Page 88 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

between an Oriental temple instrument and an Australian rain stick. Then there is the

olfactory, that sulfurous emanation which may require a long nose like my own typically long

French one. This is not to forget the tender smoke she exudes, a fuming vocabulary of sorts.

But then, every being has many sides to its beingness.

Burnt matches are one of my collectibles. I began this particular collection over twenty years

ago, and it has gone way beyond my need for praise.I wonder how long it will take me to

gather enough burnt matches to reconstruct a mother aspen tree--a conceptual work at this

stage, yet one I seriously hope to realize. This would be my way of celebrating and thanking

my kin from my deepest 'skin,' my heart. For now, the tiny sticks are enchanting, their

lightness, their spark, the delicate 'unmatchable' sound. Each strike, a mini ceremony in itself.

For Marcel Proust, it was the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea that made him revisit his past.

It is sound that moves me, and I can't decide if it is the sound one little “fire-stick” makes

when dropped on other matches or the psssssss sound of the incandescent tip put out in

water.

I confess I have a special liking for the French word for match, allumette, which is close to the

the word illumine, for light is how Spirit manifests. Match actually comes from the Old French

mèche (the wick of a candle). The beauty of being bilingual is that the world becomes more

expansive, which increases the potential for existential joy and wonder at the mystery and

oneness of life.

Rags are another favorite material. “Better go to heaven in rags than to hell in embroidery,”

reads an old proverb. When I fold newly washed rags, I journey into the past and reconnect

with them as old familiars. It is a celebration of their beingness. A love song. Occasionally, an

exercise in peacemaking. The caramel-colored flannel night gown that once kept me warm is

now a tattered square for reviving old wooden furniture. The seasoned remnant of a cotton

camisole with an embroidered panel now lightly strokes the bathroom mirror. The kitchen

towel, part of the trousseau that traveled with me in an ocean liner trunk on board the S/S

France in 1967, has lost much of its natural linen goodness, but is still good enough to gently

caress the trees that willingly or not sacrificed themselves to chairdom. Rags for me are

ageless poems made of cloth.