Before and After the Cloud mother: Pimienta

I suppose it wasn't entirely unexpected that I was being followed by clouds or that it started raining peppers only I could see.

I’m sure people wondered why I flinched when the occasional pepper landed on my head, but the ones I caught before they landed on the filthy Boston pavement were delicious in my cooking.  There were all kinds - bell, poblano, jalapeno. Most of them were green, some were orange, but on the day I caught a red one, I realized…I needed to call my brother.

 I’d been in a bad place for a while.  I was alone in Boston with nothing but my career to keep me company.  I didn’t even have a plant. My last relationship ended in a maelstrom of anger - I thought Ben was too needy and he thought I wasn’t needy enough.  Before him, was Sara, who was lovely, but we never seemed to mesh; it was like trying to force together two pieces of a jigsaw that weren’t meant to fit.  

Maybe I should have called my mother, instead, but I wanted something gentler than my mother’s usually blunt manner. My mother was a Valkyrie - literally, I sometimes thought - married to a factory worker in a small town in Ohio. The factory was near a river, and according to my father, one evening when leaving work, he looked towards the river and saw a naked goddess bathed in moonlight standing on the rocks in the water. He called out to her and she swam to him.  The rest, as they say, was history. 

 I took after my father, Ted  - average height, brown hair always neatly cut, a belief in the importance of education- while my brother and sister took after my mother, Wilma,  who was a giantess at 6’3”, a shield maiden with lush blonde curls flowing down her back. She was beautiful and never seemed to age, but she had enough muscle to kill a horse.  

Remind me to tell you another time why she had to kill that horse

My siblings seemed to inherit her fey quality and, although it seemed to skip over me, I was perfectly willing to accept that our normal was not everyone’s normal. My sister, who was a genius, studied botany and biology, which seemed only natural as she often roamed around our property talking to field mice, bees, and weeds in the garden. She graduated from university at 19, Now she was off somewhere in South America, and the last we heard, she was living in a village dressed in vines and leaves.  I fully expect to hear from her in the future as she accepts an award for curing something awful with an anaconda wrapped around her shoulders.

My brother, Anthony, developed a wanderlust at around age 14, so my mother packed him some food and extra money besides what he’d earned mowing lawns and sent him on his way.  Dad inquired after Anthony; Ma told him he left.  He tried to understand how she could just let one of their children leave, so she made wild love to him that night - not something I want ever to hear again -, then after, they spoke no more about it.

Anthony rode buses and hitchhiked across the country.  He lied about his age - he had gotten fake identification from an old man in South Carolina - and worked on a fishing boat, then on a ranch, then in a kitchen somewhere in the Deep South cooking barbeque.  At one point, he learned to repair shoes in a tiny, dark shop from a German man and worked in a factory that preserved wedding dresses.  He lost his virginity to a thirty-year-old homeless woman under a bridge near some train tracks.

At some point, he ended up in a desert. He walked into the desert until he found a spot that pleased him.  He gathered a pile of wood and sat inhaling the scent of sand and junipers until it got dark enough to light a fire.  Above the crackling of the fire, he listened to the animals breathing and scurrying around in the sparse scrub.  When he looked past the fire, he saw a shadow moving toward him and he wondered if it was a skinwalker or a bear.

It wasn’t a bear, but she might have been a shapeshifter. She was the loveliest person he had ever seen.  She was about his age at the time, nineteen or so. The dark hair flowing down her shone in the firelight and her eyes were rusty brown.  She had wide hips and large breasts and was wearing a Greek sailor’s cap.  She reached out her hand toward Tony.  

“I’m Sarita.”

Tony shook her hand.  Her palm was calloused and her grip strong. “Are you a goddess?”

She stared at him long enough before replying that Tony knew she must have been. “No, I’m not.”

They sat, watching the fire dance and crackle, occasionally feeding it small sticks, then Sarita turned to Tony, scooted closer, and kissed him. They made love that night by the fire, their skin kissed by the moon…at least according to Anthony - I don’t think I would have wanted to be there for whatever they did to each other. Anthony fell in love with Sarita in the space of those few hours. Sarita thought he was quite enthusiastic and she believed he could hear coyotes breathing from a distance. I'm pretty sure she taught him some beautiful and dirty things about sex.

When he awoke the next morning, Sarita was gone, but there was a small scrap of paper in his shoe - a shoe that he’d made - with an address.  He dressed, tidied his campsite, and walked until he came to a town.  He showed them the address, and they pointed him in the direction he needed to go.

