The Gypsy Motif

At a glance they didn’t appear to be suited to each other, but once you got to know them you couldn’t see it any other way.   She was a native girl who wore long, full dresses, flapping scarves, sparkling accessories and so much war paint that her intentions were signaled far beyond the foothills.  Her Cherokee name was Motif.

            He stood somewhat shorter than his horse and smelled of cheap aftershave and chalk dust.  He taught English and occasionally read allegories to those younger students forced into attendance by the elders.  His father, despite protests from his mother had named him after his grandfather, Edwin Foster Higgins.  His mother, however, refused to accept such a heavy moniker and forever called him Larry; his father eventually followed suit.

            Larry and Motif had become a couple the moment they saw each other.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.  Everything about her sent him reeling, from her colorful, flowing attire, to her dazzling adornments. To Larry she was the sunrise wrapped in warm cookie dough, with flashy bobbles refracting her own beauteous rays.   Although she was Cherokee, Larry saw in her the spirit of a gypsy, totally free and following no tribe or Indian nation but living completely on her own terms.

            Motif was instantly drawn into the depths of Larry’s dark green eyes and when he spoke his voice seemed to send wonderful shivers from her open-toed moccasins to the goose bumps that tingled along her dark native arms.  The fact that they were as different as a sneeze and cauliflower salad didn’t matter, they simply knew they had found their one true love and life for them could now begin.  They never even talked about their attraction to each other; they simply, at the exact moment they met, bonded and knew they would live happily forever - beyond all the lines that had been drawn between natives and white men. 

            So obvious was their love that the town’s people never questioned it.  They did not see Motif as an Indian and Larry as a white man, but saw them as Larry and Mo, two town-folk living in that odd little house at the end of the street. 

            It was a house that over time was adorned with the same gypsy-like attributes that were an intrinsic part of Motif.  Even Larry, after a short time, could be seen teaching his class - not in his dull, brown suit and drab tie, but wearing an odd blousy shirt with a colorful, flamboyant scarf.  He had allowed his hair to grow longer than before, but the strangest thing the students had to adjust to was Larry himself.   Since he had been with Motif he would actually smile.  There was a noticeable spark in his teaching style and an excitement over the subject matter that hadn’t been there before.

            The children liked the new, improved Larry and felt they could talk to him.  Their grades improved as did attendance.  The schoolhouse became the talk of the town.  The parents saw the change in their children and their attitude, and that positive excitement quickly spread from house to house.

It was an electrifying time for Motif as well; she had, without even trying, become the most popular lady in town; attending social events, cook-outs, and dances.  The one and only dress shop in town now had an inventory completely dominated by long, full dresses, colorful scarves and a wide assortment of junk jewelry.  As the women in the town gradually began to dress more and more like Motif, Motif had greatly reduced her war paint until it was down to a little blush and a hint of eye shadow, attempting to blend in with the town’s women she now saw as her friends.  

            In the spring of 1817 a severe case of Wisteria broke out.   The town looked wonderful but the people were scared.  Never before had such a wide spread epidemic overtaken everything.  Panic and a general misunderstanding led to accusations and suggestions of potential allergies.  Sympathetic sneezing could be heard throughout the long and otherwise quiet nights until it became so bad that the town’s Doctor sent for a specialists from back east.

             Doctor Henry Florets and his assistant Melvin Potts arrived at the end of November.  Initially specializing in psychology and receiving his PhD from Boston University, Doctor Florets found it to be boring and tedious and quickly changed his major to Botany and eventually became the foremost authority on Hygrophilous Difformis.   With his knowledge surpassed only by his humor, his business cards read, Everything from Monotony to Botany.

            By November, however, the Wisteria growth had subsided and became dormant; the town sneezing had stopped and for the most part everyone had forgotten about it.  The town doctor, therefore, was very much surprised when the Boston specialists stepped from the stagecoach.  There was nothing left to show him but the naked, woody vines that now covered almost every structure, fence and hitching post around. An emergency meeting was called and the town elders were faced with a very substantial transportation bill, not to mention the hotel bill the two visitors from Boston would generate until they could catch the next stage east.

            Doing the only thing they saw to be reasonable, they fired the town doctor and offered the position to Doctor Florets, stipulating that Melvin was not a part of the offer and would have to find employment elsewhere or leave town.  And so it came to be; by December 24^th Melvin and the town doctor had packed up and left and Doctor Florets had established his new practice, made new friends and was decorating his office for Christmas.

            It was those Christmas decorations that had caught Motif’s eye as she made her way to the general store.  She had never before seen such a wonderful sight and hadn’t yet met the smooth talking PhD from Boston.   As she stood in the street staring, almost mesmerized by the twinkling lights, Doctor Florets stepped from the office door and for the first time saw this ravishing beauty in her open-toed moccasins staring back at him.

            Their eyes locked, the crispness of the night air illuminated their breathy snorts, and for just a moment – time stopped.   

            From the far end of town church bells began to ring.  Their tone was deep and mellow and each resonant vibration rolled over the snow-covered streets like a tender ocean wave gently erasing the day’s footprints.

            “My name is Henry” he said, taking a cautious step forward.  Motif smiled but did not move.  The twinkling lights reflected in her eyes and Henry Florets stepped even closer. 

            “I’ve heard of you… the town’s people, they…”

            Motif took a step back and then turned towards the general store.  Henry watched her walk away, as if she had been some spiritual vision.  Had it not been for the open-toed part of her moccasins flipping up little pads of snow as she walked he would have believed it had all been a dream.    

            Later that evening Larry noticed a look he had not seen before on Motif’s face.  Motif, noticing that Larry noticed said, “Lar – we need to talk.”

            As Motif tried to explain her guiding spirit and its enormous force, like the mighty wind pushing against a gentle leaf, Larry’s mental picture was of their great bond fire fizzling out.  The hot embers of their once passionate love now nothing more than blackened, charred splinters; the kind that get your hands all black when you try to pick them up or fuss with them.  Then, if you don’t have a shop towel or old loin cloth, you’ve got to wipe them on your pants, making even more of a mess.

            Motif, seeing the sadden look on Larry’s face, stopped talking.  For a long time they both sat quietly, Larry was staring down at his pants, envisioning some imaginary soot mark while Motif picked away at the chipped polish on her fingernails.

 

            In the days that followed, the complexion of the entire town changed.  Everyone seemed morose.  Colorful scarves were replaced by subdued, more traditional ascots.  Light, whimsical Christmas music that was just days before played by street performers had, without skipping a beat, transformed into silent nights.

            By spring the town was once again just another drab and uninspired stop on the stage coach line.  Attendance at the schoolhouse fell as dramatically as Larry’s hair to the barber shop floor.  His smile, like many of the students, was noticeably absent.  When Motif rode off into the hills she had taken Larry’s smile with her. 

            With spring came the return of the Wisteria and as it turned out, Dr. Florets wasn’t all that interested in botany.  His inability to cure even the simplest of ailments had quickly alienated him with the town folk.  Seems all he wanted to do was talk. 

            The town elders, many of whom did not survive the winter, sent for the old town doctor, who as it turned out, hadn’t moved all that far away.  So with the exception of the passing of a few elders, and one or two babies being born, the population of the town was exactly the same as it was before this story began.

            But this town isn’t what I came to talk about.  I’m here to tell you of a Cherokee woman named Motif, a spirit driven by independence itself, who while riding through the foothills on a horse named Borrowed, came across a small village that seemed to her like a nice place to settle down.