She was an artist, concentrating in watercolor landscapes, whose soft colors rippled and bled into abstraction. The essence of nature, not its replica.
Iris thought of Monet in his later years, struggling with vision loss. His cataract surgery had been primitive, painful, not entirely successful.
He had been her inspiration. All those haystacks, painted during different times of day, different seasons. Attempting to capture the transience of light. The subtle shifting of the commonplace, the nuances of change. Light and shadow. Was this in the end all we had? Were we too distracted to see the sublime? Impressionism indeed.
She had viewed one of that series when she was a child. Up close, it was a mess of blotches and squiggles. But step back five feet—it became a golden-hued agrarian scene. The doctor had told Iris her sight would move in the opposite direction—from a few feet, the world would be a blur. Only with her nose close to the object would it become comprehensible. Iris Magoo.
She spotted a bird high on a delicate limb whose feathery branches resembled the fronds of a fennel bulb. Once she could have named that bird, Latin and common nomenclatures alike. Now it was sharp angles, an abstraction all on its own. No need for transformation by brush and pigment.
She walked along, savoring the mystery of the ordinary. That vine creeping up and along a garage wall, delicate vertical spikes and swirls spreading leftward, speaking a tendril Arabic or Hebrew. At the far end, a giant figure emerged—was that a praying mantis, arms opening outward towards passersby, those tent pole legs ready to pounce?
The loops of a telephone wire could be the ample bosom of a Victorian lady, complete with watch chain and fob. The branches of the fir at the end of the road—layers of anchors, stacked skyward.
She had read that trees communicate with each other via their roots and by emitting various chemicals, systems that offer warnings and sustenance to neighbors in the forest. So much that we cannot see. That we do not know. Everything willing us to be attentive. There was a medieval notion, the doctrine of signatures, wherein a plant’s shape indicated its medicinal value. Look down—see that pulmonaria, the leaves suggesting little lungs? Or take the meat of a walnut—don’t its whorls mimic the convolutions of the human brain?
Of course this was misguided piety. How many women died from ingesting birthwort meant to be an aid during labor? How many nibbled walnut after walnut without relief from depression or mania? Nature wasn’t offering free medical advice to the observant. But it was telegraphing a connectedness—one thing echoed in another, a wholeness we can only glimpse, occasionally and imperfectly.
She sat on her favorite bench, a few yards from Starbucks. People knew her here in that see-you-a-lot way that passes for friendship. Just what she wanted now. Warmth without worrying.
She was delighted when Ed and Martin appeared, a bag of muffins and rolls in hand. They were a couple, she knew, and lived nearby. Ed tilted the bag in her direction. “The lavender scone is especially good,” he offered. The three chatted—the men occasionally laughing in that wonderful baritone they shared—as she savored her sweet.
Several years ago, she’d sometimes met a cellist here who was losing her sight to macular degeneration. Meredith could make it to the Starbucks entrance, but once inside became unsure. See me, please, so I don’t go to the wrong table or trip over an outstretched leg. Iris would stand and wave, and later read the menu aloud as if she herself were debating the choices. A small kindness. No lecturing Meredith about the perils of walking about on her own. No commenting on food stains from where her unsteady spoon had tipped as she ate.
Meredith was now in an assisted living residence near her son in Baltimore. Iris would fight that path with all her might. No giving up the house. No leaving independent life. No having people fussing over her as if she were a child.
The truth was she already had occasional bruised shins from underestimating where the bed ended. The hall light was no longer enough. She should begin using the flashlight on her phone. And when even that small beam became insufficient?
She could imagine what her children would say: Mom, we worry you will scald yourself when you miss the tea cup. Mom, what if you trip over the ottoman and break your hip? They were kind, Tim and Julia, and would never say outright, Mom, we think you are incompetent, but it would lie there between them, that assessment, lingering like a bad smell.
It was getting colder—later this afternoon there was to be a storm—so Iris stood and headed home. She stopped by the koi pond at the edge of the park, cast the crumbs from her scone, then watched as small pursing mouths broke the surface. The young couple with the terrier pup were at the end of the street. Good. She loved the feel of that muzzle as it brushed her hand, hoping for an ear scratch.
Iris passed the garage again. Now, in a different light, she saw a highway of vines—so many intersections, forks, U-turns, and exit ramps. What if she could travel these byways? Maybe she could grab hold of one of these vines and swing herself outwards, a shortcut to her house. She imagined herself hurled into space, careening above the shrubs and the canopy of trees, the world buoyant with fragrance.
And when she arrived home? Her rooms would be a thicket of twine, satin, sisal, Soutache. Many colors. Many textures. She would traverse her small world by touch: the yarn for her easel and desk, the satin for her bedroom, the twine for the kitchen.
It had begun to drizzle. Good thing she was near her door. The air smelled of wetness, of the promise of lightning.
Once inside she changed out of her damp clothes and made herself a cup of tea. It was time to get back to work.
Iris can feel what her brush will do: two thick cables of black stretch across the paper, ending in ghostly fog. Short diagonal slashes, one by one, become slats and supports, ‘til there it is— a suspension bridge perched so high it might be enveloped by cloud. Nothing below that the eye can see.
Crossing slowly, a small figure, all sharp angles, leans into the wind.
Author's Comment
The germ for this story came when I had a long, boring wait at the vet. To amuse myself, I imagined all sorts of transformations of the small, bland world outside the office window. My dog simply snoozed.
A uniquely thrilling, first-person account of what happens when traditional ancestry research and psychic skills merge.
It begins with a whisper from Terri’s long dead great-grandmother, as she steps into a labyrinth on a hot summer day: “You must write our stories.” It makes her wonder, who was her great-grandmother? And who were her ancestors?
Terri’s troubled childhood left her disinterested in her family history. But with this beckoning from beyond, she decides to investigate. As research into her heritage deepens and conventional methods fail to provide all the answers, she begins to see a way to use her psychic skills to connect directly with those who came before her.
A cast of characters emerges. From servants, inventors, psychics, sea captains, and whiskey barrel makers to enslavers and Freemasons, her ancestors step forward. They all have stories to tell.
Terri's psychic skills push the boundaries of what is possible in ancestry research. Misconceptions about the paranormal and psychic mediums are explored and explained in a practical manner.
Honest, heartfelt, and inspiring, this tale may spark your interest in discovering your roots and exploring your own psychic potential.
“I loved the interplay between traditional genealogical research and the author’s own psychic discoveries. Terri Blair weaves together the present with the past in this beautiful story of her own family’s history. I recommend this book for a dreamy walk through life and the afterlife.” — Amazon Reviewer
Available from Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, and your local independent bookseller.
Alice Cross was a teacher, first at high school, then at university, for almost fifty years. She has had film reviews and interviews published in Cineaste, and personal essays in Pittsburgh Magazine and The New York Times. She began writing fiction during Covid. In 2024 she was a Linden Place Resident Writer.
Ellen Becker is a Bay Area artist and Jungian psychoanalyst. Her painting springs from her love and care for nature--the redwoods, the cloudscapes and the aliveness and vibrancy of nature. She explores playing with knowing and what is yet unknown, inner experience, and experience with others.