[No, this isn't one of those internet tests]
While we were on vacation, I bought a new rain jacket (at my favorite trail shop, Footsloggers, in Boone, NC). Mine got lost a few years ago on a trip, and I've been looking for a good one ever since. Many rain jackets aren't designed well for women, and they're often particularly bad for short women. My new jacket is made by a small company in Vermont called Isis which designs performance clothing for women. They did a good job; it's a comfortable, lightweight jacket which fits and moves well. That's good because, on rainy days like today, I end up walking for about ninety minutes in it.
I hadn't looked at the small piece of paper in the pocket before. I pulled it out at the beginning of my walk and read "You are a goddess." Not a surprising affirmation* for a company named Isis, although I wondered what Breakfast with Pandora (who specializes in mythology) would think of this.
I went on with my walk, but came back to it later when I was thinking about the book, Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett. Part of the theory of gods in this book is that they are made more powerful by worship and that there can also be small gods of one particular area or thing. As the Wikipedia explains it:
They are the gods of slightly significant places, say the point at
which two snails cross. On the Disc, the power and presence of a god
waxes and wanes according to the number of believers. A small god
therefore is a god without enough believers to manifest in any
significant form. There are two very different kinds: those who have
yet to accumulate enough believers and those who were once powerful but
have been forgotten.**
That brought me back to "You are a goddess." What kind of goddess would I want to be? Not a major one - say, the goddess of music or wisdom. Those are too serious and have too much responsibility. I would prefer to be responsible for something small, but special in its own way. Like a goddess of the rock in the Eno River at Ayr Mont (view from the rock here). Or of trout lilies. Or of Camp Alice Creek on Mt. Mitchell. Or maybe of worm snakes. The one I found this weekend had scars (old ones so they weren't from our shovels) so they need some taking care of.
Then I realized that there's something I'd be ideal for. I hated art class in school, but I have a photoblog. I'm not an extrovert, but I taught aerobics. I'm not skinny, but I do dance (which I'm also too old for). I hated writing for English class, but I have a blog. I should be the goddess for people-doing-things-they're-not-innately-good-at-but-doing-them-anyway-because-it's-fun.
What kind of goddess would you want to be?
* I'm not usually much for the "affirmations to encourage you" sort of thing. I tend to make snarky comments in response, such as:
** Some of the small gods are Bilious, the god of hangovers; Hyperopia, the goddess of shoes; and Lamentation, the goddess of interminable opera.***
*** Sorry, S.
[Photo: Rime ice on Grandfather Mountain on a rainy day.]