The Archer

The Archer: Beau’s Arrows

First Call

Sun rose in her tummy, lifting her out of a sturdy dark bed. Precarious air, moving through Beau’s lungs, felt familiar and light pink. Nestled into rhythms of morning and bunkmates, she felt summer’s freshness, Monday in Pocono Mountains. Whether Pennsylvania air was flavored by her morning thoughts being different than usual, or by something planted into the day by an unknown source was questionable.

Love holding hands with eagerness was up, awake in summer camp’s cabin of thirteen-year-olds. The offering scent from lemon tree through open window, rejoiced in girls. Her bed was covered with a blanket as softly white, gently positioned, as cloud settled in morning sky. Contrast between the cloud’s trust in now, yet ability to be quickly given over to rain, left uneasiness in her feet. This uneasiness became part of the day, unspoken, unnamed. She put on green sneakers, comfortable and muddy. Beau murmured a song phrase to herself often sang at campfire, “flicker of campfire….”

Another girl heard. Soon, many girls were singing as they dressed in mesh shorts and assorted t-shirts. Song crescendoed, splashed day, receding back into nothing as they brushed teeth, washed their white, pink and brown faces.

Black-capped chickadee, eastern phoebe, red-bellied woodpecker, and tufted titmouse sang through her heart, arms and hands calling her to flag-raising. Here she stood in line with bunk mates at the almost all girls’ camp called Camp Rising One. Chirping voices of pretty girls, flavored like flowers, scent of someone sucking on cherry candy before breakfast, and the strcheee sound of flag being pulled up pole by rope, blended into morning.

Andy, maintenance boy, felt into her heart from the elderly cracked and chapped office porch. Years had tenderized porch planks. Wood, which had held many scenarios and people, was sweetened with wrinkles of decades.

Andy was another variety of sweetness. Embedded in his taken-for-granted youngness, he knew nothing else. Andy was made of earth and water while she was fire born. Nobody noticed him looking at her, although he did daily. His gentle wavy brown hair fell well on his round face with light green eyes. As sun waved over campers and counselors from clear sky, disappearing as clouds came through, she felt movement in her heart. She did not realize she experienced Andy’s heart moving through her. His flavor had become familiar. Did not occur to her that he was of anything other than herself. He glanced. She smelled honey suckle from a nearby vine. His muscular hands held one another. Her long arms drooped, fingers strong. She viewed the flag with a percolating curiosity about life, felt washed from breeze on her forehead, breathed.

Girls were ready for day as excitement swirled among them. Only Andy noticed that something was different with her this Monday. Usually, first to ask others how they were, consistent with exchanging greetings, often gifting treats, she was immersed inside herself. He wondered what was on her mind.

Beau had been in motion a long time. Projects and social engagements were her natural navigation stule, so much so that she became expected to flow in particular ways by many people. She reached out generously without thinking much about it. If she wasn’t dancing with her friends in the theater-house, or laughing with a group in the cabin, she was canoeing with others on lake.

Something different took her today, the archery target. When time came to sign up for day classes, she chose archery six times. She intended to send arrow right through heart of target. Her heart was piercing with agony she could not explain. She needed focus.

Mental Illness

Two months later, many she had befriended, be-sistered had a multitude of reactions. She now shot arrows from six a.m. till eight p.m. seven days a week, stopping only for meals, a shower, time to make her bed and do laundry. No flag-raising, socializing, or other activities. Some were distraught to the point of a compost stench surrounding them. Some had judgment fevers that left emptiness in the day. Some didn’t care, felt fine, and filled their lives with natural warmth of selves like pear pies baking in the kitchen stove. Others benefitted. Air was knotted with tension over this tiny choice, one little girl made at summer camp: to spend her time each day at the archery target solo.

