by Tanya Tagaq
I think not. It is just a slower state. Is the air more enlightened than we are? Land always answers these questions for me. Land protects and owns me. Land feeds me. My father and mother are the Land. My future children are the Land. You are the Land. We destroy her with the same measured ignorance of a self-harming teenager. That is what I was in my fifteenth year, what is your excuse? I want to save the land as much as my mother wants to save me.
I haven’t had my period since the night on the Ice. I have not told anyone about the flipping in my belly because my tummy has stayed flat. All I know is that I am not alone anymore; I am protected now. The melt had the last of the snow running in rivers and the melt has blood pooling around my womb.
This is the time of Growth, of prosperity. Goodness has filled the bellies of the hungry. Rich thick fresh meat creates perfect shining strength. Small purple flowers have bloomed and blossomed in patches all over the tundra. Arctic poppies invade the land like small armies. Aigaq roots are kicked from their flowers and find themselves in bellies. The land is flush with animals.
Fox visits me often, but he treats me with a different reverence and would never dare talk to me again now that I have the twins in my belly. I speak with the twins every day, a boy and a girl.
I am filled. They are always pulling at me, playing with me and telling me what to eat. They often want me to leave my consciousness and come to them into our spirit world where we can communicate freely. We laugh like old people having tea when I am with them in our mind’s eye. My elders are in my tummy. I respect and admire them. They know so much more than I do. No one else knows about them because they move like fast snakes in my stomach. They are not my children but my equals and my leaders.
Children always need direction. Of course they do. But only in how to stay alive. If we trust their wisdom, they will know how to conduct themselves in a true sense. At some point these beings will have to evacuate themselves from my body. What will I tell my parents? I am still their baby, their baby that likes to search. I am their baby that dreams in a sick horror of the exploding pleasure of the Northern Lights. I am the baby of tingling breasts and swollen desire.
Best Boy picks me up most evenings to go for a walk because quite frankly sometimes it’s the only thing to do. The sun brings us around the periphery of the town; we are scuffing and meandering, saying nothing. Sometimes it feels like this town is a still-water lake and there is no wind. No air. We will suffocate if we are not careful. We stop and sit on a rock and let the sun speak. I love to sit and watch Best Boy breathe. I love catching his scent on the wind. A hint of breath, a hint of old laundry, fresh skin.
He is almost motionless. I love seeing his old-man eyes when we are alone. He lets himself be calm and old when we are alone. We could be alive now, we could be a thousand years ago, but we cannot be a thousand years from now because this land will have changed, drowned, unearthed, burned, and hopefully begun reassembling after we humans are gone.
We pick back up after a long time to continue our search for nothing. Music comes out of some homes, suicide out of others. We see our dorky little friend peering out the bedroom window of a house blasting country music. Seems festive. It’s early enough, so we risk going inside and try to be as invisible as possible as we pass the adults in the living room.
We almost go unnoticed when a drunkard stops us with a loud “HEY! KIDS, COME HERE.” We sheepishly inch over into the circle of bleary eyes. He simply hands us a large container of Player’s Light tobacco, some pre-made paper and filter tubes, and a cigarette-making machine. “Go make me smokes.”
We happily oblige. Sitting in a circle of three, we enjoy the time together, getting sticky fingers from learning how much or how little tobacco to pack into the machine before we take the paper tubes and slide the empty ends onto the metal holders and push the tobacco in with a satisfying click. We smoke all the cigarettes that we make a mess of. We inhale all of the superfluous tobacco like it’s a fountain of adulthood.
Watching the smoke curl under the rim of my ball cap while I puff and ash without using my hands makes me feel like I’m good at something, it makes me feel like I’m a grown-up. We pretend to be accountants, gangsters, Clint Eastwood. Hours pass and we discuss minutiae but in reality we measure fortitude. We take our leave out the window when the party gets louder, abandoning our little friend. My arm hooked through Best Boy’s, we walk through town and allow the whispers to follow behind us. Being followed by whispers is better than being led by screams.
