The Slant
Incense eggs, failing roofs and accepting what is.
I have been actively trying to convince my children that I am no longer the magic clean-up fairy of their youth. They are old enough now to make their own grilled cheese, rinse a plate and put it in the dishwasher, bring their dirty clothes down the stairs to the laundry room. Someone put the skillet “away” after use directly next to a box of incense and my morning scrambled eggs tasted strongly of Nag Champa.
Sometimes in the getting of what we want, we get it slant.
Fame is never what you think it is. Your dream job actually prevents you from your dream life. You waited for the moment that skinny felt more delicious than an ice-cold dirty martini and moule frites and it never came. Financial “security” (for those who desperately seek it) never truly feels secure. I fell in love with an old, beautiful house. That anyone examined our history and decided we were trustworthy enough to bestow an enormous mortgage on walls that might as well be porous stone by how they directly bring the breeze in, is still a mystery. It has a front porch and a creek out back and a tree swing. It was everything I could have dreamt for myself and my family.
And it is something I worry about every, single day. Will the ancient roof finally give out? The fence needs mending. The carpet needs to be ripped out and replaced with hardwood after years of leaking. The plumbing in the bathroom is as old as Jimmy Carter- and might take just as long as his presidency lasted to flush. We need all new windows. And kitchen cabinets. Where are the mice coming from? Did you hear that, in the attic?
Sometimes in the getting of what we want, we get it slant.
And then, we are faced with an enormously privileged decision:
Do we stand, hands behind our backs, lamenting what we thought would be- or do we stand open-handed, accepting all that is?
Isn’t that our only choice, ever, if we really think about it?
I spent so much of my life with hands clenched tightly, bracing for impact. I didn’t self-protect ( believing my purpose was to bleed out for others) but I, instead, anticipated the fall before ever considering the alternative. I expected the worst, and when it didn’t come, I rationalized (and I was conditioned to believe) that it was those times that must be used to strengthen my resolve for the next, imminent disaster.
My hands were full of chains of my own making for me to notice that none of them were locked. All I had to do was let them go.
I ate the Nag Champa-scented eggs this morning. (I hate food waste just as much as hippie-scented incense, but alas, I have a spouse who is still deeply dedicated to The Dead, barefeet, and the rising smoke of patchouli and I love him.) I moved the blue box back to the dining room cabinet where it belongs, on a slant on the first shelf.
I can’t change the course of history, or what is to come. I can’t remove all suffering and obstacles from my own life or that of my children’s. I can’t be prepared for every natural disaster, at the ready for every headline crisis, or emotionally prepared to comfort every body that needs soothing.
But I can do this: I can continue to move forward, asking for what I need, giving what I can, looking for the good instead of always bracing for the bad. I can let go a little, even if it means I’ll be eating incense-scented eggs sometimes.