Tag: mortality

The Parade

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment

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

Rita Sommers-Flanagan14 Comments

“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.”

Would You Like Me Better as a Bird?

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

Photo Credit: Scott Wolff

Sometimes God could try to be a little nicer. More fully present. Sure, there are days when we get along fine, but other days God goes silent, and I feel like the world is all my fault. For-profit prisons. Liars worshipped. Migrants capsized. Socialism demonized. Women as chattel and baby machines. The earth abused for our comfort.

On these days, I stomp, kick, and scream. I don my self-righteous armor, mount my trusty steed, and aim my lance at the nearest dark-web, conspiracy-theory, Fox-watching neighbor. This only happens in my head, but even so, I’m surly and unpleasant. Which is ironic since it likely reduces God’s motivation to stop by.

Then I notice the birds. The spectacular seed-eating bug-eating preening singing chirping flocking soaring birds. They are so present, so varied, so temporary. I see God letting them hop on her chest, giggling because it tickles. I see God lining their nests with sacred down. I see God in the lift of their wings. I see God dangling from their beaks. Their blithe innocence is sleek and beautiful.

Even in my ragged unbelief, in my sad and porous bones, I know that no sparrow falls alone. The hairs on my head, the lilies and dandelions, the war-ravaged children, the unsheltered, unloved, unknown. The conscripted. The billions unwillingly born. We’ve all been absorbed in the ocean of Knownness. Swelling buds, the receding tide: illusions of the highest order. We are figments of God’s imagination, players in a dream dreamed by God. I often think I want to free myself, but it seems I have no wings.

Is this my fatal flaw? Is this why I get mired in unlove?

Would you love me more if I could fly? I fling the question into the void, expecting only an echo back, but the Void quickens, and laughter cascades down like lava, vivid orange and dangerous.

“Oh, little fool,” the Void says. “You know I love you as much as you’ll allow.”

I tear up. There is a long, pregnant pause. Then the Void whispers, “And baby, you may not remember, but you have always known how to fly.”

This should be good news, but it frightens me.

I consider the wings of the morning and the skeletal lightness of being while young robins jump around under the lilacs to gain the strength they need to fly. Malignant tendrils of greed give way to the released and rising outbreath of the dead. The Void is right. I have always known how to fly.

The Perfect Couch

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

I’ve searched for the perfect couch for a large portion of my adult life. I maintain a steady presence on the internet marketplaces and frequent the thrift shops scattered across the three states we travel the most. My couch karma is pathetic. Once, I broke my vow to only buy used items and bought a new one. That didn’t work out either.

Over the years, God has cheerfully sat on each of them except for the small sectional coated with multiple layers of nearly invisible cat hair. That one didn’t even make it into the living room. Too bad. It would have matched the nostalgic recliner I’m usually sitting in this time of day. If any cat people are interested, the sectional is piled in the barn. Blue geometric design. Can’t miss it.

“You’re funny,” God says, lowering himself into the sagging cushions of my most recent attempt.

“I know,” I reply, proud but sad. My mom would have turned eighty-nine today. I didn’t engage in any “Happy Birthday in Heaven” posts, but I’ve sent my regards to wherever the essence of mothers goes.

Generally, my mom did not like secondhand furniture, but she loved this little recliner that last year because she could put the footrest up and down on her own. Limits and needs humiliated her. She would have starved rather than ask someone to cut up her meat. I can relate.

It is one of life’s ironies that if we live long enough, we come to understand the disappointments, fears, and irritating quirks of our elders from the inside out.

“No, no. That’s not irony,” God says. “That’s mercy.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “It feels vindictive. It makes me wish I’d been nicer and tried harder to understand.”

“No amount of niceness takes mortality away. You were nice enough.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Trust me,” God says, “You were nice enough.” Then he adds, “Say, I didn’t sleep well last night. Mind if I take a little rest?”

He yawns, snaps the wobbly footrest up, settles back, and is soon snoring peacefully. I watch his chest rise and fall while George Winston plays melancholy piano in the background. Such short lives. Such very short lives.

I guess maybe it is mercy, I think. Better to understand later than never. A rush of adoration washes over me. I lower my own footrest quietly to tuck a turquoise blanket around the vast arthritic feet of my friend, the patient creator, the weary one, snoozing on my latest bad couch.

Hog Heaven

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

From my bank of unblinking windows I watch the ways of old trees dying. None are a direct threat, so I keep a respectful distance and consider rootedness and wind, drought and disease, and the sustenance dead trees leave for future generations.

Like trees, we exist fleetingly between flood and fire, partaking of a generous past, discovering our relevance even as we decay. I have been reborn many times, birth canals shaping the way things look when I reemerge. This morning’s reemergence is solemn. I am grateful for the stillness.

