Tag: Inspiration

Earwax

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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“God,” I said, irritable and tired from a long day of petty frustrations. “Did you listen to a lot of heavy metal when you were young? Or maybe you need to clean your ears. Your hearing has gotten pretty bad. In fact, some people say you’re deaf.”

“Yeah, and some people say I’m dying of skin cancer. Too much exposure while I was building the solar system,” God said, giving me a friendly shoulder punch. “But people love to gossip. I’m more interested in what you say.”

“The weeds in my iris bed have gone to seed, and I’m sick of fighting back,” I said. I didn’t want to talk galaxies or my ongoing disappointments with my co-author. I wanted wisdom, peace, and an easier life. God likes lilies and irises, and mine are choking in big autumn weeds and native grasses. I’m not sure they’ll even come up next spring. Seems like an easy problem for God. Just smite the invaders, right?

And to make matters worse, I’ve noticed my cruel and vicious impulses have gained ground lately. People would be astonished to know how many times a day my mind whispers “Oh fuck.” Sometimes, I go beyond the F-word. It’s more of a primal scream. My innards seethe at the utter stupidity of humankind. But I breathe and wait. Breathe and wait. Usually, my demands to be special, perfect, noticed, or loved give way to the nearly inaudible whimper of surrender. I realize can’t fix much of anything. All I can do is go about the business of being alive. And I can try to be kind.

I offered God my bowl of chips and salsa. “Thanks,” God said in that still, small voice. “I’ve heard it all, you know. The clang and clatter, the gun shots and bombs, the sobs and screams and slimy claims, the pontifications and pathetic justifications, the pleas and praise. Machinery. Magpies. The making of love. First gasps of air, last exhales. I’ve heard it from the beginning. And I will hear it all forever.”

I leaned forward, pointing my finger. “Then why don’t you pull the weeds? Uncreate. End the cacophony of greed and moral failings. Why don’t you make it all music and joy?” I was so exasperated. “You don’t know the least bit about self-care, do you?”

“Sure I do,” God said. “Here I am, hanging out with you. Chewing the fat. Watching the day draw to a close. What more could I ask?”

The F-word leapt to mind. The scream began. I coiled like a rattler. Clawed at my limitations. It was worse than being alone. “What more could you ask?” I yelled. “I can’t begin to answer that. Can’t even begin.”

“I know,” God said. “But it’s an excellent question, isn’t it?”

Fear of Flying

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments 
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God and I usually visit rather informally, but today, inspired by silence and a Guinness Extra Stout, I’m trying a different voice. I’m thinking God will recognize it anyway. Here goes…

YOU

 You who are beyond pronouns, do you hear me?
Energy expressed as love, do you hear me?
Creativity unbounded, horses galloping, do you hear me?
Paradoxical forces pushing outward, do you hear me?
Dialectical trickster pushing inward, do you hear me?

(I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be irrelevant. I don’t want to be nice to idiots.)

You who are able to blink away galaxies, do you hear me?
You who make the sky burst into laughter, do you hear me?
You who die every time anyone dies, do you hear me?
God of the rattlesnake, mosquito, quicksand, and lightening, do you hear me?
Silent stalker, raucous rioter, author of all disappearances, do you hear me?

(I need, I need, I need.   I want, I want, I want.   Do not give me what I deserve.)

 Embodied myth, homeless beggar, wearer of the purple robe, do you hear me?
Neighbor, knower, patient old auntie, slayer of falsehoods, do you hear me?
Pure white, thick black, coffin-builder, source of thinning bones, do you hear me?
Gravel road, narrow path, first breath, bargain basement, do you hear me?
You who write the storyline, you who refuse conclusions, do you hear me?

(I can see my way around you, through you, beside you. Let’s run away.)

 You are said to feed on worship, gorge yourself on praise. I don’t believe it.
They claim you have a magic formula for being saved. This is silliness.
We try to define the undefinable, cater to our narcissism, and say it’s you.
The great regression has begun. We are returning to our hatreds. We are coming undone.
I cannot imagine your suffering, but I am trying. Do you hear me? 

