Noviembre 2008 Archives

somehow the interweb discovered how much i like communion and i just saw my first advert for communion supplies (communion to go, actually) and i remembered doc in the parking lot at the mall in back to the future, shouting, "they found me, i don't know how but they found me!"

if communion can find me, it might find you too... why not go out and find it before it sneaks up behind and scares the shit out of you? which i guess is my response to your wondering if you should go find a church...

and you wrote me this, which is lovely:
"I sure don't know what to make of it all, but I know that at the end of it, I will be at your funeral, meeting people and comparing tattoos and scars. Say hey, where'd you get that one?"
and you reminded me of your dad's wedding after which we drank the whole bottle of tequila and went out in the front yard and i remember something about public nudity, or at least underwear showing and that makes me laugh
even though we were drinking because it was too soon after your mother's death for him to wed and we just couldn't feel all the feelings that went along with that.
but those were such rich and terrifying days for me, the days i am with you usually are and i wish there could be more. i was feeling so dangerously much then, and drinking so much and smoking so much and the next wedding we went to was laurstyle's and i hyperventilated because nobody recognized me from high school and we ate gerard's giant paella (which later won out over bobby flay's, did you know that? look it up, man!). remember?

but this is what i really want to say to you:
i don't know why you are so ambivalent about your mother's death, but i think i would be about my mother's death too; the why may not be important at this juncture.

but the important thing, the most important thing is that your mother is still er, dead (to use your word), but you are not, you are very much with me, near me, you, and all your youness. and your sadness, the you that misses her, that is still here too, that is not gone and might never leave you. no, you shouldn't be over it because that wouldn't be you at all, you're not over the boys you slept with in the wake of it, and you're not over the fact that i moved to seattle and far away from you, twice, as if i didn't care about you at all. you're not over a lot of stuff which is really very comforting to me.

in this life, you have to step over a few dead bodies, but you will never really get over them.

i remember your mom's face, her sparkly smile and big lovely cheeks and fluffy hair, and the way she sang, and the stuff she said about shit happening but you don't have to step in it. i remember how much she wanted to protect you forever, how she wore earrings close to her jaw, so they seemed like an extension of smile and the shape of her in the kitchen in graton and the way she and your father seemed cut from the same cloth...pleather, i think (haha). i remember her all orange and brownish and loving and sometimes in shock that you were so brazenly sexual in your tiny, wild haired way. the memory makes my eyes water like onions do, it is strong and fills the room and stings. and it is such a relief, because i love you, to hold on to this part of you, all that she gave you, through you, even if you can't.

i guess that is all i have to say about that for now. but i thought i should say a tiny bit right away because you are so important to me and all the people who don't know what to do about mothers, dead and undead.
one day you will write that book she told you to write about boys, and shit, and she will be in it and we will learn all the things you learned from her, but we will have to, thank god, learn them from you.

love, and other indoor sports,
a.

makes me think that if i (don't worry, i know this sounds macabre but i'm not actually thinking about dying, i'm just thinking about a way to get you all together without actually dying in order to do so) if i die you will all come to my funeral and finally meet each other and have to just imagine that you are all in the same room because you know me but really you only know me because i am helping you get to know yourself, which is, in turn the very thing that puts you in a position to need the others i write about, because their stories help me write yours.
but i'm not going to die for a long time...
and so if i ever do get to introduce, L to N, or L to J or M to J,...i think i will say something that actually means something
something other than, "this is my friend, whatserface."
instead i will say, "N, meet A and J, they're the other two people on the planet who give the right kind of hug." or i will say, "E, this is H, you are both just as confused about your lives as J used to be and L still is" or i would whisper in your ear at the party and tell you to look at the person on the left and right of you, and i would tell you that this is a room full of people who have at one time or another written to me about depression just like yours and addictions just like hers, and suicidal thoughts just like his, or hatred just like mine, and i wanted you all to come and be together, like a sort of support group for all of you who have the kind of vices i write about, think about, dream about, know about, worry about, because you are willing to, and somehow manage to climb out of them long enough to have a beer with me.
but you wouldn't actually want to talk to each other, i'm afraid. and i don't know that i want you to. i would just want you to see how many people have it just like you do. but if you were to actually speak to one another, it would destroy me, i'm sure.
mostly because i'm not telling you there are others like you, who love me the way you do. because there aren't.
the way you love me, each one in turn, in your own way, i need it. and i don't want you to know too many of the others who love me because they might, god forbid, you might think, well, if she has L, why would she need me?

