Feral

A friend, newly divorced, recently described his state as “feral”. 

I, ladies and gentlemen, am feral.  I once was as domesticated as one can be but I’ve been out in the wild for a number of years now and I’m a savage beast.

Like an escaped house-cat long on it’s own, I have vague memories of food appearing without me hunting it, warmth in the winter, cool in the summer, comfort.  At first it was terrifying here in the wilderness, but over time, I’ve come to like night prowling, fighting for territory, yowling at the moon.

I’ve grown tattered but I’ve also turned scrappy.  I make the most of the sustenance I find.  I care for my young in whatever way I can.  I protect them fiercely but they, too, are scrappy.  They’ve had to be.

And while I often fondly remember the warm house I once slept in, I’m afraid to go back.  That particular house is gone but if offered another indoor opportunity, I have trouble imagining taking it.  Because once you’re inside, they might not let you back out.  Even for an evening.

And so I roam.  I hunt.  I howl.  I gather scars, there’s not an ounce of fat on me (metaphorically speaking).  But I am deeply, unquestionably alive.  I gaze at that fat, fluffy cat sleeping in the window and I’m baffled.  Sure, a nap in luxury would be nice, but don’t you want to smell the jasmine on the night air, saunter alone through the dark woodland, pounce, claw, leap?

It may very well be that I allow myself to be tamed again one day.  It’s entirely possible that I’ll be tempted inside by the soft contours of a quilt-laden couch, a bowl of warm milk.  I’ll entertain human touch.  I don’t think, however, with all these years outside, I’ll ever be that staid creature I once was.  I’ll always be a little wily, a little skittish, a little hard to pin down, firmly aware that I might land in the cold again.  

There’s a Rumi quote I painted on old wood.  It hung by my bed in those early post-split days.  It reads:

Forget safety

Live where you fear to

Destroy your reputation

Be notorious.

Check, check, check and check.

If on a moonlit night, you hear a yowl echoing through the silence and you wonder if it’s a cry of pain or pleasure, don’t worry, it’s just me.  And it’s both.

Love Letter

Last weekend was the annual Fairfax Festival.  It’s a town tradition going back decades.  There’s a parade (my favorite hour of the year), vendors and lots of live music.  The town shuts down to traffic and fills up with people, locals and tourists alike.  

I’ve lived in this town now for eighteen years.  The festival has had different meanings for me in different stages.  The first festival I attended, I was a newlywed, a freshly minted home-owner, a graduate student.  The next year I sported three-month-old Mae in a Baby Bjorn.  The following years were parade-only; let the kids catch the candy thrown by the firefighters and then head home to avoid the press of the drunken crowd.  Eventually, I opened my store in town which meant a big weekend of sales and strategic avoidance of in-shop puking.

Somehow, I have never spent much time watching live music during the festival.  This is weird.  I love this town and I love live music.  I think I’ve always been responsible for children during the festival, which has squashed any impulse to join the revelers.  Between the shop and the kids, I’ve been laden with responsibility, exhausted by day’s end and happy to retreat home. 

On Saturday, I got to the shop early to set up before the parade.  Then I watched as the streets closed and the crowd descended; tie-dye everywhere, sweaty toddlers chasing spooked dogs, parents chasing toddlers, the beer already flowing by ten.

The parade is a mash-up of cub scouts and drag queens, the town council and the ska band, a pre-school octopus float and a rolling Burning Man church.  It is people I know by sight, people I know intimately, both in the parade and in the crowd.  It is pure joy.  There’s a saying about Fairfax: it’s Mayberry on acid.  The parade is the living example of that.

The day was crowded with customers and friends (and friends who are customers and customers who are friends).  Sales were through the roof; a number of my new handmade dresses sailed out the door.  It was wholly satisfying.

At five, as the crowd got louder and sloppier, I closed my doors and strolled down to the green to watch my friends’ band.  As I stood in the shade of the redwoods in the swaying crowd, cradling my metal cup of shitty chardonnay (my very favorite), minorly lusting after the lead singer (isn’t that required?), the breeze cutting the heat, alone but surrounded by friends and acquaintances, I felt a familiar, ancient opening.  I felt in love.  With this town, with these people, with this life.  And I knew that simply standing here, alone, free, wouldn’t have been possible pre-divorce.  It hasn’t been an easy transformation going from suburban, married, stay-at-home mother of three to designer, shop-owner, singleton, pursuer of pleasure and truth.  But, standing there, whole, unencumbered by expectation or convention, breathing in the pot smoke of a hundred joints, the evening wide open ahead of me, all that effort, all that pain, felt worth it.

The local photographer, Stephanie Mohan, who has documented me and mine since the kids were babies, has published a gorgeous book of portraits.  It’s called “Faces of Fairfax” and it features town institutions: the coffee-roaster, the mayor, the lady who seems to work at every shop, the beautiful bartender couple with their exquisite baby, the old, the young, the makers, the dancers, the freaks.  And, on page twelve, is me.  I’m wearing a red hat and red lipstick, a purple faux fur coat.  And I’m smiling so wide.  

I love this town.  I love this town.  I’m sorry, did you not hear me?  I love this town.