“Oh Lord, take Your plow to my fallowed ground
Let Your blade dig down to the soil of my soul
For I’ve become dry and dusty, Lord I know there must be
Richer earth lying below
For I’ve been living in Laodicea
And the fire that once burned bright, I’ve let it grow dim
And the very Word I swore that I would die for all has been forgotten
As the world’s become my friend”Lyrics by Steve Camp
“Living in Laodicea”
***
The books are tight, I think. Very tight. I know there is little room for air to move between the inked numbers, the corner to corner boxed X’s, the blacked in squares. I tally up supplies needed to run a house for two weeks. I ask what are needs? What are mere wants?
I feel the pressures of choices made and to make. I look up sighing in their weight. Rain pings its promise on the roof, the water heater, the range hood. It grows more persistent, more steady. Soon it is all I hear.
I wonder if it will race down the back to flood the back yard again. I wonder if I could slip inside the rivulets and wash down the tall clover covered and weedy hill. I smile at the tangent.
A headline would read “Woman Weary Washed Away in Alabama.” Perhaps “One Woman Show Topples” or “Broad Shoulders, Slippery Slope: Woman Slides Away” or “Woman Found: Died Four Days Ago.” Then I really laugh at such silliness.
But the truth is I am tired of my own story. In through these unchecked list items and cracks creeps in the shadows. Self-depleting phrases of “Some would miss me at dinner only when plates were empty. Or when clean socks were required for school. Or when late in evening physical comfort was desired.” glide in as if on a fog to wrap my heart as it does in a gully. Self-punishing thoughts of “Unappreciated. Unseen. Forsaken. Not enough. Unsupportive.” become the stones thrown. I know this pit well.
***
It’s all about story. Our story is the only thing that ties, that binds, that is remembered.
This addition of a some sort of mud sling added here fuels the interest there. This misguided happening garners a smile. This witty comment gets a laugh. This fact gathers approval, glory, praise, perhaps compassion. More story is offered. Perhaps a flashy sequin embellishment of half truth wedges in.
***
The world grows this way in hearts, doesn’t it? By feeding with what appears from dusty ground as if it’s heaven sent? But is it real or it just pretty and of interest memorable like a news clip? Temporal worship or eternal?
***
Labels are given. Some quite similar to the stones thrown, some not. Some are in truth.
Questions are asked. Proof is needed. Hard evidence. Preferably in paper and character witness. Maybe video like television. Witness is required.
These details are how one is remembered, I think, and makes friends. There is world validation in being memorable. Later, one or more will appear as an opener to conversation. The “Hey are you still…” or “What ever happened with…” marks it down.
Sometimes these are just all flash with no real substance, I think. Just stuff, I think, to clutter like the junk drawer in the kitchen.
Are these details fruitful for all or fruitful for one? Is the benefit of a good label or yarn solely presented because it is truth, which in itself can be awesome and unbelievable, or because it brings one into a desired circle of people and gathers that superfluous flattery, fleeting at best? Is the detail plucked and harbored to be used as a weapon later? Or as a reminder of coming glory, a weapon to gird?
***
Burn it, I think, as I do when I struggle like this. Burn it all down. Throw it all out. Get rid of it all. All of these things that constrict my air, that feel binding, that are dragging behind me like chain. Like these books filled with numbers stretched thin.
I have done this before, too. Thrown out an entire closet filled with fabric, paint and things I cherished. The black bags lined the curb. When the garbage men came to pick them up, I waved hello to them from the drive.
I should have been a red head to warn others of my temper. But like my stint with dye, my temper too is fleeting. The pain and ache behind it are not. And these burning emotions are what I am left holding after the men leave dutifully, swinging from the back of their truck.
***
I refill my coffee mug and head outside. The humidity is overwhelming. Every surface seems to be condensing before melting, including my skin. My pajama pants stick behind my knees.
I laugh. I think of the dust from which I am made and the mud it is becoming as I stand there near the garage door to look at the sky.
I think of the phrase “Knock the dust of this town off of me.” I laugh. The dust and the dirt are most of what I am. It seeps in and out and fills the lines around my toes and and ankles that are now getting wet with splatter.
I think it is the dust that brought me out here in the rain to find the stuff that plugs the holes in lists and erases the labels given, the marks made.
The invisible happens, I think. The stuff unseen and so is unbelieved. The old question if no one heard the sound of the tree falling, did it really fall? floats through my messy mind. If tears fall and no one is around, do they really exist?
***
*Disclaimer: My mom always cleaned house on Fridays so I am too. I am cleaning out the “Drafts” section. Too much clutter. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t send it out there when it was cyber-inked in the early morning hours. I typically blame things on wrong timing. Or it was one of those things I thought I did, but didn’t. Or, the technological savvy gal I am, hit the incorrect button.
