P
I have not changed my mother’s house since she died because change is no friend of mine. Occasionally, I have had to repair or refinish a table, and a chair or picture, but were mama to return tomorrow she would feel at home.
I often think that I will meet her, as I go from one room to another, mama gliding softly, smiling, holding out her warm hands to me...we would sit and weave by the window, the sea beyond, our voices low. With our terra-cotta lamps gleaming, we would talk until late, too sleepy to chat any longer.
I can’t remember my father, he died so young. His lineage, extending to Agamemnon, frightens me: That inheritance must carry into these thick walls and the glazed tiles—a strong house.
Mama gave me his royal flute, said to be carved from a bull’s leg, but it has been years since I have taken it from its silk-lined box. Its sickly color never pleased me.
Its music comes to me sometimes: mountain vagaries, war music, sea songs, fragments of a day I can never know.
A bat coasts through my open windows.
Is there a better hour than dusk?
I feel that life is infinitely precious at such an hour, that sordidness and decay are lies. It is the hour when we cross the threshold of starlight.
Sometimes, before dropping asleep, I long to see Olympus, as part of this general dream: