the photos I didn't take

We wouldn't dare take photos of the worst places.

The window ledge I leaned against when I denied you the pleasure of a forced apology.

The table that propped up a good many raw elbows as she leaned in, locked eyes with mine and told me she would never speak to him (never forgive him) as long as she lives. 

The couch we sat on when he compared me to a disloyal dog.

The way the light made a calculating slanted rectangle on the carpet as you explained, one last time, you were sorry, all the while knowing it was too little too late.

The view of the grand canyon from 30,000 feet and forces you to admit you are moving, as fast as you can, toward your life without her and the chasm below is a crack in the sidewalk compared to the one in your heart.

It would be a really upsetting slideshow.

So I don't take the photos of these places.

What I need you to see isn't in the picture anyway; it's in your heart, in your memory, in the space between us as the story unfolds.

I don't need photos; I need friends who listen as my words slowly paint the picture.

Here is where it gets good:

There are things afforded me that are not accessible to other minority women.

and one of them is this: a room full of educated white men (with plenty of other pressing obligations). and as if that isn't enough, they are listening, really listening. To me.

Not just shuffling a deck of photos but sitting down around the table, putting themselves in my place: in the seats where I sat as I lost my spiritual foothold, lost my self.

One of them climbed up in the pulpit and, at my request, crouched down a bit, to understand what it is like to be me in a box not unlike an upended coffin with a microphone for the dead.

Another one stood near the baptismal font and looked around slowly, "I want to be able to imagine her here," he said, maybe because it is hard to imagine someone with a nose ring and tattoos glowing under the red light of stained glass. I don't forget that I have physical characteristics of my womanhood that include markers of the time I have spent embedded in cultures that permanently alter my skin, poke holes in me, leave scars and some marks I have chosen. I don't forget that it can be a shock to see me approach the altar which is as much to say I don't forget to pray for those who feel as though I am creating a spectacle. 

I suspect, though, that this man in particular wants to imagine the kinds of glory and gore that I bring to the space without need, without malicious intent but simply because I am a woman and I am created to bring forth life-quite a messy business.

Is that what he saw? What he imagined?

Even though the superabundance of photographs is more real now than ever, there are pictures we refuse to take. There are images that create a blur on the lenses. Maybe we don't want them anyway. Maybe we don't need them. Tears render photographs useless.
There are moments I wish I could forget. I want to take the hands of the ghost of me and hold her palms to block my view when they replay in my mind's eye.

And then there are moments I wish I could go back to but no photograph will take me there.

So I have decided it is a good thing
there is a story and a song:
(just a word and a sound, really)
There is a line on my skin that you can trace with your finger tip
and the loose thread of my frayed soul that I would offer you
knowing that to pull it would unravel the whole.
There are feelings hidden leagues beneath rising to surface...
You know, all the stuff you see when your heart is brave enough to turn toward the sadness you cannot see with your eyes.

better prayers

In the event you should find an hypodermic needle in your pulpit you may consult the anglican book of prayer but there is not (yet) a specific prayer for such an occasion therein.

On the occasion you unwrap a gift from a lover... 15 years too late. Too late for what? To know you were loved so deeply? No. It is never too late for that. But there is no prayer for that.

In case you are having the hardest year of your life there is no prayer for that. Other than the tears or swears that seem to come too easily.

Or for the day when you think she said her first word, but you're not sure because, well, do babies really know how to say "Thank you?"

Is there a prayer other than, "O God. I'm not sure what any of this means. Help me figure this out"?

So I'm terribly distracted these days,
writing prayers better than the flare prayers from a sinking ship,
Setting intentions (you know, getting specific about the goals like "practice radical gratitude because logic isn't your style anyway" or "stop reading facial expressions through the lens of fear" or "notice birds-at least their songs-every day")

And I'm doing all this as though I were planning a funeral: mine as if it were yours. Worried that you will not go on without me. Narcissistic, I know. But I'm just being honest.
The funeral I'm thinking of is more a bon voyage party: you will go on this great journey without me.
You don't need me anyway, not nearly as much as I wish you did... and you surely don't need me if I'm not grateful or brave or noticing birds.
Setting intentions that way: knowing I am not all things to all people and sad about it.
since we're being honest.

In hopes of being useful,
I live a public life. It's not any weird thing (anymore) to make my thoughts public. In fact, I'm rather coming to depend on it. It's like sending messages in bottles... one word at a time. You'll have to compare notes with someone else if you aren't sure what exactly I'm trying to say.
I would have compared this to sending carrier pigeons but a small bird of prey was busy killing a pigeon in the alley behind our apartment when we left the house yesterday.
If only David Attenborough had been there to explain it to my inner five year old. He wasn't. I nearly tried to save the pigeon. Now all that is left is a scattering of feathers looking like someone tore up a love letter into bits.

So not like a carrier pigeon-endangered by hawk beaks.
Instead, already scattered, but not so much you can't understand what happened (maybe only what is happening).

That is how the prayers are coming and how the intentions are setting.
One word at a time.
and here is the catch:
the larger question is this, what do we do now?
Now that human frailty is more present in the pulpit.
Now that I am finally able to see I wasn't ready to be loved until now.
Now that babies are capable of gratitude.
Now that the words come one at a time and not just to me but from you.

what else can we do?
Even if you don't believe in prayer (how did you ever make it this far in this post?) you probably still roll your eyes (heavenward),
you probably mutter or hope or breathe

and I think that will do.
even if it isn't written, yet, those tiny acts change things. They can set things a right and set them afloat.
Maybe not me, maybe not you, but something. Maybe not ships or kings but words or air.
and just between us, that is all that is needed.

smooth the worry crease

Took a tiny paintbrush

To the baby’s face

Traced

her brows

to smooth the worry crease

Between

her eyes

as both

Followed like curious

eclipsed suns

surrounded by shattered blue skies

turning heavenward

It was just

(Like painting vines on a porcelain saucer

Or branches before they become twigs)

Only longer

Lasting.