There is little weight in my belly but I am much heavier now. Everyone thinks it’s puberty. An old woman named Helen approached me in the store today and invited me out to her tent to have tea. I have always known her, just as all of us in our small community have known each other. I often see her at the Bay or Co-op, collecting supplies for bannock. She is known for her coil bannock, though I have never tasted it.
She is the grandmother of Best Boy, and I know she senses him on me. Her crinkled face shows only a shadow of the power she owns, only what she chooses to show. Humility surrounds her, but we all revere her. I think she senses something more than I can possibly observe. Her hands hold the wisdom of a thousand years.
Her skin is loose and thin, but the gristle of her is visible even through her softness of age. She is formidable, and you must not show her your self-doubt. She will tire of you and leave. It’s the blackness of her eyes. Looking at her brings a deep calmness, but the torment of her memories stirs a deeper urgency. She needs something from me. I can help her. She can help me.
I watch her waddle away; the wolverine fur on the hood of her coat is so dark next to the whiteness of her hair. The majesty of thinning grey has somehow managed to conquer the dark, oily thickness of the fur. She is the queen of the unseen. Her body is heavy but she moves with light and the energy around her swirls like a slow tempest. The air around her shimmers like a heat wave. Her body is ruined by time but her true self sashays with the slow roll of a woman’s pelvis when the uterus is full. She does the best sewing, her family adorned like royalty with her stitches. Richness. The woman is like marrow on the tongue. To hunger for energy that is outside of food, outside of sex, and outside of violence; this is peace. This is safety.
* * *
—
Tuesday evening I venture with my dog out onto the tundra. The summer night is dusty and dry. The clouds make patterns that look like a Morse code warning: The summer will not last. This is life. Eat it now. My dog’s fur is cream and salmon coloured, his eyes so pale that they mimic the whitecaps. Everyone is afraid of him because he is so large but we know each other, and he makes this nature complete.
After hours of walking we come upon a lake, and we decide it’s time to cool off. He gets into the water first. I remove all of my clothing and stand in the sun, calf deep in clean lake. I don’t feel like a young girl anymore. I am a woman now. I settle into the water and let the cold support me. The waves lap up against stomach and shoulders as I watch the light dancing all over the water. See the reflection of the clouds? See my dog lapping up the freshness?
I put my head under the water for as long as I can. I am pure. This baptism does not belong to Christians. This baptism belongs to the Land. I prop myself up on my elbows and let the waves put their hands around my throat.
All of a sudden I am thirsty. Very, very thirsty. Too thirsty. Small fish and shrimp begin to collect like a halo around my body. I open my legs wide and let water flow into me. It doesn’t stop. She is thirsty too. All the shrimp and fish decide to follow, and she is less hungry. It feels like she is swallowing little warm lights. A large char swims up too, bright orange and majestic. He is visible from afar and swimming very quickly. I am frightened because I am sure he will not fit. He swims in forcefully but I open like an accordion so it does not hurt. I close my legs as the bright warmth travels up my whole body. My children rejoice and consume. It tickles. My dog is laughing at me. I get dressed slowly, satisfied and selfish. We laugh tog
ether all the way home, my dog and I. Secrets are delicious.
Helen and I begin to visit more often. She never speaks to me about my pregnancy but she often offers me bone marrow, soup and tea. She speaks Inuktitut a lot of the time and slowly it penetrates my consciousness. I begin to dream in Inuktitut and my babies flutter with happiness when they notice my contentment. I am so connected with my growing babies that they have become individuals to me. One is soft and strong as the womb she lives in, the other has harder edges and wants to throw stones. One is smaller, meeker. The other protects her. The other is the opposite one. One is so bright and fragile she feels like an egg yolk in my tummy. The jagged one surrounds her with metal and mettle. I do not play favourites, though one induces pride and the other awakens my desperation to give care. I am aware that they cannot exist without each other, that they are the same person in different bodies. It’s a pity they could not simply merge into one.
