She was happier than she ever knew she could be but most importantly, she wasn’t alone. He brought out the best of who she was and she loved him dearly. The first year was more than she dreamed a marriage could be. Next, came a house full of children and the world was good. Three years later, it fell apart. God gave—and then he took. Jefferson Starbuck Adams died of pneumonia. Maw Sue fell apart, literally in body, mind and spirit. The darkness ate at her soul. The lesser light cast its grimy film over her eyes. She cursed it all, the light and the lesser light, for its greed. Maw Sue said she was never quite the same again. She admitted her heart grew hard at God’s demanding choices for her life, the crosses she had to bear. Meanwhile, while this happened, the Mirror bin never let up on its requirements, its purposed plan for her, so it continued to press her with its demands, rules, and channeling methods until she broke. The voices, the visions, the mind wanderings returned and she checked out of this world. Broken. When Maw Sue told me this part of the story—I think I broke too.
***
Growing up, I was bombarded with stories, antidotes, metaphors and other peculiar things that always pointed to the gift. “Never take the easy way out.” Maw Sue said. “Confront it head on—straight on. Upfront. Don’t back down. Get it over with. Push through it because if you don’t you’ll regret it later. Life will give you every opportunity to take the easy road.” It was an endless word analogy of something or another. She was warning me. She knew the great cost to be appointed such a seekers gift, to receive it, yet leave it dormant. Unused. She knew the utter sadness of leaving a gift unwrapped, unopened, unfulfilled and hidden in obscurity because of fear, insecurities, and obstacles. Cupitor’s are born to pursue and fulfill a quest stirring inside them from the day they are born. It is a divine spark of passion and pursuit that will render them restless until it is acted upon. If unused—it will turn to a curse. Maw Sue, the woman, the child, Susannah Josephine Worrell, my great grandmother had squandered her gift. But before she died, she swore she’d make certain I didn’t squander mine.
Late into the wee hours of the morning, while I laid inside the hospital nursery, Maw Sue sat inside the cedar closet dealing with her demons, and mine. She knew her time was short. She found an old shoe box in the scattered bones of the giant she had dismembered earlier. She removed the lid and placed the shoebox next to the mirror bin. She took a deep breath and unhinged the latch on the wooden box. It snapped open willfully and with force. Her heart suspended itself. A dominant puff of air filled the room, longing for its intricate fulfillment, yearning for its creative purpose, and yet mourning its ultimate loss. “Make lovely your losses. Make lovely your losses. Make lovely your losses.” She cried in sorrow. A cloud of ancient dust billowed upwards making her sneeze. Tiny particles from the past fell upon her skin. Dusty fragments of a pillaged city dissolved into her pores, reawakening inconsolable memories and layers of elegies. She wasn’t strong enough to face what the mirror bin knew, about herself, her past, so she turned her eyes to the other side of the room, refusing the gift, looking away, to the beyond, the nothing of who she had become, who she had always been. Her heart broke in shambles. She lifted the mirror bin with blind eyes and turned it upside down. Her wild aged eyes festered in tears, unable to look at the pieces of her former, pitiful life, scattered in relics and trinkets as old, dusty and worthless as she was. Her gift was on high alert and although she blocked her vision, she was unable to stop her ears from hearing the horrible sounds. The room came alive, her sins finding a voice, laughing, balking, and crying in shrill as if the dark depths of her soul was resurrected from the dead to taunt her. She was numb and voiceless, locked into submission, forced to listen, but not see, until the sounds died to silence. She was emptied. Even so, she kept her eyes shut. She knew the ghosts of her past sat in front of her on their throne of judgment, inside a shoebox of anarchy waiting to speak the narratives of her life, the bitter chronicles hidden away. Her pupils burned in the darkness underneath the folds of her eye lids. When she could take no more, she scrambled blindly on the floor to find the shoebox lid to close it off forever silencing it. When she was sure it was sealed, she opened her eyes and let out a violent sigh. She shoved it into the closet and grabbed the mirror bin, pulling it to her knees and shutting the lid. She collapsed on top of the pewter reflection of herself and bawled like a child. A child that lost everything it had ever loved. And there she slept, all night.
