Tag: mortality

Volcanic Activity

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A derisive voice arose from the cracks in our tongue and groove flooring. “No wonder you thrash around looking for someone who understands, someone who loves you just as you are. You don’t even understand yourself. Whatever that means. So good luck with that.”

I grimaced. God was rumbling up from below, apparently trying to be therapeutic. True, I am in fact wrestling with the complexities of love and understanding within myself and others. But I hate paradoxical interventions.

“Hello, Nasty God,” I said in a resigned voice. “You’d make a lousy psychologist.”

Bully God, Blunt God, Mean God, Bad Mood God, Belligerent God, Greedy God, and Hot Shit God crowded around the table. Nasty God poured coffee and served cake and ice cream. They chewed with their mouths open, burped, and scratched themselves. One of them purposefully passed gas, and the rest laughed like unchaperoned boys at a slumber party in the basement.

But they weren’t by themselves. And they weren’t in the basement. They were front and center in my muddled mind. I stole time from my meditative morning to scorn them, one by one.

“You will not behave like that in my house.” I shook my finger, matronly and severe. It had little effect.

“You will not be so damn hard on yourself,” they cried in unison. “You will loosen up and cavort.”

“OMG, I will NOT cavort,” I said.

“You WILL cavort,” they shouted gleefully and began to sing in three-part harmony:

Don’t sell us short, you will cavort.

You will smirk and go berserk.

You will rant, and you will pant.

You will flail, and you will quail.

You will cast the evil eye,

you will curse, and you will cry.

It’s who you are, our little star.

We’re never far. We’re never far.

I crossed my arms and glared. They mimicked my posture, climbed on top of my shiny table, and danced an Irish jig, belting out round after round of their ridiculous song. The table expanded into a dance floor, and the Wily Women in tall black boots arrived. All hell broke into angular pieces and floated away like iceberg calves. Iceberg calves.

It went on for weeks. Finally, a nearby volcano erupted. A thick cloud of Messianic Ash blanketed the exhausted inner party, and we melted into nothingness.

For a blessed moment, it was profoundly quiet. No color. No light. No longing. No fear.

Then, “Care to cavort?” they whimpered, breaking the silence in strangulated voices.

I smiled and shook my head.

“We’ll be back,” they promised as they dusted themselves off and faded away.

“I know,” I said, centered and calm. “And I’ll be here.”

Oh, Baby

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This is the narrowest time. Night has loosened its grip, and old wine is poured out as libation to the rising sun. My head slumps to my chest, and my shoulders curl inward to make the passage less painful. Less prolonged. To the east, a thin blaze of orange takes hold. With kindling gleaned from around the chopping block, I light a fire so I can immerse my hands in the warm liquid of another day.

“What sayest thou?” I ask the newly arrived Sandhill cranes.

“What thinkest thou?” I ask the rising river.

The answers come on the in-breath and dissipate before I can inscribe an adequate translation. I will have to ask again and try to be worthy of the answers.

My inner audience isn’t kind. The promise of spring is shrouded in snow, and for some reason, the fire is burning more reluctantly than usual. I suspect it’s the blessing and curse of the thick bark still clinging to these beautifully split logs.

Before I slept last night, someone told me they loved me, and someone told me they hated me. The raucous rise of the north wind relieved the barometric pressure of leftover miles. There was just enough time to make a cursory inspection of my seashells, sticks, and rocks before the paralysis set in. Even then, I had to lean into God to make it to the safety of my flannel sheets.

Now, alert and alive, we are filled with equal amounts of dread and joy.

“Oh, baby,” God sighs. “Oh, baby.”

“Oh, God,” I say, pushing back a little. “Oh, God.” I look into myself as far as I can. “I wish you wouldn’t sigh at me. Go sigh at someone else.”

This elicits a smile. We sip coffee, eat toast, and raise our glasses to the trains arriving, the trains departing, journeys beginning, journeys ending. These simple routines grease the wheels, and we’re off.

Who can guess the length of their days? Who can predict the hard hatreds and easy loves? No one knows their own soul very well, let alone the redemptive mind of God at rest in the protective bark of scorched and fallen trees. We cannot be expected to do any better than we can.

“Oh, baby,” The Cosmic Drama Queen sighs again, so inclusive, so determined. Her obsidian eyes are sparkling, her broad shoulders squared. “Oh, baby.”