These babies have made me older. It is difficult to care about what I used to care about. Drugs make me feel sick. Booze makes me feel sick. Even cigarettes make me ill. Huffing gas makes me feel like I’m committing a crime. The cute boy doesn’t hold my gaze any longer. He holds my hand. He holds my need for companionship. My eyes blur and look past him whereas before he shone like the sun. No one dares to enter my room at night. I can feel the crazed beasts that are resting in me, ready if I need protecting. I feel the deep centre of warmth that placates the beasts with love, because love must always lead. Through my babies I wordlessly speak with the past; through baby boy I speak with a quiet and serene old man that keeps an eye on the horizon to make sure the world spins properly on its axis. Through baby girl I speak to a giant female wolf that stalks the periphery of our territory to detect predators. Both are silent, but who needs words to speak when all is already known?
The twenty-four-hour sun is waning into long sunsets and bouts of twilight. The orange light is my favourite, slanted sideways and feeding my whole body. Hours of orange sunset spark long narratives and peel away the fear of accepting circumstance. My babies have become my obsession and they have completely taken over my body. I am no longer the driver of my movements or actions, and can no longer hide my stomach. When asked who the father is, I say nothing.
My own father is infuriated. I saw his eyes cloud over and saw that he would never love me in the same way again. He withdrew into himself and never came out again. I no longer have access to his love.
My mother accepted the pregnancy and tried her best to be supportive. She rubbed my back like I was still her little girl and sometimes I can hear her muffled weeping from the other room. They worked so hard to raise me right. I think they are looking for a place to lay blame, but are aware that there is no blaming the rain from under the awning. There are only facts.
I drink in the orange sun every night, and we all absorb the silence. Our house has become quiet, devoid of music. The parties become less joyous. Then the parties stop. A deep shame and reverence lies in the eyes of my parents when they look at me. I overcompensate by making too many jokes and being too loud. I can win their love back. I know it. It’s not their fault that the lights took me. My babies will repair the damage. I can be their baby and have babies too. Acceptance and silence are carried and handed over to the orange sun. I hope my parents will be calm and learn to carry me again. I need them.
Heavy hands
Cupped palms
Carrying warm clear liquid
Slippery fingers
Let me undo your braid
Let your black hair cascade
Down your smooth brown back
Wood smoke and silence
Words not welcome
Let me comb your hair
Let the wind howl
Let me count your memories
Let me penetrate your warmth
With the rhythm of the brushstrokes
Let me smell the top of your head
Inhale your ideas
Let me braid your hair
Thick black
Raven feather black
Hear the elastic snap
I am in your braid now
You are in control
You just don’t know it yet
After all the months of brightness we have our first shy nights of darkness. We have missed the darkness. My babies crave the night. I realize they are craving their Maker. They cannot see their father in the light. The darkness pulls my stomach outwards and downwards. They slither inside but sometimes remain perfectly still until I begin to grow concerned for their safety. They sense my agitation and wiggle around just to placate my worries. I have never felt so full.
The call of the moon is the calling of my uterus. I can feel the tides pulling under the ice. The water in me is pulled with it. The babies’ faces always turn towards the moon. They are not normal babies; they are Fluid. I feel them growing legs, then shrinking and absorbing legs. They grow tails and fuse them together only to tear them apart again just for fun. They are one just like I dreamt they would be.
Their skin joins and separates at will. How will this be explained when they arrive? Sometimes they get angry at each other and flatten themselves on opposite sides of my uterine wall. This causes me great discomfort but it never lasts long. They get lonely very quickly and reach for each other at the exact same time. They dream the same dreams. I know because they thrash while sleeping in the exact same ways. Just like how the Northern Lights mirror each other on each pole, my children are not two, they ARE one.
