Hansel, my brother, where are you now?

When I think of the road that has finally gotten me to the Gingerbread Cottage, I kind of can't believe I'm even here. With the exceptions of the summers on the road, I think about the last two years in South Central, and I can't believe I made it out. Or made it out alive, I should say. It was a two-year fight, and one that almost bested me, really, because it wasn't the upfront, honest fight of hero vs. villain. It wasn't a Wild West shootout with the White Hats against the Black Hats. South Central almost beat me because there wasn't a clear opponent at all; the opponent was the entire space--geographical, yes, but political, social, psychic. And that ain' a fair fight. It was like living inside the genre of literary naturalism where the environment is actively trying to beat you down...and really, in which the environment always wins. (That's naturalism for ya.)

So instead of duking it out with a clear-cut opponent, it was like fighting phantoms--impossible to see, but I knew they were there. Because they were there. So I spent nearly every day fighting the appalling working conditions, fighting the vague but pervasive disapproval of the town (um, and of the region), fighting the overwhelming isolation, fighting the rumor and innuendo about the only young, single female professor on campus, fighting the stifling restrictions I placed on my own personality due to the social pressures of the town. That's so much fighting, you know? So much resistance. It can wear a girl out after a while.

So my luck turns, and I skip off to Rust City, where I find a magical Gingerbread Cottage near the river with a big, old pine tree and a fireplace and a weird little bathtub that is very short and very deep. The inside is painted in yellows and greens, and there are tons of huge windows where the sunlight comes streaming in every day--even on stormy days, somehow. Rudy and Baby Girl love the place and had no trouble with the transition at all, which is unusual and clearly a sign from the Universe. Friends have been inside my cottage, and they have taken me out of it. I have dined out and drank in dive bars and gone swimming and met new people. I have begun making exciting plans for my job and have reconnected with lovely students I worked with back when I was a Visiting Artist and have found some great opportunities to get my work across the nation.

But something is wrong. Something is wrong. And it all comes down to The Bat.

Maybe I should backtrack. When I moved into the Gingerbread Cottage, I swore a few things: 1.) that I would fully unpack, 2.) that I would fit everything inside the cottage proper, without resorting to using the basement, and 3.) that I would do all this in the span of two weeks. Fourteen days, and I would have a place for everything and everything in its place.

It's a little over three weeks now, and it's not looking so good for these goals. My books are arranged on the bookshelves. Most of my clothes are in the closet, except the dirty ones, of which there are more and more each day. The kitchen stuff is at least in the kitchen, the bathroom stuff in the bathroom, although not put away. There are still boxes. There's still a mess. But now I'm at the point of unpacking the unnecessaries. The art, the decorations, the photos, the mementos, the memories. While I consider these things the most important things to me, I'm finding them the most difficult to deal with. A lot more difficult than I expected.

I still have the porcelain box you gave me--you know, the heart-shaped one with the sunflower on it, back when you were the RA in my dorm and you said sunflowers reminded you of me. I have the rock you carried across the country to give to me because it was the size and shape of an anatomical heart. The shards of ancient Roman pottery you dared me to take from Caesearia, the ones that did not get confiscated after having my suitcase tossed three times at Ben Gurion. I have the collection of quarter-used notebooks, filled with snatches of overheard conversations, lists of things to do, poems I started to write for you but couldn't bear to finish.

But where do you put those things? How do you prioritize what is most accessible and what ends up at the bottom of the stack of boxes in the way back of the closet under the stairs? What is the correct location for the little trunk containing every paper letter I have ever been written, some from you, some from others, with each correspondent's missives tied into bundles with ribbons? I want to keep it close to me so that I can reach out and touch it at any time and know that underneath my fingertips there is proof that we communicated, that we thought of each other, that even if we aren't now, we were. But it would be much more practical to use that accessible space for shoes or cleaning supplies.

