In the morning, on the way to market, we all walk together in a quickly paced cluster of laughter and chatting -- talking we don’t have time for on other days.
It is different on the way home. We spread out, silent, thoughtful or too tired to laugh.
We walk toward the sun as she falls below the sand. The moon rises at our backs and begins to cast cool shadows on our footprints. It is still too hot to stop walking, feet bare and rough, tough enough to cross the burning desert between the market village and the home village. The older women don’t feel the heat of the sand anymore. They walk slower, enjoying the time away from husbands, daughters-in-law, dirty children. Some of them have followed this path since before I was even born.
The younger wives, like me, are tempted to rush -- both to save our still hardening feet from the stinging sand, and to return to our newly caught husbands. We wish to be filled with sons.
The old wives tell us to go slow or the husbands will see us with heaving breath, reddened and wilted. They teach us how to arrive looking as though the balanced burden we carry atop our heads is lighter than feathers. They teach us to be proud of what we do. The men, they don’t have the strength to go to market and return with everything a family needs. There are too many distractions in the market village for a man -- sad women who have no husbands yet also long to be filled with sons, sweet drinks that waste time, games that waste money. This job is so important it is only for women, and only for women who are wives.
I am happy to do this job well, to please my husband by making good purchases, feeding my family and saving money. At the end of the day I want to run home to him, to show him what I bring. I imagine hugging my arms around my bundle and sprinting fast on my toes to my door and his smile, but I don’t. I listen to the old wives and slow my steps, sucking dates and counting the pits I drop along the path to home. Seven dates eaten slowly, skin pierced and juice sucked and fruit savored, and I am home with no more than a blush to my cheeks.
I dream of seven sons, a forest of dates for all my market days, and making this walk one day with daughters.
Katie Moore is a mother, writer, and wife ... in that order. Sorry, husband. She is completely unfit for "real" work, as all she ever does is scribble. Her fiction and poetry appears here and there, but she enjoys being vague. She is a delighted editor for The Legendary at http://www.downdirtyword.com, where words are god. Find her online at The Girl Circus http://www.thegirlcircus.com.
Archived at http://girlswithinsurance.com/index.php/prose/flash/125-km-0210-dates and shortlinked at http://frsh.in/5s