Generosity

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If for some reason, Jeff Bezos wanted to give away a million dollars a day, he could do so every day, 365 days a year, for well over 500 years. So could Elon. I sit with this incomprehensible trivia hoping God might make a sarcastic comment. She doesn’t. She’s staring out the window I’ve opened to let her in.

“I don’t want you to call me God anymore,” she says, her voice crossing the room like light from the fire. Like air cleaned by the nearby evergreens.

Why would God say such a thing? Maybe She/It/He/They are tired of this centralized, politically charged, maliciously manipulated name that defines and limits them.

“That’s not quite right,” The Entity tells me. “The name limits you. Nothing limits us.”

“What does Jeff Bezos call you?” I ask.

“Helicopter.” They chuckle.

“And Elon?”

“Moon.” They collapse in giggles.

I don’t laugh. God is being elusive and self-indulgent. I don’t know what to call her. I don’t even know what to call myself. I’m a body of one and many. I have more brain cells in my skull than there are humans on earth. Jeff Bezos has twice as many dollars as the Milky Way has stars. I can write these facts, but like God and infinity, they are abstractions far beyond my grasp.

“You’re coming apart,” the Voice from the Garden murmurs in my better ear.

An observation? A warning? A taunt? I’m not sure. I feel defensive.

“No, I’m not,” I say, looking down and away because in my heart, I know it’s true. I am coming apart. Unhinged. Unglued. Along with Bezos and Elon, the unsheltered and the powerful, my friends and my enemies, I’m coming apart. Muscles and memory. Bone mass and eyesight.

“And you’re coming together,” the Voice from the Ocean adds in a reassuring voice.

The earth sustains life as we know it because, unlike the sister planets we’re aware of, it has surface water separating the ever-changing islands of land, and if things are working properly, death begets life. I stand on the shifting shore, toes immersed in salty water, coming apart, coming together, balanced.

In the slow dissolving, I have not yet given all I have to give, or given back what was never mine to keep, but if the Source of all Generosity, the one I’ve nicknamed God, continues to be of help, I will carry on.

Guesswork

I think there is a God

Her name is Water.

But she is known by other appellations.

Light. Fire. Longing.

Her brother’s name is Greed.

Sometimes known as Fear.

His legs are short and stocky.

Hers are long.

They meet for coffee

at the little place on the corner

but they go home

on different roads.

There is a path

that climbs gently

out of hell.

and opens

to a soothing meadow.

Tread lightly. Eat something.

Find your still small voice.

There is a little girl

beside you.

Her name is Truth.

Take her hand.

There is an old woman

in front of you.

Her name is Wisdom.

Follow her.

Woven into your bones

there is a quiet voice

called Compassion.

Listen.

Default Settings

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 My friend’s computer got hacked so he had to strip down to default settings to cast out the algorithmic demons. Having essentials saved in the cloud turned out to be a very good thing.

God is perched on my new orange ottoman sampling an experimental kefir popsicle I made yesterday. “Could I regress to default settings if I get corrupted?” I ask.

“Too lumpy.” She puts the popsicle on a plate to melt. “And no, you don’t have default settings. You have habits and intentions.”

Some people call God The Cloud of Unknowing. At the moment, this seems like a great name.

“Well then, Cloud,” I say, smiling. “Good thing I upload occasionally, huh?”

The Cloud agrees. “I save all your previous versions, false starts, half-assed plans, and unrealistic tangents.”

“Ugh,” I grimace. Having multiple versions of myself is confusing, and I generate vast numbers of intentions and ideas. I can never decide which ones to delete. “Do you at least have a logical naming system?”

“No,” The Cloud says. “That’s your job, though I do empty the trash once you actually delete and let go.”

“What about things I should have deleted but haven’t bothered?” I ask. “Could you make sure I’m remembered accurately?”

“No,” The Cloud says again. “No one is remembered accurately. But I’ve already remembered you well.”

All my mortal selves leer at me. A wave of vertigo hits, and suddenly, I’m being crushed by a density that makes it difficult to see or move. “Where are we?” I ask.

“Death Valley–282 feet below sea level. The atmospheric pressure is heavier here than anywhere on earth.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Yeah. Generally, I’m a bottom feeder, but it’s not easy here. Cloud formation is limited and whimsical.”

“Let’s go home and upload,” I plead.

“You sure? We’re 65 words short.”

“I’m sure,” I nod. “It’s only going to get worse. We don’t want to upload nonsense, do we?”

“I have some of your early poetry. Want to fill in with that?”

“No way,” I laugh.

