The Crone

I moved to the chilly forest mid-April. I didn't bring long underwear. There is also a felt pelt my girlfriend made that I used to tie round my waist like a skirt. It kept me warm and dry, since it's made of wool. But that remained her possession when I left. Had I asked for it I'm sure it would've been given but I wasn't thinking of cold. Now I'm here, in the chilly forest still trying to catch the rhythm of warmth. My firewood is damp and my patience to coax flames is waned after too long. There is a burgundy blanket I've taken up as a shawl. It's never been my habit to wear shawls, rather than a function I always saw the form. That wasn't the form I wanted to align to. I never thought of it until now. My great grandma wore shawls and that's precisely what it reminded me of. Of a woman, not necessarily old, but mature. I always dress like a tomboy. I've been trying to change it the last while. Knowing I've outgrown the youth vibe. Not that I'm not young and timeless in soul. My spirit though knows something isn't right in jeans and t-shirts all the time. If not sophistication at least maturity. Then I think my face will take care of showing that, with its new lines and falls. But I just look older and more confused. I've taken on the shawl. I enact the crone when i put it on. i am her, my great grandmother near the end of her life, doing the most elaborate needlepoint from her big chair, her arthritic legs up on the stool. She built a small empire, my great grandmother. she was a business woman and a matriarch. she was married to a soldier who became a bartender at the soldier's club after the war. The Army & Navy up Fraser Street in Vancouver. My dad told me a story about Gramps who liked to hide bottles in the basement. Gramps was walking to work one afternoon. He was carrying an umbrella, folded, it wasn't raining. My dad and his friends approached him from behind on their bikes. He was caught off guard when they went by, yelling at him. He pulled up his umbrella like a bayonet, my dad said, ready to fight them... Yes, most of the men on that side of my family preferred drink as a state of mind but my great grandma and her two daughters sat up til 3am around the kitchen table doing flowers for a wedding the next day. I remember the big clippers in great grandma's hand for cutting stems. I stuck my tongue out at her one time and she held those scissors with ferocity and said in her deep voice, "I'LL CUT IT OFF!"