Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Alice Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

hair. And yet, the carvings all around them spoke of another time before the present and before, even, the recorded past. A time when women were joyous about their naked bodies. Free.
    She thought of the bumper sticker that some wily feminist had created: DON’T DIE WONDERING . And she wouldn’t. She’d found pleasure eventually in relating to women as lovers. But she couldn’t claim she thought they were better, as lovers, or as partners, than men. And this was, actually, a great comfort to her; she felt, finally, in emotional and erotic balance. Having parents whom she loved fairly equally, she’d been puzzled on some level that she must, as an adult, choose to relate primarily to one or the other sex. Whose idea was this, really? she wondered. Freud’s? And what a lot of lies he’d told trying to avoid facing his own childhood sex abuse. Because of him generations of people had believed three-year-olds knowingly seduced their grandfathers! She had accepted the adventures before her, and had, so far, survived them. And now, like the artists of old, carving their knowledge of ecstasy and power on rocks, she could leave a gentle, indelible message of self-love to all humans everywhere.
    And now, perhaps it was time to leave that area of exploration, and, like Sue, to enter another: the life of the virgin, one who is whole unto herself.
             
    So that is how you have changed, he said to her, when she returned. That is the one change I would never have guessed!
    They were lying cozily in bed, her leg over his. In the old days this position itself would have been an invitation.
    Are you sure? he asked.
    It isn’t, as it must seem, a mental decision, she said.
    He waited.
    And I don’t think it’s forever. But what do I know?
    Please don’t be too angry with me, he said. But I’m not ready. Would you consider tapering off gradually? I’m not ready to lose this part of our life yet.
    She lay, only a moment, reflecting.
    I’m not ready either, I think.
    He grinned.
    Oh, don’t be so cocky, she said.
    Making love, tapering off, was a way of being gentle to them both.
    And now when she lay in his arms she savored and grieved the richness, the sweetness, the sharp edge of intimacy she would be leaving. She felt she would be leaving the body itself. But there was a land beyond the sexual body, and friends like Sue proved it. They were out there in it, already, inhabiting new forests, sailing new seas.

And Sure Enough

    And sure enough, almost the first words out of the shaman’s mouth were: no sex. He was short and brown and round with an open and friendly face. Young. She was surprised. She’d thought shamans had to be old, thin, a bit haggard by their wisdom. A trifle gloomy. But no, Armando Juarez was in his forties, and, though he had grandchildren, he seemed as jolly and nimble as a boy. His straight black hair was cut just below his ears, his black eyes gazed merrily back at the group. They were seven. Five women, ages forty to sixty-five; two men, a slender New Yorker of a youthful, ambiguous age and an older man, perhaps forty-five, from Utah.
    Not with yourself, he joked. And not with each other.
    Could we ask why? asked Kate.
    Maybe the medicine is jealous, said the man from Utah, chuckling.
    Armando was serious. It is because that is how it is, he said. From time before time. Making love is something we enjoy, of course. But it has its place and time that is not the same place and time as the Grandmother medicine. This medicine, you will see, is from the Grandmother. That is its spirit. Grandmothers are not sexy.
    That’s what you think, muttered one of the women, and everyone smiled. Including Armando.
    You’re right, that’s not the reason, he said. Don’t tell my wife I said something so stupid. She would kill me.
    There was a long silence.
    It is to pay respect, he said finally, reflectively. It is to have an experience of the soul that is undistracted by desire.
    Oh me, oh my, said the