Andy threw a penny into the lake. As penny sank, ripples spread wider and wider, moving through water, reaching shore. Beau aimed, feeding her eyes with blue, yellow and red circles on target. Girls surrounding watched, smiled, sighed. Although she was up at the archery field, he was below at the lake this Tuesday morning, he held her steady. From within his own heart, in respectful curiosity and trust in her moves, he steadied her. If you asked him, he would not know or say so but air knew. Air moved through her lungs and his in tandem.

Her parents were called to come. They brought psychologists with books, notebooks, and fancy gold-plated pens. The kitchen cook gave therapists a bag of brownies, which they ate as they observed her. Two psychologists were at odds with each other about the nature of the disease. One, with a lean, muscular body, said a combination of adolescent hormones, obsessive compulsive disorder, and a fetish. The other, more relaxed, plump and soft, said it was a new type of disease. This phenomenon required a name, as others would get this disorder too: sports addiction with delusional features.

Her Skill

She functioned well enough although no longer the reaching-out one, they once knew, or so they thought. Moving through her were waves of love for those she had once tended to. She could not love in the same style she had. Love was not gone. She heard, felt, and saw them all around the camp through the corners of her eyes and edges of her ears. All the while, she remained focused on archery target. She made it through the next four years of school. Each summer, she came back to camp to spend days with bountiful bows and arrows. People asked her about her experience in terms of theirs. “Don’t you think you are missing out on boys? Don’t you think you will get into a better college if you learn additional skills? Don’t you feel empty from leaving your social life behind?”

Nobody asked about her experience with words that could be answered by what she felt. Wednesdays, the rest had a special camp game of Capture the Flag, dividing themselves into two teams: Rocks and Rivers. They filled the upper field with joyous pleasures. She stayed at the archery field. In younger years she had been over-stretched. Shot out of her own self in many directions, well intended in sharing unexplainable joy, she had lost ground and energy. She had arrived on the edge of depletion. She felt dissipation yet sweetness inside like strawberry juice sipped from many straws. Beau was taken from herself then, getting sick often, sensed something deeper beckoning. She took all she had to re-point herself.

Both stale and fresh nine-grain bread scents lingered in her nostrils. The kitchen was many yards away but intensive focus heightened her sensitivity. Her heart experienced agony and fulfillment repeatedly, all the while sinking more deeply into her body. She could hear sound deep inside herself like a choir of many singing to the sun. Her body went through exhilaration each time she made the target, disappointment when she missed, all experiences melting into her soul. Her soul held her in a way nobody else had, acquiescing into waves of Love’s lap. This love she felt generating out to those she used to tend to with a piece of fruit, care for with a hand to help sew a curtain, or speak to with words life provides. She felt herself blending into mid-day like crickets and birds singing in unison with light. There was no difference between day, song sparrows, and her archery bow with arrow. Her heart sang, pierced.

People studied her because of her skill more than other reasons. Newer ones had no idea of what she had left for what she found. They wanted to know how she hit the bull’s eye with an average of seven out of any ten shots. To them she was athlete.

Reporters were called in. They photographed her in motion, lightened her orange curly hair to gold in magazines, added more to her life for television.

A sports-advisor physicist, stating such skill was not probable, investigated, wrote her up. In hopes of a career-leap, he was gleeful to meet her.

Andy, who continued to watch her, felt her inside himself, never touched her, secretly heard her breath. He listened like person listens to a cat purring. He came closer now. He often ventured up to the archery field to shoot at the same target. Beau spoke little but he could very accurately feel her welcoming. His wavy brown hair was now down to his shoulders. His torso was now built wide and strong. His eyes were now bigger, still full of the same green and light.

The Advisors

Once media found her, they continued to redesign her regularly. She was dispersed in a collage that extended far past her parameters, divided similarly to the way she was in the days of reaching out to more than her one life could handle. They made her into a saint, a degenerate, a hero, and a sex symbol.

During this adolescence she sometimes felt like a canoe on wind-held waters. Wind was in her heart. Bunkmates’ moods lowered and rose like pliés through the day, potentially tipping her from side to side. The world around went up and down. Still she kept her feet settled in olive Birkenstocks, arm slung just right for faith, vague sense that Andy was benefitting. His presence, nesting like baby eastern phoebe in her heart, became distinct.

