My Afternoon with Dorothy

Dorothy says that my problem is that I am not yet a crone. I am no longer young, thisis true, but I have quite a way to go before I attain true crone status.Crone is an ugly word and I am not at all sure I want to become one, but Dorothy explains that it pertains to a woman for whom age has brought wisdom, perspective, and even a certain kind of freedom.Since she is a crone and I am not, Dorothy lovingly offers to be my guide. “It will be like having an older sister,” she tells me. (And I do think it would be nice to have one, instead of always having been one.)

Dorothy is in fact nearly ten years older than I am, but she manages to be beautiful. Her hair is gray, cut very short, and styled in a natural way that frames her elegant features. She is slender and moves like a dancer, and she always dresses well. Dorothy is not afraid to spend money on a good quality purse or a well-cut jacket, and I respect that about her. She is the kind of person who inspires an adjective all her own: Dorothy-esque, which can refer to a colorful woven shawl, a finely wrought poem, an honest and probing conversation.

Such conversations are in fact her forte. She was a teacher, counselor, and wellnesscoordinator at the school where we both worked. Now she leads writing workshops and women’s groups in which intimacies are shared, realizations are unearthed, emotions are expressed, and often poems are written right there, on the spot. I know all this because I went to one of these Dorothy-esque gatherings once. Participants sat outside in an area shaded by evergreen trees, which gave it a kind of summer camp feeling.Prayer flags fluttered in the breeze, the mountains were visible in the distance, and everyone was welcoming and kind, but it was not my cup of tea. I am a bit skittish and feral, you see. You can gradually lure me in towards the hearth if you’re patient, and I may even take my place in the circle, albeit briefly and awkwardly, but then, inevitably, I feel the need to bolt, and I bolt.But Dorothy knows this about me, and she accepts it, and while I consistently decline her invitations to partake of the women’s group, she consistently gives me her friendship, one-on-one, instead.

On this particular visit, we walk across Highway 154 and stroll into the heart of Los Olivos, where we encounter a handful of our former students, and it’s a little like being famous, which comes with having been a teacher for a long time in a tiny town. A couple of years after they leave you, the kids turn into astonishing young adults who have long ago forgotten the pain of all those essays you made them write, and they look at you in a softer focus, seeing you as the benign, well-meaning advocate you were, and they greet you with affection. As for me, I feel inexplicably proud of them, although I know I played only a miniscule role in their development. At least I did no harm, is what I tell Dorothy. “Oh, we did much better than no harm,” she says. “We inspired them.” I wish I had Dorothy’s confidence. Maybe that will come with crone-hood.

We wander over to St. Mark’s and Dorothy asks me if I’ve ever walked the labyrinth. Somehow I didn’t even know there was one, so of course we go over there and walk it. It’s pretty simple to navigate, not a maze, just a non-branching path to the center, but there’s something soothing and meditative about following it, over and over, until at some point I begin to feel dizzy, but in a good way, if that makes any sense.

Dizzy is what I often am lately, or maybe ditzy is a more precise word, a manifestation of my chronic befuddlement. Here’s the thing: I have lost my confidence. Lost my edge, if indeed I ever had one. I honestly don’t know what I am doing, other than living each day and hoping I am not missing the point.Sometimes I forget how to be with people. Does that sound weird? I become painfully shy and at a loss for words and…well, when I get this way it’s just so much easier not to go out into the world, and yes, I realize I am incredibly blessed that I don’t regularly need to.But shouldn’t I be going someplace? Am I just walking a circular labyrinth?

We go back to Dorothy’s house and sit in the backyard and I can hear the music of a fountain as I tell her, half jokingly, that I am thinking of writing a field guide for the befuddled, and she reads me a few of the poems she has been working on. The plates in the earth’s interior are moving as we sit there in the sunlight, and pressure is accumulating, and a fault line is about to rupture in Haiti ten miles from Port Au Prince, and only 6.2 miles underground.

The fountain murmurs, a red tail hawk soars in the blue sky above us, and Dorothy’s poems are filled with images of light and transformation. Some three thousand miles from where we sit, unimaginable misery and destruction have been unleashed, but for us, it is a flawless afternoon.

I hear about the earthquake on the radio as I am driving home, and of course all of the things I fret about seem silly and self-indulgent. There is no way to make sense of things. We do what we can from where we are, and maybe when I am a crone I’ll understand it better.

But I think of these lines from a poem Dorothy wrote for another friend:

we’re still patching up and holding on

going places to learn

setting a table beautifully

listening as an open lap

a cat far in the distance

trusting friendship

and some ruby words like love

hope

gratitude