Category: Inspired by Brian Doyle

Defiance

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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“Look, God.” I shouted, earlier this morning. “I’m still standing,” which wasn’t quite true. More like leaning. But upright, both feet planted firmly on the imperfect kitchen floor. I gazed hungrily out the north window. Not much had changed since yesterday. River steady. Nothing of substance, nothing ethereal suggesting itself.

At eye level, the horizon is deceptively close and the terrain between here and there seems…ah seems….oh fuck, what’s the word I’m looking for? Passable, hikeable, doable? My vocabulary shrinks and coarsens as my synapses thicken and collapse under the weight of age. I’m becoming simple—far less complex than dirt.

I have a plan. It involves five larges stones placed so that rainfall will drain to the pond instead of the basement. God has more or less approved this plan. “Yes,” God said, looking things over. “It’s best to make gravity your friend. Defiance rarely works in the long run.”

But this is hard for me. I love the tingle of perennial youth. My inner vision suits up, ready to have a go at the burly outer images I see in the mirror, so tangible and sure of themselves. Inner youth against Outer reality. Game on.

Game over. The lights go out, the teams pack up their gear, and stunned, I run to the parking lot. “No,” I yell at the top of my lungs. “Come back. This isn’t over.” My inner vision limps as it boards the bus for home. Life is too damn short for all this Outer reality.

I glimpse my image in the calmer part of the river, my bones giving way to water. It’s clear I’ll be gone someday. I wonder how to break this news to God. I know God will miss me terribly, and I’m sad about that. It occurs to me that I will miss myself as well.

Three Pears

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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Three pear-shaped candles line up, centered, on the long dining table this morning. They are stunningly simple. I bought them yesterday for 75 cents each at the Family Services thrift store in Billings, and they are beautiful. Perfect. I wasn’t looking for three pear-shaped candles, but there they were, in the bottom of a box still being sorted and shelved. I love shopping among the hand-me-down, cast-off excesses of our current culture. The stores are filled with rejected items that have learned a new, humble language. I speak rejection-redemption fluently. These pears found me, reached up through the plastic plates and chipped cups, and spoke quietly of their unique potential–their desire to live, one more time, in a place of recognition and service.

Now they sit centered in their own reflections on the shiny table, pastel shades of lemon yellow, barn red, and sage green. I offer thanks for the celestial river in which I float, letting the currents take me hither and yon. I’m especially grateful for the little tributary that took me to these pears yesterday. Less so for last evening, when I dumped back into the mainstream, watching a crime show that featured the agonizing torture of a female prison inmate.

The prison guard’s sadism, the cellmate’s betrayal. Too real. I wish I hadn’t watched. I know too many stories, too many real inmates, too many guards. I try to refocus on the pears. But the magic is gone.

“What?” I say, petulantly, to the open room. I stick my wounded thumb in my mouth, hoping the saliva will hasten the healing. I’m curled on the couch, growing a little agitated as I remember the awful drama.

“I speak rejection-redemption fluently, too,” replies the open room, also known as Allah, God, Creator, Author, Redeemer, Devi, Vishnu, Yahweh, maybe even Buddha. Right now, I prefer Open Room. I answer quickly. “Inmates aren’t pear-shaped candles. I do not, I repeat, do not, want them at my dining table.”

“Okay,” says Open Room. “Who’ll we invite instead?”

“Safe, nice, pretty people,” I say, mocking myself.

“Should they look like you?” Open Room asks, as if offering a compliment.

“You got it. And not too many, either. And not too often.”

“Okay,” says Open Room. “Your loss.”

Ah, that stings. I pull my thumb out of my mouth.

Open Room looks on sympathetically. My thumb is still ugly, but healing nicely from a recent power drill accident. We sit in the warmth of the fire, looking out the window at the day made crystal clear by the rain that fell all night.

Comfort Ye My People

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Can this be happening? An inauguration like no other. With millions of citizens in the United States, as well as perhaps billions across the globe, I keep waiting to wake up from this nightmare. Hate was elected. Hard work was scorned. Lies were elevated to truth. Honesty was ridiculed. People voted against their own best interests. Deception and selfishness won. Fear won. Love lost.

