#62 - In boxes in the barn

They all left, the house is empty
and when you open the door there's a mirror
in which you see yourself whole.  It makes you shiver -  
Pablo Neruda
 

My cat brushes my leg for no particular reason except that she enjoys a frame of reference that is her, smells like her, is essentially a mini-mirror of herself.  She rubs up against the furniture, the legs of strangers, the legs of tables, the girl dog that doesn't chase her - leaves a small picture of herself everywhere she can, and then settles into a nice nap, nestled safely in her own reflection.

I decorate my house with things I pick up on the road, mementos people send, piles of books, rocks, egg gourds, bottles from old ships... lately paintings of saints, a pope, a handful of wire-haired angels carved roughly out of soft wood by some south american artisan somewhere.

Frame of reference.  Where I've been, who I've seen, what they said, who I am.  I find myself taking down the pieces and pictures along the way that remind me of anything unpleasant or painful - some dark minute when the wide-eyed wonder shrank, thin and gray.. some vessel for regret or scar tissue.. get rid of it, I tell myself.  Life is too short.  The reflection of me, the reference point for the thing I said or the thing she did - or the bristled black rope to the day he left (with plenty of warning) - get rid of it.  I've nearly cleared it all out.

"But it's the scar tissue that holds us together!," laughs Arbutus from the passenger seat.  "It's the compound between the joints.. the knees..the hips.  Scar tissue holds us together.  That and the memory that we used to know how to walk on the water..."

Hm..

Where did I put all the scar tissue? 
Ah, right - it's in boxes in the barn... It hardly whispers anymore.. maybe I'll bring it back in.