“Hi.  I'm Mona. Welcome to Pimienta.”

“Hi, I’m Tony.  What is this place?”

“This is Pimienta.  It’s an intentional living space, and we grow peppers to support our community.”

Tony looked around at the tidy buildings and neat garden plots in the distance.

“Do you want a tour or a brochure?”, Mona asked.

Behind him, a voice replied.  “He’ll stay with me.”

He turned to look at Sarita, who gave him a small nod and walked away.  He thanked Mona and followed Sarita.

They didn’t have their first child until several years later.  Tony wanted Sarita to give birth in the desert with the other women of Pimenta around guiding her while playing the rhythms of the desert on a sheepskin drum, but Sarita was too sensible for that and they had their daughter in the local hospital.  Tony expected childbirth to be beautiful and magical, but it wasn’t.  When I heard what childbirth involved from Anthony I thanked all the deities I knew that I was mostly not straight.  Luckily, only Anthony’s pride was bruised after he passed out, and managed to stay on his feet for the other births, now that he knew what to expect.  

When I got home I placed the perfect red pepper on my coffee table.  It was so clear to me.  Pepper, Pimienta, Anthony, Sarita.

“Hey, Anthony, it’s me.”

“Andy! Good to hear from you.  How have you been, brother?”

“Uh, good, good.  How are you guys?”

“You don’t sound good.”

“I’m…some clouds have been following me.  I think they’re trying to talk to me, and this afternoon, I caught a pepper that rained on me.”

“Oh. Hang on, let me get Sarita.”

I heard the clunk as he placed the phone on the table, and then one of the children howled in the background - probably Petra since she could imitate just about any animal.

“Kokumthena.”

“Gesundheit?”

“You’re funny Andy.  Way funnier than Tony, that’s why I love you.  And so does Kokumthena, who is your mother.”

“Uhh…my mother’s name is Wilma.  We have Thanksgiving with her.”

“Kokumthena is your mother, my mother, everyone’s mother.   She’s Saranyu and Zhinu. She is the creator of the world and the people. She loves you. She wants you to know she loves you.”

I heard more rustling, and then Anthony was back on the phone.  “So, yeah, what Sarita said. Come visit, we could use some help with the peppers.”

Maybe I would go.  Maybe I would become a wild creature of the desert. I would join Anthony’s intentional community and harvest spicy peppers, I would whisper into the night and entice wolves and bears to feed from my hand, and dance and spin and howl.

I took off from work. I took a plane across the country, then took a bus to the small town, then walked to Pimienta with my suitcase, and made my way to Sarita and Anthony’s home.  Their children surrounded me, all of them barefoot and grubby-handed, and they hugged my legs and waist.  They dragged me around and pointed out a bird’s nest, and some new sprouts in the greenhouse. Anthony and Sarita liberated me from the kids eventually and took him inside to feed me spicy posole and homemade beer.

I worked with my brother and Sarita and the kids gathering peppers, shucking corn, and turning the earth.  I worked without a shirt and my party-white accountant skin became tanned.   I got the idea that I should send postcards. I’m not sure where the thought came from; perhaps a cloud or a stray breeze whispered it into my ear.  I asked Anthonyony if he had a bicycle so that I could ride into town - my walk to Pimienta was entirely too sweaty for my liking - but Anthony said all he could give me was a Pinto.

Which turned out to be a horse named Gigiyago, rather than an old beater car.

I’d not ridden much.  There wasn’t much call for horse-based transport in Boston and I always felt timid around them after the whole mom-killing-a-horse thing. But the horse stared at me with gentle brown eyes and blew a warm breath in my face, so I imagined I would have no trouble.  Gigiyago and I left Pimienta and walked up the side of the highway.  Every so often, Gigiyago would stop, and I eventually caught on that she wanted me to look at something or notice something.  The first time, she stared into the desert, until I noticed the bird.  I thought it might be a roadrunner, and was slightly disappointed  - for myself, not the bird - to not see a coyote nearby.  Later she stopped next to a patch of wildflowers and I dismounted to pluck a purple bloom that I stuck behind my ear.  The next stop included a shiny rock that I tucked into my pocket.

