Tag: Renewal

Angles of Repose and Other Non Sequiturs

Rita Sommers-Flanagan4 Comments

What do you suppose the angle of repose would be for those pyramids of dead bodies we’ve seen in the news over the years? (The angle of repose is the steepest angle at which a sloping surface formed of a particular loose material is stable.)

Syria. Tuam. Viet Nam. The Sudan. Gaza. The victims of Covid in Brazil. In these places, they would know.

Mass graves are frowned upon here in our modern and stolen country, so most of us will not witness haphazard heaps of people firsthand. We have refrigeration and waiting lists. We prefer to deport or enslave rather than outright slaughter.

Most mornings, I either cry or paint something. Some days, it’s yellow. Others, dark blue. Or a swirling medley of colors interacting aggressively with each other. Sometimes, I glue broken bits of mirror into new shapes. It can get messy.

“What would you like to cover today?” I ask Royal Blue. Before Royal Blue can respond, Blood Red shoves Royal Blue aside, and a firing squad tosses the sanctity of life into the air and takes aim.

“Knock it off right now,” I yell at Blood Red. “I MEAN IT.”

Blood Red shrugs. “Fine. But you know I’ll be back.”

Something ends. Something begins. Breakage and destruction are part of rebirth. A long time ago, at the end of an especially magical youth camp, I considered smashing my guitar so I could give everyone a splinter. I had the odd notion that this would keep us together. But smashing my guitar seemed a bit extreme. Instead, I pulled apart a pheasant feather that had traveled in my guitar case for years and handed the astonished circle bits of pheasant down.

 Now, most days, I wonder if I have something I could dismember to express my outrage and despair. To break hope open. To keep us together.

“Heroics come in many guises,” the Paint Brush whispers. “You do you. No need to come apart just yet.”

“That’s nice of you to say, Paint Brush,” I shake my head. “But I’m no longer flexible enough to kick myself in the butt.”

“Who cares?” Paint Brush scoffs. “Bruises aren’t the best motivators. How about a cookie?”

“Not hungry,” I mumble.

“Oh, honey,” Paint Brush says gently. “You have no idea how hungry you are.”

Auto-Correct

Rita Sommers-Flanagan3 Comments

My Co-author had to disrupt the internet to get my attention and even now, crashed and subdued, I’m trying to find ways to curl up around some happy little thought and protect myself from the simplicities and complexities of that damn self-reflective loop that causes me such trouble. It’s worse than my morning cough. Worse than my lists of things to do. Is this banquet of options meant to prove something? Should I learn to weld?

My Co-author offers no edits. The exuberant birds keep singing, even though I’m sure they’ve already mated for the season. We have water. Enough water for baths and baptisms, for chard, onions, and corn. But the way forward, the way back–always under construction. This is hard for most lifeforms and algorithms to grasp. I am among them.

With a cool breeze and sustenance, it’s easier to make space for my longings and give them a name. I will call them Holy. With a severely curtailed agenda, it is easier to befriend all those familiar demons and fears. I will call them Holy as well. I recognize my hands and consider the things they will do today. If I stare long enough, the delicate bones of God disintegrate, and to be consistent, I know I should call the disintegration Holy and make this morning into a trinity. Land, sea, and sky. Mind, body, and soul. Life, death, and passage.

God slides into distant view as an inane prompt, wondering if I want to save this document. It’s not been saved in the allotted time, nor have I, nor have the people washing up on various shores, seeking to make a better life.

“I don’t like your magnitude this morning,” I tell my Co-author.

“I know,” she says. “And I don’t blame you one bit.”

“Oh, but you do,” I say. “I feel the sun on my damaged skin. I taste the salt. The joy in the river is at an all-time low.”

“And yet, here we are,” my Co-author says, complacent.

“Would you mind editing?” I ask.

“No need,” my Co-author says. “Everything stolen shall be returned. Everything broken shall be repaired. All words misspoken shall be transformed.”

“Sounds as reliable as auto-correct.” I say in a snarky voice. “So, thanks for nothing.”

“You’re welcome,” my Co-author says, and she means it. Nothing is one of her favorite gifts.

A misguided bird has flown through the open door into our porch. I move to help it rejoin the wilder world, glad to have something obvious to do, but before I get there, it has realized its mistake and flown away.

Volcanic

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments

God slept rough last night alongside the cooling embers of volcanic rock from the eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo in Africa. She awoke exposed, porous and pure as the lava itself, but this did not make her happy. She shook me awake to ask if I would bury her under the acres of rich loam currently planted in alfalfa so she could begin reclaiming her complexity. To be simplified to lava is painful.

“Oh no!” I exclaimed as I opened my eyes in the dim light of dawn and ran my hands over a face so jagged and pitted it made terrible acne seem easy. “Oh sweet God. You’ve become stone.”

“Yes,” God said, woeful, but with a shred of hope. “Lava stone. I’ve heard it has healing properties, but I’d rather move along. Bury me in the topsoil, please. There’s still time. I’ll take care of the rest.”

I reluctantly agreed. We held hands as we walked through the verdant fields made fertile by thousands of years of runoff from the surrounding and willing hills. I was glad I’d remembered my cowhide gloves, both because the hand of God was razor sharp and because the shovel I was dragging along was old. The handle was splintered, and I knew I would be digging for a long time, possibly the rest of my life.

The squawking of the wild and noisy geese nesting across the river helped me find my center as God chose the perfect place to be interned. I wished for another way, but life consists of trying to solve things that are not solvable. This is something gradually revealed over the years allotted to those defined as alive. They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. This is true, but then the same can be said for all deaths; ultimately all problems are subjective and temporary, and all deaths seem permanent.

The bounce of sound across water is predictable but not guaranteed.

“God,” I said. “Are you sure?” I was wondering why God insisted on being buried on such a beautiful day. I wondered why I had to be the one digging. I wondered where this weathered old shovel came from.

“Yes,” God said, the nod of her head causing tremors under my feet. Her voice is not measured in decibels but rather revealed in the marrow of reverberating bone. I broke ground, putting body and soul into the sink of the shovel, giving thanks for the leather protecting my thin, unlovely skin from slivers and blisters. I have callouses, but they are often an insufficient defense for these long hot days and the softening effect of sweat.