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Show Moon - 81 at the seeds coiling in her belly like young ferns. She might raise her arms to the moon and say, "Yes, I want you." At the end of the solitude the older women would come to her single file, each touching her head and her feet in a ceremony of blessing her body. Then they'd bathe her, dress her in feathers and furs, and lead her out to the celebration with the entire tribe lavishing gifts, feasting and dancing and singing. My story would have been a different story, then, as would have been yours, Mother, and Ruth's, and all the women before us who learned to be ashamed in the face of a god who cursed all women and cursed the men who felt they had to rule them. The God of the American church in Germany was pallid, a pale imitation of Himself who long ago had lost the power to curse or bless and whatever else a god is supposed to do. He asked only that they put a dime in the collection plate and not ask difficult questions. Joy stopped thinking about God, for she now worshipped boys. Being Right became a matter of doing what the other kids said. She learned to whisper in little circles with the best of them, to laugh at the right times, to be, even, a little bit mean. Although she sometimes made posters for school projects, and excelled in art class, she made light of her art, needing to be simply a normal girl. It was necessary, too, her mother told her, that she give up riding horses lest she injure her delicate female parts. Joy felt a heaviness begin to fold in on her like the walls of an airless room. Becoming a woman seemed to demand closing the door on everything she'd loved, so with a sullen vengefulness against herself, she turned away from rocks at the edge of the river which might force her to kneel down and search for the best among them. She had to stand firm |