(If it fits the plan at all, I would like to die into gentleness.)

My lungs collapsed as the savage Self of God blew through the valley. It whispered:

You’ve always wanted to learn to fly.
And you will.

And I said:
Amen.

 

Just Get on the Bus, Gus

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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Sometimes I’m enchanted by words as I type them, or I lose myself in the beauty of an orange-tipped brush meeting untouched canvas. At these moments, I’m a believer. In the act of creating, the creature knows the Original Source. In acts of compassion, we connect with the Lover. A grateful heart knows the author of joy.

Other times, blinded by the lightness of being, I try to provide my own inspiration. I’ve never known anyone quite like me. This is exhausting. The dark side of knowing grabs me by the throat, and the day clangs and rattles with loose bolts, bad connections– bone on bone. The cartilage of interdependence wears away, and my brain takes false readings that assure me I’m alone. I endure the subdivisions of the infighting self, snarling like a caged lion. Dangerous.

All options are on the table. Fangs and claws, bitter deterioration. Acceptance. Inclusion. Rejection. Isolation. Hermitage or solitary confinement. Impotence or celibacy. Fasting or starving. Just when I think I have it all figured out, I paint something the wrong shade of red or find a dead mouse in the pantry, and I’m reduced to elemental forces, poisonous gases, rust and mold, birds who sing too early and too long.

At the crack of this kind of dawn, I believe that I’ve survived a list of daunting adversities, but by evening, it will be clear that I’ve survived nothing. Nothing is ever over; nothing lets go. It all comes along. I ride through life in a repurposed bus that boards passengers to the point of bursting, but no one gets off. We circle the city. Parts of me hang out the doors and windows, fighting for air, looking for a savior. I wave like I’m in a parade–a clever disguise. Will I be discovered in time?

If the answer was simple, I’d share it. I’d own it. But there’s no such thing. The unifying force of the Universe, the Cosmos, the Beyond, the Forever, is a Question with beautiful baby answers that sparkle in the sun as they evaporate. I’ve already been discovered, and I will never be discovered. I’m known but will never be known. The extent of my unloveliness is the extent of my belovedness. And my enemies? I see now they’ve been painted the wrong shade of red.

Cardboard

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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Some people choose to refashion themselves into cardboard cutouts so fragile they’re in chronic danger of ripping, dissolving, or falling completely apart. They’ve armed themselves with knives–tips dipped in venom—and weaponry of all shapes and sizes, ready to defend against the shadows flickering at their cardboard feet. They don’t seem to know that rain falls on the just and the unjust; that shadows only define the light.

Today, I have turquoise hair, ivory teeth, ruby lips, and purple nails. Bright orange ideas curl around my head like steam. I breathe in a sober version of the living, illusive God and breathe out the drunken mess of trivial, egocentric gods that power most of us along.

“Hey, Source of All That Matters,” I say to the gathering clouds. “Is this the day?”

“Of course,” Source says back. “It’s always the day.”

This brings to mind time zones and happy hours, datelines, eclipses, sun spots, and lunar new years stacked end on end like shipping crates from China. “No, Source,” I say. “I mean from my perspective. Not global. Not cosmic. And not yours. Crawl in behind my eyes for a minute. Wrap up in my skin. Flex my biceps, rub my neck, touch that worrisome mole. Try to remember what you were going to do next. Limit yourself to my synaptic firings and misguided outcomes.”

Source of All That Matters sighs. “Okay,” she says in something other than a voice. “But turnabout’s fair play.”

I’m not going to back down. “Sure, fine.” I shrug. Being God for a day sounds easy. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could do a better job.  But right now, I want God to understand how hard it is to be me.  “What are you waiting for?” I say, taunting. “Come on in. The water’s fine.”

