III. THE EMPRESS
2011, Beaver Lodge Sanctuary, Madison Park, Seattle. Photo by Heather Malcolm.
This hidden place is described in “White City,” an essay that appears (transformed, somewhat) in White Magic. An old version is available at The Offing. Here are excerpts from that older version.
Some bar friends took me to The Spot, a secluded public waterfront park separated from the Broadmoor Golf Club by a chain-link fence. It was a secret, mostly; occasionally, some online publication would include it in a list of Seattle’s best secret waterfront access points, and teenagers knew that it was the place to smoke a joint. It’s at a road end, and the entrance looks like a private driveway. Beyond that lies a path, and down the path lies murky water. I liked to stand alone on the dock, watching cars race across the bridge that floats upon the lake, listening to invisible beavers drop into the water.
In 2010, the golf club dredged the lake near The Spot to improve water flow for the watering of their greens. The beavers departed during the dredging but returned to find their lodge intact. Quoted in the Madison Park Blog, a neighborhood resident said, “Some of the beavers slapped their tails right next to the dredge to say goodbye. It was quite touching.”
A commenter to the post said, “My son and I went out on the lake today May 31 2011 and saw several dead Beavers near the Broadmoor golf ranges in take pipe. Also some dead fish and a bad smell around the Lodge. We took photos of the Beavers.”
2014, Beaver Lodge Sanctuary, Madison Park, Seattle. Photo by me.
When I escaped (from whatever) to the suburbs, I didn’t clean the fireplace. I failed to repair the cabinet door that had been half-ripped off when someone (not me) collapsed drunk. I ruined that home. Not the walls or the countertops—I broke its energy. My sadness will haunt that place like a restless spirit.
Before I left, I had to complete an [undisclosed] ceremony that required me to be in a set-away place. In my waterproof boots, I went to The Spot and veered off the path into the swamp. I toe-tested stones in the bog, stepped on those that didn’t sink, jumped over muck, and grasped tree trunks. On solid land, I completed my ceremony. When I retraced my steps, I thought I remembered every stone I’d tested, but I knew I was wrong when I trusted one with the weight of my body and sank.
I smelled rot—dead things turned living. I felt my body sinking without resistance and without hitting bottom. I would die drowning in decomposition, my lungs filling with swamp muck.
Of course, I lived. I grabbed a sapling and muscled my way out of the swamp, clawed the solid earth I realized I was desperate to stand solidly upon again. The sludge coated me to my waist and filled my boots.
If I had sunk, if I had found the animal spirit deep in the muck, it might not have recognized a living thing inside me.
Or maybe the animal recognized me and rejected me because it wasn’t my time to leave.
2018, Beaver Lodge Sanctuary, Madison Park, Seattle. Photo by me.
I emerged from the swamp with a body covered in death. The power told me that I had work to do and that I was meant to be porous because my instructions will come in through the microscopic holes I can’t open or close or even see. I threw out my boots and washed my skin until I gleamed all over.