She returned to the hospital bright and early the next morning carrying the mirror bin. It was so old and ancient it looked to be salvaged from the titanic. Despite its apparent age, it was beautiful, intricately designed and held in tack. It was twelve inches wide and nine inches long with carvings, swirls, mysterious symbols, and ancient etchings. It was strange and mysterious, hand wrought and skilled with vision, foresight and preparation. It held a certain urgency about it, the mere appearance would nudge at the souls of anyone that glimpsed it. Fastened with four prongs on each corner, on the outside lid was a square mirror. The glistening reflections off its surface sent prisms of light bouncing across the room, exposing the hidden things, the dark things. According to Maw Sue, there were plenty of those, places where the dark, dreary creatures whom we never see, or pay attention to, are hiding in plain sight, feeding off the light of our existence, instilling fear where there ought to be courage. Hate where there should be love. Bondage where there should be freedom. They slide obstacles in our pathway to hinder our journey. When the light beams hit each dredge of darkness, tiny squeals sound out like fingernails scrapping a chalkboard in three second intervals, making the hair curl up on complete strangers. Sleepers dismiss this feeling of air and mystery because they are intimidated by its unknown qualities. Seekers, who have activated their gifts, can’t help but acknowledge their presence. Over time, sleepers lose the magical, mystery of God, the mysticism of creation, of spirit, of life but seekers will not. Sleepers are never still enough to listen, to hear with their hearts and let their soul be nourished. They are busy with money, power and other earthly prizes and miss the greatest treasure of all.
The ears to hear and the eyes to see. Of all the gifts this is greatest. It is with these gifts we live out our passions, our true nature of being, to see the beautiful surroundings of the world we live in and our place in it. Our vision will access the good, the bad, the terrible splendid gift of life, in its fullness, accessible, real and raw. We shall touch the pain and know its suffering. We shall know the joy and feel its laughter. It is with these gifts the sovereign hand of nature beckons us, and calls us out of our sleep, to seek the hidden things, those destinies that are only found in the bosom of the God who created us. It is with this fullness we shall live. Really live.
On top of the wooden bin is a square mirror, ancient and older than the wood it sits on. The mirror is filled with insidious black bubbles and beady threads that form squiggly lines across its surface. They lay underneath, as if the mirror trapped them there, holding accumulations of time and layers, thick with secrets as old as the people whom have stared into its reflective depths, seeing themselves for who they are, and who they are not, while their spirit dissolves and melts into the cloudiness of the silver, trapping their stories inside its slick and mysterious realm. The mirror holds many descendants, a great and lowly lineages of families long gone, voices and screams muted by time and silenced by oppressors. No more. No more. My birth changed everything.
Click. Click. Click. Maw Sue’s heels announce her entrance across the shiny buffed hallway of the hospital. Ammonia reeks through her nostrils. Her heart beat in raps, filling in the space between the click of her shoe and the next step. The red stone on her neck pulsates expectant, leaping and sucking air. She stopped in front of Lena Hart’s room, the door growing large in her vision. She falls into shock. How—could—she—have—missed—it? It was right in front of her, on the wall, inches from the door, next to the patient’s name.
#333 Hart
The forbidden number. Her
mind shuffled through a montage of events from the previous months. Only now, she was retrieving it, deciphering its mystery. Like the day she went to the chicken coop to gather eggs, putting two eggs aside for her breakfast. The second egg spilled out a triple yolk. At first, it sent a racking spell of shivers down her spine and she almost threw it out instantly before it would have its ill effects on her life. Being overly superstitious she almost took it serious, but since she had put away those things long ago, she simply ignored it and ate a hearty breakfast. Scrambled eggs, mixed with onions and chopped ham, with a side of Tang to wash it down. Days later, she went to pick up her newly ordered tablecloth at the catalog counter of Sears and Roebuck. She took a ticket from the customer ticket counter. Number 333. She was cautious, almost fleeing. But once again, she simply ignored it as a fluke. The next day, three times a day, her alarm clock went off mysteriously at 3:00, 3:13, and then again at 3:33, although she had never set it to begin with. A day later, the grocery receipt, equaling thirty three dollars and thirty three cents left her breathless but she simply ignored it as the rest. All sorts of incidents continued for weeks, until now. This was not chance. This was not simply coincidence. Her mother taught her that everything pointed to something—if you look hard enough. For Cupitors, it was always a sign and now Maw Sue had missed all of them. She felt like a failure, again, not only for herself but for me. Was this a warning? If she had put everything together months ago, would it have changed things? A phone rang loudly from the nurse’s station. It startled her from her dark thoughts. All she could do now, was go in, even without answers. She rapped on the door and entered in. “How is the little one this morning?”
