Watercolor Sky

The first night out of Atlanta, Alice stayed in the Ozarks. She stood outside in the snow at a pay phone and dialed her home number, listened for a few seconds when Anthony answered.

"Hello?" Beyond her husband's strong voice she heard her three teenage sons horse-playing. They were sturdy, independent.

"Hello? Alice is that you?"

Alice replaced the receiver as it began to rain snow. Anthony had left for work before dawn like every morning of their marriage without a thought to where she would be when his day was finished. So was their life together, predictable, steady, and normal. They took each other's presence as a fact like the sun setting in the evenings. Had she not found her old art supplies, she would be home decorating the house for Christmas, yelling at the boys to stop rough-housing in the living room, and buying that last gift, but the old sketchbook full of drawings intended to be paintings sent her into a panic. Her past crept in from a hidden fog and knocked her legs out from under her. Each breath she took grew tight in her lungs, expanding until air disappeared. She packed her soft leather overnight bag with art supplies, dressed in her faded brown sweater, worn jeans, and hiking boots. The new car, an early Christmas gift, had a full tank of gas. She left the house with a road atlas in her hand and loneliness eroding her confidence. But, she had tough blood in her veins; strong women populated her grandmother's side of the family. Before Grandmother died, she told Alice all the stories of her Navajo ancestors, her heritage.

Snowflakes caught in Alice's hair and eyelashes as she stared at the phone. The pull of home was strong, but not as strong as the gravity of unanswered dreams. She turned her mouth to the clouds and caught snowflakes on her tongue, a child in the womb of the world, a lover of snow.

Three nights later in the early morning hours of December 22, Winter Solstice, as a full moon dominated the desert sky, Alice was resolved to reach Monument Valley National Park, where she planned to spend as long as it took to find her art, to find the young artist buried in her heart, to find the subject for an oil painting. With that thought, the car began to knock and sputter; the engine died, and the car rolled to a stop. This couldn't be happening. God, what was she thinking when she left home, driving more than halfway across the country? A cold sweat broke out on her neck and her stomach clinched in pain. God was punishing her for leaving her family. How could she be so selfish, so greedy? The dark closed around the car, and she turned cold to the bone. Here she was thousands of miles from her beloved south in a desert of all places. The cactus stood in the dim light of the moon like sentries guarding sacred ground. All she wanted was to explore the idea of being something other than a daughter, mother, and wife. The thought shook her spirit. She could die in the desert and no one would know.

With the cold came a silence. At home, there was always noise, traffic on the interstate, the neighbor's dog. Maybe she would put on her extra clothes and walk. In the distance, headlights moved toward her. God help her, she would be murdered and tossed out into the wilderness.

The truck rattled so loud it was sure to fall into pieces. A figure climbed down from the driver's side and peered inside the fogged windows of her car, a woman. She rapped on the glass.

"You alright in there?"

Alice spoke through the power window. "My car is broke down."

"Open the door so we can talk face to face."

The cold bit at Alice. She pushed the door open a crack. The woman wore a man's overcoat pulled tight around her.

"Is this your long walk?"

It seemed a strangely worded question. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"I have passed through three different worlds to arrive. It is time to come with me."

Fear rattled Alice's chest. "I don't know."

"Really? I thought you were here to paint."

"How did you know that?"

"Let's move it. You've much to learn and not much time."

"You could drop me at a motel."

The woman's laugh tinkled like fine crystal. "Don't look this angel of mercy in the mouth."

Alice followed the woman.

"I'm a weaver. Do you know about weaving?"

"No."

"The women in my family were all weavers." The woman's brown skin was wrinkled with exposure. A wide gray swatch streaked the perfect blackness of her hair. Tiny wooden beads hung from the knot at the nap of her neck. When she moved flashes of sliver, blue, and leather were revealed behind the worn coat. Alice walked to the truck with the woman as if in a dream across the air entering solitude, a winter night.

"I'm here to learn about my grandmother and her people. The Navajo."