I may not have default settings, but The Almighty Programmer faithfully saves my indeterminate multiplicities and understands my intentions.

And regardless of errant deletions or too many versions, there is enormous comfort in this: I am already remembered well.

Closed Captioning

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During the witching hour last night, my electric blanket turned itself on and fried me to a crisp. Light from my flaming hair revealed the outline of God burning beside me which provided strange comfort. Over time, I’ve had various vague ideas about the best ways to die. I’d not thought of this one, but it seemed an acceptable alternative. Our charred bodies were soon unrecognizable. It was over.

The enormity of waking has overwhelmed me. I’m the walking dead, moving through my morning chanting please, please, please. I don’t know what I’m asking for, but I’m certain I’m supposed to ask. Being dead absolves the body. Being alive requires fortitude, vision, and help.

One of our chickens lost an eye to a predator, but she’s still laying eggs. The garden is buried in snow, flat and pristine except for the tall dry stalks of late blooming weeds. The exhaustion of autumn always gives these invaders an unfair advantage. Spring will bring renewed energy for the inevitable skirmishes, but there will be no definitive victor. The spoils of war are never what one might imagine.

Since the thousand-year flood two years ago, we monitor the river with new respect. God and I are working steadily on the basement with an eye to evacuation. We’ve moved our vulnerabilities to higher ground, aware of the futility but content to at least be doing something. Doing something. Doing something. I am the walking dead doing something.

God routinely disappears and only explains their whereabouts in languages I do not understand. Multiple translations scroll across the bottom of the screen. I’m forced to suspend my agenda and hold very still as I struggle to grasp the plot of the cosmic drama. I wish God spoke simple English. Then I could do two things at once.

Instead, I must contend with the tongues of angels and demons, the vernacular of eagles and earthworms, the dialects and dialogues of the infinite all rising on waves of unprecedented heat, wrapping the earth in a shroud of utterly brilliant sunsets. Or are they sunrises?

God wears the tattered ozone like a cape and lands gracefully beside me. I am still chanting please, please, please as I accept the bent elbow and march down the aisle toward the edge.

“I hear you,” my Escort whispers, leaning down. “But you might try a thank you now and then.”

The dark and troubled waters below offer no sustaining image, but I don’t need one. I am the walking dead, learning to navigate weightlessness. I am the walking dead, slowly, slowly, slowly letting go. Letting go. Letting it all go.

Monday Monday

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Most Mondays (the start-over day) I grope my way to coffee and toast, check the weather, listen to the news, and pause to consider the wonderment and demands of another day. Then I prowl around considering which room to declare sacred for the next couple of hours, which chair will be most inspirational, and which accoutrements might help me face the blank screen and a recalcitrant Coauthor. We have a deal. On Mondays, we will string together a set of words that speak to the human condition.

Usually, I settle into one of our old recliners, expand into everything, fold into nothing, and die a couple of times while my Coauthor courses through my circulatory systems, both physical and psychic. She glints off the shiny surfaces of my remaining life and prances naked desires across my ever-changing visual field.

I shield my eyes.

Plug my ears.

Duck my head.

Doesn’t matter.

It’s an Internal, Infernal Presence.

There’s no escape.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had a comfy recliner like you?” my Coauthor asks as she peeks from an array of books on the bookshelf and strums seven painted driftwood sticks glued to a canvas as if they were strings on a cello. As if she has become Yoyo Ma. As if this complex web of existence is intentional. As if I am among the intentions.

“Sure. Go for it,” I snap. “Whip up 7.9 billion recliners. Make them compostable and fireproof. Make sure they can serve as flotation devices and bomb shelters and can be eaten during famine. Make them vibrate with joy and catch mice and roll across all the floors of the world without leaving marks.”

“Brilliant!” she declares, clapping her many hands. “I’ll put a solar panel on the back of each one, and they’ll pivot to follow the sun.”

She gives me a meaningful glance.

“No,” I say. “I will not pivot to follow the sun.”

“Oh, my silly little minion,” she laughs. “You’ve always pivoted to follow the sun. And you always will.”

I could protest this ludicrous claim, but with the Internal, Infernal Presence, there’s no winning, no losing, and definitely, no escape.

The sun is one of billions of stars orbiting the center of the Milky Way. Every 230 million years, an orbit is completed. In our heart of hearts, all silly minions know this. The Mondays will come and go until they don’t. Nothing is static. Nothing is certain. Tomorrow may rain, but in the end, we’ll follow the sun.

