I have no exoskeleton. I have no bottom underneath. I remind myself of the helpers. Right on cue, one appears.
The man understands instantly that all is not well. He comes bearing a soothing voice and all manner of assistance. I was not expecting the bouquet but after the first smack of surprise, I realize it is just what I need.
The bouquet is not a professional floral arrangement. It’s Queen Ann’s Lace, those tiny blue flowers I don’t know the name of, dandelions plump and yellow. Best of all are sprigs of lavender. I fill a canning jar with water, snip the bottoms of everything and put the gift on my table, stems splaying at angles, others upright. I breathe in the grassy smells and especially the lavender.
Other helpers come because they are called, I go out to meet others. They arrive in the form of words or provisions. It’s alright, all of it. How many times, have I, in fact, been the helper? Too many times to count? Yes.
For days upon days, the flowers brighten and refuse to fade. Blooms I didn’t notice when the bouquet arrived unfurl and blossom. I know it won’t last forever, this flower show in the midst of it all. It went on longer than I thought it would. That’s important to mention.
Slowly, then quickly the inevitable transpires. Eventually it all ends up in the garbage. The memories carry me a little, until they don’t.
I make a phone call to the man who brought the kind eyes, the bouquet. I can’t expect him to read my mind even if he did do so that one time.
He is scattered, sorry I am not well, but his voice is too brusque for patience. When I mention the bouquet and gather my resources to ask for another, he finds this funny. You can’t depend on flowers! That is not what they are for! The idea of him keeping me supplied with bouquets strikes him as ludicrous. He’s still laughing when I say a hasty goodbye. Someone is at the door, I lie.
I realize that the man has empathy that flits on and off like a faulty wire.
I vent about it to the others. It amuses me. But I am still unwell.
Somebody suggests I learn to sit with anger, learn to tolerate the discomfort. This I cannot do.
It is winter, there are no flowers in the park even if I could justify picking them. The weeds nobody cares about are dead. There is no money for the florist even if I like what they have, which I don’t.
I rifle around for leftovers, anything to be put to use. A rainbow of construction paper, a stash of pipe cleaners, tissue paper, yarn. The YouTube videos are too crafty, too calculated. I am left with myself. I make my own damned bouquet, stick it in a proper vase, then tape some individual flowers, all misfits, to the walls.
He shows up some days or weeks later, everything blends together now. He brings wisdom he thinks I want and some books of advice. He means well.
What’s the matter, he finally asks, brows furrowed. He can’t figure this out. Nothing, I say.
From the archives:
Pegboard
Hospitality
Check Back With Me Later
The mother cradles the baby in white and yellow, green, black-gold, the sun rises warm red, a blue primrose nursery, newborn creatures tumble, flap wings, prance, parade along, three or four apace, the baby prattles with the sparrows, blows kisses to four bunnies rampaging in her toy box, the infant fox meets her slate blue eyes, the spindly-spotted rise on shaky legs licking her unfurled petal hand. Two field mice place a daisy crown in her hair as owls joyfully scatter roses. When the animals take their leave, she forgets their ministrations around her tears, her tender beating heart, sticky human words amass, the language of squirrels and chipmunks relegated to maple trees and running brooks full of pollywogs, the stray cat skulks away, swans and geese look all the same to her now.
The baby outsmarts the playpen, the back door slams on its hinges,the mother pulls gravel from her skinned knees with tweezers, the girl plays with children on splintered sea saws, twirling sticks in filthy puddles, she lifts heavy rocks to stare, unflinching at all who live in the dark. Somewhere between girl and maid she blows dandelion-like toward the mean streets, in smears of sandy dirt and cracked sidewalks, she grows the very arms and legs she needs, as feminine as she is, as well as anyone.
From the archives:
Assume that my feet take the brunt of it, but it’s not just them doing the heavy lifting. The bus doesn’t pay any mind to one more. Keep getting on.
Have shaky standards. Visit with this one and that, combine folks randomly. Never ask who pleases or fills my cup. Wear myself out with volumes of everybody and in-person, no less.
Seal myself off. Listen to science. Embellish it.
Adapt seamlessly. Surprise myself. Don’t burden the doctors and nurses. Do these things for a long time.
Watch as helpers come with provisions that will one day, at a time and place of my choosing, be my slow ticket out of here.
Let almost everybody else go first. No destination is benign.
Make it simple. Say yes to yes places. Maybe means no.
Never forget what happened while locked up. Eyes that crinkled around the edges, perfectly matching the smile inside the rectangle. Those who asked for help. Those who made old timey phone calls or wrote generous, multisyllabic words in sentences with punctuation. Those who came to find me. Those who left me where I was.
