I am on the floor, by the fire. Spread out, being held by the hard floor underneath. The wood is crackling, popping. I feel my bones warming up, my feet are almost burning. I am seven years old. My father sits across – on his armchair.
One night two men arrived at Lot’s door. In fact, they were angels disguised as men. Lot let them in, for he was a righteous man.
My father pauses, checking if I still pay attention. I sit still, I watch the flames making fire figures, I almost see two angels, the flame then shapes herself again into a bird, or a tree. I listen.
The two angels warned Lot that destruction is upon his land, that he is no longer safe on the land which was home to him. Lot’s wife listened, trembling. In this story, my father continues, Lot’s wife does not have a name. Yet she was a woman of that land of Sodom, she was deeply grounded in that earth. The two angels told them that they must leave in the early morning and that way they will be saved. But there is one condition, one rule to follow: Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain. Keep running, and running and never look back.
I follow my father’s hands as he speaks – he gestures the words, a dance with story and the mind. His voice raises and falls, waves of a story being told. Waves of story breathing within me, leaving a mark. I listen.
The next morning, Lot packed lightly, and told his woman that it’s time to leave. Sodom is no longer safe as the people of the land start turning against each other, as the mountains swell up in anger and spit fire, the sea heaving violently. Both start running as their home behind falls apart, deconstructing. Home is no longer there, home is like the mouth of a shark chasing them out.
At seven years old, I don’t know what leaving feels like, not yet. I don’t yet know that loving is perhaps the hardest thing and I don’t yet know how it feels to leave home, to be chased out and left by others, I don’t yet know how running feels on the sole of your feet, how it eats away at the skin until you blister, until you bleed, until your walking is pain. I listen.
They run, and run. And as they run, Lot’s wife is longing to see her land one last time, she is hurting and grieving, she does not wish to leave it behind, not even if it means dying with it. She turns back and sees the small homes of her village collapsing and crashing down. Lot screams at her to not look back, but it’s too late. Lot’s wife is now stunned, and suddenly her feet grow roots into the earth, and she cannot move her hands. And her body whitens, and hardens, and freezes and she suddenly becomes a pillar of salt.
I don’t remember what lesson my father wanted me to learn from these stories – perhaps that I should follow my husband, perhaps that I should listen to the voices of angels that are guiding, perhaps there was no lesson, for he often loved stories and poetry. The image remained in my mind: the woman, turned into a pillar of salt after looking back and longing for her home, for her land, for what was.
* * *
As I transition from a former self to a life of more truth and meaning, I sometimes almost turn back to look at what is behind me, to see the burning bridges and what I thought was home. Yet I remember the angels’ words: don’t look back, don’t stop.
I keep running.
* * *
It has been one year two months four days and sixteen hours since the day I left. You come into my mind every day, or parts of you do – ghostly and blurred. When I dream, I dream how I hold you, my head on your chest, my hands squeezing your back, eyes closed. My mind knows I am dreaming. And so I hold you for a little longer knowing that I will wake soon. When the dream is over, I feel relieved that it wasn’t real, relieved that I did not return, that I am still strengthened into healing. I look at my skin and taste it – fearing to taste the salt. It’s still sweet, warm.
I keep running.
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