The Blame Game

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Having someone or something to blame for my mistakes, disappointments, and entropy in general is such a blessing. If no one, if nothing, steps up to take the fall, then what? The empty abyss of nothingness, the voracious black hole of randomness, the uncontrollable, irreparable, directionlessness of life suck me undertow, and I’m paralyzed. Blame is a very good thing.

“But everyone is trying as hard as they can, right?” God says sarcastically. “So how can you blame anyone?”

“Oh, I’m a skilled, irrational blamer,” I say with pride. And it’s true. Except when I focus my lens on myself, there is solace in blaming and excuse-making. I harbor resentments, nurse grudges, and scan my environment for everything that’s wrong with anything. When I have a chance, I point out these shortfalls in a judgy voice as if the failings I unearth are both shameful and deliberate.

“I’ve noticed that occasionally you include yourself among the damned,” God observes in a kind voice. Almost offensively kind. I’m not in the mood.

“Leave me alone,” I say. “I don’t want to be understood or placated. I want things to go my way. I want things to be shiny, warm, buttery, pretty, predictable, and trouble-free. I want everything to be right with the world.”

“Don’t we all?” God sighed.

“See? This is my problem, God.  If you’re even a thing, then why aren’t you a preventer of tragedy or at least a fixer? Seems definitional of anything called God.”

“There’s a chance you’ve got the wrong dictionary, honey,” God said.

I scowl. God stares steadily into my squinty eyes. Her love is seeping into the room, and I don’t like it. Yeah, sure, being loved should make me happy, but there are strings attached. Equanimity, acceptance, and holy detachment come at a cost.

I don’t want to face hard times or try to do better. I want my address to be Easy Street, where everyone is pain free, youthful, fat, and sassy.

I don’t want to be loved despite my imperfections. I want to be perfect. I don’t want to be loved as I decline and die. I want to be immortal.

“Ding, ding, ding,” God says, pretending she’s got a bell in her hand. “We have a winner, folks. She makes it to the bottom in record time.”

I flip God off with my knobby middle finger. She blows me kisses. I grab them out of the air and make them into a string of luminescent beads. Elegant jewelry? Noose? It appears to be my choice. But I’m never sure.

The Parade

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God and I have been working on reining in our expectations. This is even harder for God than for me. It’s strangely comforting to know that the pain of my life’s chronic disappointments will end when I end. Not so for God. God’s unmet expectations and foiled hopes repeatedly jump the guardrails and roll around like bowling balls, bruising the same spots over and over. God’s tenacity and bravery are astonishing. Who else would willingly sign on for such endless frustrations?

“Aw, it’s not that bad,” God says, clearly pleased with my empathy and sincere admiration. “I do have a buttload of setbacks and disappointments to lug around but look at all the counterbalancing joys and successes.”

When God says things like buttload my adolescent self starts giggling, and my perspective shifts: The idea of everything going my way seems silly; fears and unfulfillments shrink; and my expectations shelve themselves in the basement pantry.

I take a few deep breaths, slap myself on the side of the head, and tell myself to grow up. But I can’t seem to stop. Buttload, I chuckle to myself, causing another hysterical outburst. I’m like a child who wants to keep laughing for the sheer delight of laughing.

“Hey goofball,” God says. “Pull yourself together. You’re late for the parade.”

What? Parade? I am instantly defiant. “I don’t like parades,” I say firmly.

Back in the day, I played saxophone in the high school marching band, waved at the crowds from homemade floats, tossed candy, handed out fliers, and once, I twirled a baton for seven miserable blocks while unimportant people clapped and cheered. I’m over all that. I’m not going.

God shrugs. “Either you go to the parade, or the parade comes to you.”

I hear the drums in the distance. On the horizon, the silhouettes of a flag-bearing honor guard move in lockstep. The floats begin to roll by, festooned with banners held aloft by my ancestors and dearly departed friends. Tears spill down my cheeks. Sheesh. What is wrong with me?

DO WHAT YOU CAN! the banners proclaim. ENJOY EVERYTHING! EXPECT NOTHING!

“Okay, God,” I sob. “You win.”

I grab a rusty frying pan and a hefty stick of driftwood. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll beat my own damn drum.”

