There are moments when the fabric of your Universe tears, and you stand, open-mouthed, disbelieving. The moment before, you were skimming along with your list in hand, measuring your day, one checkmark at a time. Then suddenly - no, with sharper edges than suddenly - there is a hole, gaping, yawning open, speaking in its own indecipherable language. Nothing is as it was.
I came around the corner, my own street, that same curve I have come around many many times, still fastening my seatbelt. I was on my way to a meeting, a planning meeting actually, planning for the future. Of course, that is what one does, one plans for the future. Something different, to the left: a car teetering on the fence, upside down. A body in the soft pasture grass, another man standing, rubbing his head. Two other cars had already stopped. A man on his cell phone, another administering to the man on the ground. I had no cell phone, nor medical expertise. I drove on, eerily, warily, listening intently for the sound of emergency vehicles.
I watched as I passed car after car on the main road. How could they not know this had happened? When a thread of the tapestry is pulled so violently, why are we not all instantly aware?
I stopped at the Volunteer Fire Department to make sure they knew. Yes, another group was on its way, it turned out, but it seemed so slow. This event, which had happened in an instant, was evidently taking place in a vat of molasses.
I went on to the meeting, a bit shakily. There we worked on scenarios for seven years out, ten years out, what needed to be done. At one point, I stopped, told a version of this story, and then other stories were told, of those moments, those cosmic potholes. Then we went on, shaking our heads, planning for this phantom, this future.
The next day, I got the email. One of the dearest women in the world had just met with her oncologist. The cancer is back and has settled in, this time with custom coordinated drapes and bedcovers. After having both breasts removed and being in remission for fourteen years, this dear dear woman got the news. She and her dear dear partner got the news: it is back, it is in her bones. The Universe rents open. Please God. . .please.
The week before, a dear dear long-time friend went shopping, a bit bewildered, buying prostheses wrapped in silky camisoles. Her cancer is back as well, and soon there will be no breast, where her babies suckled, long long ago.
I am just home from a trip over the mountains, a chocolate cake perched precariously, celebrating my tottery mother's 88th birthday, her pile of prescriptions on the kitchen counter. It was at this same counter that my father stood, Memorial Day weekend, 2003, and then suddenly, was on the floor, his hip broken, which led to the hospital, which led to pneumonia, two more hospitals and the ventilator, and two months later, we were at the church, receiving.
It's fine to sit, early in the morning and meditate and feel suffused with the fullness of life. It is fine to nod our heads, yes oh yes, this life is temporary, this body is but a temple, we are all animated by the One. Yes oh yes. All that is true. . .and I honor that.
But right now, right now this minute, I am so pissed off about this temporary shit. I don't want my dear dear friends to have to go through this again. I don't want them, or anyone else, to feel the physical pain, the fear, the anguish of it. I don't want it for them, and if I'm honest, I don't want to feel this either. Right now, right this minute, I mightily protest this temporary shit. I shake my fists at the gods. I don't want to lose them. I don't want to lose them.
I just don't want to lose you, any of you. . .any of you.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Those moments. . .
I didn't expect church. I was already weary, having driven to the mountains early that morning. I had been sitting all day, in one (lovely, thought-provoking) workshop after another, meeting new people, breaking for meals. It was now after dinner, in the middle of a tornado-esque storm, lightening splitting the darkness through the window behind him.
The workshop leader had introduced herself. Heavens, she really had been to prison- twice. She really had been a hard drug user. When I read her short story, prior to choosing her group to attend, I automatically assumed she was lying, all fiction writers do, and this was particularly good fiction. But in her story, her description of the dull fear, the interdependence behind those grey walls seemed charged somehow. I wondered how she had researched it. It never occurred to me that a successful writer of multiple published novels could also be a convicted junkie.
Wake up, Martha.
Each of the workshops that day followed a format. The leader would talk for awhile, and then issue a writing prompt, a topic, for a free-write, which meant we all put pen to paper and wrote furiously for about ten minutes. Depending on what came out the end of that pen and how we felt about it, we then had the choice to read, out loud, to a group of strangers: different ages, colors, etcetera, all eager as new puppies.
For this one, the last of the day, our ex-junkie/inmate successful novelist leader asked us to made a list of parts of our personalities that were hidden, for whatever reason, locked up. The writing prompt was then to choose one of those, and give it voice. Terrifying. As I said, one hides these for what seems like good reason, at least mine were/are.
It was then time to read and we went along fine. Some were more moving, more touching than others, some funny, lots of "passes", always testimonial to either the power of the prompt, the power of the response, or the power of hesitation to blow one's cover.
Then we circled around to this older man: soft face, bearded, glasses, the kind you would want as your grandpa, or who would become your favorite uncle. He began to read, and immediately, his voice broke. When it did, my heart melted. I was newly alert. As he read, it became clear this was a long, old battle and that he was tired, tired, tired. He plead with this part of himself to let him "break through;" the voices that were telling him to pull back, be careful, don't risk it, were rubbing against the grindstone of aging, you don't have that much time left. Will you leave with your real work undone?
We all knew, all of us, all ages, all colors, etcetera. We all knew those voices. When he finished, there was an audible silence. We then broke into applause, applause for his courage, for his willingness to speak this voice for all of us, the only time we had been collectively so moved.
I talked with him the next day, outside the Auditorium, thanked him. He seemed a bit abashed, a bit surprised it had happened. Church is like that, real church. . .
The workshop leader had introduced herself. Heavens, she really had been to prison- twice. She really had been a hard drug user. When I read her short story, prior to choosing her group to attend, I automatically assumed she was lying, all fiction writers do, and this was particularly good fiction. But in her story, her description of the dull fear, the interdependence behind those grey walls seemed charged somehow. I wondered how she had researched it. It never occurred to me that a successful writer of multiple published novels could also be a convicted junkie.
Wake up, Martha.
Each of the workshops that day followed a format. The leader would talk for awhile, and then issue a writing prompt, a topic, for a free-write, which meant we all put pen to paper and wrote furiously for about ten minutes. Depending on what came out the end of that pen and how we felt about it, we then had the choice to read, out loud, to a group of strangers: different ages, colors, etcetera, all eager as new puppies.
For this one, the last of the day, our ex-junkie/inmate successful novelist leader asked us to made a list of parts of our personalities that were hidden, for whatever reason, locked up. The writing prompt was then to choose one of those, and give it voice. Terrifying. As I said, one hides these for what seems like good reason, at least mine were/are.
It was then time to read and we went along fine. Some were more moving, more touching than others, some funny, lots of "passes", always testimonial to either the power of the prompt, the power of the response, or the power of hesitation to blow one's cover.
Then we circled around to this older man: soft face, bearded, glasses, the kind you would want as your grandpa, or who would become your favorite uncle. He began to read, and immediately, his voice broke. When it did, my heart melted. I was newly alert. As he read, it became clear this was a long, old battle and that he was tired, tired, tired. He plead with this part of himself to let him "break through;" the voices that were telling him to pull back, be careful, don't risk it, were rubbing against the grindstone of aging, you don't have that much time left. Will you leave with your real work undone?
We all knew, all of us, all ages, all colors, etcetera. We all knew those voices. When he finished, there was an audible silence. We then broke into applause, applause for his courage, for his willingness to speak this voice for all of us, the only time we had been collectively so moved.
I talked with him the next day, outside the Auditorium, thanked him. He seemed a bit abashed, a bit surprised it had happened. Church is like that, real church. . .
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