Chlora's Diary and Pillow
2005 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with gold
Adaptations of "Christ Asleep During the Storm on the Sea of Galilee",
Abbess Hitda's Gospel Book (10th-11th c)
and "The Deposition", from The Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry,
by the Limbourg Brothers, e. 15th c.
(an appropriation of Jacob's Latter Pillow)
Chlora patted out a small pool in her soft pillow
and propped up her diary. It was time to
reread some things. A few years ago, she was just
learning penmanship and she liked to practice her cursive in here.
She recorded an event every day, but it never said much.
One time she wrote that she and a friend put their boot
in the deep places. That meant they were thrilled to be playing
outside all alone, and under the threatening icycles had discovered
beautiful snow drifts up against the house. Another time she made
handprints in wet cement and wrote her name with a stick.
That meant she would endure for eternity. The day she got
her first glasses, the eye doctor joked that she really needed
a seeing eye dog. That meant Chlora felt guilty for cheating
on the Big E test, hoping it would get her a dog.
Rereading, Chlora was impressed that she had enough sense
to record some historic comings and goings.
She had made a note about that astronaut who circled orbit three times
and came back safely, and when the President did not come
back safely from Dallas, when some prissy-puss movie star died,
and when the Beatles arrived in America.
She got possessive about Paul and had an awful fight
over him in the girls bathroom at school.
Oh well. There had been dumber reasons for fights
throughout history. Some of the worst ones were in the Bible,
which made her wonder how come people said it was so lovely.
Maybe they should reread the whole thing.
She shut the diary and put it away under her pillow.
She used to tell the Tooth Fairy not to peek at it.
But the Tooth Fairy was flaky. She had been
confused for years after Chlora's front tooth
was knocked out at age two.
She went snaggle-toothed her entire childhood, and
never got the money she was owed by that fairy.
For a long time, she swooped her hand under the pillow just in case
some coins had appeared, and if so, she hoped the Tooth Fairy
had added in the accrued interest. Older and wiser now,
Chlora knew better than to trust any winged relative of Tinker Bell,
that flitty little imp. Thus angels fell into the suspicious category.
Chlora's pillow was named after Jacob. He had had an all night fight
with an angel who pinched his leg so bad he limped the rest of
his life. Chlora tried this with her sister, whose big blue bruise
was proof that Chlora was no angel.
But Jacob also had some dreamy angels. If he could give them
a second chance, she could too. His angels were busy, going up
and down a ladder ferrying messages between heaven and earth.
They were embroidered on her pillowcase, so she could count them
instead of sheep at night. It was a pleasant way to drift off,
being connected to heaven and ignoring whatever was going on
on earth. She noted that Jacob's angels were on top of the ladder,
never underneath it where bad luck lives.
detail of Jacob's Dream, from 17th c. English embroidery, an adaptation in porcelain from Jacob's Latter Pillow
Ginger Henry Geyer 1997
Chlora had a ladder to the top bunk.
It was hot up there, but she could write in her diary in privacy.
It was a good place to feel the corners of her life.
When it was good and dark, she was entertained by the shadow parade
on the bedroom wall. She knew what caused it--just the headlights
of a passing car shining through the window. The shadow parade
arrived abruptly, stretching around corners, bumping over the shelves
and closets, and leaping across the shut door, until it was swallowed
up again by the window. It was like a circus train of mute elephants
and giraffes and lions, shaping the darkness in to something new.
Imagination in the dark could also be scary.
Chlora imagined herself climbing into her hiding place, like Anne Frank,
pouring out her hopes and fears of all the years
to her diary named Kitty. Chlora sort of looked like Anne,
skinny with frizzy dark hair. They were soul sisters across time.
Chlora cried when Anne's diary ended.
She hoped that Anne had had a good angel,
the kind that starts out with "Fear Not!",
so you don't get the daylights scared out of you. "Fear Not" is what
Gabriel said to Mary when she got annunicated.
She got pregnant through her ear.
Chlora was small, like Anne and Jacob.
Anne had to stay put. But Jacob really got around.
He named his pillow Bethel because God was in that place.
Bethel was made of stone, so God must be everywhere.
Jacob's pillow stayed put too. Chlora's didn't. She liked to
take it when she spent the night with a friend.
If she ever got to go anywhere interesting, she would
have to turn her diary into a travel log.
For now, it could become a personal Book of Hours,
like medieval ladies had. But hers would be a Book of Years,
since it had five years of entries. Some pages were blank,
so she looked for pictures to fill in the spaces between words.
She would stick to a theme and collect pictures
that had pillows and ladders in them.
Or she might find ones where bad things happen to good people
like Anne and Jesus, or good things happen to bad people
like Jacob the cheater, or those nasty lovers in Japanese
pillow books. It would be a challenge to find pictures of nothing
happening to average people.
Chlora had a few pictures to glue in her book tonight.
She climbed up the ladder, thankful to have a place
to lay her head and say pillow prayers.
She flipped the pillow over for cool comfort,
held onto her diary, and watched the parade go by.
