Tag: Endurance

Proof

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment 

How do you know you are loved? Does it mean you get everything you ever wanted? How do you prove your love to someone else? What in the heck is love anyway? Is it like porn? Do you know love when you see it? Feel it? Trust it? Will it? Choose it? 

“Hello,” Love says. 
“Gaaa,” I say. “You’re not my grandma. Get away from me.”
“Howdy there, little lady,” Love says with a swagger.
“Don’t howdy me,” I snap. “I’m not your type.”
“Find me. Trust me. Uncover me,” Love demands.
“I can’t. I won’t. I don’t know how,” I shake my head, hands up, defensive.

“Good-bye,” Love says.
“Where’re you going?” I ask, suddenly afraid.
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Love grins. “Want to ride along?”
“How would I know what I want?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Love nods.

Love settles on the couch. “Do you love anyone?”
“I try,” I say. “But not very well, at least by your standards.”
“And what are my standards?” Love feigns interest.
I consider this for a long while.
Love knits a blanket beside me, humming to herself. 

“Well, endurance comes to mind,” I finally venture. 
The guess is flat. Two-dimensional. Endurance is not that sexy.
“Good one,” Love says. “Say more.”
“No, you say more,” I counter.

Love leaps up and begins a seductive belly dance.
“Inward, outward. Yes. No. Not-you-ness. Enough. 
Letting go while hanging on. Balance.
Acceptance. Sacrifice. Otherness. Oneness. 
Shall I go on?”

“Don’t bother,” I sigh. “It’s impossible.”

“Absolutely,” Love stops gyrating. 
“I adore that about myself. I’m a gorgeous trip to nowhere,
a deceptively simple meal. 
Five sparrows with open mouths and winter on the horizon. 
I’m full of myself. Brimming, spilling, messy. 
I’m the first longing and the last drink.”

“Love,” I say plaintively.  “There are so many cold days and crushed dreams.
So many painful failures. Could I have that blanket when you’ve finished it?”

“No, honey,” Love says. “It’s not for you. 
You already have more blankets than you need.”

What? I am embarrassed. Outraged. My demons scream. The collective that I am rushes to the sea—the known and unknown, the just and unjust--intent on self-destruction. Intent on death. But Love calls to the heavens, and the entire crowd of me tumbles into the blue bowl of inverted sky.

Mick Jagger slides onto the curvilinear stage, clearly on a mission. “You can’t always get what you want,” he croons. I want to slap him silly but what’s the use? The truth is not his fault.

Naked in the End

Rita Sommers-Flanagan10 Comments

You will be happy to know the accent wall is now midnight blue, the ladder-backed chair rescued from the dump, lime green, gold, maroon, and yellow, and though my life has not gotten noticeably better, I used recycled paint, so there are five fewer dented cans awaiting resurrection in the basement. They are empty. I’m happy. I’m drinking the leftover Malbec wine for breakfast, but I would prefer dark beer. We must all make sacrifices.

Among the things set free by the storm last night are five rotten cottonwoods, one majestic willow, and twenty-six irrigation pipes rattled loose from their line of duty and sent tumbling dangerously through the darkened sky. Those of us left behind have accepted the fact that we will not be able to save the planet by ourselves. The wind has agreed to help but at great cost. Millions of unwilling children have lined up along the shoreline hoping for food. The tide will rise and take them. Their elders will follow. Millions of other species have unwittingly signed on for extinction, simply by being themselves—ugly, simple, and in the way.

For a while, we will fight to save the pandas, the owls, and the wealthy; the beautiful and those who make us laugh. I, for one, will write words infused with angry sympathy for those born into suffering, born with few options, those who then hate, radicalize, and destroy. The war games continue.

I kick at the shins of God, trying to wake them up. This cannot be the Original Intention. I am a foolish Cinderella. They are a flimsy Prince Charming. I am Jack. They are the Giant. I plant magic beans. They are the purveyors of binder weed and quack grass. I install solar panels. They are the sun and patchy morning fog. They are the good witch, the man behind the curtain, the placebo effect. They are a modest chemical reaction, and we are atoms splitting, cloaked in a thick shawl we’ve drawn over our shoulders, thinking it was pure merino wool. It is not. It is denial. I have considered freezing to death instead of protecting myself with lethal and selfish lies. When souls stand naked in the end, truth will be the only shelter. Not power. Not possessions. Not beauty. Not brilliance. Truth is always grounded in humility, compassion, and sacrifice. Sometimes, to practice, I wear clothes thinned to threads by others and endure the brutally cold light for as long as I can.