Essays From McGee - Part II: The Gifts of McGee

This is the second in a series of three essays that I wrote while I was at The Salty Quill Women Writers Retreat in May of this year. The first was published here on the blog in June - and the final essay will be published in August. TW: This essay addresses combat trauma, suicide, death, and cancer.

As I noted in the previous installment, "being there was like turning on a faucet - poetry and prose began to flow in a way I hadn't experienced in years. Three essays materialized from my personal experiences and subsequent journal entries, and I want to share them with you here." I would love to hear your feedback in the comments!

The Gifts of McGee

I’ve begun talking to you, out loud, as you guide my steps. “Why am I going this way?” I ask. “Why do you want me to stop here?” “Are you fucking kidding me, you want me to climb that? Why??”

You’ll see, you answer. Open your eyes and then open them again, you whisper. I will guide you up there. Move slowly and listen to me. Put your feet where I say. And when you get to the top, you’ll understand.

I find a treasure trove of basket whelk as I walk, picking my way carefully over boulders. I find the finished sea glass and beach quartz where I swear there was none before, as I stand still in the small pocket of sand and open my eyes, then open them again. I listen with my heart and my soul as I carefully climb to the top of a cliff I’ve never encountered before. I am afraid – I’ve never cared for heights, and one wrong step could send me over the edge, to be dashed to bits on the rocks below. But I listen. I stop and observe. And then I move my feet again until at last, I am at the edge of the world of you, my island, looking out over the ocean, listening to the distant clang of buoy bells and the cries of sea birds.

“I’m here,” I say out loud. The weather worn, rust coloured boulders, cracked and swirled, covered in bright orange lichen are beautiful in their own way indeed, but I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be looking for. “I’m here,” I repeat. “Now what?”

Sit. It comes to my mind as a gentle command, one that cannot be ignored. My heart races as I shift my courier bag, and my bag for gathering “Stuff” (it says so right on it). I feel unsteady – an impossible height for you, my island, but somehow, I manage to take a seat without falling, even though my bags create an imbalance I’m not comfortable with.

As I think of this impossible height, the words bring me back to this place, to the main house a year ago, when I last spoke them aloud. “And here, in these impossible heights…” “Feet dangling over the edge, wondering if I can touch the stars.” I read them then, my voice breaking, my mind wondering what was wrong with me. I didn’t understand where this emotion was coming from for an event 20 years in my past. I managed, that night, to finish reading the poem and essay. Then, through embarrassed tears, I apologized profusely for the emotion. That memory remains vivid still as I sit here on a much smaller ledge, feet dangling over a much shorter ledge, in the full light of day, in a place that smells of salt and brine and green and Poet’s Narcissus – not of icy streams, unfettered starlight, and war.

Shaking my head, I press my legs against the rock face, my palms to the stone top, and I begin to sob. This time, in this place, out loud. Great wracking sobs that I could not let out the last time I sat on a cliff’s edge, feet dangling over the edge, that night so long ago. As I weep, I say to you, “I understand now,” because I do. You colluded with the ocean to create your own deep cleansing ritual for my heart and soul. As I sit here and cry, the ocean carries my grief away on wind and wave, while you press stone to palm in solid, quiet comfort.

This grief, however, comes from a different place this year. It rises from the exhaustion of starting the business of my dreams. From the in-the-bone weariness of not having rested, not truly, not properly, for a whole year. Great gasping sobs come in wave after wave, mourning my body lost. My quiet and anticlimactic exit from my job – and part of my identity – of 26 years. They come from that place of deep anger I hold, that my life was inexorably destroyed that night over 20 years ago, but I wouldn’t know that it had been until 12 years later when I did die at my own hands, only to be brought to life again, a phoenix made of salt and sea.

It's also born of the anger that has turned into grief at losing nearly all that made me a woman – my uterus, my cervix, my breasts. All that remains are cyst-riddled ovaries, confused about what they’re supposed to be doing, complaining about the loads they bear, causing me pain each month during ovulation – an added insult for even with no uterus, I still get cramps.

It was that job that cost me everything – my life, my femininity, what little innocence I had left, and most of my womanhood. It ended not with a bang, nor even a sigh. Just a silent, Irish goodbye. I am angry about that too. There should have been something more. What, however, I do not know.

Finally, I seem to be all cried out. For now. “Thank you,” I say, patting the stone with my right hand. “I understand.”

Give your grief to the wind and waves, Child. Together we will carry it for you.

“Thank you,” I whisper once more. “Thank you for showing me this place. For knowing what I needed, even when I did not.”

Let’s see about getting you down, you reply. Turn gently this way.

I do.

Step here.

I do.

Follow my guidance.

I do. And I return to the most familiar side of you with a new understanding. I listen to you now. I know that if you tell me to bide a while, I will. If you tell me to go down this trail, I will. You’ve shown me your truest magic – your heart center and soul of place. This is why you called me home to you this year, and I know that part of me will remain again, until I can return once more.