06 Feb 2003
Pebbles
by Suzanne Stenson O'Brien
I have shiny pebbles in the bottom of my
washing machine that I have washed for almost
two years. Each load of cold socks peeled
from the bin dings and clinks as the pebbles
fall back to the bottom, too large to wash
through the drain.
I keep my pebbles—some white, some
brown, one black: like a little country—in
my washing machine intentionally. They rotate
and grind in memoriam of our august innocence,
summer 2001, moving through life in a pocket,
carefully selected from the turtle sandbox
in our yard, or clinging to a tropical print
towel that spent a sunny afternoon on the
shores of Lake Superior. The pebbles remind
me of a time "before" terrorism;
before fear and confusion carved this line
in my brow; before I craved and loathed
my Times subscription, in that sultry summer
rocking my family carefully and slowly toward
the horizon.
My pebbles are cleansed at least five times
per week. They are very clean, perhaps even
eroding now in my washroom, as they grind
along with the underpants, towels, and continual
flood of t-shirts and corduroy. Their staying
power also reminds me of other mothers just
like me, who cry and protect, except they
wash their clothing on rocks and wash boards,
hung in the sun or like frozen boards to
dry. My Whirlpool hums gently, a familiar
reassurance, agitating without toil as it
pulls its strength out of a plug in the
wall, from the pile of coal mounded in the
river valley outside my window.
I'm agitating also, about we pebbles in
the swirl of global events. The reek of
sweat, anxiety and the promise of more suffering
seems permanent and lasting. The tear in
our social fabric is unravelling before
my very eyes. Opportunistic wannabes are
grabbing at the loosening threads, from
across all oceans, from within and with
out. Sometimes I'm afraid for the future.
I need sages and elders to show me how
worse fear has been vanquished, how more
hapless leadership has wizened, and how
a gracious, grateful life has returned from
even darker days. I try, like a teenager
waiting for his Weezer t-shirt, to let the
cycle proceed, to let the spin begin, and
to simply rest my hands along side the others,
on the rocking, whacking steel corners,
whilst we wait the rinse cycle.
I await the generous voice of calm...the
as-yet emergent leader who can quiet the
shrill barking of the opposition and can
calm the war drums, which are remarkably
similar (in my head) to the sound of my
wash basin out of balance.
I plan to leave the pebbles in my washing
machine as a reminder to these things and
that we are each just a stone in the river.
We change the currents and can even create
a dam of stones—at least temporarily—against
the wild rushing flood. And perhaps together,
stone next to stone, solid yet ephemeral,
we provide a steady crossing to the little
ones who will follow where we lead. |