And is it disrespectful to your past to just chuck your yearbooks in a box somewhere? And why do I insist on keeping that little ceramic figurine in my top dresser drawer, the one my dad gave me on Valentine's Day when I was 7? I never really liked it, but as children Dad always got my sister and me a little present on Valentine's Day, one that he went out and bought himself. It maybe didn't make sense or demonstrate understanding of who we were as people, but it was a tangible marker that continually says, "My dad was thinking of me right before the stores closed on February 13 when I was 7 years old." But that space would be much better occupied by gloves or fans of handkerchiefs.

But trying to sort through all these things, trying to find a place for them in my apartment and in my life...it's not just a little jaunt down memory lane. Hansel and Gretel didn't find the Gingerbread Cottage until after they had been abandoned in the deep forest, only to find that their trail of breadcrumbs had been eaten, and they were really and truly on their own. It's the forest that's hard to negotiate. So what do I do with your favorite book of poetry, the one that I didn't read until after you had broken my heart in two all those years ago, the one I spent hours poring over, hoping to find some sign, some little clue to tell me how it could have possibly ended like that. The heartbreak is long gone, but pulling the book out of the box, remembering what it is, deciding where it goes--that conjures up the ghosts of the past.

So really, unpacking isn't putting things away--it's opening up graves and letting the spirits out. The benevolent spirits, the evil ones, the recent ones and the ones that are ancient history...they're all sacred, I get it, but the deal is, they're all let loose at once. And one ghost at a time can be too much to handle, but every ghost of every important moment to ever happen in your life? And it's all of them slipping out of this photo of you, and that note you left me, and this necklace you brought me from Turkey, and that milagro you sent me in the mail unexpectedly, the spirits slipping out and filling the room like fog. They're all right here right now. All of the boxes are opened, and there's such a cacophony of ethereal voices demanding my attention that I don't really know where to turn.

Then there was The Bat. It was 3am, and I was awake of course, surrounded by the spirits, staring, paralyzed, at these little bits of my life that say, "I lived here," or "I went here." The ones that say, "I knew someone." Or "I loved someone." Trying to think of a way to organize them. In my house. In my history. And then suddenly this manic, prehistoric-looking beastie just magically appears inside my living room, flapping its way through my home, and then...complete chaos. And that's when I realized: holy shit. It's just me.

And the thing I can't ignore is this: damn, sometimes a girl needs some help, you know? Not all the time, but sometimes. And I hate needing help. I hate it I hate it IhateitIhateitIhateit, and there aren't a lot of things I say that I hate. But sometimes a girl needs someone to get her back. Or her front. You know, when I'm zipping up my own dress and hit that spot in the middle of my back that I have to be a contortionist to get the zipper past, yeah, I'd love a hand, but I can push the desire out of my head. But sometimes a girl just can't...like the times when the spirits are stacked to the roof of her house, and then the beasts of the forest start invading.

It just makes me wonder--Hansel, my brother, where are you now? I've saved you when it counted. I shoved that witch's ass into the flames when you were locked up, helpless as a kitten, and she was ready to eat you for lunch. But now my home is under attack, and you're nowhere to be found. It's three o'clock--the soul's midnight. Monsters are invading my home, and I'm alone.

How is a girl supposed to sleep with all of that going on? So I stay awake, waiting and watching...for the bats, for the bogeyman. Trying to find a way to appease the ghosts swirling around my home because I cannot give them up. Because I'm going to keep this cottage safe. And unless Hansel steps up, or a kindly woodsman happens by, or I'm discovered by a group of sympathetic dwarfs, I'm the only one here to defend this place...from the ghosts, from the goblins, from the wolves at the door.

Because this is a fairytale cottage, and fairytales are not without darkness, without danger. But I will stay awake and persevere, the lone sentry at the door. Because there really is no other option, is there? Not for a scared but stubborn girl like me. lucille clifton knows what I mean:

she is asking for more than
most men are able to give,
but she means to have what she
has earned,
sweet sighs, safe houses,
hands she can trust.