYPSY, A SHORT-SHORT STORY

[photo: www.marshsfreemuseum.com/pages/history.html]

I'm an American "mutt," being Irish/with some English on my father's side and German/Polish/Russian Jewish on my mother's side. This sixteen year old story felt at the time as if I'd channeled it directly from an actual Russian ancestor. I'm not sure exactly how much I believe in channeling, i.e. the jury is not in yet on this point for me. However, I have had experiences that I would describe as channeling.

I clearly recall sitting down to write with no idea about what, and having the first line of this piece "fall out" of my pen. The subsequent lines trailed smoothly behind. This is highly uncharasteristic of how I write. Another reason it felt channeled is how very little editing it seemed to need. Which is also rather unusual with my writing (prose or poetry). Lastly, although I tend to "see" whatever I write, the scene in this story was, and still is, a more than usually vivid mental image.

Ah, well, I didn't set out to make a case for the piece having been channeled. I only wanted to share a bit of background on a story that connected me to a distant part of my heritage, if only in fantasy.

THE RUSSIAN GYPSY

My great-great-grand Aunt reads tea leaves by lantern light. The bright colors of her clothes conspire with the twilight to hide her tatters. The lantern sways in the fall wind, swiping at the dark. Her husband calls angrily from their wagon and startles her customer. The name he slices the air with is never her real one, her proud Jewish name. The name she does not even whisper to herself when she lies pressed beneath the night, like flowers between the pages of that book she had once owned. When she was young. And still very beautiful.

She had enjoyed sharing her body then. Especially with that sweet young man who gave her the wonderful book she could not even read. But she knew, as she had always sensed what the tea leaves and Tarot cards said, that there were stories there to die for, to live for. And when her sister's family pulled their roots out of starving Mother Russia for that golden land across the seas, she did not hesitate. As she had not hesitated to give her body for the book, and she passed it on to her shy sister. Surely children raised in that rich young land, far from famine and war, would work miracles with such a book!

My great-great-grand Aunt reads tea leaves by lantern light. From their old wagon her husband yells again into the night that name she answers to but has never owned. She nods reassuringly to her anxious customer. The lantern swings, casting light, then dark, then light across her carefully bland face. She completes the naming of her customer's future. Then rises, once again, to forget her own.

* * * *

Oh, and I just realized there is an unintended -- though probably unconsciously urged -- minor connection between this post and the post to my Tarot blog today (link at bottom of this post). The "Resource" I listed for today is by the Russian occultist P.D. Ouspensky.

Resource: Facade.com, for free "fortune telling" readings, including Tarot and Runes.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

ANOTHER OFFICE EXPERIENCE, WITH A POEM

My previous post was a poem about an office experience. So is today's. The woman I am speaking to in the poem was a co-worker (well over 20 years ago) who'd become a good office friend during the weekly lunchbreak poetry workshop I led. The poem was my response to her developing cancer. Ultimately and blessedly, she was cured.

The pieces of my own past I reference in the poem were how I'd taken care of my best friend and roommate as she died of cancer. My co-worker knew of this, and I sensed her worry that her illness was, therefore, too hard for me to bear. I wanted her to know that I would bear whatever was necessary to support her. I am not sure she ever really understood what I was trying to say, either in this poem or to her directly on this subject. I do not say this critically or even with any regret. I am reminded of a saying I ran across recently that "People do not have our kind of love to give, only their own kind." (That's a paraphrase, but it is the gist of it.) And that went both ways between my co-worker and myself, of course.

THE PROMISE

At times your eyes are like
fragmented mirrors,
sharp pieces of my own past protrude.

And your words ring the loud bell
of memory until it cries from
the wilderness echoing your pain.

More terrible yet is my impotence,
against which I am wrecked
again and again,
a phoenix against her death.

I cannot save you,
cannot make your life over,
cannot rescue you from your struggle.

I can only promise I will not swerve
from these collisions:

they are my gift to you.

* * * *

Resource: Poetry Soul to Soul, this is the web site of a good friend of mine, Joneve McCormick, and has a wonderful collection of various poets' works. I'm delighted she's included some of mine.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.

IN THE OFFICE

[photo: webshots.com]

One of the first things that hit me as I prepared to retire several months ago, was just how long I'd been working. I went to work right out of High School and I graduated early, at 16 (I was considered extra-smart in those days :-D). So that's 46 years, not a few years longer than my roommate has been alive. Given this, I realized recently I'd not posted much here about the work world and my experiences in it, which have been various -- to put it mildly -- and mostly very difficult.

Had I to do it all over? Yes, it would have been wonderful if I'd had the presence of mind to choose a way to earn a living more in synch with my nature. As it was, though, I can't imagine myself having made any other choices than the ones I did. And given all the challenges I've met and survived, I respect myself for having made it to retirement. However, I'm not going to focus here (at least not yet) on those difficulties but on those experiences that helped me "keep on keepin' on."

The below short piece was written at a time (the middle 1980's) when I was still very much effected by the radical politics I'd been involved in earlier, including a union organizing drive. However, it is more about about one of those sweet moments of quiet human communion.

When I'd read this piece at poetry readings I'd sing the song lyrics. This was a frightening experience. I always suffered from terrible stage fright, especially if I had to sing anything. On a couple of occasions I "copped out" and had a friend do the singing instead. So why, you might ask, did I do readings/performances at all? Because, like the punch line to the old joke, "It felt so good when I stopped!" Seriously, though, because I would usually calm down once I felt a rapport developing with the audience, and I enjoyed (and needed) the ongoing community and feedback.

IN THE OFFICE

The oppressive workday was almost over. Joan hovered wordlessly by Dina at her terminal, seeking the creature comfort of proximity. Daniel, arriving late for the night shift, collapsed his tense frame into the neighboring workstation. The silence between the three co-workers attenuated, waivered, and settled like briefly stirred silt.

Then Daniel's sweet, tremulous tenor rose gently above the intrusive clacking of his keyboard, "We shall o-ver-co-o-ome, we shall o-ver-co-o-ome...."

Her elegant posture undisturbed Dina joined Daniel, "We shall over-come some da-a-a-ay...." The clacking of her keyboard a steady counterpoint to his.

Joan held her breath, then slipped seamlessly into their soft singing, "O-oh deep in my hear-ear-eart, I do be-lieve...."

Sadness was an almost palpable undercurrent which sought to move them closer to each other across the gulfs of history and isolation.

There, in the very belly of the whale, they sang. And the whale turned fitfully in its sleep.

* * * *

Resource: Tell Me A Story, by Geraldine Amaral, how to use the Tarot to help you write stories.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
[aka: Patricia Kelly]
****If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”)****My other blog: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL.