Avalon

My oldest daughter is an introvert. People tend to exhaust her, so she works with dogs. She’s a groomer, the kind of dog groomer that owners love because she is meticulous and kind and intuitive. She always gets the dogs that are extremely fearful or high strung – the difficult ones. She is tall and fairly strong and appears calm, so in general these dogs respond positively to her.

It’s taken my daughter a long time to get comfortable with her job (she has a lot of social and performance anxiety). But now that she’s been doing it for a few years she knows she doesn’t want to be a dog groomer forever. She’s trying to figure out what she can do to support herself independent of mom (she didn’t go to college and still lives at home). Like all of us, she wants to be financially secure and love her job. She wants to contribute in some way to help this burning down world. She’s looking for a place and purpose that match her personality, intellect, energy, talents and desires. That match her soul.

About a month ago, I think I got a glimpse of her calling. The true nature that lies within. Her place in the world. Only it wasn’t this world.

She heard some podcast or watched some YouTube video with a guy who insisted that salting popcorn should happen while the popcorn is popping by adding it directly to the oil in the pan (stay with me, this isn’t a popcorn promotion!). This helps the salt actually stick to the popcorn instead of winding up at the bottom of the bowl. The trick, however, is having really really fine, practically microscopic salt.

My daughter decided to try it using a spice grinder to get the salt to the right consistency, but it wasn’t as fine as she wanted (yes – a bit of a perfectionist). So she pored sea salt into a mortar and used a pestle and went at it. She was working on the salt for awhile in the kitchen and then joined me in the living room to watch TV, still using the mortar and pestle.

She was in her pajamas after a shower and had a towel over her shoulders to help dry her wet hair, which is almost to her waist. She smelled like the outdoors. Like greenery and cold deep blue sky and puffy white clouds. Like clean dirt and salty air and stars, brilliant and clear. She held the mortar and pestle with ease, circling around the bowl and steadily, slowly transforming the salt.

In the foggy light of the television she was smiling, calm, moving the pestle in a gentle hypnotic rhythm. Her long hair over the cloak of a towel, her legs crossed, her feet bare. She was a Tarot card, a healer, a mythic character. I pictured her in Merlin’s Cave, reading ancient tomes, watching Merlin’s every move, pouring her light into the magic and medicines she created. I saw her on the Isle of Avalon, collecting herbs and flowers under cobalt skies, conjuring celestial music with each circle of her mortar and pestle. It felt like her spirit belonged to another time, another realm.

I might be nuts or I read her too much Harry Potter when she was a kid or I was inventing reasons why it was taking her so long to make popcorn. And I doubt that anything I was thinking could help her find a job! But there she was. Time out of time. A daughter of Avalon. My daughter.

A lot of parents hope their kids become lawyers, CEOs, doctors, financial analysts, actuaries, ranchers, maybe even rock stars. But it’s not ours for the choosing. My youngest daughter wants to be a high school science teacher. I am so proud and excited for her! I know that an amazing adventure awaits her. But for my oldest, well, who knows. I just hope she finds work that allows her to be quietly mythic and magical. I hope she finds her Avalon.

Click here to hear Van Morrison sing the song that inspired this post – Avalon of the Heart.