Yellow gold

I’m yellow. Turmeric yellow, pants and hands stained permanent gold. Mama did a spice demonstration at the Co-op and gave me the scraps. Now it's my job to distribute them. Cinnamon sticks in with my stash, cloves in the clove bottle, peppercorns all together.

Mama doesn't label her spices, believing instead that you should know them by sight, and smell. I'm well enough trained to recognize the most of them, but a few elude me.

The red powders are all similar enough looking that I, unable to discern with smell, have to taste. Red powder number one is mild, red powder number two was not intended to be put directly into the human mouth, and red powder three - tasted tentatively with just the tip of my finger, is milder than the first. I put them in order.

Green things all get combined in one jar. I use them so similarly, and a blend works just as well as the herbs on their own.

The turmeric opened on its own and now the outside of everything is yellow. Every bag needs to be wiped off, and then hands wiped off on pant legs. Every movement sends a little billow into the air to settle lightly across the floor, banister, chair, bookcase, my hair, the ceiling, and eventually the world.

“Turmeric has protective qualities,” I tell papa. “It's used against evil spirits.”

“We're going to be very safe.”

---

When I fall in love I like to give the all of myself.

“Nothing is off limits,” I'll say. “No question is too personal, no probing too deep. I am yours for the exploring.” It's true mostly. I might hide someone else's secrets, but never my own. I have one or two hidden from individuals for their own safety. Nothing for myself.

But why am I willing to open everything to someone I love? Aren't I the champion of boundaries? Don't I value mystery?

I think the impulse comes out of my inability to share everything. If you are naturally opaque, and I am, you need never worry about revealing too much. My struggle is to show not to hide.

---

Sitting at the bus stop, a young woman walks towards me looking vaguely familiar. I squint, and smile like you do in a small town, before I recognize her as someone I've danced with at Fusion. Wider smile. Nod of recognition. She comes and sits down next to me. Arranges her things beside her.

“I don't have it.” I say

“Don't have what?” she looks over surprised.

“Your name. It's slipped away.”

“It's hard to remember names with dancers. There's no context. I'm Caitlin. Pan right?”

“That's me. Yeah, It's funny - I feel like I have a good sense of you, I know how I'd lead you in a dance . . . .” She laughs.

A pause. “So who are you?” I ask. It's my favorite question recently.  I like it because the question is inherently too large. No one can answer it, but it gives me the opening to ask all the questions I want without pretense. I’m just trying to answer the question they couldn't.

“That's a big question, wow, where to start,” but then she does start. Work, hobbies, interesting details.

Then she throws it back at me. I have to pause. This isn't the typical response, but I can match her hobby for hobby. Summarize myself into a few brief sentences. She doesn't know mama. I always start there in this town.

At some point she mentions her love of astrology.

“So I suppose I should ask, what's your sun, moon, and ascendant?” I also speak this language.

She's a Taurus moon, a Leo sun and ascendant. No wonder she tried to answer my question head on. She wants to be seen.

We meander deeper. The bus comes and we sit together. She has an astrology app on her oblong and she pulls it out. I get to look at her, and show her me.

“That's a -lot- of Scorpio”

“Guilty"

“You did start this conversation with ‘who are you’ I should have known.”

“What does Jupiter conjunct your sun feel like?” She asks me.

“Everything is good. Life is good. I have on a golden filter that makes all failures and upsets for the best. Whenever anything goes wrong I'm the first to point out the upsides.” She laughs at that. Delighted that a Libra Jupiter brings balance.

“This app has a bunch of cool features, like this where you can see what aspects are closest - for you it's this Aries moon opposite your ascendant.”

I groan. She enquires.

“It's the constant struggle. I'm a very emotional human. I have this ram slamming on the inside of my chest wanting things, daring, desiring more - but then there's this Libra mask with Venus sitting there and everything comes out soft and quiet and charming and polite.”

I wonder, as I say this, if it's really all that charming to call yourself charming, if she's seeing something else than the mask I'm claiming to wear.

But she rolls with it.

“We come into this life with the chart we have for a reason. You can't delve deep with Scorpio if the other person is running away. You have to charm them, otherwise how can you ever get in?”

This strikes me as very very true.

---

Ownership in relationship isn't a bad thing in my eyes. One sided ownership is bad.

I've been in relationships where I had all the power, and it wasn't fun, or attractive in the way you might think a man would be attracted to power over another.

It was like a loose string on an instrument. The sound didn't come off right.

I've just come out of open relationships where there is no ownership at all, and that's just as bad. String too tight, not right, never giving the all of you, always holding something back.

The optimal place is where we hold just the right tension between us to stay in tune. I'll lean towards you with everything I have and you'll give me back just as much in your own sweet way, and in what cannot be given strains tension.

Ownership ends in music, but only if both people are playing.

---

We got an invitation to a potluck on Eaglemont. A beautifully hand done photocopied invitation sent out to everyone on the road.

We decided to go. I cooked a chicken.

It ended up being at my less than half brother's house. That elongation of my family tree that is my half brother's father's side - I still can't keep them all right in my head. Aragorn, Evenstar, Usana, Yeti, Taijha - but where's Erasie? And are there more between?

Aragorn is the eldest though, and having never met him I recognize him on sight. I know that facial structure. Their house is beautiful, and packed full of people I don't know.

“What's your name?” then “And where do you live?” I meet people living on the lane I didn't know. Pam with her farm and goats, Chuck and Maud in the little cabin, Brenda with her trail from the lane.

We're all delighted to finally be in community.

The talk is light and neighborly. Each probing into the who are you we’re all curious about. There are concrete connections to make. When do Chuck and Maud go into town and can they give rides? Can Pam let me spend time with her goats? Philip wants sword fighting lessons. Erin is doing a dissertation, and would love to see Papa’s library.

I'm content with this. With the quiet questioning and placing. The claims are well established. Who's married to who. Who you invite in tandem and who can be talked to alone. No one is making any claims on me, and neither am I on them.

But soon we're going to be useful to each other. Soon community is going to grow into an interrelated net of obligation and kindness.

Do they need yard help? Do I need to get into town? We can serve eachother.

Relationships will deepen, they'll learn who I am, and the whole world will turn yellow.