All is rising

My loves,

All of you with the open hearts and the hard earned souls, the curious minds, the writers and poets and painters and thinkers, all of you who believe, and pay attention, and fight the good fight – all of you who fell to your knees with the shock of it all — I thank you for being in this world.

I have been so heartsick, and angry, and most spectacularly blindsided. I have wondered if all the good does any good at all. If good even matters. If kindness is just a kind of naiveté, that lives inside the bubble along with my French press and my fair isle sweaters and my cranberry chevre. If silence is just a way to stay deaf. If words are a just a way to stay still. If prayer is just a white man’s way around. If light can really illuminate dark.

In the last few weeks, even my pond feels privileged, like its tucked itself into the prettiest trees and proclaimed itself complete. And all the fields feel haunted by the ghosts of civil war, and all the birds circle for prey. Even the sea is creaking and chained, even the branches hang waiting, even the flame is frightful again.

Even Gilligan — who the hell gets a Boston Terrier? Why didn’t I adopt a shelter dog?

As I prepare for Thanksgiving, Trader Joe’s seems ridiculous. So does my Macbook Pro and the way that man just smiled at me.

Why arrange the flowers? Or tell you how the moss looks? Instead let me tell you about my first boss, and my second, and my third – all of whom grabbed my pussy, too.

Why laugh? Or turn the word hope over in my teeth? Instead let me live just one day in the constant despair of the marginalized – or even meet someone completely unlike myself.

Why forgive? Or try to see the other side of things? Instead let my rage destroy this horror of humanity.

And oh, my very soul! All of these things I’ve been writing – all that work bubbling up from the deep well of my center – suddenly looks like it’s floated on the surface all its life – just skimmed off the top by my uppity Brita filter. Pointless. Useless. Just one less plastic bottle in an ocean of debris.
I have tried all the usual things – wine, bourbon, cake – but still, I can’t be calmed. I have been rudely awakened, horribly startled by an alarming orange face. I want to slap it hard and go back to sleep, but I can’t.

Waking up is hard. I am humbled, to my knees, because I thought I knew. And I am once again struck, as I have been so many times in my life, that what I knew to be true was not true at all.

Everything is different, now. As it always is, with every new awakening. Everything is different. And as my eyes adjust to a whole new world, one that’s always been there but I didn’t have the capacity, or strength, or courage, or experience to see, I hear people say come back to bed. While others work to convince me everything is truly well and I need not be so heartsick.
And still others call me forward to lead new armies. I am astounded by the mobilization of so many of my friends. The constant call to arms. The instant organization.

There is urgency. All is rising, as am I. All is rising, as are the seas. All is rising, as is the dawn.

All is rising, as is my gratitude for the good in the world. For you, my loves. For you. Because to be awake means to see it all – the bird, and the prey. The man, and the monster. Goodness holds it both and all; not blind, not myopic, not half asleep. But both, and all.

All is rising, now. As are we. And with it must come gratitude for the beauty of the world, for the poet, for the prayer, for the stillness of the pond. For you, my loves. For you.