"We need to remember that heroes are generally not fearless people; they are fearful people, who act in spite of their fear. The opposite of cowardice is not the absence of fear. The opposite of cowardice is courage in the face of fear." --Dave Andrews

A thought for those of us who are crafting heroes, and striving to make them real.

Through the curtains the daylight crept
I looked at my lover as she slept
and as I watched her face I wept...
It was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

As I was driving into town
the guy in the next car turned around
and as I met his gaze I found
it was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

Outside the museum I was addressed
by a blind man in his pants and vest
I was most impressed
It was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

Fat woman, standing in a queue
Her hat, shoes, coat and gloves were blue
and when she turned around I knew
it was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

I came home and halfway up the stair
a drunk was tearing out his hair
You should have heard him scream and swear
It was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

The President was on the News at Ten
looking like he could use a friend
and then I looked again
It was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

Stood in front of the mirror all alone,
examined my features skin and bone,
looked at this face I've always known
It was a wonderful disguise
It was a wonderful disguise

--Mike Scott, The Waterboys

So, I’ve been studying Irish History recently.

Sensible, I thought, since I’m going there in less than two months and I want to understand, this time, what I’m seeing.

I’m studying in typical homeschool style (well, our homeschool, anyway).Went to the bookstore, browsed the Ireland section until I found something that sparked my interest (written by an Irish storyteller, telling the history of his country through tales of its people), bought it, brought it home and started reading it. Then, each time I hit upon something interesting, I buy another book about that part of history (or get one from the library) until I have a huge stack to wade through. The Pocket History of Irish Saints. Michael Collins. Irish Writers’ Essays on Writing, An Illustrated Guide to the Irish Civil War, A Pocket Guide to Irish Rebels…the stack just keeps getting higher until I’m overwhelmed and end up going off to do something else, like watch Liam Neeson portray Michael Collins on film. Or peruse the Eyewitness Guide to Ireland I’ve been carrying around for six years, eager to go back.

It was while distracting myself with THIS book that I stumbled upon a map with a little section around Dublin in purple, the rest of the country green, the purple labeled “The Pale” (see page 134). Following a rabbit trail, I found myself flipping through the pages of bright photographs until I found the little box describing “The Pale”:

The term “Pale” refers to an area around Dublin that marked the limits of English influence from Norman to Tudor times. The frontier fluctuated…Gaelic chieftains outside the area could keep their lands provided they agreed to bring up their heirs within the pale.

The Palesmen supported their rulers’ interests and considered themselves the upholders of English values…Long after its fortifications were dismantled, the idea of the Pale lived on as a state of mind. The expression “beyond the pale” survives as a definition of those outside the bonds of civilized society.

I closed the book in satisfaction. I had learned something. Day well spent.

So I’ve been thinking about this phrase, “Beyond the Pale”. It’s been bouncing around in my head all week like the ball in a pinball machine; harmlessly wandering around until it gets hit just the right direction, then bells and whistles start going off, and the points start racking up, usually in the form of questions.

How far beyond the bonds of accepted society you have to be, to be considered beyond the pale. How primitive? How different?

I like thinking that I’ve spent most of my life beyond the pale. I might be wrong; I might be over reaching the bounds of the term, might be over-analyzing the whole thing, of course. I’ve never really been accused of under-analyzing anything.

I know that I grew up beyond the pale. I wish I lived there still. I think the root of my dissatisfaction with life, now, is that I feel somewhere along the way I stepped over that invisible boundary and into the land of expectations, the land of propriety and competition, of professionalism and “success”; the place where I’m expected to uphold the ruler’s interest. I’m not sure what to do in this strange land, not sure what to say, how to act, how to handle the feeling that everyone is staring and pointing and wondering where I came from and whether I really belong.

Some days I feel I belong and I go to work, I wear a dress shirt and put on makeup. I keep my calendar. I go to the mall. I talk fashion and music with an adult, and manage to avoid expressing any unconventional opinions. I don’t accidently say something about using an outhouse, or surviving without electricity. I don’t mention how much I want to run away from the city. I remember that a town of twelve thousand is not, in fact, a city. I don’t mention butchering turkeys the day before Thanksgiving. I don’t talk about being in my parent’s bedroom, watching my siblings be born on the bed where they were conceived. Maybe I don’t even mention being a homeschooler. And I go home at the end of the day, proud of myself for fooling them all. For making them think I belong.

I can do this for a few days. Maybe a month. Then I notice that I’m nervous. On edge. Tired. Lost. I feel I’m floundering. Not sure who I am. I’m afraid I’m losing some of the pieces of myself. Afraid that if they disappear entirely, I won’t be able to get them back.