it just aches sometimes, when i think of the people i really love, the you i care most about, who won't meet and won't know how much is there, to hold onto, that isn't really me, but only what i keep despite all the giving up i've had to do, of you.
and yet, if you thought of me as a conduit, a highway to your next friendship or a matchmaker for all the mismatched parts of you, like some seer that knows where the lost socks go to meet up,
rather than a real person, i would hate that. a lot. it would kill me.
i need you to think of me, the way you do, to hope i will show up and tell you a story about myself, even if it is a story just about my self, that isn't really helpful at all. i need you to hug me, not just the other good huggers. i need you to see me, to follow me or lead me, as you choose. i need you
to love me.

so go ahead and look knowingly over my head at my other friends, and wonder what it is about you that would match with her, or what he might already, instinctively know about you just because he knows me.
sure, we are all in this together,
but
not all the parts match up.
sometimes you are alone.
because sometimes you are the only one who loves me the way you do.
and i need it.
i hate to need it because there is only one way to get it, and only one way to talk about it, and you might change your mind at any moment...
so as afraid as you are to say it, that is how scared i am that you might.
and ironically enough in that, your worst fear of telling the truth,
you are not alone in that.

today, and i'm realizing, most days, i'm writing on the skinny tree as a way of sending up a sort of flare, so you know where we are (emotionally, physically, economically)

this one comes from inside room 1101 at swedish first hill and maybe you can rescue us but probably not. my dear friend is keeping as still as she can, which she is hardly any good at, trying to sleep despite the bright light through the window of a rare sunny day in Seattle. part of her has returned to the earth today, a very important part and it seems right to mark the moment with a love song, or a little word, or two, of each, something, a small sound maybe, to fill the room, with hope for all the good things that will come of this goodbye to the good that was supposed to come of this body part... and to think of the good that did come of it, perhaps at the wrong time, but definitely a good wrong, the best kind of wrong, rather than what could have easily been the wrong kind of best. and to write about how badly i need her to be as healthy as she can be. and also how badly she needs her body to get back to a little left of normal, where it used to be before it took a turn for the worse. and to think of how fragile each vein is, and recovery is never complete.

i can see a little blood and some bruises (she bruises easily, always has), the sorts of hospital machines and clicks and buttons, all pastel and whirring, worrying, and her blurred presence but the way her breathing is even and heavy and real. it isn't comforting, none of it, and i imagine the way it is impossible for her to get comfortable right now.

this is some betrayal and i am helpless against it. there is nothing nice to say about this situation except all the nice things to say about the person who is stuck in it.

the unsolicited advice i have for you:
when your friend goes to the hospital, you should go too because it is a good place to sit and take it all in: bodies betray us, discomfort can prevail, we are powerless against certain poisons and mostly pulling through nonetheless.
it is a lot to take in, i know. and that is why you should go there, be there. come close to the moment when her laughter refuses to rise to greet you and tell her, even silently, that you love her anyway, or that you love her especially because she can show you this side of life: the blurring whirring body betrayal from which she will recover, mostly, and you will have sat hoping so hard, practicing the helpless kind of hope you never thought you had.

i wrote this for a friend who is grieving some parts of her that will soon be cut off, some emotional parts, some body parts,
we're throwing her a little party but couldn't figure out how to invite her to it, so here is what i wrote:

the invitation:
to more than any of us deserve, no more than we can bear...

be yourself.
come because i love you,
leave whenever you need to,
I trust you will return when you are ready.
you're the one we want,
not just the feeling fertile version or just the feeling empty version,
not a happy version, or a sad version,
but whichever mix of emotions shows up,
whenever they do, taking turns or all at once.
come,
eat too much,
drink too much,
hug too much,
cry too much.
laugh at the jokes, yell at the sadness.
we love you.
we want you to love your body again,
to think of the pleasures it can offer you,
to think of the life it still has left to give.
maybe not as you had hoped or planned,
but the way it draws me in and enfolds me in a hug,
when I am in your arms I am in one of the few safe places I can rely on.
as it always is with this kind of invitation, but always,
bring nothing but the parts of yourself which manage to show up,
come early,
stay late,
stay forever.

