The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder (36 page)

“Are you cold?” he asked.

I nodded.

Then Tuck slipped his old sweatshirt over my head. The gentle touch of his hands made it hard to keep standing. He handed me a pair of sweatpants to slip into, then poured some coffee from the thermos.

Taking the cup of hot chicory coffee, I warmed my hands on it for a moment before I took a sip. It was perfect. Cream and two sugars, the way I’ve liked it my whole life.

“You remembered,” I said, sitting at the edge of the pier.

“Yeah, Calla Lily,” he said, sitting next to me. “I did.” The warmth of his body next to mine brought both comfort and arousal.
I could get used to this.

I looked out at the waters of the La Luna River, at the blue Louisiana sky, and at the man at my side. And all I could do was give a prayer of thanks. All I could do was sip my coffee, kick my legs in the water, and think,
Yum, yum, yum.

T
he breaths of my daughters and sons are the notes that sew their songs together. If I could enfold my children in a soft silk cloth and play lullabies to them from a harp of gold, I would. But there are pastures for them to ride, to plant, to tend. There are streets to be crossed, friendships to cement, hearts to be broken and healed, and hairdos to create! If I could, I would lift them from their bodies and let them fly, free of fear, in a wide open sky. But they would miss the lyrics of being human: the dance in the kitchen; the touch of bodies in bed; the near-mad grief at the loss of a dear one; friendship with a dog; the laughter of friends over good food; the gift of a cool breeze out of nowhere on the face while walking on the levee in mid-June in La Luna. If I could, do you think I would spare my babies from the pain and love and suffering of the body from the first breath drawn? If I could, I would spill a silk sack of secrets down, like fireflies in the hot magic air. But my dear ones might not be ready. They might just swat those sacred secrets away like mosquitoes. If I could, do you think I would use my lunar power to rob them of their beautiful, poignant, soulful earth opera?

I must hold these questions and ponder them in my beating heart and accept that there may be no answers, only the mystery, the great mystery of it all.

I too must know what it is to wane, to grow thin and disappear. After I have grown my fullest and lit every tiny leaf, I must love them as I leave them in my slow fade to black for a while. I must hide so they will seek me as they touch the woman on the corner who is ever so slightly crazy and has hidden it well. They must touch the crazy one inside themselves. They must touch the lonely one, the lost one, the wanting one, the motherless one. They must touch their own brokenness as if it were a pearl of great value, then use it as the key to that which most needs to be unlocked. No matter how great their brokenness, there are still dove gray clouds and blazing suns and music too old for the radio; the old wooden floors and green blue earth they dance on with its pecan orchards and old live oaks; its tender soil, its rivers and tributaries flowing out to the mighty oceans. They must know that they have only this moment and all the time in the world. They must take the world into themselves, then harvest their very selves into themselves.

“All the time in the world” is the song of the blue fescue grass. “Only this moment” sings the air as the mallard duck drops down onto the marsh water.

I am with you while you sleep, I am the dream of world peace that dances like the little angels on the bedstand lampshade. I am the ballerina on the pillowcase that touches your cheek. I wait with you, my babies, I wait with you when you lie down on the old single cot and fall back, finally, into my arms.

I am there with you while you sit on the steps of the back porch and hear the screen door slam. I am the peach you saved—“Don’t eat that one yet! I’m waiting until it is just ripe.” I am with you until you hear the message the jasmine sends to the noon day sun. I am with you while you work, read, study, hold hands, touch and receive the touches from other bodies.

See? It is not what you thought. You are not alone. As I hold you in my arms, the body’s weight drops away. As the heaviness of the body falls away, you grow light.

I see that somewhere in La Luna, a baby cries out, announcing its arrival on the planet. Soul will roll down into an infant girl. I hear tears of joy shed. Oh, at moments like these, I want to reach down and scoop up the little human baby child for just one second, to hold her against my breast. Oh yes, the heavens long for the earth as the earth longs for the heavens. And the sheath that separates us is so fine that never in eternity will we comprehend where earth ends and the heavens begin.

Oh, I know the moon and the moon knows me. I am the Moon Lady. I am the moon and the moon is me. I am La Luna. I watch my children on the banks of a river in the heart of Louisiana. There is one particular daughter there named for a flower. Her mother Lenora makes sure I keep special watch over her.

I am the Moon Lady. I watch my darling children in the beating heart of Louisiana, in the lovely soul of the world.

REBECCA WELLS
is a novelist, actor, and playwright. She is the author of the
New York Times
bestsellers
Ya-Yas in Bloom, Little Altars Everywhere
(winner of the Western States Book Award), and
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
(winner of the American Booksellers Book of the Year Award, short-listed for the Orange Prize), which was made into a feature film. She performs from her work internationally, and her books have been translated into twenty-three languages. A native of Louisiana, she now makes her home on an island in Puget Sound, Washington, with her husband, their spaniel, and three sheep.

www.RebeccaWellsBooks.com

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FICTION

Little Altars Everywhere

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Ya-Yas in Bloom

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE CROWNING GLORY OF CALLA LILY PONDER
. Copyright © 2009 by Rebecca Wells. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189213-4

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