Her Bow and Arrow

As often happens, when I saw her today I failed to recognize her for a few moments. We’ve passed each other endless times over the years but I would guess that one out of every four times I don’t recognize her because she has done something new to herself. Whenever I see her now I think “There goes the Work in Progress.” This time her hair was white blond in a ponytail down her back. The last time it was dark and short and she was wearing huge dark glasses on a rainy day. She is heavy and big and in the cold weather tends to wear the same outfit — army jacket, jeans, big macho cowboy boots that make lots of noise when she walks by. She is often carrying peculiar things. Once it was a bow and a bunch of arrows. Another time what looked like a thick blackthorn walking stick. She’s young and doesn’t need one but that day she was carrying an Irish walking stick in the middle of the city. A few years ago she began getting her thick arms inked. Sometimes in the summer when it’s hot and she wears a t-shirt, I see the slow progress up her arms of the many intricate tattoos. She has a very plain face but more often than not she’s smiling a little and will turn that smile on you if she sees you’re looking her way.

I never know what to make of this woman. She seems to be working so hard to transform her large, unwieldy self into…what? A tough guy? A diesel dyke? A tattooed one-of-the-gang? But other than her same uniform, she has changed her look so many times and in certain ways permanently (the tattoos) that I sometimes imagine her standing large and naked in front of her home mirror saying “Where do you want to go today?”