And so I sneak away to the property of the midwife who missed my brother’s birth by twenty minutes. I breathe the forest air, let the music of the creek heal my soul. I take my shirt off and lie in the summer sun, soaking up the velvet softness of moss against the bare skin of my back. I sleep in her teepee beside an open fire. I write with an ink pen on loose-leaf paper. I lock my calendar and my cell phone in the car. I paint something no one but me will understand. I eat mangoes naked.

I go home, and pick brightly colored peppers from the little garden I’ve planted in my back yard. I pull green beans off the thin stalks, and gently pluck tomatoes from their vines. I take dry beans out of five gallon buckets, and cook them in a pressure cooker. I make tofu by hand and stir it into the wok, douse it with soy sauce and garlic, throw in the bright peppers and the green onions. I take off my shoes and cook barefoot in my kitchen, Sherman the rabbit hopping around at my feet before running off to harass the cat.

And I know that whoever drives past my curtained windows will see only a white house with vinyl siding and drive on past, never knowing that the walls of my house are the borders and the secret refuge of my kitchen, my bedroom, my basement full of home-canned goods, are the last fortifications of the Pale. Behind them, beneath my makeup and professional clothes, I will always live beyond the Pale.

By Tesi, January 2010

Screams of purchased terror drown out the tired groan of machinery. Carnival lights fade into the night, the cicada hum of traffic taking their place. A crinkled paper tray cupped in her palm, the crunch of crawdads between her fingers. Strains of the national anthem crawl through the air and Cajun magic stings her lips. A sprinkler paints a dark crescent on the sidewalk and she moves toward it, drawn by the music of the drops, fingers seeking the gentle kiss of water against her palm. The wind reaches for her hair, lifts her skirts and dances across her cheeks. She turns into its lover’s kiss, closes her eyes and breathes in the night.

Do you know when they say soul-mates? Everybody uses it in personal ads. "Soul-mate wanted." It doesn't mean too much now. But soul-mates--think about it. When your soul--whatever that is anyway--something so alive when you make music or love and so mysteriously hidden most of the rest of the time, so colorful and big but without color or shape--when your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to--even if you can't be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans. A soul's wedding must be too beautiful to even look at. It must be blinding. It must be like all the weddings in the world--gondolas with canopies of doves, champagne glasses shattering, wings of veils, drums beating, flutes and trumpets, showers of roses. And after that happens you know--that's it, this is it. But sometimes you have to let that person go. When you're little, people, movies and fairy tales all tell you that one day you're going to meet this person. So you keep waiting and its a lot harder than they make it sound. Then you meet and you think, okay, now we can just get on with it but you find out that sometimes your soul brother partner lover has other ideas about that. They want to go to New York and write their own songs or whatever. They feel like you don't really love them but the idea of them, the dream you've had since you were a kid about a panther boy to carry out of the forest of your fear or an angel to make love and celestial music with in the clouds or a genie twin to sleep with you inside a lamp. Which doesn't mean they're not the one. It just means you've got to do whatever you have to do for you alone. You've got to believe in your magic and face right up to the mean nasty part of yourself that wants to keep the one you love locked up in a place in you where no one else can touch them or even see them. Just the way when somebody you love dies you don't stop loving them but you don't lock up their souls inside you. You turn that love into something else, give it to somebody else. And sometimes in a weird way when you do that you get closer than ever to the person who died or the one your soul married.

Francesca Lia Block
"beautiful boys"

The rain came slowly; a cold drizzle drawing a wall of clouds behind like an executive, high heels clacking against marble floors, her collection of assistants flurrying around behind, trying to keep up. When they fell, the drops were chill against the ground, descending until the roads were slick and the grass moist, water just beginning to make its way into the ground beneath. Then, its task accomplished, the rain moved on, leaving the befuddled clouds behind. Unsure what to do without the rain, the clouds dispursed slowly as night fell, mourners reluctantly leaving a funeral, dubious about their future.

The morning after dawned bright, but it was clear that change had occured; that in the darkness Autumn had quietly nudged Summer off the love seat, settling in comfortably and taken Winter by the hand, drawing coldness in beside her, to wait for the leaves to finish turning and fall, nestling in the tall grass, to wait for the snow.

(Copyright 2009, Tesi, the Barefoot Author)

So, I'm off to camp. Kids and bugs and dirty swimming pools and late-night conversations about God and boys and life. I'm pretty excited, just wish I could write and be at camp at the same time. We'll have to see what I can come up with. My story is calling...