But my revery is interrupted by two pigs noisily reminding me it’s breakfast time. Obviously, their pen is too close to the window. These exuberant uprooters are stinkers in every sense of the word. I try to limit my fondness, but the way they make eye contact is most endearing. I see interest. Recognition. Maybe even primitive affection. I also see the truth. They are omnivores. If I were down and broken, they would eat me. And I’m sure somewhere in their active little brains, they are aware that I am a predator, and they are worthy prey.

“And thus you could break and eat them,” God says, finishing my thought.

“Eat or be eaten, eh?” I say, scattering soaked corn for the dramatically ravenous pair.

“Almost. But actually, it’s eat and be eaten,” God says. “That’s the plan. A good one, if I do say so myself.”

This is not a new conversation. I wrinkle my nose as images of mold, fungi, maggots, and other faithful workers of creation come to mind. I am an integral part of an inclusive, circular, cleansing, evolving, expanding universe. Pigs, chickens, cattle, yaks, grasses, trees, seeds, whales, mules, plankton, cabbage, caviar. Apples, melons, hybrids, bones, stones, erosion, uprisings, down-fallings. I sigh and look at my hands.

“So, God, what do you eat?”

God laughs. “Oh, I nibble on almost anything. I’m not picky. And before you ask, let me add that I am also eaten.”

I resist this idea, but then I realize I’ve always known the divine and sacrificial taste of God.

“You’re welcome.” God says, dissipating into the blue tangibilities of a day that has arrived unscathed.

There are orange chunks of squash in the trough—the final remains of last year’s garden. I sweeten the deal with an outdated protein drink we bought for a friend with cancer. The pigs are in hog heaven. I’m jealous of their uncomplicated joy.

Still Life

Rita Sommers-Flanagan7 Comments 

There are two granny smith apples in the basket, slightly bruised and aging out. 
The thought of eating one sets my teeth on edge. I don’t know why I buy them.
It’s a repeating pattern with me and fruit. I have unfettered access 
and there’s room in my cart, but is that reason enough? 

I sit with the ethereal miracle of vibrant green, tangerine, and sweet potato 
in the loosely woven wicker that holds things together for now.
Minutes and hours fall from the heavy sky. I keep watch, 
and in my own way, I pray.

There’s tea steeping and a bag of chips open in case God comes by. 
She likes the salt. I like the company. I try to be accepting, 
not greedy, not demanding, not intrusive, not filled 
with expectations. Just quiet and receptive.
But it sucks. It’s harder than winter.

The God small in each of us is to blame for tart apples and the long seasons 
of discontent. We are unskilled at listening, even less skilled at loving. 
I hear God in the hallway, dragging something behind her walker.
It must be laundry day.

Well, I can’t wait forever. I have errands and obligations. 
I understand how the self-important God of billions 
might ignore me now and then, but the laundry lady?
When God embodies thus, the roles reverse. 
She’ll ask me for quarters and for help
folding her flannel sheets.

Road Rage

Rita Sommers-Flanagan7 Comments

When I’m driving around, sometimes a line pops into my head and I think it deserves a whole poem. Like this little phrase earlier today: The exquisite pain of knowing… The chances of remembering it for long were slim, so as I negotiated the traffic, I repeated it over and over, even though I didn’t think I was in pain. I was, instead, enraged.

The roads were terrible; people were driving stupid. It’s election day and as usual, my beloved state has gone to the highest bidders. Good, honest people ran against paranoia and lost. I knew I was angry, but when God tapped me on the shoulder I jerked the wheel and yelled, “Fuck you, God.” This surprised us both.

I’m home now but there’s no poem waiting for me. God made a hasty exit at a red light. Fine with me. Who needs any kind of God riding along, let alone a misrepresented, passive one?

To ward off a potential return, I put my fingers in my ears and sing la la la la la. I think of people who don’t love me and hate them for it. And then I retract the hate because I don’t want to be loved anyway. I’m weary of it all. I make herbal tea and wait for the end.

“Finished?” God asks, in a quiet, almost tender voice.

“Yeah,” I say. “You?”

“Oh, I’ve been finished for a very long time.”

“Did you quit or were you fired?” I’m still feeling a little hostile, but I push a slice of sourdough toast toward God. Breaking bread together might help.

“Technically, I was finished before I started,” God says, and takes a bite of the toast.

I make a face, hoping to signal that I don’t like these cryptic answers.

God also makes a face. “There’s something wrong with this toast. It’s bitter.”

“Well, why don’t you whip out your magic wand and fix it?”

God smiles. “Because as I said, I’m done. I turned in my wand so we could be friends. Maybe you should feed this to your pigs.”

“We’re going to eat those pigs someday,” I say.

“I doubt it,” God says. “But good on you for trying.”