she loved it.

came in and smiled and i missed you really a lot.

i've been thinking a lot about the Annunciation, and Mary and some other virgins, or notvirgins, which is a more accurate telling.

so when Michael Erik Dyson started in on power and justice and all that, i couldn't really listen very well. i took a few notes:
"i want to see my race and my identity legitimated"
"justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public"
"...so it (power, justice, whathaveyou) can be concretely realized for all people"
"ambition is realized when we treat people fairly"
"freedom to and freedom from"
"i wasn't supposed to be able to..."

and then i was astounded when my good friend wrote this little poem on my notes, please note the care he took with the lines, they are perfectly enjambed, and the punctuation is flawless, if you know what i mean:

"if my dad
were
here
he'd probably say something
like, "I'm sweating
like a whore in church."
then
laugh
at his own irony
i'd roll my eyes, embarrassed
but laugh inside"

i've stopped taking notes on lectures and started writing down my own thoughts about what it might mean to be friends with the other people in the room.

so here is a little poem about annunciation (when someone tells you
the truth is, you're not a virgin and you wonder how long that has been true because, really, the truth is the sexiest thing about you) and The Annunciation, as i imagine it, given my limited experience with these kinds of big T truths.

it is called,
Dear Truth, for the first time

You did it! you came but how i can still say
congratulations, and goodbye in the same hopeful tone, I just don't know.
and now the smell of you and heartache and the truth of
first things, sweet and salty, all things tight and dutiful,
fill the space, thin and ripe with condensation
between my skin and yours.
between your first chance to save me, to tell the others
to step aside.
What does ready look like, taste like?
Am I when you are here?
How and how well will you know me?
Will I know you when you're done with me?
This has to be wrong--it feels too good, I feel too much of you
to think about you if you dare to come close
to die a little death. O Truth,
the skin of your fingers, the little lines of your fingerprint
vibrations, small scale like the horsetail
bow against the violin strings,
the way something seeming so smooth can
rub out such a penetrating frequency.
You watched and felt me dance, I moved to the rhythm of your heartbeat hovering low over my own, quickening.
Your clutching my throat, as if to murder me or own me from the inside out.
You, Truth, move gently but quickly and finish both of us off.
I always hope
you'll leave when if I see you coming close.
And if you sneak up behind me or look down on me,
put your cheek against the space between my shoulder blades
and I sink my face into the pillow
like I do when I'm keeping sadness a secret
and stay close long enough--until
I tried to tell you
no
just this morning.
But my voice, not the words, was warm and inviting
in your face,
in your mouth,
in your eyes
and you read between the lines
of my desire
not able to talk to me, only to come to me but
not to belong to me
as long as I will love you
or need
and the rest
of the day
the sound of you approaches and recedes, comes and goes, and I know I've loved you,
so long.

i have a theory about addictions, i've told you before that i am confident that it has something to do with chemicals, and that stands still, i guess, and also, today i think, maybe, and i don't want to hurt your feelings but i want to tell you, to confess:
you thought you were addicted to porn
i thought you were addicted to the truth.

feel all the things there are to feel,
you would feel so awful you wouldn't want to put yourself in a position to love unless you knew it was really valuable, and this would be honoring of the pain of your previous experiences. you would value how awful you're going to feel after all is said and done in love and sex, you would figure that the worst pain is much more important than the simple disappointment you are setting yourself up for in this fun sexy time you've got going on right now. you would turn and face the searing, burning anger and frustration and the real love that caused it because the love, and the feelings are valuable. but for now you are satisfied trading in the feelings you fear for the sort of yucky (but not that bad) feelings you are setting yourself up for by messing about in the shallow end.
i'm just saying is all.

and the worst part is that you may have to wait a few days, or even years until you are ready for all this... so the monastery life starts to seem inevitable to a degree.