It’s the first of the long dark nights. We go walking on the sea ice in the hope that the children will meet their Maker. The Northern Lights are out and dancing but they do not notice us. I realize that bringing them out on the ice was a mistake when one of my children starts moving and writhing to the exact same rhythm of the Northern Lights. The babies came from the sky; it does not surprise me that they might want to return to it.
The boy starts to press against the inside of my cervix. He is curious. His sister clutches him and observes from behind, but certainly would follow him in an instant if he left my womb. I do not want to lose them just yet. It is my first time being whole. I do my best to calm the excitement and keep them in my belly. Deep breathing. We waddle home and I soothe them with promises of fish soup and warm tea. My breasts started to ooze a bright green and viscous liquid.
My milk.
Milk in breast,
Full of womb,
Close to tomb.
* * *
—
Knowing that the babies want to appear soon, I begin to arrange the ceremony that will afford them the most comfortable birth. Instinct dictates that they not be birthed amongst many people but must be born on the land. They must spill forth onto five caribou skins, forty-two smooth stones, eleven ptarmigan stomachs, eight human teeth, and a flask of eighteen-year-old whisky. They must first see someone who can be trusted. Helen. We need Helen to facilitate the birth. My mother asked to be present, but she cannot tolerate seeing me in pain. I want Helen. The children want Helen because they have smelled the clean dryness of her hands through my nose. They have looked upon her from the top of my head. They have penetrated her thoughts already. I hope the babies will come on a night of the Deep Cold. Being pregnant makes me too hot.
The babies tell me two days beforehand that their Maker will arrive to help them out of the womb. I desperately hope that the Northern Lights will not simply take them from me and up into the sky. These babies are mine too. Celestial custody.
I go out to Helen’s camp in the daytime and tell her that I will come back in two days and bring dinner. She already knows what is coming. I spend the next two days preparing a feast. I spend the next two days focusing on my cervix and collecting stones. It’s scary. I don’t know what birth will be. I want to dig into the centre of the earth. I want to mourn. I want to preen and gather, rinse and slather myself in oil. I put both hands in my vagina. She opens and blooms. I have three orgasms. The babies suck up t
he joy. We glow. I prepare fresh arctic char head soup and bannock, and caribou broth with rosemary for the birth. I will bring raw meat to fry and a few books to read.
Spirit to Flesh.
Ice in Lung.
Seed in Soil.
Precious Ones.
My small one. Her breath, her smile, and the smell behind her ears. I celebrate her tears, her eye twitch, and her wet mouth. I celebrate her movement, her hips, and her patellae. I celebrate her voice, out of tune and earnest. I am her creator, her home, and her comfort. I drink her tears and am her love, hate, and earth in one. I am her nurturer and provider, her nest and her shackles. I am her flesh and her bones, her fluids are mine and mine are hers. My small one. My growing one. My truly mine. Her laughter, and her certain uncertainty. Her realness, her spark, her anger and her trust. My earth monster, my celebration. Today is for her, and for me for choosing to make her, to keep her, and to love her.
The birth night arrives and I meet Helen at her camp. She had known what needed to be done and had asked her nephew to build us an igloo. This is a welcome break from the canvas tent we had been visiting in. I DO love the smell of the canvas and the flapping of the tarps in the wind, but an igloo is heavier and quieter. The entrance to the igloo is slightly larger than normal and a small ice window is placed directly on the side so we can sense the sky. The sleeping area is lined with caribou fur.
We are relaxing and drinking tea. We eat the food that had been prepared with the most Love. I observe the lines on her face, see the hang of her lip, the moisture within her. For a moment I can see her the way Cold sees warmth. Her fluids must be slowed and stopped. She must be preserved. I realize that Cold is not evil. Cold just doesn’t like rot. Cold doesn’t like change. Cold wants things neat and tidy, and our passionate and heated state simply does not coincide with Cold’s frugal nature. Cold wants to clean us up by sopping up our life and bringing us to his state. Cold wants to halt Time, halt our aging process, halt our movements, and halt our rot.
