Cloudhead

“You’ll never find a husband in the sky.”

I am eight years old the first time Ammi tells me this. Eight! My attention, such as it is at the time, is on a flock of dark birds – migrating, probably – which fills the street loudly. The birds land on power lines together. Immediately dart back off the power lines together. Change direction. Once. Twice. Together.

I assure you, it is far more remarkable than anything happening on the ground.

At eight years old, I am not looking for a husband. I dismiss my mother’s words as nonsense, perhaps a weak translation of some saying that made more sense when her mother said it to her.

But now I am twenty-four and she says it again and it’s still just as stupid a saying as it was when I was eight.

There’s a lot going on up there in the sky and it should be seen. 

Groundling husbands be damned!