to The Gorge before it gets dark?” asks Jane.
“Sure!” I say, always happy to show it off. “You know, I’m gonna jump off The Rock one of these days.”
“Nice night,” says Rainbow Weaver, looking at me with a wry smile.
“Well, who knows, maybe tonight!” I chirp nervously.
This walk, always so soothing, acquires an unfamiliar edge. I might actually have to do this.
In no time we arrive at The Rock. My eye screens little movies of my foot catching on the way down, lacerations, Mr. Crabby calling the police, a severely broken—
“Beautiful spot,” says Rainbow Weaver. She drinks in the power of the hemlocks, the stone, the falls, lit by patterns of setting sun. Her gaze rests on me. In her eyes I meet my own desire to do this thing.
“Well, I just might jump tonight.”
“If you do it tonight, you’ll have witnesses.”
Something I’d never considered. The Jump is instantly more appealing.
“Never be a better time, I guess,” I say, with a knocking heart. I strip off my cotton skirt, leave on my tank top and underwear. Rushy blood. Metallic taste of fear. I‘ll pluck up my courage with a thanking chant to The Rock. I compose it on the spot. “Thank you for the gift of courage, Brother Rock, Brother Rock. Thank you for the gift of life, Mother Earth, Mother Earth.”
Rainbow and Jane join me on the choruses. I am marching around rhythmically now, close to the edge, girding my loins, careful to thank and bless each nature spirit and my own body and my witnesses—
“You just keep making up verses, don’t you?” says Rainbow.
I pause to defend myself but at once I know she’s “RIGHT!” I shout. With a pumping leap and an animal yell, I plunge off the rock, down, down, deep into the icy water, down and down, never touching bottom, then pulling up and up, bursting through the surface, exhilarated, splashing, whooping like a joy-drunk child.
Rainbow Weaver was a wise teacher. From those brief moments in her company I learned many things about approaching risk: to observe myself without judgment, to keep a sense of humor and a light touch, to invite witnesses if I wish. Most important, there comes a time to stop approaching a risk and take it, letting desire propel me.
As I paddled deliciously round in the pool, I found I hadn’t lost Neat Falls after all.
Perfect or not,
here I come.
Which comes first, the chicken or the charm?
We loved our little old farmhouse, set in the woods, my first garden. A charming nest of creativity. Plays, movies, poems, calligraphy, books, even my performing literary magazine (The Art Garden) was hatched there. Crystals amplified our energy. Pure streams of belief in creation flowed.
Yet when we had six to dinner in our booklined baby dining room and one felt the call of nature, three guests had to stand to offer access. Bedrooms small as twin beds were our studios, so overnight guests folded up on the fold-out couch. A beloved jumble. But after five years, even our muses were crowded.
We began our hunt, not knowing quite what we wanted, knowing we would know it when we saw it.
I had a dream one night of a fascinating, satisfying, three-floored house, where I ascended the top flight of stairs to see a sign that said, “Welcome, Writer.” Out the window I saw artists working on the house, colors ribboning.
Three years into our search, we found a stopgap dream house. A pond, a place to walk the dog, quirky rooflines. We could take this wall down, this could work. Road a bit too busy, house a bit exposed, but this could work. We make an offer. The owner accepts. We exchange homebaked pies.
Just as our giant complex wheels of financing began to turn, we were crushed to discover she took a weekender’s cash offer. Didn’t even call us. Tears in our eyes. How could she lie with a pie?
Two more years we spent crumpled in our little place, climbing into the realtor’s red Audi at a moment’s notice, wincing at houses peculiar, claustrophobic or badly sited, wrong for all kinds of reasons.
One day our realtor called. “I have a house to show you. I warn you, it’s revolting.”
“Great, Matt. Always interested in seeing a revolting house.”
We were first to see it on its first day on the market.
We still laugh at shelter magazines and their guides to selling your home: Plant a few flowers. Scrub down your house. Paint it white, I read. Whenever we showed our house, I baked cinnamon bread.
This house smelled like ten cats and ten-year-old litter. A patina of filth filmed the walls and the scummy shag rugs. A child-sized turd perched in a bathtub. Still, scruffy-stuccoed, scraggled, we knew at once it was the house for us.
Sunlight wept in relief through the row of French doors. The carved bird above the fireplace, paralyzed in paint, had not fully lost her voice. Peeling walls and wires and the mucky littered basement did not dim this building’s native grace. Meadows opened like peripheral vision, taking in wild turkeys, redtail hawks, the rising moon, the sound of church bells. I felt like Vita finding Sissinghurst.
Early the next morning, I rummaged through my little studio. How to claim this house? I found a tiny cube of Japanese stick ink. Ink. Perfect symbol for two writers. I tied a narrow slate blue ribbon round it, slipped the midget gift into my pocket.
We met the realtor at the house at noon. Away from his eyes, I palmed my inky charm, slid it to the back of an attic closet shelf, claimed the house in full belief. Happy hearts pounding, we put in our bid.
Two days later, we got the call. Our bid had been accepted.
Click of heels and clink of glasses! Gosh, that charm worked fast! But next day, a call from our accountant drew our celebration to a screeching halt.
“You could squeak on through, but I think you really want to sell your house before you buy this one. Just to keep things comfortable.”
Shoot. We thought we had a hold of the house that had a hold on us. It felt so much like ours. Tail between our legs, we made the call, withdrew the offer.
Back on the market it went. We had to sell and couldn’t speed the process. Months went by. No matter how many bouquets I set out or loaves I sugared, we couldn’t charm a couple into buying.
But every so often, and on every major holiday, we found our way to the lane of our hopeful house, as close as we could get without trespassing. We stretched and bent to glimpse it through the tangled hedgerows, peering through the prickly barberry at the grounds, the house itself transfixed by a woebegone, cobwebby, sleeping-beauty charm, cast by the troubled family who owned it.
Inspired, perhaps, by the Top Hat, The Scottie, The Roadster—charms of the real estate board game—each time we visited,