The snow continues, and visibility is limited. There will be anger, anxiety, and accidents throughout the day. Night will fall and bring a temporary peace. This moment will be the last for some. The first for others.

God remains soft and circular. I am linear and limited, and I realize that this is the knowing that brings the exquisite pain.

No worries, I whisper to myself. You’re tough. And you can always make more bread. This isn’t true, but God doesn’t contradict me. For that, I am grateful.

From Whence We Came

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

Almost every day, God and I sit in a ratty blue recliner angled toward the window and sip beer. God expects me to hold still and listen. I try, but it seems nonsensical—an inefficient and unreasonable request.

Then I remind myself that efficiency isn’t the only road to success and not everything worthwhile is reasonable. The ability to reason is one ingredient in the soup that defines us, but it’s not the entire recipe. There’s sausage, kale, and wonderment. There’s an extravagance in creation that can’t be explained. Abstract thought and scientific inquiry may be the pinnacles of evolution, but pinnacles need foundations. Humans rationalize cruelty as readily as they eat that second donut.

“Working on some interesting similes and metaphors this morning, aren’t we?” God teases, sliding from chair to mirror to window to bird, sashaying to music I can barely hear.

“I’m thinking about foibles and do-overs,” I answer, happy that God seems loose and crazy today. “Could I have the last ten minutes back? I went down the wrong rabbit hole.”

“Nope,” God says. “Why do you even bother to ask? You know better.”

“No, I don’t,” I say, gleeful and untethered. “YOU know better.”

God winks and pulls me out of the chair. We do a four-pig jig creaking around the room in old bodies. We dance straight through the newly purple wall and fall, barriers breaking like bones.

I am blissfully unaware of dinosaurs, dodos, and all the hapless creatures currently facing extinction before they even have a name. They can all be Adam. They can all be Eve. I love them fiercely, but I can’t save them. I can’t even save myself (and truthfully, I don’t want to).

God’s reading glasses fly off while we’re cavorting. They shatter against the edge of a light green piece of granite I keep nearby for thermal mass, and small pieces fly everywhere. But no worries. The dangerous shards gather themselves into a coarse form of collective compassion, willing to return to the fire from whence they came. The fire from whence we all came. The fire to which we will all return.

“Sorry about your glasses,” I say. “I could read to you until they’re fixed if you’d like.”

“I’d like that very much,” God says.

“Do you mind if I start in the middle?” I ask. “I’ve already read the first chapters.”

“Not at all,” God says. “I suspect I know the plot.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” I say, oddly defensive. “But the descriptions are spectacular. And the details matter.”

“Yes, they do,” God agrees. “They really do.”

Balance

Rita Sommers-Flanagan5 Comments

God was clipping her nails this morning and a luminescent fragment the shape of a crescent moon landed in the backyard: a beautiful asteroid, a source of light, the end of the raspberries.

 My entire garden is now filled with holy DNA. If this were a crime show, I could easily make a positive identification, but would there be a conviction? Even with humans, that’s never a sure thing. With God, highly unlikely.

“Sorry about that,” God says as she lifts the massive sliver of fingernail from earth and tosses it into the cosmos. “Careless of me to clip so close.”

“You could’ve wiped me out,” I say in an accusatory tone. “I can’t handle these jagged leavings and dangerous castings off.”

“I said I was sorry.” God can be a little defensive sometimes. She pauses, then adds. “Ah, c’mere. You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah, I’m not feeling all that well,” I admit as I crawl into the downy nest that God and I have created for the coming hibernation.

“Me neither,” God says with a sniffle. “Probably just a cold, but with all the upheaval, it’s hard to know for sure.”

“Isn’t it peculiar that before execution, the prisoner can choose a last meal?” I ask as we snuggle in. I ignore God’s quizzical look and continue. “So, what would you order?”

God is silent for a minute, then asks, “Sometimes, you’d like to kill me off, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “You’re precarious and whimsical. Inscrutable and endless. I need something easier. Less promise. More substance.”

Again, silence. Then, “I’d have nuts and berries mostly. Goat cheese. A little pasta. And three or four stiff drinks. White Russians, maybe.”

I whack God with a roll of political flyers from the recycle pile and offer her a megadose of vitamin C. She flinches dramatically, smiles, and takes two of the chewable tablets.

“How ‘bout a siesta?” she asks.

I shake my head. “You go ahead. I’ve got to transplant the rhubarb and that poor little pine tree.”

“Oh, good grief,” God says. “Can’t you leave well enough alone?”

The pine tree is a sore subject. I’ve moved it four times because I keep changing the layout of the garden and it’s in the way again. I want it to thrive but only where I want it to thrive.

To my chagrin, I start to cry a little. “I’m tired of everything,” I say. There’s a catch in my voice. “Especially myself.”

“I know, honey,” God says. “That’s why a little nap is such a good idea.”