Let the world work harder before getting up from the ground to meet it halfway. Plant the seedlings but when something is dead on the vine, go ahead and compost it. Better yet, put in in the landfill. There’s a time for haste.
When leaves dazzle in twelve gradients of green. When the answer is either gunshots or fireworks. Garbage strewn about, flies and dank. Fine fresh air with a hint of lilac. A perfectly calibrated air conditioner.
Have one rule for people. Make ambivalence I can taste and smell a hard no.
Peripheral vision is a privilege. Use it. Listen to the shift in color. Hope made it all a mystery before. It never was. People tell me what I need to know.
Whatever it is. Whoever. Allow it to speak. Then rise up and make it mutual.
From the archives:
Before, now, then wide open
Rending
The sun it did rise again
There’s a hierarchy of vessels in every kitchen. I am not even eyeing the huge soup pots or mixing bowls. That would be selfish.
The pitchers are what I have in mind. They’re lined up, pretty and gleaming on your shelves. But the ladle sticking out of the jug would be just fine.
All of this discussion of containers is because you’ve concocted something I want.
What I ask for and what I get are two different things. You come over with an offering balanced in a measuring spoon. It’s hard to imagine a smaller pittance.
I’m allotted a tablespoon of something precious and there are a dozen mason jars holding the rest. You earmark those for yourself and other people.
I sip and swallow what I am given. I expect a heady sweetness that leaves me bereft and wanting more. What I taste is unbearable bitterness. The honey you added at the end does not disguise what this is or who you are. The sudden clarity burns my throat. I don’t even say thank you.
If you notice my departure you don’t let on.
Everything I really need is within my own four walls. I develop tunnel vision and try that on for size. It suits me. I grow extra arms and legs.
I make a lot of something out of nothing. Everything’s arranged in the pantry and empty sections of the cupboards. What can’t be tucked away there graces the countertops and table.
I’ve built the land of plenty with these sensible hands. A full larder makes zero sense if I never eat anything. I partake with no thought of scarcity. Hoarders be damned, there’s no problem with sharing either.
With all of that said, with eyes wide open and gratitude coursing through my veins, I still want shallow bowls as big around as dinner plates.
From the archives:
Tweak
I suffered for their art
Hydration
I’m not talking about a suitcase hurriedly stuffed and thrown in the trunk.What this really looks like is a glass half-filled and warm, leaving a tepid ring on the side table. There’s the garden I once tended that’s grown wily and coarse. The paint is allowed to peel, leaving a clear sight line to the writing on the wall.You’re the steward of the overripe fruit and flies. I see you cling to the threadbare, aged beyond needle and thread. Perfectly good you say as you stubbornly save everything I’ve said goodbye to already.In my own little corner I’ve gathered the brand new moving boxes and crisp shopping bags. I’ll put some of my stuff in there. What doesn’t make the cut will get sun bleached to cyan or die on the vine where I left it. Because my work is slow, the job will be three-quarters done before you even notice. From the archives:Modern Narcissus
Five Minutes
Radio Silence
Somebody wrote something no one else did. It wasn’t easy to find.
Looking as hard as I did made me question the idea that there is a book for everything. But I didn’t want to have an orphan for a problem. I didn’t want to think that no one wanted to write about this.
Then it arrives, not just being itself but the newest, latest, updated version of itself. This book makes me a student again.
All of the notetaking skills I perfected in 10th grade come back.
One day I ask myself, what is my truth? My answer is sure and clear. He wrote the book, but the book is nothing without a reader.
I get out my composition book. The first pages are neat, then things go to chicken scrawl. My writing edges out of the margins crawling along them.
If I want to know my truth I look at my notes.
From the archives:
Hard Fall
Careful Words
Hospital Corridor
Rain. It did.
Before I stepped out, a minute, an hour ago, when I lay sleeping, unawares. It clings to the air, the tree trunks, the branches strewn about all random-artful.
Palettes soaked in themselves, wild, unfettered. Promiscuous watercolors I don’t have to paint. This is the stuff of dreams, what my photographer self waits for. It doesn’t look real but you can’t make it up either. I walk up about free, gathering it all in. Having a destination stops me not at all. Ridiculously early I will be anyway. I stop just short of greedy.
The best part is that the rains will come again. I see it in the sky, opulent white, opaque, the wind softening everything.
If it weren’t for the storm brewing, the shadows would be too deep, the palette drying under the sun. Nature would have put itself together again and I would have walked by. Nary a glance at what could have been.
By the time the sky unleashes the pelt, the soaking, I’ll be inside.
Warm, untouched, clothes, hair. Camera face down. Ready to be my other side. Content with incandescent bulbs, the TV, the safety, the perfect dry.
From the archives:
I Stand In Judgement
I walked to the end of the driveway
The Water Table
