Photo credit: Dorian Mongel on Unsplash Written by Chavon Barry There’s a cobweb on the light above me. I should grab the broom and brush it off. Later. Refocus. The boxes behind my chair need to be built and packed. We’re moving to a new house, a new rental just down the road.
There’s so much to do. I swallow the lump in my throat and stay right here because the blank page scares me too. I worry there’ll always be something more important than putting words on paper. Because really most things are more important. “Oh the places you will go,” Dr. Seuss promises. If only I could start… *** When I was fifteen, I travelled by cargo ship to Long Beach, California. The captain invited my dad, a paper mill shipyard supervisor, and his wife and four kids to take the one-way trip on the Thorseggen. “I’m going to Disneyland by barge!” I told my teachers and friends. Machinery and the crew lifted our ‘97 Dodge Caravan onto the deck and the ship’s first mate showed us the captain’s quarters, our new living space. On the days to follow we turned green with seasickness but still dressed up for three-course meals and ran the narrow corridors, steel staircases, and glistening-white sundecks. It wasn’t quite the Disney cruise my best friend went on the year before but it was mine and I loved it. Yesterday, I started to sort through the storage space beside the hot water tank and found my old travel journal covered in dirt. I brushed it off and read.
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Image credit: Arno Smit I stare out the backseat van window spotted with raindrops that enlarge and then race in forked patterns over the glass. Ready, set, go. I tease two twin dots. They accept my challenge and fall. I can’t tell which one wins. One curves left and the other slowly disappears before reaching the sill. The contest ends when tires crunch over the familiar gravel driveway.
We’ve arrived at Grandma’s house. My ten-year-old eyes light up because when I’m here, I believe the storybooks are real. She lives in a rustic log cabin. In the summer her property overflows with apple trees: crabapple, MacIntosh, Golden Delicious. In the winter the stone fireplace crackles and sparks. The house sits on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Inside there’s a real hidden staircase that leads to the attic. It’s the perfect height for giddy grandchildren. I go up the stairs and find Grandma’s big blue trunk filled with her old skirts and blouses. I rifle through them, looking for the floor-length brown wool skirt. I slip it on and become royalty. My fingers trace the gable roofline and cloth-covered walls as I walk toward the secret room at the end of the hall. I step into it and soak up the cedar-pane window view. Grandma’s city-tour-stop flowers bloom below and the wide ocean expands ahead. For today, this cabin is my castle. *** consider, Janet Anderson, oil and acrylic on canvas A pine wooden box sits on my sister Sarah’s window sill. If I flipped it on its face, my rose-casted gold earrings and a stack of silver bangles might squeeze inside. Treasures I inherited after my grandmother died. But this box isn’t for holding. It stands upright with a painted pink-petaled flower print glossing the front.
Sarah prefers it in portrait view. The flower at the top. I rotate it to landscape and notice the green buds shooting upward. Their almond-shaped heads fill the background, a mix of hard, soft, and fuchsia-cracked. Each one a promise of a flower to come. Why are we here?
Ten Canadian youth and their leaders ride a dilapidated van to rural Mexico after buying into the Sunday morning mission trip infomercials. Difference making? Grand healings? Supernatural experiences? No. Well into our week, walks to the convenience store and the refreshing lift of Manzana apple soda delight our senses more than any spiritual outing. Rehab clinic soccer matches, fireside worship and morning devotions satisfy. But we itch to transcend the ordinary and mundane. First published in Collected Magazine Issue 1 / January 15, 2020
I tiptoe barefoot through the carved riverbed. The cold cascades over my feet and numbs them from the fractured rock’s razor-sharp edges. I push forward calculating the depth of each step and ensure a solid foothold. The river’s rush both pleases and frightens. How much do I control? When do I let go and abandon stability for the weightless glide atop the water and when do I fight my way back to shore? |
Chavon BarryChavon is a new writer from Victoria, British Columbia. She wrestles with simple answers and is learning to listen, to be still with God. Archives
April 2022
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