When comfort comes it’s best
to accept it, even if you haven’t
met since college, changed your
your religion and like to value your
pride. If it comes often, remember
it’s birthday. Send a card and
make a cake. When that moment
arrives and your muscles release
and the whirring of knives fades
into the sound of a soft breeze in
a large grove of maples breathe deep. Cry. It’s okay to cry when the damp
leaves behind a scent of fresh
earth and oranges.
Well, in the middle of my time of existential angst, some of my dearest friends had a baby. So like life to send such a jumbled mix of light and dark all at once. He’s perfect, a little angel boy with long fingers and dark hair. His cooing sounds could break your heart. A gift, a new life full of possibilities, laughter and tears, he’s a treasure.
And here I am trying to figure out the meaning of life, and the character of God. I know my friends think God is present, reliable, personal, generous and kind. And yet, when I read the Bible he seems unpredictable, occasionally brutal, and available to only a few. Yes, there are promises of good things, but there are promises of “trials and tribulations” as well. This world has fallen from perfection and there’s no changing that until such time as God decides to really intervene. I do not know how to reconcile the appealing idea that God is a perfect father who wants to have a personal relationship with me, with the picture of this unpredictable, far away God whose ways and thoughts are so far beyond my own that he is completely inscrutable. Of course he’s inscrutable. He’s an omniscient diety powerful enough to create the fracking universe. I feel like I’ve been sold a bill of goods, that he cares about the things that matter to my heart. It’s easier to relegate him to some distant position of indifference than to try to overlay a Daddy God with one who commands the slaughtering of thousands. I’m irretrievably confused and feel destined to remain so because I cannot simply agree with one camp and ignore the other. It seems as though both are true, if I take scriptures into account, which leaves me either doubting the scriptures or accepting the paradox in such a way that I distance myself from him to some degree. I had one unpredictable father. I don’t particularly want another. I don’t especially expect capital G God to take an interest in my personal affairs, but then I have to admit that at times providence has at least appeared to do so.
Again, I find myself returning to fundamentals. What do I believe in? Love, mercy, justice, humility, and more love. These are aligned with the words of Christ, who I do believe was the only perfect man who ever lived. Is this enough? Even if I’m relegated to “fallen away” status by those more zealous and sure of themselves, can I live a full life in service to Love? The fact is, I’d really like a perfect Dad. I’m disappointed that I don’t think I can trust him, and that the fact that he’ll suffer beside me isn’t enough for me to feel safe. We are not safe. That I know.
Then I remember the baby. I think of his parents. I think of all the perils in life alongside all the wonders. It occurs to me that baby’s world is small and immediate. It consists of one moment followed by the next, eating, crying, sleeping, being loved. I’m no more important than he is. Maybe it could be enough to live now, loving and being merciful as much as I’m able and not trying to reconcile inscrutable mysteries of an enormous God. Maybe.
I know you like I know my great-grandmother. She was in photographs. I heard stories of how kind she was, and how stubborn. She decided she’d never give birth after the first time and that was that. She never had sex after that. She had white hair by the time she was 35, and Great-Grandpa died young so I don’t think I can recommend it as a lifestyle. She used to read dog stories to my dad and they’d cry together and it was the only time in his life my dad ever showed his feelings to anyone. I’d like to meet her. If she could get my dad to cry, I think we should talk.
There aren’t any real pictures of you. Well, there aren’t any good ones. Pasty-faced Jesus and big fireballs don’t count. There are plenty of stories. You’re imaginative, I’ve got to give you that, and you don’t seem to give up easily. Tenacious, I’d say, if you want to be friends with me (though I don’t have a guarantee on that). We don’t think the same way, you and I. You’re a mystery but you are enormous, like the inside of a black hole thrown outward so all its bits are spread over the boundaries between our universe and another we haven’t discovered yet. I feel ridiculous when I’m upset with you. I’d like to meet you. I think I’d start by asking you to read sad dog stories and wait to see if you cried. If so, we might be able to talk.
