I Don't Belong Here
gold dust woman
Rock on- gold dust woman
Take your silver spoon
And dig your grave
Heartless challenge
Pick your path and I'll pray
-Hole, "Gold Dust Woman"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Midsummer's Eve, 1966
April Pettigrew loves stories; she makes it her business to learn all about the myths and stories of the world and incorporate them into her life, piece by piece. She's a particularly superstitious woman as consequence, but that's something she's always been. Whether or not stories are true is unimportant - she tells them and thereby they become true. Did she really hear the clicking of the death beetle the day the men in black came to her door and told her that her husband, Adam, died on the job? Her brave, moral Adam who loved the world so much he died to protect it...her Adam who never knew his son because she found out about her pregnancy the week after his death. So she tells her son stories: stories about his father, about the world, about people. She sits him on her knee and he stares at her with wide eyes as she weaves all sorts of myths together before his very eyes.
"On this day," she began. "The veils between worlds are thin. Not like Halloween, dear, when the veil between the world of the dead and the world of the living. On this, the longest day of the year, the veil between our world and the world of the fairies and the gods is barely there."
On days like Midsummer's eve - Halloween, May Day, and others - her stories are more fantastical than ever. Peter thinks his mum is the prettiest woman in the entire world, and thinks her words are law and her stores the best. She didn't call them stories, though; "only the truth, Peter," she would say when he asked. Her voice is soft and slow and sweet, and it lulls him and pulls him all at once. The way she talks about Midsummer's Eve and the Garden of Eden are all the same, the same way she talks about his dad. So it is all the same, just like she says. It is all truth.
"On Midsummer's Eve, you have to be careful. Because fairies and gods are different than us - if you run into them, truth and lies might as well be the same thing. Good and evil, too. They'll play a trick on you, and it might be the most terrifying thing but they'll only laugh. They don't have the same time we do, Peter. God time is different. It's easy to get lost then."
"How will I find my way home, then?" young Peter asks, eyes wide as he stares at his mother. With the moonlight streaming through the window and the power of her voice, he thinks rather foolishly that his mother has to be a goddess. That makes him the luckiest boy in the world, though, doesn't it? To have one of the gods as his mother. It makes him special in a way the other kids can't ever understand. Right?
"You have to find your star, Peter. Look up in the sky and the one that twinkles the brightest, the most steady of them all, and that's your star. Find it and follow it, and it will lead you home."
Later, Peter finds his stars - his adopted brothers. But what his mum doesn't tell him then is that sometimes you lose your star and don't even know it; you become the Adam who chooses exile and a woman and sin over an eternity in the Garden with Father. So it goes.
Take your silver spoon
And dig your grave
Heartless challenge
Pick your path and I'll pray
-Hole, "Gold Dust Woman"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Midsummer's Eve, 1966
April Pettigrew loves stories; she makes it her business to learn all about the myths and stories of the world and incorporate them into her life, piece by piece. She's a particularly superstitious woman as consequence, but that's something she's always been. Whether or not stories are true is unimportant - she tells them and thereby they become true. Did she really hear the clicking of the death beetle the day the men in black came to her door and told her that her husband, Adam, died on the job? Her brave, moral Adam who loved the world so much he died to protect it...her Adam who never knew his son because she found out about her pregnancy the week after his death. So she tells her son stories: stories about his father, about the world, about people. She sits him on her knee and he stares at her with wide eyes as she weaves all sorts of myths together before his very eyes.
"On this day," she began. "The veils between worlds are thin. Not like Halloween, dear, when the veil between the world of the dead and the world of the living. On this, the longest day of the year, the veil between our world and the world of the fairies and the gods is barely there."
On days like Midsummer's eve - Halloween, May Day, and others - her stories are more fantastical than ever. Peter thinks his mum is the prettiest woman in the entire world, and thinks her words are law and her stores the best. She didn't call them stories, though; "only the truth, Peter," she would say when he asked. Her voice is soft and slow and sweet, and it lulls him and pulls him all at once. The way she talks about Midsummer's Eve and the Garden of Eden are all the same, the same way she talks about his dad. So it is all the same, just like she says. It is all truth.
"On Midsummer's Eve, you have to be careful. Because fairies and gods are different than us - if you run into them, truth and lies might as well be the same thing. Good and evil, too. They'll play a trick on you, and it might be the most terrifying thing but they'll only laugh. They don't have the same time we do, Peter. God time is different. It's easy to get lost then."
"How will I find my way home, then?" young Peter asks, eyes wide as he stares at his mother. With the moonlight streaming through the window and the power of her voice, he thinks rather foolishly that his mother has to be a goddess. That makes him the luckiest boy in the world, though, doesn't it? To have one of the gods as his mother. It makes him special in a way the other kids can't ever understand. Right?
"You have to find your star, Peter. Look up in the sky and the one that twinkles the brightest, the most steady of them all, and that's your star. Find it and follow it, and it will lead you home."
Later, Peter finds his stars - his adopted brothers. But what his mum doesn't tell him then is that sometimes you lose your star and don't even know it; you become the Adam who chooses exile and a woman and sin over an eternity in the Garden with Father. So it goes.