“You bet,” God says, and falls in beside and around me, a swirling rainbow, a cloud of witnesses, shaking ancient tambourines. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

A Rose by Any Other Name

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

Sometimes, it’s easier if I don’t call it God. I call it good haircut. I call it washed dishes. Three Macintosh apples on a spindly tree. I call it undisplacement, deep sleep, minty water, solved problem, kind gesture, and silence. I call it insight. Green light. Resolution. Red light. Arthritis. Absolution. Glimmers of compassion, splinters of life, and unwelcome but comforting absolutes. Containment.

The larger sky is impossible to grasp in its entirety, and the names we give the constellations are revealing and projective. The vertigo inducing stomach turning mind exploding body shrinking cosmos intoxicates and decimates.

It’s all so nothing and so everything. Time is a bioluminescent pebble that burns through the palm of my hand, and briefly—oh so briefly–illuminates the steps ahead.

The hollyhocks have outdone themselves this year, and the sunflowers are outrageous. Last year’s seeds, woven into a rowdy celebration of soil, rain, and light. A summer soiree. I slip in surreptitiously. There are earwigs, slugs, wasps, and other unsavory characters among the invited guests.

The sting of consciousness is unmistakably God. The cries of the cranes are God. The rich organic matter is God. The path I use to get away is God. The offer to come back is God. But most days, it’s easier to call it something else.

 “I don’t mind at all,” God assures me. And assures me. And assures me. But I am not assured. Chronic doubt, the evening news, a sudden downpour, unrelenting hunger, fire, suffering, and war—these all complicate what could be simple. Between Alpha and Omega there’s an alphabet with gaping holes and identifiable threats.

And yet.

The day we once called tomorrow has arrived and desperately needs attention. Shall we call it Now? At the subatomic level, there’s an unnamed unity. If we call it love, we might have another chance.

The Ever-presence knows how hard we try to make it fit into our calendars and fears, our agendas and excuses. It flits among the fragments and festivities. It blooms and goes to seed. A circular salvation forms like beads of dew, and without our even asking, it forgives. And forgives. And forgives.

I found a ripe tomato hidden in the weeds, round and red as blood.  

“Help yourself,” God said. And I did.

Book Arrives

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“Well, well, well. What have we here?” The snotty little god that lives in my ego held up a copy of the first volume of Godblogs. I tried to snatch it away.

“What’s with this?” She pointed to the back cover. “OMG. Did you bribe these amazing writers or just make these accolades up? Here’s what I’d say. Sanctimonious, solipsistic drivel. But never mind. No one reads the back anyway.”

I covered my ears.

“Why the cheap-looking shiny cover? The missing page numbers? The sketches seem a little blurry. Did you scan them yourself?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Why’d you publish Print-on-Demand from the exploitive Behemoth of Online Indulgences? Probably packaged by starving children soon to die of climate change. No one will appreciate having to order this.”

I shrugged.

“Sure. Roll your eyes, cover your ears, shrug me off. You’re a needy, cloying, backstage shadow. You’re pathetic.”

The barrage was starting to hurt. I curled fetal.

“SHOO! ENOUGH!” Big God arrived, waving a flyswatter. “She gets up every morning, eats breakfast, and we hang out. I dance around in her head, which gets pretty weird, but I like her reports of these encounters. Sometimes, I let her see through the cracks.”

“Fool,” little god muttered. She shot me the evil eye and faded away.

“Thanks,” I said to Big God. “But honestly, is it worth it?”

Big God winked and curtsied. “May I have this dance?”

I looked away. Our morning dances range from raves to tangos, waltzes to Irish jigs, macarena to ballroom. In the background, ranch hands do the two-step. Rappers grab their crotches. Skeletons rattle their bones. I struggle with the beat in the Circle Dance, and I wouldn’t dream of trying to fancy dance. Or would I?

“Well, the book is a little flawed,” Big God said, pulling me to my feet. “But I don’t mind. The next volume might be better. Formatting is the shits.”

“We don’t talk like that in our family,” I said, arms crossed.

“Damn right!” Big God laughed. “Honey, you can claim whatever nonsense you’d like. I know what’s in your heart. It’s a little flawed, too. But like I said, I don’t mind.”

A fiery string of forbidden expletives leapt to mind. Big Ass God should not make fun of me or poke the hell out of my fucking defenses or shine a shitty light on my pissant denials.

“I repeat, may I have this dance?” Big God was laughing out loud.

“Fine,” I mumbled. Then mustering a scrap of dignity, I added. “Just don’t step on my toes.”

“I can’t help it,” Big God said, still chuckling. “Sometimes, you’re all toes.”