"Dine. That is the name you search after."

Alice continued, "Grandmother's stories say my great grandmother was strong, a warrior in her own right."

The woman stopped and looked hard at Alice. "Warrior is a strong name."

Instead of following the road, the woman drove into the desert terrain. Alice thought of asking the destination, but what would be the reason? She half believed the truck would leave the ground and fly across the sky. Outside the window, the night turned colors, soft blues, greens, and pinks. Too far south for the northern lights, Alice accepted the miracle. The watercolors splashing across the sky gathered her into the folds of bliss, different worlds, cracking open her soul and exposing the cold hidden parts. When the truck stopped it was with a hard thump as if she were kicked from her bed during a wonderful dream.

"It is time"

In the half-light, Alice saw only a hovel of logs and sticks, round in shape, smoke curling out of the top. "Time for what?"

"To learn from Dine. You must find your direction."

Alice nodded.

The woman came closer and Alice glimpsed a younger woman in the deep brown eyes, a woman who walked a measured pace with men. "You must pass through the worlds and know the directions."

"Okay." Alice found no words of meaning.

"Hmph." The woman entered the dwelling. Alice followed.

It was warm if sparsely furnished. Animal skins covered a bed in the far corner; a fire in the center of the room beckoned her into the room. The woman went to sit in front of a large loom. She began to work rust-colored thread through the many vertical threads, reminding Alice of the potholders she made as a child. In and out, the rhythm lulled her into a peace that spread throughout her body, relaxing her for the first time in years, a cradle rocking.

"Come." The word was a command.

The light grew stronger outside. How long had she watched the woman weave?

"Here." The woman pointed to the wooden stool. The touch of the woman's hand charged Alice's skin, tingling. "In and out. Up and down. That is all. A simple motion. When you finish the row, push the thread down to tighten the pattern." She paused. "We Dine are many things at once, weavers, wives, and mothers."

Alice sat down in front of the loom and began to weave. With each motion, music filled her mind and grew stronger, sweet, soft, soothing. In the pattern, she saw red cliffs, horses running wild, men with strong dark bodies, women with muscles like men, babies cuddled against their mothers' chests. The air of the past was fresh, clean, stinging her lungs.

The woman stood behind her while the sun streamed inside the home and the fire died. As Alice's hands worked the thread in and out at a pace that amazed her she caught the tempo of her life by its comet tail.

The woman bent close. "Look deep into your soul. Release your spirit into the infinite universe."

Alice looked into the woman's eyes and saw stars in deep dark space. She sailed like a bird, a falcon with a wingspread that shadowed the earth. The stars turned to sky and clouds. Four scared mountains formed her boundaries. Below walked the souls from the past on a journey through rivers, across fields, and over mountains. Each one a story to be told, painted, reshaped and released. In each face she saw herself.

The woman placed a hand on each side of Alice's face. "I am the warrior you spoke of, the woman of strength. I am a weaver. Be a mother, a painter. Use the tools and gift bestowed upon you dear daughter."

Alice woke to the bitter cold and frozen fog on the inside of the car windows. Her hands and knuckles throbbed. She opened the door and witnessed majesty in all its glory. A shear red streaked wall of rock stood in the west. The sun warmed her back, and she pulled her old sketchbook from the backseat. Her charcoal pencil moved with a skill of the weaver. When she finished, the woman at her loom was captured on paper. It would be her first painting. Wings beat in her ears and she turned to face the east. High in the sky-a dot on the sun-a falcon. Yes a falcon. She watched until her neck ached and her eyes burned. It's time to go home. The car started on the first try.

The thought of her strong healthy boys brought tears to her eyes. If she drove hard, she would be home by the holiday. She thought of Anthony. Did she love him? Time would tell. Love was mystical, elusive, intricate. For the first time in her life, she knew what she wanted. She had learned to weave, to fly, but most of all to open her eyes and see beyond the everyday life.

© 2004 Ann Hite