Chapter 121
Snow has fallen. Now is a good time to wear a mask… the comforting cotton flannel lining I made for mine is snug and warm on finally have an acceptable face covering for the winter months.
I dragged a few more bins from my storage this weekend… unearthing piles of fleecy winter pants and sweaters. I discover that I have more hats and scarves than I can shake a stick at. Where did they all come from? Transplanting potted plants to the ground for the winter… I thought they would have a few days to acclimatize before the snow came. More fool me.
Walking in the near-dark through the woods by my home. I am striding along like a giant. As I turn into the park, a car ascends the hill and sweeps in behind me. Who might that be at this time of day? I accelerate, thinking to myself if it’s someone unpalatable like the drunken man wandering the woods last week, I can dive into the undergrowth and circle home quick enough. My stride lengthens again on the downslope and I am into the woods and the gathering dark within seconds.
A few more seconds and strides pass and I hear something behind me…. turning I greet the ubiquitously happy face of a golden retriever who has bounded ahead of their human guardian. The person is jogging, hence the quick connection. I am reassured and turn to go on, detouring to the left to walk the loop anti-clockwise.
Maintaining a blistering walking pace over the scrambled spaghetti tripwires of tree roots and stumps in the half-dark, I know this trail so well, it hardly slows me at all. I am only slightly surprised therefore, to find that I am heading back on the return leg of the loop before I meet the dog and jogger again. As we pass on distant sides of the trail, I remark “Hey! that’s **** isn’t it?” The dim figure corrects my naming, although in my head I have their last name correct, just the first was slightly off. However, the dark silhouette replies “Who is that? It’s too dark to see you!” I identify myself, we exchange greetings and farewells.
I realise that it was merely the outline of the person’s head I recognised, how strange. Then I got to thinking about the person’s last name wandering about in my head… and that she might refer to her last name as her family name or Christian name. Despite being born into a decidedly non-religous household, at school and in society back then in England, everyone referred to the Christian name. I think of it as my last name… now that means something entirely different to me… my first name was Kathryn Frith, that incarnation has been a ghost in the wind for decades now. My last (current & presumably last) is Kat Dancer. I transmogrify!
It fascinates me how we view these things in different cultures and countries. The Inuit customs never included any form of family name. Our somewhat blinded predecessors, in an attempt to simplify ‘administration’ came up with the crashingly insensitive disc number system. Ugh, we might as well have put yellow stars on their breasts. Later that became the project surname which resulted in Inuit being metaphorically frog-marched into white man land and forced to use our/their system of identification. There are interesting articles that go into more depth on that topic freely available on the weeeeb.
I pray your movement through the last days of this year and into the first days of the next are smooth and uneventful, bringing you what you need and leaving behind whatever doesn’t serve.
With gratitude and love, Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com
www.kat-dancer.com
415.525.2630, ph/txt/wtsp