But….It appears I’m awake, and slowly, I realize I’m not alone. God has ridden into the room on waves of heat rising from the wood stove. She’s materializing slowly. I see the luminous eyes first.

Right now, I’m happy to see God, no matter what the agenda or guise might be, but I’m especially overjoyed to see that She’s materializing as the large Black woman I’ve come to love so much. I know that soft lap and those protective arms. For the briefest moment, I think she’s here to comfort me in my abject despair, and I’m so relieved. I want to be her favorite. While I sit in her presence, I want her to stroke my hair and fix all the brokenness–mine and the world’s.

Usually, I snuggle right up. But as I take in the whole scene, there’s no way I’m crawling in, or anywhere near that Holiness. God hasn’t come alone. Squeezed in beside her on the couch, there’s a writhing snake, a belligerent bully, a snapping turtle, a stalking tiger, and she’s situated a frightened little boy on that lovely ample lap. She’s got a whole crowd of greedy, demanding brats stomping on her toes, a rat’s nest in her hair, and vultures circling. She has nails in her palms and a noose around her neck. The crowd is shouting that she should go back to wherever the hell she came from. They want a different God.

“Hello, God,” I whisper, trying to remember my manners despite the terror rising in my throat. “Do you want some tea or something?”

“That would be nice,” she says. “And bring a cup for the new president.” Though I would rather do almost anything else in the entire world, I know she means it. I am utterly enraged. I feel like joining the group near the fireplace chanting “Lock her up.” But I’m trapped in God’s gaze. This gaze is like nothing else. It is pure love. I bring two cups of tea, fighting the urge to put rat poison in one of them, and with a dramatic flair, I set them on the coffee table, spilling a little. I break off eye contact, back my way out of the room, up the stairs, and into bed. I get under the covers and sob until mercifully, I fall asleep and sink deep into the sleep of the dead.

When I awake, the world is trying its best to be beautiful, but I will have none of it. Both cups are empty, the room a wasteland. I clean up the chaos such as I can, but the stains on the new rug are better left alone. I tried bleach on one of them, but it left a thin white spot, devoid of color. It looked far worse than the bright red blood.

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Paying the Bills

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Money isn’t an easy topic with God. On one hand, he’s rigid and highly opinionated, and on the other, he’s like “Oh, money. Whatever.”

But God had pulled up a chair and was watching me write checks. A few of them were to charities. Avoiding topics with God never works for long, so I might as well confess a few things. My relationship with money is convoluted. I like it but it scares me. I try to think of it all as a gift–a loan from the Universe, but the evidence provided by my warm house and my full stomach points to my own hard work, my own savings plans, my own bargain-hunting, my own birth, family, values, and choices.

I don’t have to go very far down the road to see people suffering from lack of money. Is this their own damn fault? Is this God’s own damn fault? Is this my own damn fault?

“God,” I say. “We’ve been over this a million times, but today…do you have anything to add? I knew he’d been riding along on my train of thought.

“Sure,” God says, cheerfully. “Which would make you more afraid. No money, or no God?”

My gut twists as I think about this. No money would stink. I’d be thrown on the mercy of others and that would be humiliating, at best. But no God would mean no loving, intelligent force behind, under, in, and around the known and unknown universe. That would stink worse. I imagine myself dying of hunger or exposure, in excruciating pain. I turn to the God I carry around—the God I believe in more or less, most of the time—and it’s good to have that imagined God beside me in my imagined poverty or pain.

“Ok. I’m more afraid of no God,” I say slowly, “But that doesn’t answer my question.” Even as I say this, I realize I don’t know what my question is exactly. Of course, God pounces on that.

“You don’t know what to ask because these are Living Questions, and you have to live the answers,” God said. He sounded like a tired professor. “In your species, there are no pure motives. This confuses you.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re talking about consciousness, right? Paired off against biology. Do you have any idea what a pain that can be?”

God gave me a look, but I kept going.  “Are you sure we were ready for consciousness?” I asked, my heart heavy with the human condition. War, fake news, hunger, injustice, cruelty–the lying, stealing, hating, greedy ways humans can be.

“No,” God said. “I’m not sure. It’s been agonizing so far. But I have faith in you people. And no matter what, I’ll stick it out, alongside and within.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said, sarcastically.

