at least for a little while

it's not safe out there, you know?

each day is a step further into a stream we are all trying to cross, in search of that secret, intangible something that touches our soul. we dangle these ideals, these goals in front of us, like golden carrots on strings, justifying each and every step across slippery stones, in rushing waters. We ask questions by our every action, we tell and we tell a joke, to which the answer is a smile, and we can carry on because  i am thisclose to being loved, because she almost laughed. Those questions tell us where we are along the way, how much longer we have to stand here shivering, before we'll be home.

these markers tell us if we are making progress, and we use them to make it okay that we are putting our lives in peril of the McDonald's hamburged filled, speeding car driving, heartbreaking, disease bearing world.

yesterday, a very kind doctor took a very large piece of me away, excised it, put it in a jar, and sent it away, in hopes that he was giving me something back.

he glanced back as he left the room and this is what he said, "Just have a low threshold, don't be afraid to call." And I wanted to scream out and say, what in the hell would you say if i called? would you comfort me? What does that even mean? why did you pat my leg like you were consoling me? The questions flooded me. And i knew if I kept asking them to the closed oak door he left in his wake, I'd never get off that table, get dressed, go to work.

he was supposed to be my reference point. he needed to tell me where i stood. and whatever he said, his brow was furrowed when he came out from under that great awkward sheet, as it had not been before he had disappeared beneath it. and i could not help but trying to translate each wrinkle on his tall shining forehead.

he hoped to give me time, this i knew, he told me as much. he hoped to find the delicate balance between the hope of having my own life, and someday bringing forth another. this was the hope. a delicate hope that made my entire body tremble. i don't know his motives, i want to pretend to myself that implicit in his glance was altruistic philanthropy. i want to pretend he saw something in me worth saving, and so he was going to make very absolutely sure that he did his very very best. I wanted to believe I was an exception to him. But the truth is this; it's his job and his job is to answer the questions by cutting away what he can: the confusion, the ugly parts, the pain. But there are more questions than he has time, or words, or strength, sometimes, I'm sure.

so sometimes, in light of the scary places within and without, we have to shut down. shut it off. crumple up the questions and leave them behind in the biohazard bin.

let it happen, let an afternoon of pastry and tea turn into an easy night at work, turn into the next day where we leave the laundry, and go on a salvation army adventure. just let the air fill us up and empty us out. (expandcontractexpandcontract, all the while, the only focus). nothing complex.

sometimes we have to let it rush past; from cheap sushi, to the pedicure you can't actually afford (but the red wine is complimentary, so please budget forget me for an hour), and metamorphose into speaking too loudly of books we love, with strangers who may not love us and try not to worry, for just a second about the question we are asking with the endless prose, and whether or not they are giving the right answer.

sometimes we have to say to someone, "this day hurts me to my core." and curl up in a ball under the mere effort of reaching out to someone. we can't wonder if it was too much to tell them; if they'll care. in those moments we are not allowed expectation or reservation.

there are so many questions, and no peace treaty which might let them cross over into the place of answers and find their justice. So Tuesday I stopped shooting questions into the air, trying to flag down some sort of rescue. I am fortified in the simple act of letting it all slide by, in watching things take their course, in doing only what must to carry on. I am not asking, I am not explaining. I am not apologizing.

my hope will not be pillaged by the desperation of questions unanswered, of the need to be validated. i have made myself a tautology, and at the risk of being a heretic, have taken a page from that great  yahweh. and today, i am.
All our questions are a way of asking directions to a more permanent refuge from the storm. We are all asking for directions home. No, I can't be safe, it's not the nature of this world I'm in. I can duck into the cramped doorways of love around me, though; the free latte, the hair brushed out of my face, the i miss you text from my mom, the generosity of new gloves on cold fingers. If my hand shake, I won't stop them, I won't ask why, I don't need to know.