Authentic
by Deirdre Maultsaid
Don't you remember it was at the Courtenay Fair where
I bought my wallet in the first place? It was rough leather, sewn
together with jute, by hand. I laughed when you thanked me for being
your inspiration as you sold every copy of your poetry chapbook,
"Musings and Enchantments of the Everyday" off the corner of a
patchouli stand. We listened to a local group do a cover of "Are
you going to Scarborough Fair?" and you kissed my throat above my
white lace dress.
Don't you remember when I came home that night after I
cut my thumb at the restaurant and we huddled in front of the space
heater and then we ran to bed quick where you kissed my finger, and
other parts, and I told you that at the hospital, the restaurant manager
had held my "hippie" wallet away from himself as if it were
poisonous? What I had in my wallet then: ten dollars, a health insurance
card, a driver's license and a little note of apology you had written to
me. It said: "The world makes a test of every shadow. Because of
love, I will pass through and carve a life out of blinding white light.
I know I will find you there, waiting to take shape."
Don't you remember the day my wallet (my whole purse)
was stolen when we were at that beach cove at Zahara de Los Atunes on
the Spanish Atlantic where you had been doing research for your
experimental Canada-Council funded travelogue: "Andalucia: Musings
and Memories of Conquest"? We had left the car to play volley ball
with the kids and they tolerated me--"Good spike, Mom"--even
though they are both on that co-ed varsity team.
Don't you remember I sat on the sand and cried in
frustration at the stolen wallet: credit cards, bank cards, health
insurance, airline point cards, photos of the kids, receipts, business
cards, a gym membership. I also cried in sorrow for that beautiful
wallet which had endured for 25 years. Back then, using a handicraft
made by a cottage industry was a political statement about a natural and
authentic country life, wasn't it? Devon knelt on the sand and teased
me, "Mom, were you really a hippie? Where's your stuff? We could
wear it to a costume party!"
Don't you remember it wasn't until after the
rigamarole with the police and car insurance and a cold drink at the
hotel that I had the courage to tell you that in the bottom of my stolen
purse had been three rolls of your undeveloped film and a cassette from
your hand-held recorder that I still hadn't transcribed?
Don't you remember that while Devon and Avalon
exclaimed over the smashed car windows, the first thing you said to me,
when you realized we had been robbed, the first question you asked,
staring right at me with your eyes ablaze, "Was there anything of
mine in your purse?"
Deirdre Maultsaid writes: "I am a
Canadian writer living in Spain with my family, where I am revising my
novel, "The Cold Ashes of Her Shelter" for which I am seeking
a book publisher. I have been published in print in Other Voices and
Zygote (Canada), a Rowan Books anthology "Study in Grey"
(Canada) and on the Internet at:
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