“Don’t mention it,” God said, matching my sarcasm. “That’s just the kind of God I am.”

We were both upset. Me, a puny little human, trying to be honest. God, weary. Disappointed. Infinite.

“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at his slumped shoulders.

“Me too,” God said. “Me too.”

We sat a while, glad for each other’s company. Daunted by the magnitude of what we had to do.

Monday

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

2014-08-29_12-50-26_254-2It’s a good thing someone invented the idea of Monday. Monday forces the issue, kicking the workaday week into reality, another heave-ho, away we go. Monday. Named, it is harder to avoid, even when days march along like soldiers in identical fatigues, lock-stepped, shoulder to shoulder, with only sundown and sleep as divisions.

Hello, Monday. Here I sit, awake, wording-up like a good verbal cowgirl, waiting for the frost to melt and the clouds to lift so I can escape myself. I’m certain I’ll strain my back in the process. My thoughts drift to God, who isn’t welcome right now. I redirect my brain to my lists. Better. But not enough.

I open my favorite breakfast beer. God wants a sip. No. Not welcome. You are not bread. You are not wine. You are not beer. You are a whiny bully who won’t stand up to cancer, or evil, or aging, or even, apparently, untimely death. In fact, you pal around with Death. Yesterday wasn’t funny, God. And today promises to be all bent out of shape because of how you invited Death to stroll along the Stillwater and view the fall colors with you and me. I’ll admit, the colors are spectacular this year, and yes, Death gets some artistic credit. Don’t think that makes up for anything. The beauty is almost incidental this morning. All that matters are my lists.

Leave me alone. I have leftovers to eat, floors to mop, gates to build, boards to move, tools to organize, piles of rotten wood to burn, and burn, and burn. A newly fallen cottonwood offers me shelter, and I’m tempted. I could curl like a fox in the snarl of the uprooted base and sleep in the deep dark nest of decomposed leaves and thereby join the circle on my own terms. Oh, I know I’m being dramatic, but I need some space, God. Leave me alone, okay? Please. Just leave me alone. Your chatter and apologies, your jokes and invitations. I can’t deal with you today. Maybe later, you can help me shed some of these uncomfortable clothes, but for now, I need the layers. In my mind, they are keeping me warm.

Along the Stillwater, Late August

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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It seemed like a good afternoon to seek enlightenment, so I asked myself where to turn.

“Turn toward that which brings you joy,” Self said. So I went to the river, not for the water, but for the stones. I knew who’d find me there, but I wasn’t trying to hide. God always follows me around when there’s any chance I’m going to be happy.

It was a difficult visit.

I did find joy. And silliness. Orange rocks with flecks of gold–fool’s gold. I’ve always been fond of fool’s gold. It masquerades, unashamed, as a precious metal, all the while aware of its ordinariness, cheerful and shiny in its temporary stone abode. I considered the eons that will go by before the river rolls this stone enough to free these flecks into sparkling sand. I realized my bones would be dust long before, and I sat down and cried.

Enlightenment. Illumination. Detachment. I wanted to fill up my soul for whatever lies ahead. That’s what I was doing and I wanted to do it by myself.

God knew this and came by anyway. And not only did God come by, She brought a friend. I did a double-take. Death had tagged along. I tried to be polite, but Death could tell I didn’t want to visit, and discretely moved a little ways away.

“I know I’m being rude,” I said to God. She was decked out in river regalia, gray eyebrows and wrinkly tan skin. Kindness twinkled in the bright blue eyes that held me in their piercing gaze.

“Yes,” God agreed. “But you know what you know, don’t you?”

All day, I’d been trying not to know what I knew. “You mean?” I said, quaking inside.

“Yes.”

“How soon?”

“Sooner than later. Later than sooner.” God threw her flabby old arms around me. Clearly, God had gotten too much sun as a youngster. “Mortality is a lifestyle, honey. Not a destination. The event isn’t that important.”

“Then what is important?” I said, angrily. I was troubled. Shaken. Sad. Those arms were not attractive. The day had come apart.

“Come on over here,” God said to Death, who was still keeping a respectful distance, watching the water flow by. “We go way back, don’t we, Sonny?”

