Divining Rod: Runaway
Memories of one day in 1969-70, around age 4 in lake charles, louisiana at our house on david drive. Photo of me age 3 on Gulf of Mexico.
Our living room was sunken in our very 1960s ranch home with a beige brick fireplace. Did I have to wear a dress every day? My curly hair would get knotty in the back but no mind, Mama couldn't be concerned about appearances, just getting us six kids through the morning routine of dressed and something from the kitchen for breakfast was plenty, plenty. Dad was out on a duck hunt this morning, it was cloudy and wet outside but not raining, so “Out the door with you all.” Mom swooshed us outside.
My stomach hurt, kinda feeling crampy. Maybe if I just keep on going, I figured, it'll go away?
The grass was a different color after the rain, more dark and deep and somehow more beautiful. Seemed like a whole world of activity was going on in the grass and I wanted to learn how it worked. I could back my tail up to the roots of the kumquat tree and nestle in for a little explore, that's what my mom would call it. On the way to my seat, I'd be sure to collect the right kind of sticks for poking around, they needed to be strong enough and not too fat so maybe they could be like pens or surgical blades. My favorite sticks for saving we're strong, elegant and crowned with a nice wide Y shape on the end.
I poked around for just the right spot where I could spy on the bugs and see if they were at work. The beetles were crazy with their twig-like legs and shiny, crunchy-shell bodies. I could play with the gray ones~~ the ones with hairy, tiny legs I called rolly pollies~~ for what seemed to be an eternity. They didn't mind my picking them up to watch em crawl up and down my arm and hand. They would roll up in a ball if I tickled their little belly, oh so gently.
If I got stuck sitting so long that my butt would begin to itch with pine needles, I’d grab my favorite Y-shaped stick and go off on a Divining Rod tromp.
What was I searching for? Maybe privacy or another good spot to be able to sit and dig around. Supposedly the rod would twitch if there was a freshwater spring underground, mom's people taught her that, but my big brother said that was bullshit. I didn't care what he thunk!
I kept on going toward the woods out of the fruit tree orchard on that cloudy day, on my divining search. I wasn't even planning an escape, but it just happened naturally.
There was a great patch of four-leaf clovers and bees and clover flowers on one end of the yard by the woods where I leaned and swayed down close to the ground with my divining rod - when I find a whole bunch of four-leaf clover ones I’ll make myself a crown at quiet time later. I hate quiet time. No one likes to just shut up and calm down the way my mom wants. Dang, no one ever wants to just leave me be, even when I'm just laying there for quiet time, or when I’m hunting happily for four-leaf clovers.
My sister’s gotta always get in my business. Watch, she's gonna buzz over here and poo-poo all over my best divining rod .
“Dumb girl, that stupid stick ain't doin a thing, ‘cept make you look re-tarded,” and she swatted it down and, practically at the same time, grabbed a four-leafer, like it was nothin! Celebrating, she declared proudly, “I got one, brat! You get out of here, this is MY SPOT!”
Well, I skittered right on out of the yard to the next yard and I just kept on going, holding out a fresh divining rod from patch to clover patch in my own little world. You can find a bunch of clover patches, easy, along the ditches. Eventually, I ended up all the way down the street along the big clumpy wall of the deep gully by Nelson Road. I didn’t know anyone was lookin’ for me.
I saw something better than a clover patch. Little yellow wildflowers were growing among the clover patches on the gully bank. I plopped my little self down right in Buttercup Heaven. By this time my bloomers were damp and dirty and the lace on my little white socks was tangled up with weeds and hitchhikers. But I was going to have yellow flowers for my crown of clovers and what a joy to have a patch of Buttercups—-all to myself!
—emily cox, 2020
