Wednesday, September 28, 2011
City of reputation
We are brought news of other new "towns" similar to ours by travelers passing between and beyond. One, we heard, has a type of military leadership, to which a transient's requests for temporary stay are all but ignored. The number of people inside, and as to each's willingness or desire to be or remain within the town is still unknown to us. How a city with such reputation even comes to be, after all that's been lost and learned, is beyond me. And yet, our group is not naive enough to be blind to this, life's little reminder to us, that our new home has not a guarantee of safe haven. Precautions must be taken, a consensus determined, by all in our community, as to where we stand should dire immediate decisions need to be made to ensure the safety of as many of our group as possible.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Fabric of our futures
Our colony is on a round, flat oval of ground, encased in light brush and trees around it, set in a small valley beside what appears to be a consistent source of safe drinking water from a stream. We started building on this seemingly solid land we have found. Thoughts of hope, mixed with anticipation, thread through our camp, weaving this new colony into the fabric of our futures. Beyond our first buildings new buildings, we have cleared three large plots for fields. It feels like something out of a movie... "Movie", a word some of the children might no longer even remember...
Building temporary shelters wasn't hard for our experienced and strengthening limbs, but engineering permanent structures has been a project greatly discussed and debated. After all the movement of earth we have witnessed, the ever changing terrain we have traveled, to assume we know what to expect in even the coming year alone would be suicidal. None can predict the moods of the seasons in this new place, the ferocity of wind, rain or snow we may be forced to endure, or what groups of people may come across us here in this valley. Survival, we have learned, is not only ensuring water, food and warmth for all, but also, defense of all.
Mary Beth
Mary Beth always has a plan. A solution. A suggestion for a better way of doing, well, just about anything, really. And any hardship we might encounter could have been prevented or avoided had we simply listened to Mary Beth, at least according to her. The problem that has developed is that her ideas generally are not realistic, revealing much naivety in life prior to our meeting.
In our current situation, she resents any who do not bow to her desires for personal placation. Ideas accepted by the group after much debate and discussion, yet not her own, are met with her righteous disapproval, though they are tolerated out of survival instinct, I imagine.
Echoing Valley
A new page, a new day, met with a new sound on the horizon. His men marched to a beating drum as they traveled. How many footsteps it prompted was masked by echoing valley's mimicking percussion.
Dirty faces & far away places
We had crossed paths with other survivors before. Some trying to stay alive but staying alone. But most, like us, have banded together however chance fated. Hodgepodges of ages, sizes, colors & shapes, dirty faces & tales of far away places - such are life's visitors now. We offer welcome, friendship, what little we have to offer. Some stay & travel alongside us, while others keep on in their own chosen direction. But each new face offers hope for a future we often question inside ourselves.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Elder Mother
We found her around dusk, slowly rocking on the porch swing of a house half fallen down, her memories dancing far away from her as her legs gently moved her out of habit. When she finally returned from thought and noticed our noise nearby, her eyes were clear and calm, a rarity to find.
“We are friends” spoke Peter softly, with the quiet voice of trusted healer that had so often calmed a fearful stray. Her lips curled in a warm smile, though she would not tell us her name. She did say that her husband, children and children’s children did not survive, only she. And that she believed she was completely alone, here only to wait her turn for death’s arrival, but then we had arrived instead.
She stood with relieved purpose at the sight of us all, dusted her hands on a comfortingly patterned apron, and walked through her front door as she turned to say “You are so very welcome here. And you all must be quite hungry.” Shortly after, we shared our first ‘family meal’.
She, to this day, has never spoken her name to us, or not in any way we can decipher. But we no longer ask, for it would matter now, and because her wishes are to be someone new.
“My life before is over. All that I built around me has come down, and if it is my God’s will, then I shall rebuild it again. But this time on new ground, with new stone and new mortar, and for new purpose. My life and my name are no more, for with my family I died, but when you came to my door that day I was reborn. I saw that my purpose was not over, even if the only life I had ever known was over, it had simply changed. Now, I wish to be everyone’s mother, to do what I can for all of you who saved me, and for the children, for the new world they will build, with whatever time we each have left.”
And so we have come to call her “Elder Mother”, mother and grandmother to us all. When a child needs comfort, to Elder Mother does he turn for the arms of safety and love he so craves. When an adult needs an ear, a shoulder or a sweet word of hope, to Elder Mother does one turn. Disputes in our group are mediated and resolved with objectivity and kind fairness, if Elder Mother is asked.
And she, like a true mother, demands that at least once per week the whole community we have gathered all sit to eat together at one time - our ‘family meals’. Elder Mother is our glue, holding us together in so many different ways.
Many evenings, Elder Mother tells stories. ” To help the children always remember who we were, and to help them see who we are capable of becoming.” In her stories, she never reveals which are her own stories and which are simply those she saw around her. But her stories weave us into a tapestry of dreams and hope and pride in our ancestry. She reminds not only the children of who we are capable of becoming, of how vital love like hers is in this new world. I aspire to one day hold within me the unconditional love and wisdom with words that she carries for us all.
“We are friends” spoke Peter softly, with the quiet voice of trusted healer that had so often calmed a fearful stray. Her lips curled in a warm smile, though she would not tell us her name. She did say that her husband, children and children’s children did not survive, only she. And that she believed she was completely alone, here only to wait her turn for death’s arrival, but then we had arrived instead.