Death smiled and nodded, dark hair fluid on his shoulders. God turned back to me.

“What’s important is making the acquaintance,” God said. “Ironic, isn’t it? Knowing the dark lightens things up. It’s better to be ready. Aware.” Death nodded again.

“I am,” I said reluctantly. And I tried to be. I said hello to Death. I didn’t look away.

They both left. I sat on the river bank and watched as the sun colored the sky behind the cottonwoods. There were black spiders everywhere. The stones were crawling with them.  They like it along the river. I don’t know why.

Rhubarb

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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I was in the garden on the third day, fighting weeds and despair. A couple sauntered up, arms around each other’s waists. They looked familiar, but I couldn’t place them until they let themselves in the gate and got within a few feet of where I was kneeling. I shaded my eyes and stood with some difficulty. My knees aren’t the best.

“God?” I said, astonished. “Yes,” they said, smiling. They were married, of course. Would God choose to live together without the benefits of matrimony? That’s a question for the theologians. These two were absolutely married, beyond any shadow of a doubt. Beyond marriage, beyond romance. They were joined, as one.

The woman said to me, “Don’t garden in your church clothes, silly.”

He nodded in agreement and pulled her close for a little kiss. “Isn’t she the best?” he said. Then he took a bright yellow bandana out of his pocket and blew his nose.  “I’ll leave you gals to visit.” He squeezed her shoulder, walked to a large stone, and sat with his back to the sun.

She stayed beside me, her shadow rippling over the deep green zucchini leaves. She fingered a strand of wooden beads around her neck. I had more questions than she had beads. They lined up in my head, but I didn’t speak them out loud.

Who are you? What do you want from me? Why am I here? Why do I even exist? When will I no longer exist? Isn’t it a waste of good consciousness, to just let it flicker and go out, like an unfed fire? Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? How would I know?

I could taste the remnants of coffee in the back of my throat, and knew myself to be alive. I smelled like the dirt under my fingernails. Thick clay soil, rich with worms. Clinging. Tight. In need of sand from the river, old stones ground down. In need of humus. Organic matter, ready to give itself to the cause of robust growth, to begin again.

She was watching, silent and calm, her face open, filled with approval. The late morning sun was hot. Dazzling. Dangerous. There I was, no hat. No sunglasses. Skin exposed. Soul exposed.

Suddenly, I remembered the wilting rhubarb I’d picked an hour ago, but hadn’t taken to the house. It wasn’t too late, but I had to excuse myself and dash away. The harvest was scant this year. I didn’t want my rhubarb to go to waste. I felt guilty. It would have been more polite to stay in the garden and visit—offer lemonade. I put the rhubarb in icy water and watched God stroll arm-in-arm upward into cloud and sky, a flimsy apparition of perfection. I wanted to drop everything and join them. But I stood firm, the rhubarb in my hands, tart and iridescent red.

How God Got Co-Authorship

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In Missoula some weeks ago, I stopped for a quick lunch while running errands. I’m not in the city often anymore, so Asian food sounded great. God wasn’t invited, but that never matters.

“Your work isn’t finished, you know,” She said, helping Herself to my Pad Thai.

I sipped my tea. “Oh, I know,” I said. “I’m always busy.” My tone was dismissive. The past two years had been rough. Maybe God was trying to comfort me, but I wasn’t in the mood.

Undeterred, She gave me a toothy smile. “You won’t like what I’m about to say.”

I hate that lead-in. I rallied my defenses, though I knew it was futile. God and I have an arrangement, and it’s not about going to heaven when I die. It’s about peace in my remaining days. If I don’t listen, my soul gets prickly and confused, and I tend to drink too much.

God of the toothy smile continued. “The house looks nice. The children are grown and lovely. I enjoy your little poems. But you’ve been hiding. Playing it safe. You need to find more driftwood and shards of colored glass. Step a little further into the abyss.”

I put my cup down angrily, spilling a little tea. God paused, gazed out the window, and faded. But like the grin of the Cheshire cat, the toothy smile faded last.