There wasn’t a place to tether Gigiyago, so I tied her to a parking meter and fed it enough change for a couple of hours.  I strolled down the main street and found a shop that catered to tourists, where I purchased postcards for my parents and friends.  At the next shop, an older woman manned the counter of a business that seemed to cater to both Wiccans and children - although I suppose young children could also practice Wicca -, as the shop was filled with crystals, bunches of dried herbs, candles, and a glass display filled with old-fashioned candy.  I was able to trade the shiny rock Gigiyago had noticed for a green lollipop.

The main street wasn’t big, and as I got closer to the end, a scent wafted my way. A scent so dark and delicious it sent blood pounding through my veins. Coffee.  I smelled coffee.  Anthony and Sarita made a drink from chaff and chicory that they called coffee, but it absolutely was absolutely not.

The coffee shop was called Bump and Grind and when I entered I almost came from the smell alone. Then I almost came when I spotted one of the people behind the counter.  I wasn’t sure if they were male or female, but it didn’t matter, not really. They were svelte and lithe, slinky like a Persian cat. When I got to the counter, I noticed they were dressed like a dream from another decade in tweed pants with a matching vest, white button-down, brown saddle shoes, and a blue tie with a pattern of tiny hula girls.  The nametag on their vest just had the letter M.

“What’s your pleasure, friend?”

There were so many answers to that question.   “Can you recommend anything?”

Their pillowy lips tilted up in a smile and rang me up without telling me what I’d be getting.  I remembered the purple flower behind my ear and laid it on top of the bills I passed across to them. I had no game.  I’d never had game, so before I could see their reaction, I turned and headed to a table.   

As I watched them working, I knew that they were my person.  This is what my father felt when he saw my mother. There was an inevitability, a full life already etched into the universe.  M would meet my family, and we’d have a house in the suburbs. Our neighbors would think we were a bit odd, but would still invite us for cookouts.  I’m not sure where our children came from - I still didn’t know if M was male, female, both, or somewhere in between, so I didn't know if they were born from us, adopted, or found in the hollow of a tree.  We’d have a dog and a spoiled cat that swanned around our home like a queen.  M would teach the children how to roast coffee and their magic, for surely they were magical in some way.  I would teach them how to balance a checkbook and calmly look on as they played with their slightly feral cousins and learned how to fell a tree from my mother, and maybe I could teach them how to listen to the clouds.

M brought my drink over and placed it before me.  I was hit with the scent of something spicy, like the peppers my brother grew, but overlaid with something sweet and comforting like lavender and vanilla, and I wasn’t sure which was the coffee and which was M.

I could have said “Thank you”, but instead…”Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”

They cocked a perfect eyebrow at me - I was always jealous of people who could do that - and asked “Why?”

“So that you can teach our children about a proper Continental Roast and learn to love peppers and watch clouds with me.”

M looked at me with their huge dark eyes for a moment.  “Where?”

“Boston.”

M’s whole face lit up. “Swan boats!”

“We can get a swan for the backyard if you want one.”

“What’s my new family like? M asked.

“My mother is Valkyrie, and now I know what my father feels.  My sister is a wild jungle woman, and my brother married a shapeshifting goddess and made beautiful wild children. The Cloudmother spoke to me and rained peppers on me until I came to this place and this moment.”

M crossed their arms over their chest and was silent for a minute, but I wasn't worried.  When they leaned down, they looked into my eyes and said, “My shift ends in an hour.  Wait for me.”

As if I could do anything else.

When we left the shop, I mounted Gigiyago and lifted M in front of me and we trotted home to Pimienta. Anthony, Sarita, and the children came out to meet us and I introduced M and explained that we would spend the rest of our days together.  The children waved hello before wandering off to snatch peppers to munch on. Anthony cradled M’s face between his hands and said, “Right on, enjoy.”

Sarita took M’s hands in hers, caressing them, and when she was done, she leaned down and kissed M on the lips.  It was sweet and tender, but also kind of hot.  We arranged for Anthony and Sarita to fetch and forward M’s stuff - their feathers and tie collection was important, they explained.

I packed and soon we were trekking to the bus station that would take us to the airport. We were making a detour to Ohio before we started our life of coffee, swans, and lovely, fey children.

Once settled in our seats, I leaned over and kissed those soft, pillowy lips. We each sighed when our lips met.  I trailed my lips down to their neck and felt the tattoo of M’s pulse under my lips and in my blood.

After the plane took off, I looked out.  We were passing through a cloud and it smiled at me.  M turned to me. “Tell me more about my new family.”

“Well, my mother is a Valkyrie, a shield maiden, and there was this one time she killed a horse….”