Okay, I know what everyone else has figured out already. Getting upset about the seagulls wasn’t just about the seagulls. The problem is that I don’t understand what it really is about. I’m pretty darned tuned into the universe so I suppose part of it could be about hearing the earth groan all the time. It could be about all the devastation humans wreak on each other and the planet. It could be about watching my mother suffer all her life, or watching my dad give up all his dreams, or being their “all we’ve got in the world.” It could have something to do with being married to my dear husband for over 18 years and still dealing with a multitude of issues around physical intimacy. Perhaps it’s about being rejected and/or misunderstood by my in-laws, having little family of my own and feeling sort of alone. Adopted family is great, but it’s never quite the same, is it? It could be related to my desire to create, always thwarted by my need to earn a stable income and teach others how to be more creative. I’m writing a terribly depressing paper about the unseen human costs of cheap production of goods, demanded by people who expect rock bottom prices so they can take mission trips to help the poor, when the truth is, the demand for low prices is creating most of the poor, supporting slavery and child labor, and decimating the environment the most for persons of color and few economic resources. Is it about all that? I almost cried when someone let me pet their dog today. I cried at a commercial on T.V. I’m walking with a limp.
It’s not as though any of the above is new information. I think that’s why I’m confused. I’ve understood and accepted all of this and more. So why now has my body decided to grieve?
Maybe the seagulls were the last straw-the latest instance in which love has failed and suffering has won the day. It was in my face, a blatant violation of one of the factors that has allowed me to continue thinking that living on earth is something I can accomplish without being completely destroyed. My seagulls were stability. They were hope. I counted on the ritual of their lives as one of the anchors in my universe. And yes, I know seagulls don’t live as long as us and are susceptible to tragedy like everyone else. I worried about it, but to see their home destroyed so carelessly, thrown in the trash as though everything beautiful and precious to me were worthless shit to be taken away in just a matter of time. That surprised me.
We are promised nothing while we’re here. God says he’ll be with us, but I don’t understand him. Some of my friends think he’s attempting to perfect us by allowing a series of afflictions, and it’s all for our own good. Some people say he’s in control of everything, and everything happens for a purpose. To this I say, “bullshit.” I think shit just happens. I’m not interested in a God who allows birth defects so we’ll gain character. There’s got to be something I’m missing, but if God actually wants relationship with me he’s going to have to do more than meet me halfway. He’s God, after all, and I have the stature of a flea when it comes to the size of the universe. So I guess I’ll just wait here and send this invitation out into the spiritual dimension. God, I need you to show up. You owe me nothing. I’m sort of banking on the “God is love” theme being true, even though I have no idea how that actually works. Without something outside of and greater than myself to give meaning to this brief, astounding and devastating life, I’ve got nothing. I never believed in that whole idea that children give a person a sort of immortality, and I don’t even have kids. Maybe the point is in loving each other, but we’ve proven we all suck at that. I do have a lot to be grateful for. I didn’t haul my water from a dirty river today. I’m not living in a war zone. I can move around and do stuff. I need more. If you’re the one who decided I’d be a deep thinker then it’s your own damn fault. If all we have is this breath then I need you to show me what that breath is for. I’m asking for your help when I know I deserve nothing. I’m asking anyway. What the hell. It never hurts to ask, right?
While endeavoring greatly to do nothing, my heart endeavors strongly to be heard. All those tears and shiver-making thoughts that I’ve captured and boxed and stored in places I no longer remember, come pounding back at once and I become small, like a
seed
at the bottom of the universe. These feelings are all lost, gangly teenagers who don’t know how to express themselves, hoping to be strung somehow, like
pearls – which
I would be happy to do if I were big enough. Perhaps there’s some warm soil for my seed from
underneath a galaxy.
The slicing nature of
everyday things is
wrapped in foil, frozen
sharp at midnight. My
muscles part and shiver
in the burning cold where
there is no soft, only a
metallic grate into which
my heels press upright, as
quietly as possible.
Surprised by my tears I
duck and hide behind
my hair, unsure
who this new person is,
living in my skin and
and borrowing everything
but my feelings about
the world.
