hollow

My wife is sick sir.
He came to me, his quiet wife in tow - twisting his cap in his workworn hands - a furrow in his weather beaten brow.
What seems to be the problem Mr. McCullogh? I asked him gently.
He looked down at the cap rotating in his hands, feeling the familiar shape of the brim slide beneath his fingertips - as though the tweed may open its mouth and answer him.
i don't know. he said softly - like a lost child.
I looked at her - she hid halfway behind him - her hands clutching at his arm and his jacket - unable to meet my gaze.

What's the problem Martha? I asked - concern for them edging into my voice.
I don't rightly know sir - she said quietly - I leaned into hear her. She looked up - startled to see my face so close and her eyes instantly fell.
I can't seem to... think or see rightly. she said without confidence.
What do you mean? I asked quizzically, seeing she saw and thought just fine.

There's something... gnawing at me on the inside... I can't rightly explain.
The colors - the world - is seeping away. she continued on.

I listened intently.

It's like - sometimes... sometimes I feel like everything is being drawn down - washed out - the water pouring drown the drain... like me life is being sucked away.

She looked up at me earnestly -

I keep seeing it - like a dream - but reality - and everyone else keeps going on - right as rain - and I'm just falling to pieces - falling away - I can't - I can't rightly explain.
The last repeated with frustration and she bit her trembling lip - where the words still perched bitter on the edge.

To my mouth rose the diagnosis of depression - of anxiety - of hormonal imbalances - a hundred scientific explanations and reasons, and I tasted the bile of it in the back of my throat.  I looked into their faces and knew that these were lies... band-aids applied to gaping wounds - paths that could open up new avenues of new anxieties, new fears, new bondages - to free from the fear of the unknown - the emptiness that was eating away at everything.

How did you explain the disease of the world.

Her words struck death knells in me... I too had felt the implosion of the source.

I looked into her eyes and knew... there was no cure.
She read the answer there and hers welled up with tears... falling again to examine the floor - waiting for the linoleum to give the answers I could not.

Her husband looked between us - still lost - though it was she who clung to him.

So... he said - clearing his throat uneasily - so... is there anything we can do about it?
I looked at her - she looked back up at him.

I don't know, Jim - I told him - I'll see whether Martha and I can find some solution.

--*--

There's something that isn't right - her eyes were feverish and wild - the world - it's broken at the seams.  The magic... the magic is seeping out.

What magic? I asked her - watching her tremble at the word.

The magic - she cried - the magic that makes things live and breathe - that gives meaning to everything
her hands flung out and wide  - her fingers splayed.
it's fading for me - I canna' see it... I canna' see it and it's leaving me.
they clutched into her chest at her heart, squeezing and holding it into her invisibly...
It's leaving me - she sobbed...
it's leaving me.

she curled up rocking in her pain

I canna' see it anymore and the world - the world is shriveling up like a dried raisin and dying... it's dying... and I'm dying - and the whole world keeps spinning on - the people - they continue with their lives... they canna' see it... they canna' see it and they are dying - they are all dying even if they canna' see that they are.

How can they canna' see it? she cried out again - hurling the questions out from her throat.
How can they be blind? How come they canna' understand?

she launched herself at me, off the couch - clutching at my hands - hot and shaking - and gripped me in them - her strength belying her diminutiveness - fed by desperation.

Tell me you see it - she cried - searching into my eyes - hers bloodshot and red, bulging from her head and still - blind and feverish... lost in the hypnosis - and the swallowing emptiness.
tell me doctor - tell me you see it and I'm not insane - she begged - falling to her knees again at my feet - agitated, distraught and hysteric
tell me tell me tell me she whimpered... tell me you know it's true.

and i did -
it had died for me not long ago
wrapped in the shroud of sensibility and propriety - i had watched helplessly as the world I knew and loved slipped back and away - leaving the world barren and grey
hollow
and empty -
left me standing at the edge of the abyss - screaming, weeping with laughter and pain at our own great insignificance.

her hand lay on my foot, I could feel the heat of her fingers burning through the leather as she wept

knowing I had no answer she wanted to hear
and no comfort to give

it is dying. the world is dying. and no one can hear it gasping for air - but those of us whose souls are burning with it.

I voiced my Fear and it loomed over me
Large and present
the gorilla in the room. 

I screamed into the abyss
and it echoed back at me
I sank to its edge 
and together we wept
at our own great insignificance.

Pregnant with Love

Proverbs 22:6
Train a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (KJV)

Clarke's Commentary on the Bible:
"Initiate the child at the the opening (the mouth) of his path..."
"... he shall not leave it when he is old."
http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?book=pr&chapter=022


~




I imagine standing with her at the end of a long dark hallway - a beam of light flowing from the door that is open to some great outdoors beyond... her tiny fingers in mine - and me... trying not to be scared for her as she trusts me to get her through this darkness to that door.

I feel that tightening in my chest that makes it difficult to swallow and breathe and think - what in the world could have ever possessed me to dare to even dream of being a mom...
... and then I realize it was never a conscious choice based upon looking at what I would face - what she would face - but because I wanted to know what it was to love a being that much.

... In some ways... I suppose that sounds so very selfish...

... In other ways - it makes me understand why God made us.

It's something that baffled me for a long while - why an infinite, perfect, holy being would ever choose to create something with free will if he knew the experiment would fail from the start.
It wasn't out of necessity.
It wasn't even out of fulfilling a need.

