Tag: Process

Sticky Notes

Rita Sommers-FlanaganLeave a comment

What would life be without sticky notes and lists? I jot reminders and post them helter-skelter around the house, hoping to remember who I am and what I need to accomplish in any given block of time. I float from dream to dream, idea to idea, task to task. Few are completed at one go and sadly, some won’t ever be. Completion does not come easy for me.

“Me neither,” God says. “But that’s not all bad. There’s something to be said for process. Say, could I borrow some toenail clippers?”

I lean back and imagine managing the overgrown toenails of the living God. I see rippled volcanic lava, gradually and graciously colonized by umbilicate lichens drifting in and attaching for the great breaking down. Lichens are neither plant nor animal. They’re a union between fungi and algae, like gay cowpokes enduring unbelievable conditions just to dance. Their symbiotic version of the two-step may be our last, best hope for shaping the wild eruptions of creation, for taming the deadly individualisms and cult-like allegiances poisoning the downstream waters.

“Sure,” I say. “I have a lot of clippers, but none of them work very well. Are you still limber enough to get at your toes? It’s easy to lose your balance at your age.”

“Ha!” Creation smiles lime green and orange through all the particular lichens rejoicing in rain-induced frenetic growth, doing their magical photosynthetic work. Reindeer and slugs, ibex and snails, feasting. Lava, giving way. Breaking down. I’m jealous of all that power.

“Let it go,” God says. “Envy does not become you.”

“But what should I do?” I ask. “I want to be helpful. Your nails are atrocious.”

“You flatter me,” God laughs. “But seriously, give up on the sticky notes. Expose your upper cortex to light. And when things dry up, let the wind take you where it will.”

I comb my fingers through my bedhead hair. “I’ve tried,” I say. “I just can’t.”

Doubt and fear cloud my mind. I don’t know what to say to myself. God slides in, calms the turbulence, and builds us a nest in an old growth forest. Sage gray lichen grows thick and innocent on the bark of the chosen tree.

The slow shape of Compassion crawls toward the primordial soup, a sea turtle of advancing years and infinite patience.

 “Wait!” I shout, running toward the Turtle. “Are there words for this?”

The Turtle just blinks and dives, leaving the shore littered with outdated phrases, false depictions, sharp chunks of lava, and long, irrelevant lists. I settle among this brokenness and wait for the tide to come in.

The tide always comes in.

Hair

Rita Sommers-Flanagan1 Comment

Human hair is fascinating. We’re not nearly as furry as our ancestors and cousins, but we still sprout the stuff. Left alone, it signals everything from how old you are to how well you slept last night. But of course, we don’t leave it alone. We cover it, color it, play with it, yank it out, let it sluff off, implant, extend, shave, curl, straighten; We cut it, dreadlock it, donate it, and occasionally douse it to kill off the lice.

We’re sometimes born bald. We sometimes die bald. I was yanked from the womb early with forceps that left my head badly misshapen. Fine tufts gradually grew in, and my hair was unremarkable for decades. But then God let cancer have a go at me, and the chemo stripped it all back off.

“What???” God says, emphatically.

“Yes, all of it. Legs, arms, eyebrows, privates…”

“I know what you mean, but ‘God let cancer have a go?’ C’mon. Is that really how you see it?”

“What other way is there?” Me, arms crossed. God, preening in the mirror.

I don’t want platitudes for an answer. In my limited view, if God is God, then that’s that. Good and evil might seem definable in the moment, but as time in our mortal bodies passes, clarity fades and boundaries blur. Any kind of loss, torture, crucifixion, or disease takes a terrible toll. But endings, unsettlings, baldings, and pain often provide the energy necessary for rebirth, joy, peace, and health.

“True,” God says. “But even that isn’t the whole story.”

“So, then what’s the whole story?” I ask. But I have a pretty good idea what God is going to say.

“There is no such thing as a whole story,” God says, with a grin larger than necessary. “The wholeness of the story is in the process. There are no tragic or happy endings, because there are no endings.”

“I knew you were going to say something impossible like that,” I say. “And you know they feel like endings, right?” I tip my head to the side and add, “At least you didn’t blame anyone.”

God touches my face, kisses my head, and nods. “Nice chatting, but I need to go now. I’ve got a hair appointment. Just a trim, but I’m thinking of adding strands of purple here and there.”

God is beautifully grey, but purple will be a nice addition. And as for me, my hair’s been more or less back for five years now. I’m into bleach and occasional blue, but I have tubes of red, green, pink, and turquoise at the ready. I like having choices, but–here’s a small confession—if I don’t like the outcomes, it’s nice to have God around to help me reconfigure.