catching up

by the time i was finally pulling my hair up into the black elastic hair-tie i wear around my left wrist, i felt like every string in my body was tuned up to a pitch that would shatter glass. standing at the edge of the water, all i could think of was that this was absolutely worth the tank of gas i used. i didn't run, like i thought i would. i never stopped walking, either. honestly, i felt like i could have walked to europe, and never had to break stride. soon, i was junior-high shrieking at the chilly water temperature, even as i was thirty-year old woman observing the clarity of the water that was creeping slowly slowly slowly up my legs. by the time i was up to my neck, that awful taste of tears had been washed out of the back of my throat, and i found myself laughing out loud, staring up at the late afternoon sun, as the latest edition of sunset water colors began to wash over all that unbelievably soft-enough-to-touch robin's egg blue.

i drove home with salt and sand in my hair, my lips chapped, and my eyes dry.

i have always known how to do this. and i have never been afraid to do it. taking life by the horns, and turning it around right sometimes takes years, or weeks, or months. sometimes it takes a bath of fire or ice to jar loose what is stuck....conversely, what is sometimes stuck will not be moved. and what cannot be moved must either be enshrined or left behind. the difference between an altar and a stumbling block is greater than or equal to the difference between a raven and a writing desk. sometimes, the salt wears away the blemishes, and the magnifying effect of the constantly moving water makes the rest of everything else look tame and rather ordinary, by comparison. baptism looks like about a million different things, and i have been baptized into a thousand different iterations, all along the way, and they all remind me of the one big time i was baptized...in a little white robe over my fancy purple little kid bathing suit, in a concrete baptistry that was painted as blue as the sky i swam under saturday afternoon.


the raindrops, the rivers, the swimming pools, the ponds, the gulfs, the oceans...all the water in the world has one memory. and that memory is about birth and being clean. the wisdom of the water, the sanctity of the sacrament, the banality of broken hearts and lazy afternoons--who would be foolish enough to stay in her room and weep over ANYTHING AT ALL, when such riches lay literally at her feet?

there were waves and laughter. that is worth at least a tank of gas.

waste is the cardinal sin.

mil besos,
rmg

PS...TANGENT...POST-MODERN RANT TO FOLLOW: ts eliot maintains that everything tends toward reconciliation. there is no good friday without easter sunday. crazy horse screams down from his wounded mountain, from a thousand-odd miles away, that silence is a message. G-d does not play at dice... how will you live your one wild and precious life...be a bride married to amazement? did you proclaim that it would not always be night, knowing you are right? how many bumpersticker slogans can dance on the head of a pin? and doesn't integrity do a fabulous job of keeping it's side of the bed warm, at night? wrecking balls come in all shapes and sizes, and you'd better be ready to watch them do their job...and those sacred cows you've tended so sweetly...hope you like hamburgers. do you want fries with that? buy the ticket and ride the ride. or buy the ticket, and chicken out at the last minute, and watch people step around and over you to take the ride. thought you were the only one in line? oh...sorry...this is a pretty popular ride...and it's awesome. you go on This One, and things will never look the same, again. not your idea of a good time? that's fine...just...you know...be on your way, stand not amazed, etc.

we have work to do. and we don't have time to deal with amateurs, because after twelve years in the minors, i don't try out.