eleven
She came, sheepish, but
Bursting to pour her story
out on me
"The moth, mum, it could NOT fly!"
She hugged her knees, recalling
stuck-ness.
"So I picked it up and held it in my hand."
Oh, my own logic quipped -
not much chance of flight now.
But she grinned.
"And mum - I whispered to her!
I said, Fly! Little one, Fly!!!"
Knees abandoned,
her animated hands now
holding an unseen, teetering moth
between us.
She faltered.
Her eyes snapped back to mine,
as her memory recalled
a tug of war
over plausibility structures.
I narrowed the space between us,
and returned a non-anxious gaze.
She abandoned the war-rope
and saw, again,
a moth
under command.
Her voice, soft with mystery -
"And then mum,
I whispered to God:
Pleeeeese let her fly!!"
Her eyes were alight with
the memory
and possibility
of a miracle unfolding.
Now inside the memory,
she closed her eyes.
"Then I breathed on her mum,
like this - "
And she inhaled.
All the beauty she could draw
from the space between us -
she inhaled;
Augmented with
all the healing intent
of her small volume.
And she exhaled.
Slow,
and oh, with such
covering.
-the moth now
all but drenched
in her particles
of love.
Hands still aloft,
She opens her eyes to mine.
Sparks fly.
"And she FLEW mum,
She flew away!
AWAY!"
Her wide, green eyes,
believe.
I am giddily delighted
in her joy.
And simultaneously, I
slam the foot of my own disbelief
in the door.
You. have. no. place. here.
I kneel, then,
at the knees of one
whose mouth
-whose very breath -
is open to the spirit
who roams the earth
searching
for willing hearts
such as these.
"Mum?"
"Yes."
My arms enfold her body,
my ear against that heart.
"I didn't know
if it was real."
I raged, then,
at a world
blind enough to tell her
otherwise.
And - yes, in a thousand unspoken ways -
that is me.
"Did it happen,
beautiful girl?"
"Yes mum, it did."
"Did she fly?"
"Yes."
"Then nothing is
more real.
God longs to hear your heart.
He heard you."
And then she too,
flew away
to another adventure,
lighter than she
came.
I'm not surprised.
She had breathed
the spirit of life
and so set another
free.
She had fought
-and won-
against the hollowing
of disbelief.
Then she held out
her enchantment
to me.
And for another day,
my blurring, green eyes,
See.
Eleven.
Eleven is the last temporal bastion of enchantment before hormones fire from all canons and the brain rewires itself—sometimes into twisting knots of scepticism and disbelief.
My youngest. Ever drawn to the gossamer-like edges of reality, she is curious and looking for God. In her stories, I see what I have lost somewhere between eleven and now: open-eyed wonder, delight in simple matter, unabashed leaning into hope, and the uninhibited joy that leaks out of moments of remembrance.
I remember it. Standing with my cousins at the towering windows of my Opa and Oma’s home—every year— on the eve of the Sinterklaas festival. Tipey-toed, scanning frantically up and down the river to catch Santa and his reindeer as they came to deliver our gifts. I could hear the bells tinkling, everytime. I would see them this year! And just as I was sure I glimpsed them, the doorbell would ring and we would tear our bodies away from the glass, squealing and clambering over one another through the hallway, in a dash through the kitchen to the back door. Everytime, the enormous red sack. Everytime, the tinkling bell receding around the corner. Everytime, the cluster of cousins careering out the door to find Santa or his illusive postman. Everytime, an empty pathway.
It was magical. The adrenaline, the bells, the river, the laughter of the adults testing Opa’s home-made advocaat, the anticipation of the gifts, the warmth of belonging. The enchantment of it all was enough, and all-encompassing.
Now many times eleven, I lean again into the hope of what can’t be seen unless I give myself over to it. Here, wonder has a name and delight runs with the grain. Matter is connected to everything else, and hope moves along the translucent webs that hold it all together. I believe.
It seems fitting to finish with one of my favourite poems, by Mary Oliver—
I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. The world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyway, what’s wrong with maybe?
You wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen. I’ll just tell you this: only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.