Beau remained silent in response to questioners. One day a determined woman from Psychological Profiles Journal relentlessly asked her the same question many times. Andy listened carefully while sitting on grass feet from Beau. Wilma Stone, reporter, was certain she would be the one to crack the puzzle of Beau, find out about a drug addicted sibling or disheveled childhood, maybe molestation from a neighbor. Tenacity can pull the string out of the strongest characters. Wilma had a track record as one-pointed as Beau’s. Wilma had broken many people into tears for articles.

Wilma Stone hovered a good eight inches over Beau, approaching. Beau was watching an arrow sail through air into target, bullseye. Wilma paid close attention, held a laptop in her arm. Keeping a second conversation going with a cell phone microphone-clip to ear, Wilma clutched determination in her somewhat disharmonic smile.

“What are you thinking about when you shoot, Beau?” she asked with a steady voice, a gaze right into Beau’s eyes. Beau shot again. Wilma asked again. This call and response pattern continued for a good nine minutes.

Seemingly not frazzled by hearing the questioner’s question thirty times, Beau, at last, with low and gentle voice let the answer slip gracefully from her mouth. Andy noticed compassion in Beau’s eyes, when Beau decided to speak to Wilma Stone. To Andy, Beau appeared to be a reflection of Wilma’s sorrow in the instant of her answering. Wilma flickered warmly through Beau’s heart as Beau temporarily shifted her full focus from target to woman. Beau’s face looked like Wilma’s for a moment, sagging a bit in corners of the mouth.

“I focus on the middle of the target, aiming bow. I feel my arm full of energy as I draw my elbow back to keep my eye on the bull’s eye. I release the bow. I feel I fly like the arrow, until arrow touches target.”

Silent joy erupted through Beau and Andy simultaneously.

“Why did you quit eating supper with others, Beau?” was Wilma’s next shot. Wilma shot, ten more times.

“I am focused on being here in the archery field,” Beau said.

The caption, Beau’s Holy Last supper, spread into hands of hundreds of thousands with no clue on what lived inside this young woman. The story portrayed a troubled adolescent who gave up socialization with a mystical sacredness about her. Andy was uncertain as to whether the article was praise or condemnation, seeming to be a mixture. This article jump- started Beau’s images into the vast world.

Hundreds of news clips on “Beau, teenager who gave away life for an arrow” were attractive to women getting pedicures in neighborhood shops, workers coming home after a long day, teens looking for someone to admire.

In alternative circles’ magazines, non-polished photos of Beau, turned her images into an admired cocky gal. She dressed the role unknowingly as she did her thing outside. Andy read articles, felt sinking in himself connected to silent sobbing growing in her throat and heart.

As her breasts grew into life, into previously baggy shirts and into the view of cameras, newspapers gave these breasts fame. To her they felt full and excited, reaching from her torso toward warmth of sun. In Home Made Star Country Times, these breasts appeared washed, scrubbed, and polished with aquamarine spandex to meet the popular shape and style of the decade. These breasts appeared peeking out of a low scoop neck top on the front page of the Living section. Beau did not recognize the shirt nor breasts offered. To friends who viewed the article photo, Beau and the breasts had been re-sculpted.

Leaders from religions and self-help movements came to help. Where once there was only fresh scent of grass growing and dying, a collection of statues and books piled high. Late Thursday afternoon, sleepy from the week, she was also pleasured by happiness from people drinking cups of lemonade and tea, some standing by her in the sun. One man pleaded with her to give this archery compulsion over to an appropriate master or at least to the twelve steps. Some women circled around her with scriptures. Others prayed. Many attempted to fix, advise, reconstitute, redesign, and correct. A few continued with diagnosis and analysis. A graduate student wrote reports in hopes of excellent grades. When no other reporters were present, an agent offered her a book contract, simultaneously grabbing her hips.