Source of All That Matters laughs and is gone. Or I think she’s gone. I must have scared her off. Could I have scared her off? What the heck? That was stupid. Why do I always, well, who do I think… Ah, the rain. The red-winged blackbird. The golden finch. A day so finely textured it will never come again: Manna from heaven; malice from hell. Cardboard armies, nuclear bombs, wasp nests, robin eggs, duct tape, baling wire.

Just over the horizon, the shimmering mirage of another day is forming in the womb of creation while this day bursts open like a seed pod. I turn my back to the lightening. Thunder loosens my bones. Under my fingernails, the black soil of now; in my pockets, choices. Chances. Tedium and change. The underbelly of God is soft and seductive. I’m too heavy to move.

Enough?” asks Source.

“Oh, yeah.” I nod with a head barely fastened on. “Enough.”

Wrestling Match

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

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I’m lost in a pile of morning words, thrashing like a rainbow trout that has taken the bait, uncertain if I am a victim of catch and release or soon to sizzle. The bait? Fame and fortune. Vast influence. The ultimate saving of the planet. Or at least meaning beyond pulling the stubborn cheat grass in the raised beds. The strawberries are in trouble and the chives. Even the mint is being overtaken.

“What if I were the governor or a movie star?” I think to myself.

“You’d still die,” God thinks back.

“What if I were rich beyond measure?” I think to myself.

“You are,” God thinks back.

“But I could be richer,” I counter with narrow eyes.

“Sure, but why? Even the outer limits are limits.”

“I don’t like that.” I shook my head.

“I know.” God smiled.

So apparently this day is going to inch forward and end–like every other day and no other day. It’s hardly begun, but as I argue with God, each moment slips quietly into the past. I watch the wind move the new leaves. They’re relatively secure for the coming season, assuming no tornadoes or killing frosts. What a brilliant celebration of all that is transitory.

“God,” I said, “You are a pain in the butt.”

“So are you,” God said as she sat down in one of the chairs that scratch the floor if you move around very much.

“What if I bought a camper van and drove to DC and parked and protested for the rest of my life? Huh? What then? Would that fix things? What if I piled my possessions on the sidewalk and labeled them ‘FREE’? What if I shaved my head and wore a robe? What if I climbed a tree and sat in the limbs on hunger strike? What if I chained myself to the wall? What if I gave everyone the right kind of light bulb? What if I broke all the glass in sight, shattering everyone’s phony security? What if, God? What if?”

“Sure,” God said. “Those all sound feasible. Which wall and how big of chain?”

I swore and threw my beer bottle at God. God ducked, spun around, and rammed a shoulder into my stomach. We fell like children wrestling in green grass and dandelion fluff. We shouted and shrieked in glee, startling a magpie and the neighbors. Our molecules were drunk on a bacterial invasion that made us come apart. To my surprise, I liked disintegrating. God and me. Me and God. The Great I AM. The Jokester, the Coyote, the Source of All That Is. And me. Me.

“Don’t forget the bacteria,” God said as we lied on our backs, panting. I shrugged.

“You know, God, I’m kind of artistic,” I said.

“True,” God said. “Maybe go with that.”

 

Snowbound

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

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Two feet of God fell through the night, pure white, yielding and silent–a worthy opponent, this friend of mine. “To what do I owe this honor?” I asked as I shoveled, and tried to mean it. “Nice of you to stop by,” I added, lying. No answer. I went back inside to stoke the fire and stare out the window.

A resolute sun broke through, brief and blinding. I could see nothing. Hear nothing. The tips of my toes and fingers felt nothing. This was the white of beguiling lies, seductive cover-ups. I was out of my depth, but it kept coming down. I’m ill-prepared, I thought. When you consider wind chill, even the burliest humans are easily frozen. The teeth of my cyberworld chattered. How do you love in this bitter cold? we asked each other, not actually wanting to know.

From the security of my couch, I contemplated the fields of deep, deadly white. For my people, black is the color of mourning–the color of absorption. But billions of people mourn in white–the color of reflection. White is what happens when light gathers force: blood red, sky blue, the yellow of fire and sun.

