I've told this story before, but it seems like a good day to tell it again, because I made a new mask for her.
LA MARIPOSA
Once upon a time, in a dusty village like any other village,
a village with three good wells, fields of blue and yellow corn, a white church, and a cantina, there lived a
woman who was neither young, nor old.
She was brown of skin, and eye, and her hair was as brown as the sandy
earth, and her clothes were brown and
gray as well. She was neither beautiful nor ugly, neither tall nor small, and
she walked with a long habit of watching
her feet.
One day, she saw a tree alight with migrating butterflies. Their velvet wings fluttered in the wind of
their grace, and one circled her, coming to rest upon her open hand. She thought that her heart would break for
the power of its fragile beauty, and she
held her breath for fear of frightening it.
La Mariposa was as orange and
brilliant as the setting sun falling between indigo mountains, as iridescent, as black and violet
as the most fragrant midnight. At last the butterfly lifted from her hand to
rejoin its nomad tribe, and its wings seemed like a whisper, "Come with us, come with us..."
The next morning they were gone.
She held her hand out to the empty tree, as if to wave farewell, and saw
that where the butterfly had rested, there remained a dusting of color, yellow,
like pollen, the kiss of a butterfly wing.
And she thought something had
changed.
She went to the well to draw water, and saw her face reflected
there. She was not the same - there were now minute lines, hairline cracks,
along the sides of her face, at the corners of her eyes. Later, she noticed little webs of light beneath the sturdy brown skin of her
hands, barely visible except in the dim twilight.
This was a frightening thing.
She drew her skirts more closely
around herself, pulled her scarf over her eyes.
But as time went on, there was
something that kept emerging, something that would not be denied. She was peeling open. At first, it simply itched, like a rash, like
pulling nettles. As weeks went by, what had been easily born, could be
endured, became painful, became an agony. Try as she might, as tightly as she wrapped
herself in her cocoon of shawls and skin and silence, the comforting routines of her life, colors emerged from her hands, spilt from her
mouth, colors and tears, deep waters that seeped from within, washing away the dust of her life.
Soon, sleep became impossible.
Standing by her window one day, shivering, she shook
with fear. "Please help me", she cried,
"I'm not the same".
Then she noticed a beam of sunlight that fell across the floor of her little room like honey. Motes of dust gathered in the golden light, becoming a flurry of butterflies dancing through an open window into a sky as blue and vast as forever.
And La Mariposa opened her arms, took the gift of wings, and rose.
Then she noticed a beam of sunlight that fell across the floor of her little room like honey. Motes of dust gathered in the golden light, becoming a flurry of butterflies dancing through an open window into a sky as blue and vast as forever.
And La Mariposa opened her arms, took the gift of wings, and rose.
When her neighbor came to walk with her that evening, she found
only a dusty shawl and an old brown skirt upon the floor, the early stars
glimmering through an unshuttered window.