Lunch was over. I rode my bike into the afternoon, pot holes rattling my bones. I thought of places I like to hide. Caves and hollow logs, small dark closets, little shiny houses with hidden doors, big houses, subdued by a certain humility, spaces under bridges, nests in trees. I know about hiding. I know about shelter. I’ve used sticks and stones, glass and granite, spit and dirt.

God caught up with me. “I want co-authorship,” She said bluntly.

I stalled. This was not going well. “But I, um. Well, you’re never entirely coherent.”

“Coherence is overrated,” God said.  “I’ll have my attorney draw up the papers. There’ll have to be some deadlines.”

Fuck, I thought. I bet She’ll have a penalty clause too. I was upset. Frightened.

“Of course I will,” God said, from inside my head. “If you want an advance, you’ve got to get real. You can’t have forever. And to tell you the truth—which I pretty much always do–you wouldn’t want forever, honey. It’s a burden you’re not ready for.”

Resigned, defeated, I mumbled an apology for my language and rode on home in the gathering dusk. I paced, ranted, fasted, ate, and hid. I sang off-key, fell on the ice while stomping, fed the chickens, contemplated an early death, and generally came apart. Came utterly apart.

Those who’ll put me back together have begun a slow procession across the bridge. They’ll come down the alley and settle into the open-faced sheds they helped me build, politely waiting. Like God, like me, most have been broken. Discarded. Some will die. But they will be of great help. I’ve known this my whole life. Trash and transformation—a holy circularity. God incarnate, God in the mirror, God in the people, God at the bottom of the heap. This is where we should look. This is where life itself hides out.

Dualities

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Old man

I

God stopped by the other day. He’s gained some weight and acquired a limp, but his mind was as sharp as ever.

We sat on the tailgate of the silver pick-up, swinging our legs, watching the sand hill cranes. I mentioned the possibility that he could help out with things around here. There’s a lot left to do.

He was a good sport and tried to chop some wood, but it was too much for him. He got winded, and rubbed his chest in an alarming way. Honestly, I couldn’t even justify paying him minimum wage. He didn’t seem interested in the salary anyway. He sat back down on a nearby stump, stroked his white goatee, and stared out into space, attentive, like he was hearing something I couldn’t hear.

I got him a snack. He chewed with his mouth open, and examined the contents on the package. “I have a touch of diverticulitis,” he said, smiling. “I shouldn’t eat things with seeds. But sometimes I cheat a little.”

Even with his large belly, his posture was regal. He moved with slow grace, scratching himself thoughtfully. “Bug bites.” He caught my look and added, “They have a purpose.”

I shook my head. “You could’ve done better. You could’ve skipped bugs. And childbirth. Even we lowly humans invented zippers. What’s with that?”

This was old terrain. He glanced me into silence. Typical male. I decided to wait on this topic until he reappears as the large black woman with the soft, yielding lap. She has birthed me with ease, over and over. I trust her explanations more than I trust myself—for good reason. She’s saved my life a couple of times.

God interrupted my reverie. “Got my license to pack,” he said. “Need to buy a loose jacket and one of those fancy ankle straps. Might want to carry two.”

“Great,” I said. “That’s just great. Congratulations. You moving to Montana permanently?”

“Nah,” he said. “But when in Rome…”

II

Well, what do you know? Here’s God again. She’s bent over, tending flower beds on a sleepy side street in the city. A half-block away, I notice a big-boned mother with twin sons. She is struggling down the sidewalk towards God. One of the boys is angry. He bites his blanket and yowls. The big-boned mother wants to slap the red, contorted face of this defiant son, but God and I are watching. It’s harder to slap your child around with an audience. In this suspended moment, we are joined by a lovely blond girl with perfect skin and a clingy peach-colored dress. Her breasts and butt wobble. She is so sensuous even the little boys are entranced. She appears to be walking her dog, but I think, “No. She is some kind of angel and that’s not a real dog.”

I make eye contact with God. God winks, the frame freezes, and suddenly, I am alone.

I am fully, completely, alone. I am so alone my front teeth feel unfamiliar to my tongue. The light around me is metallic and cold. There isn’t much left of my body. This makes me nostalgic. Sad. My eyes, still in my head, fill with salt water. Warm, oceanic water. I want to float, weightless in this water. The big-boned mother has come back for me. I don’t want to go.