Tribes

I've always been searching for my tribe. Even when I was little I would watch the other children in the playground, I'd see them tugging and pulling at each other, some would dig up the earth and find worms, spiders - some would even eat them. I saw beauty in everything, but I rarely saw beauty in human beings. I always knew, somewhere in my heart, that I was different from the others. I realised even at five that most people possessed a equal balance of light and dark, but few possessed only the darkness and even fewer had the gift of pure light. I also learnt that those who fed the darkness, welcomed it, were intent to destroy those who only sought light, and that my friends, is how I ended up in this swamp.

My search for others like myself began in the summer of 2007 when my Mamma, the only soul who I knew was gifted with the same power as me, left me and my Pappa. She had been searching herself for her tribe, and she believed she had found them in the form of the 'Kathala' a post 60's 'Free Love' movement group, or cult, who were residing in San Francisco at the time but often travelled to spread their message. She'd met them while they were holding a ceremony in a park nearby where we lived in Louisiana, it took them less than a hour to convince her to leave her life behind and start fresh with them. I never even saw her pack her bags, I just came home to my Pappa huddled in a ball by the doorway and a note that stated, 'I need to follow where the love does'. I received a postcard from her two years later, it had a picture of the 'Golden Gate Bridge' on the front of it and on the back it said, 'I miss you every day Misty. I hope some day you can visit me and Blade'. The forwarding address read 'Abigail Ranson' so I knew she'd got married to the leader of the flock. My Pappa committed suicide two years later. They dragged him out the local lake, he'd put rocks in his pockets. I did consider bringing him back, but I knew without my Mamma he'd never be happy on this earth plane.

It was just when I thought that there was no hope left for me that I found my one surviving company, My Stevie. I was walking home from high school after a traumatic day, and all I could think about while I walked down that dirt road was the way that tiny, delicate little creature looked in my hands while I loomed down on it's lifeless body, dissecting tools in hand. I could never hurt any creature, and no matter how much Mr Bowl protested, I could not resist bringing that joyous little frog back to life. Eventually he got fed up with me resurrecting his science project and took that little creatures life into his own hands. My blood boiled as I continued to walk, and then - like magic - I heard her calling to me through song. I stopped and listened, and I felt like every question, every answer I had ever sought lied in her voice, in this song! I followed her in a hypnotic daze until I reached a VW Camper Van parked on the side of the road with it's sliding door ajar. I waited outside the van and listened, humming along, even though I had never heard her words.

"Can I help you miss?" A young boy had opened the sliding door fully and was sat crossed legged, marijuana clouding his face, I could just about make out the sunglasses he was wearing.
"Who is this?" I couldn't look at him, her voice was distracting me and I needed to concentrate on every word she spoke, soak up every line.
"Have you been living under a rock since 1966? It's STEVIE NICKS! Fleetwood Mac?!"

He uncoiled himself and leant over his beaded seats and turned off the radio.

"What are you doing?!" I couldn't help this unusual outburst of anger, I needed to listen to what she had to say to me.
"Woah, chill. I have like 6 copies of this CD, you can have it." And he handed me over the shiny disk. I took it from his hands, held it like a feather.
"Thank you."
"You have something to play it on?" I nodded, I knew my dad had once owned one of those little music boxes. I began to walk home with Stevie safe in-between my palms. I walked slowly, fearful I might drop her and cause her to scratch, or worse, shatter.

I got home and dug out the silver playing box and placed the disk in ever so carefully. I fiddled with the buttons, and I soon learnt how to stop and play. Her voice played through the room like liquid, running over every ounce of my body, "All your life you've never seen a woman so taken by the wind.." She made me want to twirl and dance, to laugh and to love! For the first time in years I knew I was longer alone.