DEVIN’S JOURNEY ~ PART 2

Story by Linda S Barth     Artwork by Carole W

~ San Miguel de Allende, Mexico ~

Amethyst

The years flowed by like the rush of a river, picking Devin up and letting him land throughout Canada and the United States, in destinations as diverse as the names he’d adopted and personae he’d set free along the way. Hugh and Griff had long ago morphed into Sam Romano in Chicago, Will Reynolds in St. Louis, Sawyer Martin in Asheville.

As days blended into months and became years, the teenage boy evolved into the man he was meant to be. He not only learned to survive in the world he’d always yearned for, he reveled in it. If he lived to be ninety, he’d never lose his awestruck amazement at seeing images from outdated maps and old books come to life. Niagara Falls, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Wrigley Field, the Liberty Bell. He’d swum in the Pacific Ocean, hiked the Red Rocks of Sedona, marveled at sunsets over Cape Cod beaches, learned to ski in Banff.

He’d cleaned cruise ship bathrooms on the Mississippi River, harvested Granny Smith apples in Pennsylvania, stocked warehouses in Saint Paul. He’d seen the Northern Lights as a night watchman in a factory in Whitehorse, hiked sun-dazzling dunes of White Sands in between shifts as a short order cook in Alamagordo, coached a junior high soccer team at a community center in Seattle.

It had all been glorious, magical, transformative, even though to most others such a peripatetic way of life might have been devoid of pleasure, pointless, lacking in value. For him it was close to perfection. Along the way, he’d acquired certain skills that were easily learned, sometimes disturbingly so.

Early on he’d focused on the most basic of educations – where to find an abandoned building or deserted park for a night’s sleep, how to “borrow” clothing from a thrift shop or even a backyard clothesline, the best timing for catching restaurants unloading food into dumpsters, techniques for bartering whatever he could scrounge in exchange for another fake ID…or two or three.

As the years slid by, his repertoire of abilities had matured, just as he himself had in body, mind, and spirit. Six years after his journey had begun in Manhattan’s East Village, ‘Bill Harbourne’ finished up a three-month stint on a snowplowing crew near Mount Hood, shivering at night even under a pile of blankets as if the cold might consume his body. But it couldn’t chill his heart and soul, nor could it freeze the allure of places far away, full of sunshine and heat and blue skies. Using his savings, still meagre but growing all the time, he took a bus south to Laredo and then found a good-natured long haul trucker willing to drop him off over the Mexican border.  

He strolled the streets of San Miguel de Allende, intrigued by the numerous galleries and shops displaying arts and crafts – weaving and pottery, beadwork and leather, miniature clay animals and handmade guitars. When he paused to look at items offered in the windows of yet another boutique, he tried not to let a handtooled suede vest or the crocheted beading on a blouse remind him of a place far from this one. He turned away and looked toward the blazing sun, burning back memories of torch and candlelight.

He walked on but could not resist pausing in the doorway of a glassmaker’s studio, could not suppress a gasp at the sight of light glinting through stained glass. When one of the artists, only a few years older than he, looked up from her work and noticed the hovering figure, she invited him in with a smile and a wave. That afternoon, ‘Tom Franklin’ found himself with a job as Alicia’s apprentice, learning techniques for processing minerals such as locally mined amethyst, to be used in creating an array of beautiful glass pieces.

As he worked with the crystal quartz, admiring its sparkling shades of lilac, heliotrope, lavender, and violet, he remembered a legend he thought he’d forgotten, one he’d heard years ago in Father’s class on Greek mythology. He grinned, recalling how its message hadn’t quite resonated with him at the time. And, if he were being honest, maybe it still didn’t.

It was said the god Dionysus (aka Bacchus) felt offended by a lack of respect from mortals and vowed to take revenge on the next person to cross his path. The innocent victim was a maiden, Amethystos, who when faced with Dionysus’s violence, prayed to the goddess Artemis for protection. In response, Artemis turned her into a clear crystal statue, untouchably safe but irrevocably isolated. Filled with remorse at what he had caused, Dionysus poured wine over the sculpture, turning it a breathtaking shade of purple in the hope its beauty would draw people to it and encourage them to heed his warning to refrain from excessive behavior and instead develop emotional self-control.

During evenings enjoying tapas and local craft beer with artisan friends at favorite cafes, Devin heard tales of two of the town’s most beloved former residents, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and learned of local lore and legends connected to the gemstone he used in his new line of work. Jewelry designers told him amethyst is said to be effective for meditation and deepening one’s spirituality. A psychic shared the belief that the stone enhances the development of intuition and insight, clarity and calmness. Still others claimed it could provide protection from negative impulses and excessiveness.

Perhaps it was spending days with amethyst, perhaps it was something else. The reason didn’t matter. He felt himself becoming more introspective, less driven, calmer and more contented as a man than he had as the boy who’d raced away from all he’d ever known, vowing never to look back. He hadn’t always been able to keep that particular promise, and sometimes the memories tore through him like thrusts of a knife blade. But with each phase of his life, he felt himself changing. There were parts of his past he’d never forget, would never want to, but other moments, other people, other voices had begun to layer over them, reinforcing the knowledge that he was fulfilling his fate.

He continued to work in the glass studio, learning more about the craft, learning more about himself. His co-workers soon became his friends, and then his family, not entirely unlike those he’d left behind. And as the months passed in the warm, welcoming town, he found himself wrapped in the enchantment of giving his heart to someone else, experiencing more about life and love than he’d anticipated.

When April came round again, Alicia and the others surprised him with a party to celebrate his twenty-first birthday. In June he found a talent for helping sell the shop’s wares at weekend outdoor ferias artesanales throughout central Mexico. One July morning while browsing the Mercado de Artesanias in San Miguel, checking out competitors for the goods in Alicia’s shop, he found himself reaching for a postcard showing the panoramic view of the city from the El Mirador overlook. The message he’d write on the back was already half-composed in his mind before he put the card back on the rack. By August his conversations were spiced more and more with phrases in the local Spanish dialect. But by September there were urges and whispers he couldn’t ignore.

His current life suited him well, but he knew it couldn’t last. There were other roads, other ways waiting for him, and someday soon he’d succumb to their allure, open himself to the lessons they, too, had to offer. Late one night, as if she somehow knew what he most needed to hear, Alicia held him close and whispered words her grandmother had told her as a child. Keeping a piece of amethyst close might guide a soul toward finding acceptance and the courage to heal deep wounds of the heart. He listened to her guidance and felt a soul-deep wish it would prove to be more than simple folklore.

He might have found a way for his interlude in San Miguel de Allende to last a bit longer. But the sights and sounds of a growing influx of American expatriates and tourists soon conjured disquieting images, ones he still was not able…or perhaps entirely willing…to exorcise. He needed to move on, to leave behind too many reminders of another pulsing, vibrant city and color-patterned light in a shadowed chamber.

When he knew the time was right, he left and took with him precious new memories and a small leather pouch filled with amethyst.