She stood with relieved purpose at the sight of us all, dusted her hands on a comfortingly patterned apron, and walked through her front door as she turned to say “You are so very welcome here. And you all must be quite hungry.” Shortly after, we shared our first ‘family meal’.
She, to this day, has never spoken her name to us, or not in any way we can decipher. But we no longer ask, for it would matter now, and because her wishes are to be someone new.
“My life before is over. All that I built around me has come down, and if it is my God’s will, then I shall rebuild it again. But this time on new ground, with new stone and new mortar, and for new purpose. My life and my name are no more, for with my family I died, but when you came to my door that day I was reborn. I saw that my purpose was not over, even if the only life I had ever known was over, it had simply changed. Now, I wish to be everyone’s mother, to do what I can for all of you who saved me, and for the children, for the new world they will build, with whatever time we each have left.”
And so we have come to call her “Elder Mother”, mother and grandmother to us all. When a child needs comfort, to Elder Mother does he turn for the arms of safety and love he so craves. When an adult needs an ear, a shoulder or a sweet word of hope, to Elder Mother does one turn. Disputes in our group are mediated and resolved with objectivity and kind fairness, if Elder Mother is asked.
And she, like a true mother, demands that at least once per week the whole community we have gathered all sit to eat together at one time - our ‘family meals’. Elder Mother is our glue, holding us together in so many different ways.
Many evenings, Elder Mother tells stories. ” To help the children always remember who we were, and to help them see who we are capable of becoming.” In her stories, she never reveals which are her own stories and which are simply those she saw around her. But her stories weave us into a tapestry of dreams and hope and pride in our ancestry. She reminds not only the children of who we are capable of becoming, of how vital love like hers is in this new world. I aspire to one day hold within me the unconditional love and wisdom with words that she carries for us all.
Lost but no longer alone.
There is no way of knowing how many of us remain, wandering. But as JRR Tolkien once said, "not all who wander are lost".
Sometimes I wonder if our previous lives weren't in some way a preparation for all of this. Struggles making each strong enough in one way or another, to keep us alive when so many others have died. Some would call it "luck", but our little group over time has shown an exaggerated variety of unexpected but crucial abilities, experiences, skills and strategies that, without, we'd never have made it so far.
Is it our genetically coded instinct to survive that reminds each of us just how much a mind really can retain and blend into creatively cunning ways to fix whatever is thrown at us? Our desire to win a challenge, to prove life wrong in its assertion that death be imminent?
We find ourselves relearning what resilient creatures we humans can be when properly motivated. We are unafraid, though often unwilling at first, to fight; but fight we will when survival is threatened.
That's more than likely part of why we have become the adopted family to so many children. In our travels, we find them - alone, barely fed, dirty, cold and afraid. But so many come to us with their tales of parental heroics in the face of insurmountable odds. Tales of sacrifice, barters with the world for the life of their young in return for their own.
We all seem to share that human value that puts our children's lives above all else, especially in these times. I am proud (yet saddened of course), but always deeply and soulfully indebted to those who have come before us and passed into the unknown after this life, to hear their stories of a child saved in the direst of moments by the love of a mother or father or both. To hear of another human, holding onto a faith in the rest of their human race, that this sacrifice would not be in vain. Holding onto a hope that these children, so dearly loved, might be found, saved yet again by the next who is able, to live and to love, and maybe even laugh again one day.
And to carry the lesson of love and survival to the next generation to come. That we shall stand, and we shall sing, and we shall wander, lost for now, but no longer alone.
Sometimes I wonder if our previous lives weren't in some way a preparation for all of this. Struggles making each strong enough in one way or another, to keep us alive when so many others have died. Some would call it "luck", but our little group over time has shown an exaggerated variety of unexpected but crucial abilities, experiences, skills and strategies that, without, we'd never have made it so far.
Is it our genetically coded instinct to survive that reminds each of us just how much a mind really can retain and blend into creatively cunning ways to fix whatever is thrown at us? Our desire to win a challenge, to prove life wrong in its assertion that death be imminent?
We find ourselves relearning what resilient creatures we humans can be when properly motivated. We are unafraid, though often unwilling at first, to fight; but fight we will when survival is threatened.
That's more than likely part of why we have become the adopted family to so many children. In our travels, we find them - alone, barely fed, dirty, cold and afraid. But so many come to us with their tales of parental heroics in the face of insurmountable odds. Tales of sacrifice, barters with the world for the life of their young in return for their own.
We all seem to share that human value that puts our children's lives above all else, especially in these times. I am proud (yet saddened of course), but always deeply and soulfully indebted to those who have come before us and passed into the unknown after this life, to hear their stories of a child saved in the direst of moments by the love of a mother or father or both. To hear of another human, holding onto a faith in the rest of their human race, that this sacrifice would not be in vain. Holding onto a hope that these children, so dearly loved, might be found, saved yet again by the next who is able, to live and to love, and maybe even laugh again one day.
And to carry the lesson of love and survival to the next generation to come. That we shall stand, and we shall sing, and we shall wander, lost for now, but no longer alone.
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