* * * * *
Today I lay on my front lawn with my head on Danielle's belly-- who's head was on Melissa's belly--- who's head was on Steph's belly--- who's head was on Brooklyn's belly-- who's head was on Stephy Lou's belly-- who's head was on my belly. (All of these details are surely crucial.) We laugh and laugh and all I can see is sky and bouncing roommate heads. I. am. joy. I am scrubby after a day at The Peaks and I'm eatin sweet potato french fries in the grass with my Conexsh women. I know that this moment is beautiful because it is fleeting, because Meliss is getting married and Sister Swain's goin to Japan and I, again, am transforming. In this minute of bellybumplaughing, we are trying to hold on.
* * * *
MARRIAGE
That's a big word. (Try not to crap your pants.)
Stephy Jay rides in a car with me and Brooklyn and we talk about what the freshmanfive of us were like before that word: Marriage.
"Mano y Mano" we used to say. HAND AND HAND. We were the five fingers, and sometimes, we'd call someone out for being the thumby. Thumby is the one who's being far away, the one who is studying when the other four want to snuggle or definantly eating a cucumber while we nag her to join in on the fatty queso dip.
How does it feel? Stephy Jay asks.
She wants to know what the transition was like for the two that are left.
Because the other three girls got married last summer, and now its Brooklyn and I at The Conexsh. In response, these words come spillin out of me...It was a more of a sacrifice than a loss of you. Because a sacrifice happens on purpose, in the name of something with promise. Something with sun. A loss is uncontrollable. A loss is a cause for mourning. A loss is not the right word. What I feel in the five of us is difference, not distance.
Here's another one of its voices...
"I'm not scared of that anymore." I tell her.
This is my answer to:
"What if you're the last one left unmarried?"
I hadn't realized that I was free from the fear of being separate.
I am no longer worried that the loneliness will be too much. I will give my favorite women away in waves. I cannot see who I will be, but I know she could rock #5. She could be the thumb for a while.
op⋅pos⋅a⋅ble [uh-poh-zuh-buhl]
1. capable of being placed opposite to something else
2. capable of moving toward and touching the other digits on the same hand.
"Full but not heavy.
Floating, but anchored.
Anchored yet free."
--Stephy Jay.
August 2007 Reunion
* * * * *
05.17.2009 Relief Society.
I know that when I am completely healed about things with my Dad, it will be a miracle.
A slow-process miracle, so that I can combine
[my faith with God’s healing,]
and feel that combination steep in me.
The steeping feeling takes time, and becomes a reminder of what occurs when I let Him expand my potential. The steeping is part of the miracle, a feeling I’d miss if God healed up my heart in an instant.
steep [stēp]:
1. to immerse in or saturate or imbue with some pervading, absorbing influence or agency.
2. to soak in water or other liquid, as to soften, cleanse, or extract some constituent: to steep tea bags in boiling-hot water; to steep reeds for basket weaving.
* * * *
06.02.2009
I’m sitting cross-legged in my living room floor over a wooden cutting board. The knife we never use goes into the canteloupe slow—with this motion I feel the texture before I can see it and the smell floats up to me through the small slice in its middle. The color falls open and I cut carefully in slices—no rindless cubes, just rounded slivers of core and exterior. “God, is this what love is like?” I wonder.
“I think this must be what love is like.”
2 comments:
Ahhhh, I loved every bit of this. Especially the opposable part. I hope love is like a cantelope. Bring it.
Thank you.
I've been craving one of these--a big long piece of Lyndsi Shae.
So, so refreshing.
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