Monks & Mannequins

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You…

Beauty needs a lover. Without a lover beauty is not beauty.  It is life.  Almost.  A seed.  That is how it seems to me.  Things are not beautiful in and of themselves unless I notice them in and of themselves.  The moment my eye catches it, “Ah!  Yes!” then it unfolds and becomes beautiful.  Do you see what I mean?

If something is not beautiful this does not mean that it is ugly.  It’s just not yet, beautiful.  Almost though.  It’s a threshold, a doorway.  Almost anything you interact with becomes beautiful if you open your eyes, reach out your hand, breath it in.

Beauty is a relationship, a discovery, a beholding, even a bewilderment.  It is a recurring accident if you let it.

One of my favorite moments of beauty comes from Helen Keller, reaching out her hand to the world.  In her own words:

“We walked down the…

My father and I have not always been close. Growing up, he was my father, that was it. He patted me on the head on his way out the door to work and let me sit on his knee when he got home but as far as connecting in a deeper way that didn’t happen till much later in my life. Like almost every American family my father was almost always the one carrying the weight of “bringing home the bacon.” Unfortunately this meant that having time to get to know me was scant. I never knew what I was missing out until life hit me with a ton of bricks; my parents divorced.

Never did I dream that this dreadful event would bring anything good with it. But, I lucked out. My junior year my dad took over the responsibility of carting me to and from work and school.

What a wonder it would be if we believed. That life is meaningful. Or better yet, precious. That beauty is necessary. That children deserve our full attention and teach us things. That babies are works of art. That books are thresholds. That meals are shared. That silence is the doorway to sound. That laughter belongs in our hearts as much as kindness and generosity.

What a wonder it would be if we washed dishes by hand. Ironed our own shirt and trousers, slowly. Took pictures. Painted. Rang doorbells. Threw parties for whoever comes to mind.

What a wonder it would be if we slowed down and noticed who we were with. Who loves us. Who said hello this morning. Who let us go first. Who thought of us. Who taught us to tie our shoes or ride a bike.

What a wonder it would be if we

delayed our concerns

I went to therapy, every week for about a year.

My mother drove me up to the office complex. I stepped out her silver Honda CRV and walked up the fake stone steps.

I opened the door and entered a world of soft Christian music wafting an air conditioned message of “Jesus is our lord and savior” in an overcrowded space of ugly wholesale dining room furniture and plastic plants, a kind of televangelist set.

It was a safe place I suppose and I hated it.

Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted to like it. I knew in some way I needed help and this did seem like a place that could help.

I am a white teenage girl with divorcing parents; I am sure that is a huge pie slice in some demographic chart. I really wanted to feel like a character in a teen drama. “Poor Paris.”…