Lightning in a Mason Jar

by Catherine Mann

Changing my identity and leaving behind everything familiar should have been difficult. Traumatic, even. Except it wasn’t. Because from birth, we women aren’t tethered to our names.

As if a woman’s entire worth, her sum total sense of self, were tied into her ring finger and uterus. A Mrs. or a mom.

Excitement and terror are close kin. Outwardly they resemble each other. Anticipation and fear both flip the stomach, set the heart racing, dilate the pupils, and accelerate breathing.

The cook had escaped her past life thanks to a secret network that helped women leave abusive relationships. If I was interested, we could speak later.

Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle. Smell the flowers. Blow out the candle.”

Some people had to come to the realization that their parents were imperfect humans who were doing life for the first time too.

Family by choice rather than by blood, he would say.

Shades of happiness and heartache wove together to make the fabric of memories.

Breathe in the flowers. Blow out the candles. Breathe in the swamp fumes. Blow away the mosquitoes.

After a few art sessions, Winnie commented how the overflowing rocks were like stockpiled emotions, and when they overflowed, sometimes a person had to find a way to showcase the most important ones.

I dragged a chair as close to the bedrail as I could get to minimize the chance of anyone hearing. Also, to clasp Annette’s hand because I needed that connection, to feel the reassurance of her alive and warm.

Skeeter sat in the doorway, wide eyes studying her with a sympathy that seemed to say he understood well the benefit of zoomies.

There was a special kind of beauty in moving from the tumultuous part of “finding” each other to the peaceful assuredness of our future.

“Until tonight, I didn’t fully feel the weight, the desperation, of these women and children. Tonight, I really registered their helplessness, just as I’d seen it in people while I was in Vietnam during the war. People who’d lost control of their world.”

“You’re worth the wait,” he said. “You’re my lightning in a bottle, that once-in-a-lifetime event. Difficult. Challenging. And exciting beyond belief.” “We’re in the South,” I reminded him. “So that should be lightning in a Mason jar.”