I've just come back from the war.
I'm angry and tired and bored.
Scarred by the things that I saw --
Still don't feel like I'm home.
Don't want to go back, don't want to stay.
I'm still waiting for the big parade.

I'd write every night, just before bed.
For a while there I stopped.
Did you think I was dead?
The truth of it is, I was afraid.
Scared to come back, I wanted to stay.
I'm still waiting for the big parade.
--jonah's onelinedrawing wrote it, its a lovely little song called, the big parade.

but i like it.

free form is coming around again.
please come. i'll read something i wrote all by myself.

There will be an open mic and our feature performer is one of Seattle's premier Spoken Word Voices Roberto Ascalon.

$1 suggested donation at the door and coffee and pastries sold throughout the show. All proceeds this month will go back the Green Bean Coffee House, our non-profit, coffee with a conscience host.

Friday Nov. 21 8:00pm. Come early to get a good seat.

i lost my car key.

i found a book.

my mother bought me lunch and gave me some money.

"sign me to a nice girl so she can ruin me eternally. you offered me a million bucks, all i wants a steady f&^%, oh steady steady where are you? channel surf a sea of static, see the prize but you can't have it

i would kill for more, i haven't killed before

in a perfect world i'd be signed to a nice girl, it would cost one million kisses"

i found my dear you cd (all these little quotes are the parts i like to sing along to. i like to pretend Jawbreaker never broke up but according to my sources, Blake is very important in lots of ways these days.)
i watched the fireman video at the pizza parlor and sang along for my friends.

"don't make me survive you
i can't want you all the time, much as i would like to, as i think i ought to"
it feels like i ran away from home again.
and like an idiot i went back even though i knew exactly where else i wanted to be.
molly says that when they give you money, you can use it for whatever you want. amy sang a little song about how i have sixty dollars and i can go buy those plants i fantasized about.

"your floor is my ceiling

if you don't remind me, i won't forget you, if you don't ask i won't forget you,

funny like a funeral i need you to bury me"

i think i just want the money to disappear, i want it all to disappear.
when martin and i first met at bridal college i used to tell him, over and over, "it doesn't matter, it'll go away, i'll be fine."

"this is the cure, the same as the symptom, simple and pure, break to keep fixing

this is the part i wouldn't show you, the part where you say, i don't even know you"

i hold friends at a distance with the long arm of the law (my own gravity). until you don't know as much as you might know about me so you won't like me too much or want me around and then i can tell myself you don't like me all that much, you don't really want me around.

i should probably stop doing that. it is going to be terrible to try.

"slow dance alone with no one to the sound of four hands clapping

"if there's a moral to this story then i wish you'd show me
fly in the disappointment
rubber i'm glue i'll write a book on you and stick it to my face"

I am getting
to know myself pretty well lately,
and something i am discovering is that i don't want you
to know myself pretty well lately.

So the me that you are allowed to see is not quite who I am, and I know that
and there is a degree of safety but a whole lot of danger in it either way,
whether I go ahead and show who I am or keep things this way.
i know i know.
but i can still hear you saying it the way you said it when my gramps died
(i was really smoking that night)
and called you to ask what do you do with us:
i just don't know, i don't know, Abigail
because you don't know,
Abigail
you don't
know Abigail

and there are several questions i am on the watch for:
when you want to know more than i want to tell you usually ask me:
do you really mean that?
or you ask
what do you mean?
what makes you say that?
or you say
remember when you told me...?
or even,
do you need a hug?

and i pretty much want to puke or die or both, damnit, but the last thing i want to say is the truth.
watch for it, i promise, next time it happens, i will, like a trapeze artist, walk the thin line so i don't have to talk about myself, i can just keep talking about you, but in a way that makes it sound like i'm telling you about myself, in a way that makes me think you will connect my story to the things i say about you. but i won't give you time to do that, i'll just keep talking unless you tell me to stop and shut up. and then i'll figure we're not going to be friends much longer so why bother.
its the perfect storm by which i will be sinking the relation ship, while you run to tie the sails and batten down the hatches and jettison the casks of rum in the hull.

so next time we're together, if there is a lot of silence, just know that i'm trying to cut that shit out and i just don't know what to say anymore, because i don't think i should keep doing that, but i don't know what else to do.

