Frayed and burnt at the ends, the red thread coils on the wooden table I sit at. I haven’t discarded it, but I don’t know why I keep it. It lays dormant.
Her eyelids flutter like she’s dreaming, plumbing the depths of another world, at end of the video call. She’s propped up on a pile of books to level the angle of my chin. It’s evening, moon rises in the darkening sky; shadows sweep the walls. She takes her time. She opens her eyes, trance-like, and shifts her focus to mine. “Your grandmother is here.”
I reach for the thread and spiral it around my index finger.
“She liked her freedom. Grey hair, slightly curly. Short; rounded figure. Eyes exactly like yours. She was a loner, like you.”
51 days earlier, I’m in Nepal, looping string around my wrist. In the Linga Bhairavi Devi temple in Kathmandu. Before the heat of the day, I make a promise: to honour the divine feminine- her strength, her power, her creative force. I make a 40-day commitment.
The medium speaks slowly, purposefully. “She wants you to put the red thread back on your left wrist.”
Shit.
“Put it back on as a sign of commitment: to yourself; to loving yourself; to protecting yourself; and as a sign of your connection to her in blood.”
Sunrise the next morning, I sit cross-legged atop a white washed wall on a clifftop in Portugal. My back to the 50m drop into the Atlantic a mere meter behind me; my face to a white, stone chapel. I face Fatima: ‘Senhora da Rocha’, in Portuguese- the lady of the rocks. A guiding light from beyond for sailors in lost seas. Mother Mary to me; the Virgin Mary to my grandmother with her Catholic upbringing. The snake of red thread in my hands.
In a different temple this time, I reclaim the red serpent as a sign of my commitment to myself, to her.
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Right, let’s write. Together. The pen curls letters on the page as the mind toils. ‘Write,’ they say. Over and over, ‘write’.
Write what?
About you, my dear. Your story. Your language. Your narrative. Write it all.
I feel a fool though. Who am I to write? Who would read it? It seems a waste.
I look at the red thread coiled around my left wrist. A lump gathers at my throat. Commitment. I made a commitment to love myself. And part of that commitment is freedom of self-expression. And so, to honour myself, and my grandmothers who walked this earthly path before me, I write. Writing is an artwork. It is a healing modality. It’s a commitment. A ceremony. An honouring. It is to love thyself. Myself.
I came to Portugal in tatters. I was like a Tibetan prayer flag, ripped and frayed, stuttering not fluttering in the wind. Gusts tore at me. Once I was bold colour and clear, legible words, speaking out loud…but I faded. Jaded. 37 and colourless, wordless, voiceless.
I betrayed myself.
Invisible fingers grip at my throat. My jaw tightens and locks. My mouth clenches. My voice box hollows. Salty water pools in my more-grey-now-than-green eyes. I swallow. Pushing it down, away. As I have every time before. I take conscious breaths… in….and gently out…. So that no one can see what’s inside. Take mindful breaths as we are taught. Breathe it out. But I’m not, am I? I’m breathing it down. I’m pushing it down again. Just as the food used to do. The chronic overeating to hide and disguise. Fat children, fat teens, fat women aren’t angry, are they? They’re soft and squidgy. Not apoplectically rageful. Not a simmering flow of volcanic anger. No.
And if breathing doesn’t work, then maybe the tears can spill over. Because tears aren’t a sign of anger either, are they? No. They are hormonal. Not my problem, not my responsibility. I can scapegoat and blame the moon cycle. The hysteria of womanhood. Not the ash of a volcano.
This isn’t easy.
It isn’t meant to be, my dear.
Hit. Kick. Punch. Tear. Shout. Release the wrath; the wild, uncontrollable rage of your womanhood that has sat in your sacral since you first bled. It’s time, my dear, to be confronted by your own wildness. Create space for it. Let her take shape, form. Let her borrow your vowels, consonants, vocabulary, syntax, rhetoric, metaphor. Let her take possession of your voice box spitting out pre-linguistic utterances, primitive sounds, basic needs. Let her snarl and hiss. Create space for the guttural howl to come. The thick, jarring rasp as she yanks and pulls her way out of the cave you shoved her into. Be decent enough to allow her, to accept her.
No more tiptoeing around. No more papering over the cracks. No more walking on eggshells. No more whitewashing. No more bullshit metaphors. Let her growl. Let her sob. Let her rage as she sets fire to your voice box. Let her kick her legs and punch her fists as she crawls out of the darkness. Let her howl not into the moonshine, but into the clear light of day. Let her be seen. See her. See her. See her. She wants to be seen. She needs to be seen.
Not the fat kid anymore. Not the hormonal 20 something still learning to walk. Not the seemingly successful school teacher. Not the compassionate, giving charity worker. Not the healer. Not the friend. Not the dog-lover. Not the daughter. Not the sister.
The witch.
The hag.
The medicine woman.
The wise woman.
The artist.
The storyteller.
The creator.
The one who thinks, feels, moulds, creates, shapes, laughs, spits. The one who dances, spins, stamps.
The one with the black-African tribe of women behind her drumming their feet, beating their fists against the red earth.
The one who hisses, clicks, whistles as she births herself out of madness and into the light. The one with symbols tattooed on her night skin, with dreads, with flames in her amber eyes, mirth in her dancing bare feet.
The one who is technically accurate and makes pin-point observations about the workings of the body, of the mind. The one who knows. The one who has books stored inside: knowledge and power and wisdom.
The one with words- like riverstones- handed across the realms. Tangible words to be rolled between finger and thumb. Words that come easily, playful, like the stones you threw in hopscotch when you were 7.
Stop pushing her down.
Stop pushing her away.
She’s here now. She’s here. Right now.
And she’s here to stay.
See her. Hear her. Be her.