“She’s restless as ever I can tell you that much.” Lena said sitting up in the bed. Her eyes were droopy with dark moons underneath. Her legs were sprawled halfway inside the cover and halfway out with me in between kicking like white fire.
“Oh. Yes. I reckon she is.” Maw Sue said feeling a familiar quiver. Knowing, remembering. She nudged the door closed with her elbow and walked towards me.
It had begun. There was no turning back. Nowhere to run. Only forward. Maw Sue laid the box on the nightstand.
“What’s that?” Lena said.
“It’s a gift. For the child. It’s a family heirloom passed down to the first born. It’s called the mirror bin. It’s been in my family for generations. It is quite…” Maw Sue paused. “Special.” A streak of light glistened across the room at light speed coming from the pewter reflections. A crackled chalkboard cry shrilled out from the dark corners that only a discerning ear might hear—then silence, deafening silence as if the imagination is playing childish tricks. Lena flinched as if she had seen something too.
“It’s important she keeps it in her room” Maw Sue said, “near her bed or under her bed, either one.”
“Uh…yeah, okay. Thanks.” Lena had been warned of Maw Sue’s peculiar ways so it wasn’t a surprise. “You want to hold her?” Lena jumped up from the bed and before Maw Sue could answer her, she plucked me up and passed me over.
“God. I have to pee like Niagara Falls.”
While my mother emptied her full bladder, a number of magisterial events took place. The mirror bin humming a low noise, and vibrated across the nightstand establishing a connection to me. It was time to bestow its gifts and idiosyncrasies. It threw off light beams from the mirror reflections and the room filled with a thousand faces, generations of family members, all dead and gone, screaming out their stories to me. My mouth opened and swallowed the words taking in the fullness of all that was. Maw Sue looked with wonder and regret. Both of us fell into a gaze of light as the gift had its way with me and its former occupant. And then…not to be outdone by the light, the curse made its presence known. This was not of the light or the lesser light, this kind of darkness existed in between the two, the darkest of the dark. Maw Sue doesn’t like to talk about that part of the story, except for my benefit.
“To lose one’s mind, once, is maddening enough” she said many times, “but to lose it over and over again is living breathing torture, worse than dying. I imagine this to be the hell Jesus talked of, never ending.”
In the hospital, she held me tenderly with care until the transfer of gifts had finished its mission. “Little one.” She whispered. “I’m your Maw Sue. You are going to fulfill your namesake honey. You will do what I could not.” Her heart swelled inside her she thought she might burst. “This time—I will do right by you.”
Susannah Josephine Worrell held a second chance in seven pounds of redemptive flesh, a way to right her wrongs and Lord knows, there were many of those. Through me, the first born, the great grandchild, the chosen Cupitor—she would make lovely her losses.
Fairytale Bullshit
We had been married a week exactly. It was enough time to figure out that the fairytale was bullshit. I had made a terrible mistake. It seems I was always doing that. Messing up, bad decisions, wrong moves. I was in a pickle this time. A bad marriage pickle. I wished for a wondering tree to spring up outside my window so I could climb it, regroup, ask the man in the moon for help, plea for God’s wisdom. I would wonder how a person could be married and yet still feel alone? Why my memory bank is shut off, why I can’t feel good feelings, if I ever had any to begin with. I would wonder why I feel so alone, all the time, even with people. I would wonder why it feels as if I’m missing something important. Something very, very important.