you sounded so cold, so small, as your sweet sheepish laughter tumbled out, and each buckling duckling ha waddled rowly, slowly across all the red states to me, in the blue glow of my seattle basement, where
i was trying, but not that hard, not to let richard chamberlain's singing drown out your bedding down voice in my ear.

until you started to tell me the truth, when you warmed up enough to it.
and you tied together the patchwork of the afternoon and your voice rose until it was hot and full and holy.
until the laughter was replaced entirely by the truth and it was a soft solid truth, wrapping itself around us the way quilts do.
i know it might not have been that way for you. but i think it is important for both of us, all of us, if you know how i see it.
i don't want to forget how it went, how i heard it and the way that it is in my mind:
you had been yelling, telling her you weren't going to wear the mask anymore. i asked about your face because i could imagine it but i knew you couldn't. maybe you are afraid of your angry face.
you swore a blue streak knowing she thought she taught you not to and she looked so scared. and i imagined God yelling, God standing behind you, tracing the movement of your arms, lovingly with his, your body moving toward her, God pushing on you and pulling on you, right there, so close, not quite hoping you would hit her, in fact knowing you wouldn't, but knowing you could have.
you didn't.
why didn't you? you could tell me she didn't deserve it, or you are better than that or you didn't really want to, or you weren't that angry
but you were.
you could have reached out and laid your hands on her the way she used to do to you. you could have thrown a dish at her, or pushed your sister out of the way with strength enough to bruise her arms. but you didn't.
instead you yelled and then it was time to stop and walk away.
i imagine it that way because that is how it is for me. i yell and yell, pumping, pounding my fists into myself, wild and yet hoping they won't land on anyone else. i'm capable of slapping, pushing, kicking, throwing and if i do i hate myself afterward. when i'm in it i'm four years old again and confused: the feelings don't match the body.
i know tiny fists don't break bones, tiny feet don't punch holes in walls so
why, if i'm feeling so small and helpless do i have these limbs, this strength,
this giant anger that could destroy everything?
i don't think i ever had to grow up enough, to learn to walk away. how do you walk away? on two strong, long legs, legs that pump bicycle pedals across town and run for miles in one direction, that cross at the thigh or stretch the length of both couch cushions and with the gait of a grown man, toward fresher air and cooler heads. and i am so jealous because i don't feel my legs, my knobby knees and stubby feet when i am angry, but you do.
and by the time you called you must have needed something, what was it?
to tell someone, anyone, or to tell me?
that she finally apologized and it was real but you still can't really believe it, not because you don't believe in it, but because it is so refreshing and surprising, how can it finally have happened? how will you keep track? what will you decide is your part? will you tell yourself you forced her to repent? will you tell yourself she said it but can't do more?
and even if she is sorry, what will you do with the questions that remain? the questions about the things she never told you, the times she left you alone, the way her mother treated her? how can she possibly be sorry for all that?
what is possible?
i guess i am a witness but wondering just as you are what i saw.

the truth in you wakes me up.
i find new things about myself that are no longer as scary as they were.
i find new ways to repent, for things i have been afraid to name.
do you see the beauty in this, in you telling me, you needing to tell me something that has my truth hidden inside? and when you tell me i think i see you but i know i see myself, and i couldn't have done it without you. i wouldn't have done it without you.
and that is why i said i was proud, why i asked what it felt like to be scarier than her god, bigger than the god she made you,
bigger than the god i was afraid of, safer than the god i was hiding from.

when you told her you can't wear the mask i heard that you can't wear the mask that makes you perfect, that makes you a god. you told her you hate her god because her god is bullshit and then it twisted a bit and i heard you tell her that that kind of god wears a mask, like you used to, and i thought probably her god was just you, a little version of you hidden behind the god mask she asked you to wear. i heard you tell her that she put you there, behind the mask, or put the mask on you and i thought that i really wanted to be there in the silence between the words you said and couldn't say, in the widening span between your fist and her body.
do you see how i see it? even if it all sounds wrong, or untrue, it is what i was thinking because it is what i know from other stories, grim fairytales i've been asked to live where children put on masks and stumble and crumble under the weight, like tiny drunken gods in the family photos. no wonder you couldn't imagine what your face must have looked like, you said you just imagined it was awful.
but i imagined it was lovely and clear, like a stormy sky, furrowed with grey ribbons and your flashing eyes and rumbling voice behind it wrapping everyone in the gentle, even light, not the blinding glare of a sunny day or the dark we are often so afraid of but the kindest kind of angry face. and the words would have fallen, finally, thank God, like the moment the rain comes to make the pavement shine and smelling and steaming like it does under the leaves falling so freely this time of year. and she would have seen you, like you, for the first time ever. i wish i had been there to watch recognition come over her face, surprise at her son's beautiful face, so awake, alive and real.