Andy saw that man who smelled like smoke and French fries take her body, almost stepped in to protect her. Instead her response startled and alerted Andy’s respect. She could care for herself. She wiggled and circled her torso, turned this into dance, pulling back her elbow, as the hungry man stepped back in awkward perplexity. This time, the arrow went deeper into the target than ever before. Andy noticed. Andy noticed something shifted in her. Something melted. Something of herself stepped away from herself.

The Second Call

Suddenly thunder crackled Pennsylvania late day as her sturdiness de-assembled. Four years of mental pictures, sent her way by many who imagined who she was, opinionized who she should be, imagined from their own wants and desires, flooded her.

She ran like stallion in her mind. She wilted from vigilance an archer utilizes. She dropped her bow to ground.

Her mother, who now stayed protectively at summer-camp, in genuine tenderness for Beau, looked up with alacrity. Girls faces expressed astonishment. Cindy thought, maybe now I’ll be the best archer. Little Sarah cried, feeling without words to describe this: If Beau doesn’t hold things up, I can’t do my own life.

Religious visitors scowled in getting what they had been fighting for. Reporters jumped, made calls, preparing for a landslide. Andy felt frustration and worry for her, knowing how focused she had to stay, angry with what people had done.

She felt herself like cloud that suddenly spilled, cried, rained on Friday as sundown approached. She ran to fame held in her palms, desired by many. She ran to be seen, celebrated, liked for years missed. She ran to find a boyfriend, to feel her first kiss. She ran into jagged, awkward circumstances of life which she had bypassed with archery arrows. She ran back, asking to be given to in many ways she gave in younger years.

Beau requested her mother bring her home. While packing her footlocker, Wilma Stone re-arrived, having heard the news. Wilma walked straight into Beau’s cabin while other anchors and reporters huddled outside.

“Where are you going, Beau?”. Beau understood the scene was the same for Wilma. Nothing had changed. Beau put her hand on Wilma’s shoulder, looked into her eyes, turned away. Beau locked her suitcase, proceeded to leave with her mother’s help.

She shopped for new clothes, never mentioning camp for nine months. Archery left behind, she worked to become a top student. She carved out what she spoke to make herself popular. She hurt more. She hurt until she was only hurt itself. She was a scrape, a cut, an open blister with no ending.

Almost Too Much to Bear

There was no boundary now. Their pains and needs were hers. Their joys, complaints, and passions were hers. Saturday arrived. Night time came. They spilled themselves into cars into bars into beers. They cried themselves into oblivion with conversations about anything to help them hide. She went with them now.

As they slept she went outdoors. Poured tears, sobs, grunts, even moans into grass. But quickly she pulled all that right back in to constructed tactics to control into her life. The message machine was full, email exploding. People complained to her, worshipped her, told her how awful she was and how grand she was. She drenched herself in secret aloneness. She dressed in flowing orange pastel skirts, bright red tops, slinky sandals.

Her heart went through vacancy but next into growing spaciousness. Her body went through toughening to keep composed in the new play, she had for many years missed, yet now basking in her soul anyway. She ate brown rice, white beans, kale salads. Her soul held her in a way nobody else cloud, loving her tenderly, knowing it was all the same; archer or appeaser, eccentric winner or disguised one. She felt herself poor and staggering, drunk on society, whispering to clouds for help. She felt her soul resting into self-pity in night she once knew as self-declaration. At sunrise, her heart fell in harmony with the lyre birds that come waking up with morning and dew. There was no difference between any of it now.

Bearer

Somehow, she gathered herself back up again, returned to camp in summer on Sunday morning. They had the last laugh. Nobody can be crazy forever they told her. Some, who realized the strength of her focus, feared she would take their top placements in the other activities: horseback riding, drama, art, pottery. Some feared the few maintenance boys would go for her because of her special life. The darling boys who would each go to someone were prey for her, they feared. Some wanted to be near to nourish themselves with her flavor of strength. Some wanted to be near her to feel pain they knew well yet could never quite access. Andy had felt disappointed and disregarded when she abruptly left. Now she found his eye, arriving back.

