On the Subject of Loss

I was sitting on the sidewalk, the part of the road where pavement

meets the bus stop meets the road. I was thinking about time through

ripped jeans, how my skin was an artifact. I was thinking about sand

through fingers, my hands clutching at a beach like I could carry

the entire landscape home.

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So I did.

I carried the beach and the ocean. Eventually, I was carrying the world.

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It was heavy. I wanted to lay it down. I knew it wasn’t mine, but the feeling that it was didn’t leave. I thought of my mother’s body disintegrating into a skeleton under white cloth. I thought of her full-fleshed and breathing. We were getting groceries. If I had known it was for the last time, I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

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Death was, is, has always been the shadow of a breath on my neck.

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I kept thinking about Rumi, how he emphasized being the ocean. Be the waves that lap at the shore. Learn how to approach. Learn how to retreat. Know that only a higher power could notice the scrambling of a crab’s legs under sand.

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Know that only a higher power could measure everything at once.

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It’s really important to understand that no one human can provide an answer for the universe. Hug the people who love you when things get dark. They are in the darkness with you. They are playing chess with the universe hoping you’re the rook that doesn’t move. They may be the light, and you may need to respect you’re a shadow. But that doesn’t mean you don’t matter. It means you’re the thing that follows.

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Figure out what works. Figure out how to lay live flowers at your dead mother’s grave. Know she’s dead. Memory is lovely, but it is not life.