My friend, for one who can be so quiet the voice you have is bold. I don’t know where you find the courage but invariably you own your words like land you’ve bought with blood. Heartsick, your broken drumbeat pounds inside the knowing all the breaking in the world. I always thought you’d be a cello, you know, instead of tympani, but then, your mother played the pipe organ like a Gothic god. It’s no wonder part of you is tuned to always hear the cracking of her bones. Her suffering was silent to everyone else.
Everyone else.
No one else. It made you alone to hear it and there was nowhere for you to go. Go now. Buy earplugs. Listen to woodwinds until the channel can change. Make friends who only drain you in the normal way, then fill you up with hugs and affectionate disagreements and eyes that see you crying in the rain even when it looks like the sun is shining bright. Even when you have to tell them but you can because they’re not the sort to faint at the sight of blood.
You are purple. You are complex, hot and cold and hard and softer than that silky white cat who saved your life when your brother died. You know how to leave but you always choose to stay. The world still needs you, telling squirrels you love them and seeing flower songs shimmering opal along the edges of the evening sky. It’s your legacy. You get to see and love, but you have to pay for the seeing.
Maybe it won’t always cost so much. Maybe you’ll be reimbursed. Maybe you are even more lovable than rabbits or marmots or baby dear ducking their heads in the grain fields. Maybe the strength that seems like it’s cruel, forcing you sometimes to keep breathing when you’d rather stop, is actually being kind because if you just keep breathing there will be beauty and joy and surprising comfort that will make all the extra breathing worthwhile.
I want you to hold onto possibilities with the same tenacity you’ve employed so you could take ownership of your words and live. Life is the goal. You’re not alone. You are loved. You are worthwhile and you have a lot to offer this crazy, fucked up world, but you (listen, you) are not fucked up. You are wounded, but you already know that’s not the same. A person can be wounded and be a rock star. That’s you. You get extra points just for breathing, because you’re unique and valuable and sensitive. Being you is good. Be you.
I wait, as we do, quite
often. I wait for my husband
as he bounces around the
city finding rugs and
furnishings and bits of
paper with pictures most
have never seen to make
a stranger’s walls look
personal. I wait
for the home where I can
see a tree instead of a
crane, both making homes
but one giving breath, as
well. I wait for dreams of
expressing my self, and I wait
for solid funding. I wait for
physical love. I wait for
understanding and for
things I don’t even know
I need to ease my inward
groaning because
there never isn’t groaning,
even if it’s only released
through the soles of my
feet. I wait to find out if you
love me. I wait to find out if
I love me. I wait and I
think and I wonder if ever
the waiting will end because
at some fantastic and
mystical point I will finally
rest in knowing the who I
am in me and you.
I’ve lost something but I don’t know what it is. I’m crying, all a mess, hands over my face and alternately grabbing for Kleenex. I saw a video about Orca whales. That started it, but I haven’t had any Orca-related trauma recently. I watched a video by a young man who researched the Bible for the context of six references to homosexuality. I cried then, too. I am asexual to a great degree, so I suppose I fit on the spectrum, but not anywhere that I catch flack for it. I’m married. No one really knew until I wrote this. I lost my seagulls last weekend, or at least, my assurance of their safety. That one hurt, as I’ve watched them hatch fledglings for years and given all of them names. But today was plain. I walked to a field trip, took the bus, taught a class, and received some books for a research project. Yet here I am, blubbering away, alone on the sofa.
If anyone knows what it is that I’ve lost, I’m open to suggestion. I think it has something to do with safety, and something to do with love. That’s as much as I’ve got.
I’m supposed to be researching for an upcoming presentation on the unseen costs of cheap production. Am I simply in tune with all there is to grieve in the world? Am I afraid we are losing the Orcas like we lost my seagull nest, tossed in the garbage for convenience? Am I sad at the long years I wasted, convinced that God held some special sort of antipathy toward gays? And how then did he feel about me, off the purple end and having no children, either? Why does this continue to shame me when I know in my heart it was the right thing to (not) do?
I do not know. I’ll keep the Kleenex handy, give up my books and have popcorn for dinner. Whatever I’ve lost, it’s taken my research drive with it.
Not Quiet Any More 