Indigo

(Indigo Series #1)

Art by Christian Schloe

A large basin stands under the pine trees on this glorious September afternoon near the lake. In front of it, I see the clothesline, like a string of silk woven by the cosmic spider for humans to hang their pieces of magic to dry.

An Indigo vat, welcoming me now as I dip a shirt I made the day before, slowly stitching the side seams together on a bench outside, overcome by a strange and content melancholy. The smell enters my bones like an old invitation. It tells me about possibilities. "Anything natural can be dyed in the Indigo vat", the teacher said. My mind rushes; I want to gather sticks and rocks, bouquets of dried pampa grass, stones from the lake, I want to dip them all, along with the shed skin of my snake, the branches of the pine trees.

And my bones.

Maybe they are already deep blue in the darkness of my warm body.

Oliver Sacks was obsessed with the color indigo after he summoned Heaven during a hallucinogenic journey and saw the mystic color right in front of him, like a dare. He described it as "a miracle blue", and tried to see it again for 40 years but never did, if only for an elusive glimpse of it.

And I realize if I dipped everything in the Indigo, it would not be a miracle of blue anymore but something we would all know, without rarity, without preciousness.

And on that September afternoon, near the lake, the dark blue water talks to me about possibilities of the unseen, of what we know because we speak the silent language of paying attention, and of what should stay rare and precious and only glimpsed at once or twice in a lifetime.

Twenty-one days ago, at the breast center, I had my first mammogram, and when I came back to the changing room, I did not return the gown to the bin. I have been there three more times since, and I will return at least two if I remain healthy after some parts of my flesh are taken and sent away.

I did not return the gown that first time because it was deep blue. Indigo called my name again.

The poet Ellen Bass writes about a jungle of Indigo, a father's skin pushing a stroller, and I dip my hair into the vat near the lake. I answer the call of the plant; I follow the legacy of Oliver, the explorer of the mind, who did not even know he was talking about the soul.

And it is the smell that takes me. I can not describe it to you, just as Oliver Sacks could not explain what he saw - except that it was a miracle.

When my head was above that basin, it smelled earthy and heavenly, it smelled like my grandmother's house. That house is rotting, unopened for decades, untended, abandoned. How does one bear the abandonment of family? That house has been standing there for so long. Her strong stone walls welcomed newborns for several generations; her garden nourished the mothers, her creek amused the children, her windows shattered under the fists of a husband consumed by wine and anger, war and despair. I can still see the wonderful bedcovers and doilies my grandmother used to crochet, and if I could transport myself to that house right now and take them, I would dip them all into the indigo vat. I would tend to the holes created by mites and by time and loneliness and stitch them back together, marveling at their new color that no one could describe.

To achieve the deep color, one must dip the cloth and then bring it out into the fresh air, dip it more, and lift it out of the vat again. Each time the plant gives more of its vibrance, like a secret gathered one letter at a time to form a word that has more meaning with each letter.

How many times have my bones been dipped into the vat of the deep blue life? Each time I dreamed? With each heartbreak or each burst of joy? Or was it with each tear? Each hope? Each child that was born through my womb?

Deeper and deeper, like the needle that traced lines on my skin, marking it with a dragon, a crow feather, the wings of the honeybee, the circle of snakeskin.

Soon, if the breast surgeon digs deeper into my body, she will see the true color of my bones, and she will not know how to describe it.

It might just be a miracle.

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Other posts in the Indigo Series:

Mountains of Blue

The Handless Maiden and the Indigo Gown.