Differentiate

All that time, money and therapy
To keep one step ahead
Of that chrysallis wiggling child
To be the better mother
Than the one you had.

All that painful insight
All that diligent remembering what it was like
To be a child yourself

And the day comes
You've got nothing
And you are your own mother
Watching her do the impossible
You've got nothing
Nothing

All that time, money and therapy
To keep one step ahead
Of that chrysallis wiggling child
To be the better mother
Than the one you had.

It turns out
Letting go
Is the hardest part.

45.586517,-122.792891

We've geochached the boy
No prizes for digging up the tree
But take all the pictures you want

Friday

The windows are all open
Karl is supposed to come home tonight
But I won't believe it
                                  until
I see the white whisps over the neighbors houses.

I'm just waiting for everyone to catch up.

Breathing

I'm obsessed that there is something wrong with the dog.

I'm pretty well trained
I know that this is transference and other technical terms
I know that it is normal
And I know to work through it.

But I look at that dog and
After several days of being home
I just want it to end.

The damn dog breathes
Just like a ventilator
Every time I look at him

Sleeping
In his usual spot in the sunshine
He shifts in just that way

I can't even remember
Probably he always slept like this-

But I can't unsee
The strange pulsing
Artificial breath
And feel like it will never end.

Somewhere in the Middle

Be in the present
They say it's the best place to be
Maybe it is
Certainly, when I am in the zone
Amazing, miraculous things happen
Things that are certainly not of my doing

But there is another way of being in the present
Trapped
Can't go back
              Can't go forward
Can't even turn around
Totally in the present
And the present is completely black

It's the shoe waiting to drop
And the waiting persists
Even without the shoe.

Platitudinal Preaching

"I found this pamphlet in the bushes
while unlocking the building this morning
and it reminded me of today's gospel."

Do not forget the nasaly, British accent, of my friend Danny.

We have a phrase for this -
"Calling it in."
If you haven't spent at least a little time thinking about
how to connect all this birth
                                      and life
                                           and death
                                                   and vomit
that I live with every day,
is there any reason for you to wonder why I don't listen to you?
Yes, my phone is
in point of fact
providing me with more answers.


"With the gospel in one hand
and the newspaper in the other."

Repeated by Barth,
ad nauseum advise
received since the 20's,
In the birth of narrative journalism.

Not only
does my life not happen in the newspaper;
when it does
I don't need your platitudes.

I need you to stop hitting me with
handbags and hatred
for trying to pee in safety.

It's Always Saturday in Philadelphia

It's Holy Week again.
Damn thing comes around once a year,
      it's more persistent than Christmas,
      takes longer and has less opportunities for joyful inebriation, too.
I think that may be why we have the Easter Bunny and all that candy -
     we really need it,
especially if we've ridden the roller coaster.

I was planning to ride again.

I've no patience for so much bullshit
     that fills the days of the body corporate the rest of the year,
but this finely honed cosmic moment
     is what keeps me a professing Christian.
The universe cares so much it's willing to walk a mile in our shoes,
     and so violates our petty expectations that we try to kill it.

But life persists.
Life sneaks into all the cracks in the pavement we cover ourselves with;
life pushes through persistent,
steady,
gently,
breaking,
always breaking the baked on shell,
and presents us with a tiny
                                            fragile
                                                        bit
                                                              of
                                                                   green.

Now you know why my yard looks like it does.
I am awestruck in the face of weeds,
especially pavement weeds,
especially pavement weeds I've assaulted with Roundup.
Life persists.

I like Holy Week.
It is probably the closest the church year ever comes
to my place in the cosmos,
even though it gets the least attention,
even in Holy Week.

Still,
people are trying.
I appreciate the effort.
I know it's a hard place.
Of course I do, I live there.

Today starts the steady march to Easter.
It's so silly to me -
                               set up, tear down, polish, wax, mop, dust.
Look busy - Jesus is coming.
                                               I am sure this was first said by an altar guild director.
As though Jesus gives a shit.
Jesus is rather too busy to look for dust bunnies under the bishops throne.

Still.
I was going to overlook that.
I always feel that we are trying to hard -
always riding the surface of Holy Week,
always escaping what it really signifies
by hurrying up and scheduling, polishing and planning for the next day.

Maybe it's the difference between a nurse and a doula.
A nurse is cleaning up as we go,
a doula just comes back when it's over and cleans up the mess.
Maybe this is why I could never be a nurse -
in the moment,
                         I just don't care about the mess -
it's not going anywhere but people's souls are in danger.

I think I just found another foil for the Mary and Martha story, but that isn't part of this week's lessons.

As though it matters where we put it as long as we can find it when we need it.

Oh yeah, definitely a doula, definitely that Mary.

I have never been that other Mary.
I have never lost my own child.
But I have walked with Mary twice.
I have been those unnamed companions of Mary.
Twice.
I know why they have no names.
They cannot have names.
When the Holy Spirit borrows your body,
your name doesn't matter, doesn't exist.
And that is the gift the Spirit gives you in exchange.

It's Holy Week again.
Jesus is going to doula the world.
Again.
It seems even more unbearable this year, because we never stop
muttering,
praying,
whispering,
shouting, his name.

Perhaps this is why Holy Saturday is so empty,
so devoid of all the other ritual housework.
Saturday is that doula time,
when the only thing that makes it bearable is that it isn't you.

This namelessness,
I have never before understood.
I never had to.
There are unnamable,
almost unspeakable places in this life,
so many Saturdays in this life.
And the blessing of self immolation,
that makes possible the work of shifting pain from people to it's rightful place in God,
sound like insanity on any given Tuesday.

Religion points.
Priests point.
Church points.
Sunday points.

But a really good Saturday is clear smooth glass.