so later that night when it was time to repent, when it was the time of day when i usually get angry at my loving, patient husband and figure he must hate me beyond recognition i thought of the storm in your face and imagined that if sometimes an angry man looks like that, feels like that, then i can respond in a new way. there is a way to stand in that storm, to find myself there, to give myself over to it because it isn't hatred, it is angry, and those are two different things.
and i was sorry, and i knew why, and i felt, somehow, safe enough to say it like i meant it.

sorry is sorry and anger is anger and they come in turns over and over but i think we have to reimagine them, we have to hope we don't know all about them, we have to wonder what feeds each one, each time. and i hate to tell you this but i will because it is true: it is a pain in the ass, every time, but it is the only way.

i have dreamed i could rescue you.
but maybe not rescue you, more like distract you.
or maybe not even distract you, but own you: tell you what to do, where to go and when to come home.
but when i woke up, i woke up knowing that
you have to rescue yourself.

my abuelita always tells me: 'we'll be here for [insert holiday], you can always come. stop off and get a movie for your grampa when you get into town... unless you get a better offer.'

there is always 'unless you get a better offer'. and she means it too. she wants me to be happy. it is the most incredible thing. and she has wanted it for so long but it was only recently that i was able to imagine it as a kindness. i could just never figure out why she wanted me to be happy when no one else cared either way.

my stepmother told me, around the time i was married, that these were my years. she said that the years between my childhood and parenthood are the years i am a free agent. she said that when we were young we were dependent on the parents and when we are older, our parents will depend on us. but for now, the time in between, we have to do what we have to do.

she told me again when i was 24, after i finished student teaching. i was working at the barnes and noble, nannying for triplets, teaching reading and was about to take over teaching at my jazzercise class until i went to the doctor and she said my stomach hurt all the time because i was working on an ulcer. when my stepmother found out, she became very serious and told me she was responsible. she said she and my dad had taught me that working was all that mattered, that you could and should just keep working until all you could do when your kids came for a visit was lay on the couch and watch sleeping beauty with them. she said it was what they had to do because they didn't get an education. she said it was finish school or sort shorts in the prison and she had chosen the latter but i had opted out and ought to quit living her decision so i could live my own.
she told me she had done me a grave disservice, she was sorry and wanted me to quit at least one of my jobs, if i thought i could do that.
and just not worry so much about it. and once she even said that her favorite thing about me is that i don't have kids of my own... yet.
she is a genius all the time and i love her. she has an immaculate sense of humor--she laughs at all my jokes.
last time we were together we drank two tumblers of a little cocktail we affectionately call the dirty [step]mother and she told me that i am a grown up and i make my own decisions so if i want to bum a cancer stick off her that is okay because she remembers the time i told her i blame her that all my best memories are set to cigarette smoke and George Michael. she told me, she won't even stand up and wave at the motion sensor on the porch light, and i knew in my heart, we could just sit on the back porch, in the dark of the redwood forest encroaching on their backyard, and send smoke signals into the night...
it was her way of saying,
you are grown, you are good, you have to rescue yourself
or better:
you get to rescue yourself.

i don't have a tattoo. i've been thinking of one for years, but i don't need it yet, my skin itself is able to show where i've been and where i'm going.
i have a scar from chickenpox above my left eyebrow.
childhood left a mark on my brow.
when i'm really tired you can see the red marks around the edges of my smile left from the orthodontic surgeon stretching my mouth too widely when he extracted my wisdom teeth.
adolescence is hard on the smile.
in winter you can see the little red scar where a chihuahua bit my finger right before i left town for seminary.
the dog bite before the God bite.

