August 14, 2022
Three powerful black mares outside on my paved suburban driveway. They are intense and tuned to where I am. I’ve not dreamed of black horses for years.
Oh the pleasure of simple fun with complicated humans is grand, like good fresh air. Live music, water frisbee and even a few games of doubles pool until Maggie comes around to dominate with her Irish Rules (never heard of any of ’em). I rise to meet her broad-chested bristle to win the game – Crow! – then with some instinct for self-preservation, move on and leave her the table.
Reminds me of the Derry Barkeep’s instructions in 2005 – you can play until four o’clock, but don’t win. The Lads’ll be here shortly and they don’t care for Protestants. It was THAT pub, in Derry.
After pool with Maggie I find myself in a pickup band called No Fucks for Love, which gets ’em up dancin & sounds like The Violent Femmes. Oh, the serious, serious silliness of it all.
The suburban house and its driveway (mine?!?) gives me pause. There’s no centre in those neighbourhoods, no gathering place for music or pool playing, no pond for the frogs. It’s just long winding, looping streets with cul-de-sacs, with repeated, identical garages and rooflines. My internal compass relies on rolling hills, tree-lined fields and the infinite horizon of a Great lake – when I visit good friends who live nestled in loops of neat lawns and swept sidewalks we joke about my disoriented-ness.
If I lived in Suburbia I’d feel very, very lost.
Irish Rules, hey Maggie? Okay then I think I’ll make some of my own up, since Grandma was born there. Something around restless fault lines, shifting weather and what we do if the fog sets in like cold thick porridge. It’s not hard, but it’s a good rule – call in Curiosity, to move the air.
If you don’t do this, well then. It’s your own blessed choice to stay stuck, & no complaints.
And here she comes. Like the prow of a great big, gaff-rigged ship nosing herself out of the grey and still.
Oh she’s grand, with colour and music on board, with belly- heaving laughter.
There’s a blue-footed booby on deck, asking good questions.
There are three wild black horses, honed to me.