In that moment of wondering without my wondering tree, I felt completely lost, misunderstood and trapped. I was alone. Married, but alone. Branson was always gone. Body, mind and spirit, unavailable. He threw out crumbs of affection here and there, keeping me interested, tidbits to survive a day at a time. It kept me alive and miserable and desperate for the next filling, the next crumb of affection, or kiss, or act of genuine kindness. He did have those things, but it came rarely as if he was preoccupied with other things. Here but not here. The unavailability made me crazy obsessive. I turned into this needy leech. When Branson wasn’t working he was drinking. When he wasn’t drinking, he was high or in bars, or parking lots with buddies drinking, or worse than that, some seedy strip club. I saw glimpses of this behavior before we married but I thought it was men being men and it would change after our marriage. I thought coming home to a cooked meal was what all men wanted and sex, of course. Fulfill our duty, right? The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, isn’t that what the south tells its women? One week into the vow and I was stuck wondering how in the hell I got myself into this situation. I sat alone on the marriage bed. I wondered without a tree. I wanted to run. I couldn’t go backward nor forward. Stuck. Inside my mind, the dialogue devil raged, ranted and warned. I could see my marriage turning out like my parents. Hell no. I remember their fights when I was a kid, dad drinking and mom screaming or giving us silent treatment, punishment. Or dad’s affairs and then mom’s affairs to pay him back, this horrible marriage of tit for tat. Worse than that was Mom driving around all night looking for dad’s whereabouts, while Mag and I tried to sleep in the back seat of MISS. Those plastic bubble seat covers were cold and noisy and stuck to our skin, pinching us as we rolled around side to side, on top of each other. Lena spinning tires and weaving through dark streets, all the while cursing from the front seat.
Jesus every loving Christ! I was doing the exact same thing, now, except I didn’t have a backseat full of kids to screw up. I was devastated. I needed advice. I needed help. And who do I call? I call my mother. What? Beep—beep, back the truck up Willodean. Okay, let’s stop right and sort this out.
One: It’s a baby Jesus mother Mary miracle moment of sheer absurdity when I decide to call Lena Hart for anything—but for relationship advice? Really Willodean, really? As a child I looked at my parent’s relationship with pure, unabated confusion as to how those two came together in the first place. But here I am, sure as shit on a shingle dialing her number. I fully expected a star to pop up in the horizon and three wise men barge in
on camels presenting gifts of motherly love and declaring, “You are making a wise decision Willodean.”
I mean, what was I thinking? Seriously, we have never, ever, in a bazillion years discussed anything remotely serious in nature. I mean, sure, she’s my mom and all. She birthed me, fed me, and did the normal every day care taking southern—keep—your—distance—it’s—alive—kind of thing. This was the extent of it. I thought every daughter mother relationship was like ours. So—when I call her, you can bet your sweet bippy that me, yes, me, Willodean Hart, is crashing and burning. Indeed.
I was wrecked, in love with love, broken. A woman who suddenly realized the enormous consequences of her impulsive broken knob decisions. At this fragile moment, all I needed to mend my heart and soul was a compassionate ear, a little grace, a little motherly advice. I needed to not feel so alone in the world, with my thoughts, regrets, and awful decisions. I felt controlled by things that were out of control which intensified my need to control even more so. A vicious cycle.
I needed Lena Hart, my mother, my flesh and blood to tell me it was okay and that everything was going to be just fine. I didn’t need lectures or antidotes or I told you so’s. I needed my mother. Maybe for the first time, I finally admitted that I needed her. I needed her arms to hug me from the other end of the phone. I needed her lips to tell me that people make mistakes. Maybe she’d share a little of her story to make me feel better, not so alone in the world. Considering I know nothing about her, whatsoever, this would be a miracle story I’d probably cherish. I wanted her to tell me it’s perfectly okay to make bad decisions, it happens all the time, chipper up, spit-spot, get on with life, start over. I wanted her to pass the phone to dad and he’d say, “Well, honeybun, did you learn anything?” And then in a few years, long after the annulment was signed and I had a new wonderful life, we’d all laugh and talk about how silly I was to believe in fairy tales, romances and bullshit like that.
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