“That’s enough of that,” God said in a gruff, grandfatherly voice. “You’re trying too hard–too full of yourself. How about the red of that little wagon? The yellow of dog pee on snow?”

“But the situation is serious, God,” I said, embarrassed. “And I didn’t know you were listening. Could you knock, or at least make some noise before you barge into my head like that?”

God rolled himself into a single eyeball, a sheen of ice glazed over a deep, dangerous blue. He winked.

“Sorry,” he said. “I know it’s childish, but I love startling people. You thought I was out there, being weather, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Or maybe not. You tell me, Mr. Know-It-All.”

An avalanche of laughter crashed against my dying world, my endangered species, bathing it in cold comfort, icing away the inflammation of ego and all things unsettled, unfiltered, and unattainable.

“Love can look like this,” God said, pointing at a single ember.

I knew the fire needed more wood, but I was reluctant. Winter isn’t over and the woodpile is precariously low.

Rope Burn

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Sunrise. To my back, a river. On my left, fire. In front of me, wind bends everything eastward. The earth patiently awaits my arrival. Baby God of the delicate pink is creating a pastel peacefulness I wish I could believe in. But I don’t. I’m afraid of being placated by a tissue-thin God with bad breath—an insipid God badly explained by self-absorbed minions whose first language is greed.

All corporeal beings are caught in the slipstream of creation–salvation of a brutal sort. Translucent realities streak by–sleek greyhounds racing each other for the fun of it. All bets are off, decks stacked, roulette wheels off-kilter. The stakes are so high it takes a very big God to cover them. Very big. The Jubelale isn’t as tasty as last year, and my Christmas pajamas aren’t as warm. I need to pack the car so we can drive off into what appears to be a forward direction.

“It isn’t really forward, is it?” I whisper to God as I open the tailgate. God knows I do not want an answer, and I get none.

“Nothing is all that complicated, is it?” I whisper again, loading the suitcases, still not wanting an answer and still not getting one.

“You’re along for the ride, aren’t you?” My third query. This time, I’m not sure if I want an answer. I can feel God itching to say something so I pause.

“No,” God says in a stern voice neither audible nor pastel. “No, I’m not.” The voice reverberates. Eternal. Ethereal.

My heart breaks. An ugly little part of me shrieks with maniacal laughter, “Told you so, told you so, told you so.”  It does a victory dance, slams the ball in the end zone, beats its chest.

The hands of God applaud. Ugly self does a double-take and hesitates. The prancing is over; a temporary death is near, but God is very gentle.

“Come here,” God says to my ugly self. Ugly self slinks closer. “I know you’re afraid. It’s hard to be insignificant and mortal, but you have to try. Belligerence won’t help. I’ve done what I can, but The Ride cannot be along for the ride.” God turns to the larger me. “I don’t know if this helps, but I’ve been there. I am there. You’ll find your way.”

You’ll find your way—a string of words that slip by like a lariat tied to the saddle horn of a spooked horse. I have no gloves. I debate with myself for a moment, then grab on. The alternatives are far worse than rope burn. Maybe God and I can gentle this horse down. Or maybe I’ll just hold on for dear life–linear, majestic, bruising life. I’ll hold on even though the rope digs channels in my flesh, and at some point I will have to let go.

Baby God is still playing in the sky, now decisively blue. “Merry Christmas,” I shout to the horse, to God, and to my ugly self. I am defiantly exuberant. “Bring it on,” I add. And I mean it.

Red Box

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

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God and I are meandering down the alley. I’m on foot. God’s doing a high-wire act to make me laugh. There are crows, evidence of squirrels, and things discarded littering our way. Among the riffraff I find the redeemable. I offer thanks for the empty gift box flashing fancy red from a garbage can, and driftwood, smooth as skin, and seven or eight green apples, all bruised from the fall. I commune with the broken, hoping to catch a direct glimpse of my constant, often invisible, sometimes putrid companion who hides among the worst of it. The ways of God aren’t always pretty, safe, or easy. But I’ve learned to never, ever sanitize God. It causes a crippling loss of the sensations that make us human.