but the best injury left two scars you can see and more below that took ten years to surface.
i was 18 already and living on my own, as well as i knew how, i guess. it was summer but not hot, the power lines were humming and we were almost drunk on finally being okay that day, i'm sure of it.
we were sort of invincible in the GMC or even anytime we were near it. it was huge and safe and aaron knew how to maneuver it into tiny parking spaces or wind up into the forest on skinny roads over rocks and tree roots. i had my own seat next to his in the front but i knew how to sleep comfortably in the back or climb on top to watch the sunset. i even knew how to climb into his lap as he sat in the driver's seat, blind by tears, without accidentally bumping the horn.
moreover, i'm sure this wasn't the first time i stood on the running board while he drove cautiously down the road.
but i was so confident, so headstrong, and so eager to please him, to do what he asked, when he told me to hang on tighter i didn't understand. i thought some thoughts about bravery and readiness and then let go and stepped off.
i knew, when i felt my foot touch down that my body wanted to go on and on and i tried to keep my feet underneath and i bent my little ballerina legs into the speed of myself and managed to pump my thighs only once or twice. my left knee touched down first and i felt my shoulder on the asphalt. i spread my palms and tucked my head.
he ran to me, picked me up like a child lifts a rolled up pillbug. i curled up, a little ball against the seat, and tried not to bleed on the grey cushion.
my friends tried to help me pick the tiny stones out of my shoulder and knee but i refused.

some stones get in too deep, so deep the skin won't let go.

so they are still there. and i think my body is figuring out what to do with rocks under the skin because they seem to be getting smaller. someone asked me once if i was embarrassed to have rocks under my skin. but no. i am proud to have healed over; i think my body is miraculous.

recently i woke up and heard a sort of grinding in my neck and so i went to the chiropractor. he asked if i had ever been in an accident, which is a sort of funny question but i answered as well as i could by describing the day i jumped off the running board. he said i was lucky i didn't break my neck, which is true, but i hadn't ever thought of it that way.

he said that my bones are out in a funny way that makes my right shoulder turn in. one of my ribs, right under my collar bone is sort of twisting in and it makes my whole shoulder rise in the front and curl forward from the back so that it can't really open out under the muscle. the bones make the muscles rise and pull and when i bend out and try to open my shoulder the rest of my body can't respond properly because i knocked it out of alignment by hitting down so hard so many years ago.

i had forgotten all about it, even though the rocks are still in my knee and i see the scar on my shoulder. sometimes you can forget what hurt so badly in the past, despite the scars and stones staring you down.

but if the curving in doesn't stop it can become more and more painful over time. dr. wilson isn't shy about pushing open my shoulder or turning my head, forcing my body to open and repent in ways i never would have imagined and he looked down at me yesterday as i lay there wide eyed and laughing at the irony of all this and said, as only a good catholic chiropractor can, 'it doesn't hurt does it; it's just a little surprising, right?' because he really doesn't want to hurt me. and i looked at him right in his eyes and said, 'nah, i just think it is funny. but i bet its pretty satisfying, isn't it?' and he said, 'sure!'

a few weeks ago
the lovely theologian extraordinaire, dr. stearns, described sin as a turning inward, a curving in, a sort of hiding, and at first i imagined it like Fouette rond de jambe en tournant but en dedans which can be beautiful but
quite painful, dizzying and difficult to come out of.

now i think sin must be more like my tight little shoulder, like a sort of unnatural, constant folding of muscle (soft tissue) over bone (solid and brittle) when you try to protect yourself from impact.

that my body hurts so badly and feels so much like it wants to turn inside out just to reject the movement when i hug you means i have been hurt in the past and i will be all right, if
i can just adjust.
if only i can remember you are not as solid as the asphalt, nor as black and stony. if i can only remember i needn't protect the harsh parts of myself by sacrificing the softer parts to be scraped and bloodied. if i can just remember not to tuck and crumple when i am alone, to wait and curve in only when your body is against mine, when my arms are up and around you, folding you into myself even when i am most inclined to fold, simply, silently, into myself and so as not to leave you wondering alone if you ought to pick up my tumbled little self and carry me to safety, but where would that be?