From Sun’s view point, they caught each other. Her focus and his brought their hearts close. Nobody was in control, no strategy used. No date scheduled or pre-imagined. Her hands were big. Her heart was richly full of delight’s flavor, new to herself. Grown out of last year’s misery was sweetness in fading compost. She found the taste of Andy resting into her throat, her heart, her tummy, her hips, her legs. She sighed. She smelled like lime and honey.

She proceeded back to the archery field. He walked by her side. No reporters caught the four legs in slightly faded jeans, walking in unison. Earth heard while capped chickadee, eastern phoebe, red-bellied woodpecker, and tufted titmouse saw. Their bodies felt while trees gave. She smelled life’s beginning. A crowd of girls followed. Another group gossiped up the hill. Some counselors envied her, some cared, and some despised her now.

Loud music blared from the theatre-house where girls danced, laughed, joked and commiserated. All this filled speeding up winds.

For a moment she felt empty caverns inside, poor and barren without anyone to hold, anything to grasp, and something to believe. What she hated and would miss and not miss too flickered in her organs. She felt bereft of a life she was taught to live, full of her soul instantaneously. She laughed, separate from Earth. She focused again. There and then her feet and Earth married.

In focus she was re- fulfilled in blissful waves. She felt them all: love and hate, warmth and cold, rise and fall, pulse and stopping of pulses. She felt their fulfillment. She was full. She felt waves emanating though her to each of them in quietness. Her focus was on the straw-stuffed, white-painted archery target.

Shot her first arrow of the year. Humming bird fluttered sound at speed of light as arrow pierced through target, friend of five years. Arrow went through patient target, that had faithfully been there each day. Skidding out on the other side, through the upper layer of dirt and the grass, bow landed. A bull’s eye completely in the middle of the middle had been met. Shprewoshhheeeaaa was the next sound. Andy’s arrow shot followed hers, restfully landing by hers. Flag was waving in the wind uphill, supported by rope, on pole, which girls from her bunkhouse pulled earlier that morning.

She fell to the ground, laughed orange, screamed joyous lemon yellow, cried sky’s blue. Knowing deep green of grass, she felt. Lover and Beloved rippled through her, in orgasmic ecstatic delight, as she melted in bow to Sun. Andy lay down beside Beau, knowing her welcoming within his own. His earth-colored flannel shirt touched her bare arm, wrapped around her belly. Her arm felt like confidence itself from years of aiming. His soft hair brushed her summer pink cheek. She remembered something she had never felt before but recognized. His softness pulled waves of softness from her womb, which rippled wider, moving through the water of all beings surrounding.

“Thank you,” she said to Andy.

Grey tree frog sang, while Atlantis fritillary butterfly landed by their faces. Andy felt steady joy he had carried all along. An unexplainable quail family, not known to live in Poconos, was heard from nearby woods. Father quail bowed, called “who hu” to mother. A shriek was heard reverberating from archery field to upper field and lake below. “She’s disassociated! Slam dunk!” Wilma was screaming into her cell phone. Girls looked bewildered. Some ran to help. Others went about their day.

Andy laughed. “Thank you,” he said to Beau. The camp doctor, nicknamed Marmalade, ran to the scene in white cotton clothes. She took Beau’s pulse. When she touched Beau’s arm looking into strong brown eyes she fell momentarily into awkwardness, tingled with nerves, then rested gleefully into fresh peace. Wilma’s scream faded into equanimity, settling on field. Beau was home on Earth.

He was complete in the observing way he lived. He smelled like fresh laundry and subtle honeysuckle. Holding a mysterious creature in his arms who laughed waves though his body and soul, he was simply full. Recognizing image of cloud that often appeared in outskirts of her view, she relaxed like balloon letting go its clutch on its own air. Next air she became. Her heart beating normally and her pulse fully alive, she dispersed into all scenery, this time fed and fulfilling as she felt him rain through her.