Tag: Mystical visitations

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.

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.