Remembering September Margo Marcella Mithra MacPhee

I thought for a moment that it was September, and maybe it was for that brief second of apple-smelling cool air tranquility. September in Wales, September in Scotland, September on Orcas Island or in Mexico City. September in Bogota…God forbid that I put myself there again…frail child in a pink dress before brick walls, iron gates and bayonet wielding dark- skinned men in military garb. Who was I, and why there or on the streets of Milan at night or in Chapultepec in the wee hours of a Mexican morning?

It isn’t September. It’s still high summer, and I’m shaking with energy release, and I need to scream the scream of an infant being born into a too brightly lit room, scream my aloneness and out of control fear and rage at isolation; scream my constant insecurity…this dependence on a frightening male counterpart; a teasing, dangerous wild aspect I’ve projected onto my husband Brian. It’s me, and always has been. It’s the me I used to hide under the covers from when I was six or seven or eight. It’s the me of the bloody swords and slashing knives in my dreams at nine years old. It’s that one; the meat cutter, crazy slasher, scare-you-to-death me of the “Give me a break!” “You’re broken!” cartoon.

I don’t want to write about this. Can I listen for something else? Is there another voice, a voice of courage? Do I believe it? I’ve thought,”I have no courage”, and it’s not so. I threw open the patio doors in Mexico City, to confront the intruder head-on, gun loaded. I stood eyeball to eyeball before a would-be molester in Bogota. I challenged a man hurting a woman in a park in Washington. I wasn’t afraid. Those aren’t the scenes that have frightened. I knew what to do and my body and spirit did it.

I choose life and courage, strength and bravery now and at this time of life. That male self I met so long ago in my mind’s eye shouted,”Let me move! Let me do things. Let me be!” That’s not Brian. So, O.K. That’s good. That’s owned, and out of mystery. It’s me, my work. I’ll do it.

Our parents, Bri’s and mine got to “Do or die!”, and died. I choose something else. I choose “Do”! So, Restorative Yoga, long walks, and let the farm go if it will. Let go. Let Brian go if he will. It’s not what he’s asked for, but be up to it if it happens. Be your own” I Am”. It’s a wonderful thing, a unique and marvelous happening. Thank you.

Excerpted from A Write to Bach on the Sixteenth of August 2007 by Margo Marcella Mithra MacPhee who rides emotional waves and memories and translates pictures into stories.