Facing Down the Dragon

I crouch down in on Government Street in front of the Mystics of Time House, inside the baricades as the revelry of Mobile’s Mardi Gras rages on. MOTs—Mystics of Time—time is a mystery, isn’t it? For how can one moment stretch into an eternity, how we simultaneously exist in the moment and in reverie. From these decorative floats, masked riders throw beads that land on the ground, snatched by tiny, plump ready hands, while some dangle from trees, a glittery tapestry like little glowing seeds of fun and revelry.

I’ve been dancing with the dragons all night, and if I’m honest, all of my life. I realize that the fire that breathes within me comes from withinside. All of the demons and the things I’ve tried to get out, the things that have been buring me alive, the fears that I face, the thing that I need to excise from my life, I have to confront it. And for some reason, this shot represents all of that.

I’m crouched low, my legs are loaded like springs. I’m finally in the right spot to get what I want. The dragon is coming right at me, and finally on this pass, I’m where I need to be. I’m not sure if it will turn as it serpentines toward me. After so many years of training of honing my soul, of feeling the heat, I’m ready to face the fire because if I’m being honest, no lapping flame could replace the pain I felt then at being lied to again.

There was a man who brought up every demon I’d buried in me, every part of me that was someone else and made me feel ashamed just to be. For a widow, I feel, he did something so unforgivably hurtful—he lied about forever because with no ring, he meant never. And I shattered so hard that I couldn’t stop myself from eating me alive. Some people eat their feelings—mine eat me, I dropped from slim to skinny. Despite dropping weight that I didn’t have to lose, I was energized, alive, let’s do this—let’s dance. So between that and burning my energy trolling the streets for the sake of art, for my photography, I finally felt like I had a purpose, and I knew—I knew, I deserved better than this.

So, I decided to be brave and get what I wanted—for once, this shot. This was somehow more than an image—it was the courage to finally say—I can and will confront this. Even the women with the greatest love and lowest sense of self—we have a threshold for how much we can take.

Swerving and steaming, the dragon grew near. I wasn’t moving. There wasn’t fear because I’d already faced that, had already felt like I was being ripped apart by fabicated talons that pierced my willing heart. And hadn’t I already been burned? Not just with that lie, but with every twist and turn of the gaslighting and manipulation and lies, like the riders, the man wore a mask, a constant disguise.

He was a shapeshifter. I saw so many images of the same person, blending in, reptilian, a true human chameleon. I said, “I wouldn’t recognize you like this,” in the photo of him with a handlebar mustache.

If there’s ever any doubt, make no mistake. I loved that man, and when I did the widow’s run that one year, my race number, compelled me to believe he was fate. I held onto those signs believing them divine messages that he was the one, the one who’d keep me from coming undone, but here I am, my thighs spring-loaded—I’m ready to jump, to free fall because my heart has been exploded.

A whooshing exhale from the dragon—holy shit, that’s real fire, hold on, hold on, I snap and wait and click again. I adjust my focus and pray that I got this shot, the one that I want. I don’t move. It’s coming closer. The fire is so hot—I feel alive. I’m not moving. It’s coming at me. I’m staying still. I’m ready.

I’m about to pull my camera into my chest and roll toward the barricade when the dragon swerves, exhaling another gust of fire as it swoops past the barricade near the MOT House, and I’m pulled out of that moment. I’m pulled out of the rhythm and rhymes where the need to organize this shocking reality of living masks and pretending. For Mardi Gras it’s fine. For that love, it was the ending.