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WavesMarch 22, 2010 In her wonderful autobiography, Outercourse, Mary Daly writes about feeling that she was riding a great wave on her improbable journey from Catholic schoolgirl in Schenectady, New York, to possibly the most important feminist thinker of the 20th century. I'm having a similiar feeling. The wave I'm riding doesn't feel especially great, but it is insistent. Where it's carrying me I don't know. My friend Susan in New Mexico just noted that her psychic map of my Martha's Vineyard had been changing since Rhodry died and Travvy arrived. Aha. There's a reason for this: my psychic map has been in flux during that time, maybe because the tectonic plates under it were rumbling and shifting and kicking up this wave I'm riding, all out of balance and without much grace, but riding all the same. And the wave is carrying me away from places where I've been hanging out for quite a long time. Hanging out, hanging, suspended -- "the stillness in the wind before the hurricane begins . . ." Last March my sourdough starter died. That kicked me into writing again, and writing was the wave that carried me out of the doldrums I was sinking into after Mud of the Place was published. I'd assumed that Mud would generate some momentum and the momentum would point me in whatever direction I was supposed to be going. It didn't. The bookstores and newspapers pretty much ignored it. I expected people to argue with it, disagree with it, even hate it -- all those things raise enough energy to make things move. Silence doesn't. The unexpected death of my sourdough starter did, in combination with the call from Trivia: Voices of Feminism for work responding to the question "Are lesbians going extinct?" By then Travvy was propelling me forward. I followed where he led, improvising all the way. The owner of the barn Allie was at didn't like Travvy at all. We left that barn. One of my horse-sitting clients didn't like Travvy either: client and I dropped each other, fairly amicably. In both cases, the dissolving of the formal relationship left almost no connection at all. This surprised me a little but not too much: most of my friendships and other personal relationships are rooted in proximity, and when circumstances change there's little incentive on either side to maintain the connection. What I missed at the time, maybe because I was so exhilarated by the feeling that I was moving again, was the direction I was heading in. Or, more important, what I was heading away from: both Travvy and the writing were pulling me away from horses. I haven't ridden since mid-December, and it's not because the winter was especially severe. We've had some lovely weather this month, but when it comes down to choosing what to do with my hours, working is non-negotiable and writing and dog stuff come before riding. My heart has known this for some time, but the practical details were almost too daunting to contemplate. Not to mention -- having been a "born-again horsegirl" for more than a decade, who will I be without a horse? Fate intervened again, in an "accident" as momentous and portentous as the death of my sourdough starter a year ago. More about that tomorrow. The short version is that I've decided to sell Allie.
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