I used to think it was simply because it's the nature of Love - and God is Love - to want to Love something other than self - so he created something "other" to love... 

and perhaps that is closer to the truth...

perhaps he simply wanted to love something that much.

It sounds crude... except that I would only want my parents to have me - not because they thought it was going to be fun or easy or a bed of roses or even pleasant most of the time... but because they simply wanted to love me that much.

Love something that really didn't inherently deserve it - and love it so much that it felt like my heart was walking around on those two unsteady plump legs, careening into furniture and people and landing on plump diapers with alternating giggles and cries. Loving that little being no matter what - whether it pees in your face as a baby, or spits in it as a teenager, or abandons you as an adult.

I want to love my son/daughter that much.

Which is what terrifies me so much about this open door and hallway scenario.

Perhaps... perhaps I could take the fact that I had damned myself... but not my daughter or son. Perhaps I could forgive myself for not loving myself... but not if I didn't love them.

This thought arrests and terrifies me.

For they will have as much free will as me... and knowing how I (ab)use my free will - it honestly terrifies me.

Of all creatures we are most cruel in our feelings.


Training you up in the way you should go...
(Don't miss - don't miss those opportunities)
Fleeting chances to tell you how much I love you
How much my heart beats for you
Packing your lunch
And tucking you in at night
Watching you play and watching you learn
hours spent staring into your eyes at late night feedings
when you've woken me up and we're both so distraught all we can do is cry
tracing your eyebrows and marveling at the smoothness of your skin
the delight of your dimples
the curve of your mouth and your kissable nose
You haven't even been born yet and I am in love with you.

When you are a teenager and exercising your independence
Discovering the power of your free will and the ability to inflict pain
I will be distraught when you tell me you hate me for the first time...
... even if I know you don't mean it.
... and more if I think that maybe you really do... 
I will be ripped to shreds with worry on your first date -
no matter whether I trust this boy/girl - because inevitability -
short of Jesus Christ Himself
I will not be trusting them...
or you.
(You are your mother's daughter/son after all.)

I know it will feel like my heart is torn out of my chest your first day of college
your wedding day
every time I watch you leave
and each time I have to say goodbye when you walk down the airport
out the door
to the car
holding your own son or daughter's hand.

And I'll know that you'll always be a step too late to understand
As I am with my parents.

And yet every single one of those opportunities -
I will want to catch every one of them.
Every moment to tell you how much I love you
Knowing I have failed before I have even begun
Knowing that my heart will be stretched - altered - reshaped
and never the same again...
pregnant with love for you...

Standing at that dark hallway with that beam of light shining on us...
I will know that I will want nothing - absolutely nothing in the world
more
than trusting we're going to get through that door...
and I'll choose - I will choose to have and love you...

... if you can call this love a choice...

And I will pray with every last breath in my body 
that this Love will follow you
and you will follow this Love
even when you are olde.
When I'm not even there to finally walk you through that open door.











Don't let me miss these opportunities. Don't let me miss them as a daughter... don't let me miss them as a mom.
I know I will - but for every one I miss - please let me catch ten more.

And the ones that fall through my clumsy fingers - don't let them fall to the ground -
Not One Sparrow -
Without you taking note.

And
thank you.
Thank you for loving us that much...
That for the joy set before you - you endured the shame and pain of the Cross...
before we were even born...
before we were even made...
You knew... and You wanted to love us that much.
So that we could be changed and altered
Forever reshaped
Pregnant with your love.
Thoughtlessly
Carelessly
Freely
Careening around with your heart on our unsteady legs.

We are of all creatures most blest to be thus loved.

Amen.

Grey

today crept up to me gently
on its kitten paws
full of unshed tears
nostalgic memories
woken drowsily from
forgotten dreams --
    replete with tentative hopes
and cautious beginnings. 

God is Love
Author and Mover of Change
Giver of Purpose and Meaning
What Makes Life Possible


Maybe we are all already forgiven
And some of us just don't believe it yet.

Un(Inspired)Beauty

you are beautiful
I want to tell her
crumpled heap on the floor
heart bleeding through tears washing the hardwood
you are brilliant and spectacular
woven colors shot through with radiant gold threads
that wraps cozily around shivering souls

she is silent and broken
snapped and snagged strands from
hasty hands that plucked them out
unwound ribbons unraveled
dissheveled locks that veil
her warm face sticky with snot-tears
caked in layers on hot cheeks
and eyes that spill over upheaval within
racing tracks
down to her chin
to drip drip on my outstretched palm that catches them

i hold her wilted hand
still gorgeous with its capability and compassion

you are intense and wild soft and bright
soul that careens and cries and calls
others to take wing and soar and laugh in spiral
glorious victorious flight

but now -
like small bird seeking shelter
you tuck yourself under my wing
lean your head against my shoulder
and weep

hey love, my love,
you are beautiful
even tearstained
mudsplattered
dusty wornout
uninspired

you are so gorgeous in your splendid
human fraility
and someday I hope that in your
deep down soul intricacies
that heart so magnificently stitched
so wonderfully knitted
so fearfully bound and set free
is so incredibly beautiful
just as it was meant to be.

Letter to A Love (2)

I want to wake up early with you - before the sun rises, roll out of bed, and not even get dressed.

Grab something toasty-hot and fragrantly-steamy to drink. Jump in the car for a cruise up the green mountains, heavy-laden with summer hummidity. We could stop at the top and watch as the rest of the world wakes up - while we, in fuzzy slippers and jammies, at home amongst the trees... breathe life in deep while drinking sweet green tea.