I need your prayers, your kind thoughts, anything: help me coerce the universe
Fear is a terrible thing. It makes you-that is, me-shaky, with each nerve exposed. Not fear for myself: that I can handle with some aplomb and some bourbon. But fear for those we love, defenseless against the wide universe, at sea in this world of sorrows where our magic, our agency, our love, is just the thin spar to which we cling, greedy and desperate for life.
I’m waiting at the airport right now, my flight delayed, as I’m rushing back home, where my mother is caught, cat-like, between outcomes. That, of course, is my obfuscation, a way of saying that she may be dying, right this moment. I don’t know. I won’t know, until I arrive in California.
The outlook is grim.
I’ve been doing my best not to bargain with the universe, not to offer god-whatever god, any god-whatever I can in order to see my mom safe and with the next twenty years of life I expected were her due. I don’t believe it works that way. No god worthy of worship operates that kind of deal.
(And would I pony up on any demon’s offer? Yes. But I don’t believe they’re biting, either.)
So, instead, I’m sitting here, writing, because that’s how I think my way through. Because there’s nothing else I can do, and because reaching out to communicate is what artists do, and because shaping a story-any story-is how I work magic and coerce the universe to my will.
I’m terribly afraid that the universe isn’t going to bend this time.
I love my mother, more than I have words for. I want her to live. I want her to be well, whole, and laughing. I want her to live.
We spoke, this morning, before she was airlifted out. I told her I love her. She told me she loves me. She asked me to carry out her wishes, as her ad hoc executor, and I will, should it come to that. I hope-so, so much-that it doesn’t. We said goodbye. I hope, so, so much, that it’s premature.
I love my mother. I want her to live.
I’m waiting at the airport right now, my flight delayed, as I’m rushing back home, where my mother is caught, cat-like, between outcomes. That, of course, is my obfuscation, a way of saying that she may be dying, right this moment. I don’t know. I won’t know, until I arrive in California.
The outlook is grim.
I’ve been doing my best not to bargain with the universe, not to offer god-whatever god, any god-whatever I can in order to see my mom safe and with the next twenty years of life I expected were her due. I don’t believe it works that way. No god worthy of worship operates that kind of deal.
(And would I pony up on any demon’s offer? Yes. But I don’t believe they’re biting, either.)
So, instead, I’m sitting here, writing, because that’s how I think my way through. Because there’s nothing else I can do, and because reaching out to communicate is what artists do, and because shaping a story-any story-is how I work magic and coerce the universe to my will.
I’m terribly afraid that the universe isn’t going to bend this time.
I love my mother, more than I have words for. I want her to live. I want her to be well, whole, and laughing. I want her to live.
We spoke, this morning, before she was airlifted out. I told her I love her. She told me she loves me. She asked me to carry out her wishes, as her ad hoc executor, and I will, should it come to that. I hope-so, so much-that it doesn’t. We said goodbye. I hope, so, so much, that it’s premature.
I love my mother. I want her to live.