Today, it appears God wants to be silly, but shoes hanging by their laces from electrical lines don’t do much for me. Everything seems stupid. “Hey Goofball,” I venture. “Could you stop clowning around? I don’t want to laugh right now.” Honesty usually works well with the Holy Goofball. She can make her hide thicker than a crocodile’s. But this time, her skin is thin and she’s reactive.

“What makes you think this is for you?” she asks, voice sharp and petulant. “It isn’t always about you.” I look around. Lilac bushes are wilting. Alley weeds transgress, ugly and aggressive. Dust and smoke swirl. And then I notice that a muttering woman with a Safeway shopping cart has turned toward us. Why’d she turn? It isn’t even a paved alley. But here she comes. Snarling. Incoherent. A small, vicious world pulled tight around her—she’s walled herself off from gentleness, reason, or even meaningful contact. She’s a one-winged bird, flapping low. The gravel impedes her progress, but even so, she’s steadily getting closer.

Unhinged people frighten me.

Of course, I know, you know, God is permanently, proudly, unhinged. An ever-present danger to my complacency. Ultimately, it’s always God pushing the shopping cart, arriving as requested. I often wonder why I ask. But this is irrelevant. The street lady comes for us all, requested or not.

She waits, scowling, while I meekly climb in. There’s room for my red box, the driftwood, and a few of the apples. I am adding to her burden, but I see no other option. This unflinching, castoff God shows me the way, holding a fractured mirror.

My real home is a borrowed wire cage, my shelter permeable, mostly imagined. I am wilting lilacs, aggressive weeds, swirling smoke and fine gray dust. I am the favored child of an unhinged God, waiting to see what will happen next.

Strong-armed women

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

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Strong-armed women driving big red trucks inspire me, as does the defiance of hollyhocks. Marathoners over 65. The ways of wrens and eagles, aspen leaves whispering, greenery, brownery, the long gray rain, the blaze of sun returning, my pen moving sluggishly across cheap white paper, reluctant to lay down ink that later, I will have to obliterate. These are the things giving me life today. Are they going to be enough?

“No,” God says, joining my thoughts reluctantly. “No.”

The shovel handle, rotting. The soil, moist. Blight, mold, mildew, rust, dominant plants crowding out the tender herbs and delicate flowers. Voracious insects, mealy worms, centipedes. Lichen, moss, quack grass, locusts. Hoards and hoards of greedy, lying locus. Forces of destruction. God, is this what you intended? I don’t speak. I just think. God speaks.

“In your way of understanding, no. But yes. In my way, yes.”

But I want a different way of understanding. I never meant to be human. I meant to be a planet, at the very least. Or a savior. I meant to have a bigger meaning. I meant to be someone who could translate the songs the stars sing to the infants who need to know the words.

God interrupts. “They don’t need to know the words. The melody is their sustenance. Soon enough, they’ll find their words. And yes. It’s not especially easy being who you are.”

Damn straight. Damn right. Damn ugly. I would fix it all if I could. I can’t. I’m going out there right now and poison something, or someone. With soap, I’ll destroy the tender nest of bugs in my kale. With vinegar, that binder weed will back off. With cayenne, I’ll stop the march of ants toward my pantry, or at least, they’ll veer off the trail. I’ll recycle, compost, push back, and do battle–and in the end, it won’t matter. But I’ll laugh it off, won’t I God? You and me, laughing it off. Moving on. Living to fight or run another day, until, well. Until I give up, or there are no more days. Then what, God? Then what?

“Dancing is an option. The neutrinos have begun a dance it will take you centuries to learn. You’ll love it. It involves a lot of spinning. You like being a little dizzy, right?”

“No,” I said. “Not since the pregnancies.”

Oh, yeah,” God said. “I remember now. That will change. Again.”

“Change,” I said. “Revert? Evolve? Entropy? Complexity? End times, end games—you don’t really understand my perspective, do you God?”

“Not really,” God admitted. “But that’s okay. I get a real kick out of trying.”