Let all fall away that's not crucial now.
Kiss the flame
Let's run with the hunted, the untamed
Kiss the flame
Embrace the faceless, the unnamed
Is it strange that the sound of my mother's noisy sleep inspires so much thought? Maybe. But it's the real deal. If I'm being perfectly honest, I've been full of thoughts today. They've been tangling, reproducing, and spilling out from my brain for quite some time now. But words fail me, words fail us all. And sometimes words are all that keep me sane when things are messy. They work so hard to translate the madness that goes on in this mind. They bare the weight of such yuck. And there is plenty of it, lately. I have this reputation for being the most sensitive person in the world. Crayons excite me, I cry during Rice Krispy commercials. I suffer from eternal PMS. And that is okay. Because as exhausting as it all is, you certainly can't miss much if your heart is a giant sponge. And whatever isn't beautiful and happy can--in some way or another--be laughed off. Because life is ridiculous. And ridiculous is funny. And funny is easier than sad. But when something awful happens--something lasting, a something that changes everything--I am a stone. My feelings huddle together and decide as a team that they will take a spur-of-the-moment vacation and leave only the rational part of my brain to deal. I am faced with this pile of rubble, and when all I want to do is cry and mourn, and love, I can't. When I got the phone call at work about Auntie Anna, I don't even remember feeling a thing. I just remember my brain going, "Shit.' Who says that? And the only time I've cried about this terrible thing is when I made a phone call to my Grandmother that night. And still, I didn't cry for Auntie Anna, for how much I love her, for the beautiful person that she was and for this terrible disease that ate away at her body for so much of her life. But I cried for my grandmother. Because she lost her only sister. And I could feel the weight of her loss through a telephone, across an entire state. How do you lose a sister? How do you look in the mirror and into yourself, this proof that you are very much alive, and they are not? How does that make sense?
And then there is my mother. My Kittie Cat, Mama. The best part of every day that I am alive. The foundation upon which everything I have is built. The heart of all good in my world. The blood in these veins, the warmth in my soul. The clarity in every thought. We fight and scream and yell. And we are vicious with one another. And she makes me laugh so hard; that breathless, shameless, I-could-die-right-now-and-be-happy laughter. And she makes me cry because she hurts me and we hurt each other. Because she knows me so well. Because she knows that I am stronger than I believe, that I deserve honesty. Because sometimes I deserve to be hurt. And she hugs me when I hurt. And she brushes the hair from my face and kisses me when I cry. She tells me that pain is inevitable, and that all that is awful surely fades. And she teaches me, without words, that the terrible things that happen to us can be warn like badges of honor, testaments to all that we are capable of when we least expect to be. I do not know how you suffer the brute force of a world so blatantly against you, and spit back in its face by being as wonderful as my mother is. How do you lose the people you love and forge on? How do you survive when your husband, your partner, the person you have given everything for, is taken from this world, your world? How do you care for three children all alone on a fast-sinking ship? How do you not only pick up the pieces of an already broken life, but face mending the mess that awaits? “You just do.” This is always her answer, when I gather up enough courage to ask these questions. “When you have children, there is no choice. There is no other way. You just do it.” It sounds logical, but for me, it is a lie. There is always a choice. Always. And it isn’t so much about what she did, but how she managed to do it all with such love in her heart, shattered as it must have been.
I think of my mother this way every day. I think of how unfair the world is. I stare at her dark, wrinkled hands, and the way she strains her eyes when she reads. I think of the 14 hours of hard work she puts into every day. I think of how exhausting this all is. And I cry for her. Because it amazes me. Because someone has to. And because our hearts break for the ones that we love. I worry about losing her one day. I worry about forgetting the wrinkles in her hands and the sound of her voice. And I worry that the world will be its terrible safe on one terrible day, and I will lose her. I will never be as strong as she is. I will not know how to forge on in the face of such massive emptiness.
I don’t know why I entertain such pessimistic thoughts. But I think the reality of loss becomes part of loving someone deeply, permanently. It is part of the deal.
Where for art thou Romeo?
Where have all the brave men gone?
Show me one man who knows his own heart
To him I shall belong