I’ve seen the quote attributed to various people, most often to Malia Makana but sometimes to other writers, almost all female. The author, the speaker, avows that she has differently assembled herself. Presumably time has passed since the person to whom the assurance is given has seen her. “I put the pieces back differently,” she vouchsafes.

I feel her, whomever she is.

I recently got a message from a man who only knows me through my writing and my comments on his poetry. We’ve never met in real time. I believe we might have spoken on the phone once, years ago, at least a decade. He’s married to someone whom I have met, in the days before they married. They both write.

In the gentleman’s message, he commented on the emotions he thinks permeate recent social media posts of mine. His sincerity reached me. I do not agree with his assessment, but I concede that neither of us can claim objectivity. I do not know what motivates him; as for myself, I’m trying to survive. Flying under the radar serves me, as do cryptic replies and gentle smiles.

The crows returned to the Delta this week. They settle on guy wires and the spindly branches of winter trees. They hover on the levee roads, deigning to move only if you tap your horn and insist. With breathtaking wingspans and fat, cornfield-fed bodies, they could raise a small dog into the air but don’t bother. They catch my attention as I drive to work. I wonder where they live in warmer months but not enough to even run a simple Internet search. They’re here; and in the spring, with the snow geese, they leave. We stay behind and watch as they lift their unwieldy figures into air that we cannot even touch.

The acquaintance who messaged me comments on what he sees as dark moods. As I read his words, a strange sensation courses through me. He has no idea. I stumble through most days in a daze, tired, puzzled, stunned even. I see the grey hair and quiet eyes in my mirror. I truly had no idea that I would make it to seventy, but at the same time, I never forgot that I promised to live practically forever. Both cannot be true, so I just kept walking, best foot forward, hoping for the best — whatever one could say that might be.

Another person whom I know has gone abroad and remarks, again on social media, that holidays depress her. She sees herself as having failed to acquire the packaged life that she though women must have Husband, kids, PTA meetings, a spotless house, deftly wrapped presents under the tree. I understand what she feels. I perceive myself as blowing that chance three-fold. Even as I type those words, I hear protests about how great people think I am, how much good I have done, how many children I helped. Their words come too late, decades after I internalized the droning mantras about what makes a real woman.

Yet I am not unhappy, despite the occasional bout of melancholy. Unbidden smiles do spring to my face. Jokes occasionally tickle my fancy. Small children come into my shop and hunt for the 3D dragons that we’ve hidden low shelves and their squeals of delight satisfy me. They show me their finds. When I ask them to pick one to keep, they study the inch-high figures, select one, and scurry through the rooms of our store to re-hide the rest. One cannot ask for much more than this: To provide a safe space for people’s sons and daughters to play while their grown-ups browse the beautiful art.

If longing overcomes me from time to time, it shares space with a growing sense of content. The shelf on which I once displayed copies of my book stands empty. I only sold a couple hundred copies, but the other day, a customer mentioned having read it. “It took me all year,” she remarked. “I read one piece each week. They delighted me.” She paid for whatever she had selected that day, wished me “Happy Holidays”, and left the store, unaware of the absolute astonishment coursing through my veins. Is this how real writers feel, I asked myself. Like someone tied a string to their heart and took them across the ocean tied to the stem of a golden sailboat?

I think of all the people who delighted in taking a tap hammer to that same organ, smashing it to the pieces that I’ve painstakingly reglued to form my new self. I can’t lay claim to putting the pieces back together in a different pattern with deliberate intention. It’s more a matter of fumbling, fingers numb, hastening to jam the jagged shards in place before the super glue hardens. I pry open clamps meant for holding wood and ease them onto the fragile porcelain of my splintered psyche. Too late, I recall the Japanese practice of repairing broken bowls with liquid gold. Oh well, I tell myself, with an inward shrug. I’m far from perfect, but perhaps, in the end, I will suffice.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®

The Crystal Gazer

Sara Teasdale 1884 – 1933

I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
Fusing them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
Watching the future come and the present go,
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In restless self-importance to and fro.