A FERRY WOMAN’S STORY…..SoulSister

Didn’t always live in Duwamish. My home was far, far away from these shores, across many seas, and each crossing with it’s own story to tell. Haven’t really thought about those days in a long, long while. It was on an island, bit like the Isle of Ancestors you see here before you, about the same size an’ all. It was one of three tiny islands that still lie to the west off the coast of Ireland. Life was damn hard then. No farming land to talk of, wouldn’t grow nothing much but stones. Bloody stones – ya can’t eat stones. Only one thing ya could do with them stones – build walls; miles and miles of bloody walls, and for what? To protect a patch of land that couldn’t bear any life, except maybe a few blades of grass, enough just to keep a sheep or two going. Then them sheep were sheared, and the wool too coarse for a baby’s arse, was spun and knitted into sweaters that were so weather-proof they could stand alone in a storm with not a body in them! But they sure were good enough to wear out in the open boats fishing, and fishing was all ya could live on in those isles. The sea claimed many of our men folk. They’d push out in the morn in their curraghs, little more than hollowed out tree trunks, and then the wind and the rain would start up their squallin’, screaming louder and louder, until at last ya’d think they were about to waken the dead. Sure maybe that’s what they were about after all.now Maybe they were calling up the dead to claim the new victims, cos the sea was a hungy and mean master. The stronger those storms grew, the more the fear began to eat ya up. It always began by attacking your belly, and then your lungs started to close up until ya couldn’t take a full breath no more. But it was when the fear hit your entrails that ya just knew ya had just shifted from watching the weather with your eyes and mind, to feeling it with your body and in your heart, which felt heavier than as if all the stones on the island had been piled up and emptied on top of your chest. And that’s where my wisdom comes from, if ya wanna call me wise. It sure didn’t come from books, cos I have no learnin’, never having sat long enough inside a schoolhouse. There was one on the main island but the teacher was mean minded and didn’t know nothing’ really; nothing he could teach me anyways. No respect for the sea or those who farmed her. Better to get the switch then, than suffer the agonies of those hard benches in freezing cold rooms. Nah, the sea and the stones told better stories that that there teacher. Heard the sea got him in the end.

Well soon as I hit fourteen I was gone. Dressed up like a sailor and hit the seas. Better to be on them than hangin’ ‘round with all the other women folk waiting and waiting til the men got home. Wasn’t long ‘til the stories about Pirate Queen began to get about, and now them sure were interesting stories. Funny thing about life — if there’s something that ya really, really want, and ya think and think about it ‘til your brain nearly explodes, well guess ya’ll get it in the end. I sure got what I wanted.

The day we caught the Pirate Queen was the day my life changed for the better. Boy, was she something’ else! Never saw a more powerful woman in my life. Well, they tied her up and threw her in the hold. Later, after dark, I climbed into that there hold and cut her ropes, and together we jumped ship and swam to shore. Heard the commotion in the background as we hit dry land when the alarm was raised. But it didn’t matter. She was free again, and so was I for the first time in my life. And boy, did it feel good! Well she took me with her on her next sea voyage and all the ones after. She taught me all she knew. Guess she appreciated me saving her life. Yeah, she was my soul mother alright.

The last voyage we took was one too many. Maybe we should have heeded the signs. Anyways we didn’t. And that was the end of it all. That blasted gun shot got her. As she lay dying in my arms, I cradled her and sang her an old Irish lullaby. And after she closed her eyes for the last time, well guess I closed mine too, cos that damned soldier got me too.

The next time I woke up I was drifting in a ship into Duwamish Bay. And it’s that very same ship that carries all those women over to the Isle of Ancestors. Some say it’s only women who inhabit this island, and only women who can step foot on it, but I say that maybe there’s room for a man or two, if he shows he understands a different way of knowing, and welcome to him. The women who traverse these waters are a brave bunch of souls. Here their souls will touch our souls, and we will touch theirs. Sometimes they will see us, and sometimes they will only sense us passing by. Either way it don’t matter much, cos they will never be the same by the time it comes for them to leave this land.