Silken Road

Bear nuzzled up to my hand, a puppy face although probably an older dog. He’d growled through the gated door, the shade and light conspiring together to prevent me from seeing him- only allowing the sound to take me back to the German Shepard that terrorized me at work for two years...but I digress.

Once bear sniffed me he padded softly beside me, through the house and into the backyard. The late afternoon sun was pushing the house’s shade over the patio so we pulled chairs into the waning swath of sun and waited for Silk to join us.

She sat down, clad exclusively in white with silver cowrie shells dangling from her ears. She smiled warmly and I settled in to my seat unsure of the reason for our visit.

RhythmQuest (RQ) was intent on pulling me out of myself. Insistent that my view of her was expansive and my view of myself shadowed and stunted. It was a random assertion that sprang from a passing comment I'd made in the car.

On the way to Silk’s I'd said, "I'm a good writer, I just have no story to tell." It seemed harmless to me. It felt an honest assessment of both my strengths and my weaknesses. I started off as a journalist - by definition someone who tells other people's stories. It wasn't meant to disparage myself or my talents but RQ was on me immediately.

"What do you mean you don't have stories? The problem is you don't see your own talent - your own worth."

How did we get there?

“It isn’t that I don’t think I’m worthy...” RQ sighed and rolled her eyes as much as is possible while driving without careening us into an oncoming car. I tried again, “It’s just that your personality is expansive,” I faltered for a moment. “Things happen to me but you seem to seek them out...” It still wasn't right. In my head it made sense but on my tongue I could understand her cynicism. Even so, it was such a strange conversation. Such a strange train of thought that was out of context and ill placed after such a wonderful weekend.

She listed off a litany of experiences, my experiences, that were not of chance. “Volutneering for FEMA after Katrina, escaping to Guatemala after Katrina because you were so upset, any of the countries you lived in.” I listened and tried to be open. I could hear where she was coming from but somehow it made sense when she said it but melts away when she is finished. What would I say about FEMA- about Guatemala? Who would read it? Why?

Sitting in Silk’s backyard, a small oasis of raised beds housing kale and tomatoes, and California-climate appropriate succulents, I assumed the matter was dropped. I don’t know Silk and besides, I assumed RhythmQuest - or Silk - had a reason for the visit. 

They fell into conversation; I skimmed its surface, listening in for pieces that I understood or had context for. RQ, began to expanded the short-hand they had been using to invite me into their conversation, swivelling her chair to make eye contact and providing me details that gave me details and understanding..

Suddenly, Silk, soft spoken and deliberate said...

I can't remember what she said. She repeated it no less than four times but by the second I knew that as far as RQ was concerned it was for me. Silk had leaned forward to impart these words of positivity and assurance to RQ. “Repeat that,” RQ said with a smug smile. “Say it again,” she said when Silk complied. This time she placed her hand on my knee and smiled giddily behind her large brown sunglasses. “I don’t need you to repeat it for me, it’s for her,” she laughed as I flipped her the bird.  

Such irony that despite her repetition I can't recall exactly what she said. Specificity of words aside, it left me with the sentiment that I am meant to unfurl myself to the world-meant to declare myself without reservation.

And then the afternoon shifted and suddenly the spotlight- and not just the sun- was shining on my world.

Silk asked for my story, in her soft and inviting voice. Before I could answer, RQ jumped in and filled in the big spaces the way I usually do with her. She rattled off a close proximity of the list she’d just enumerated in the car. I fought back an urge to cry although I have no idea why.

Silk gently asked me questions about what I do now and my travels and my writing. She shared her ideas about healing people and through that healing of individuals, healing groups. Healing us- black people- with our generations of scars and suffering.

And then she quietly wove in her own story, the journey she is on to manifest her own greatness and the long journey she is still on to get there.

I was caught up. Caught up in her calm and sincerity. Caught up in the credibility a stranger strangely possesses that loved ones cannot.

In some ways Silk is still tainted by love. She loves RQ and and RQ loves me and so who wants to sit in the energy of a friend and tell them the person they love is ordinary. But something about Silk fights against my cynicscm about the biases of love. Something about the quite yet powerful way she seems to inhabit the space around her left me slightly lit – a pilot light of possiblity in charting my own story in less ordinary ways.

Now it is necessary to ride Silk’s wave of certainty about my potential to do something...to do something. To do and not just say that I will do...one day.

I sat down this evening and wrote for more than an hour. It is a step. Not the only step by far but a step none the less.