Soft Skills in Food Lion

What if what comes easily to you matters?
What if you never thought of it as useful
because it came so naturally that you assumed 
everyone felt the same way inside?

I don't know what makes sense to you,
what you do that feels like reflex?
Do you look at numbers, and they all just jive?
Did you hear someone explain how engines work
and you nodded, "Yeah, man, I get it.  

No need to say it twice."
When a child looked confused, did you know
exactly how to rephrase the instructions so
she'd bravely try again?

Did you think everyone knew how to do these things?

I don't know how.

But I did think that everyone was like me,

that the world was their cocktail party.
I didn't know it was anything special to feel
safe in this world.  

Whether by my history or inclination,
I move about the earth ready to meet you.
Not everyone makes sure their resting face
isn't bitchy.  
But I try.  Good god, do I try.
Even in Food Lion, 

okay, especially in Food Lion,
where no one is having fun,
If you happen to catch my eye,
you can bet it'll be watching yours just in case
you need me.

I try to say with my face, "Hey, this too will pass.
You're almost done, and the Cheezits are on aisle 4.

It's hard in here, and 

none us looks healthy in this

harsh lighting, but you're pointed towards the eggs,

and some of them won't be broken.  

Press on, little sibling.  You're doing a good job."

Yes, it IS a lot to say in a two second passing,

but I try.

If I had to be a color, I'd want to be warm yellow.
So, when you passed me, you'd feel warm,
you'd think of dawn and feel encouraged.

New days, new chances, your potential

and your value.
Because look at you; you're delightful!  
That's why I'm shining, so we'll remember.
Or maybe no one ever told you, 

so I'll tell you now.
RIGHT now, here, in front of the bag salad.

The brown bag salad.

Hey, don't blame the manager.

She's doing her best, 

but she's up front renting Rug Doctors,

and it's too much for Vanessa.

I never knew that not everyone is thinking this
while they're out and about town, 

looking for the intersection of the Venn
believing every two humans can connect.
I didn't know everyone doesn't feel they are 

living in a commune,
just out for the day, working our beats,
in TJ Maxx, in the brewery, in the church,
at the gas pump, 
I didn't know we all weren't self-designated customer service reps.
And I didn't know it might be a gift

given by my DNA or god

or the privilege of a safe childhood.

But maybe The Why is just another excuse to say your gifts

don't matter, because "Nothing good is easy."

What a sad sentence.

At best, it may be faulty;

At worst, it may be sacrilege.

Be easy with yourself.

You're almost to the Cheezits.

 

the Spring

This snapshot in time is girls almost women
coming in and out of my little home,
laughing and sharing,
but so much stronger physically and emotionally
than some stereotypes lead you to believe.
Maybe the boys know this and they
sidle up because they sense it
and you may say I'm wrong that boys are
visual and wild and that's why they're drawn,
but remember, i know some boys who grew up,
and I'd argue that it wasn't all feral.
You came to get warm at our fires
and our bright warm safety drew you as much
as our chatter.
And as the mockers say we make too much
of things --
that we overthink or complicate the simple,
we just quietly keep loving each other and you
and help you fan your own fires
because we are a safe place to grow.
because perhaps we were right in the first place;
it's more complicated than you thought.

a great Fall

i hope i always remember the fall of '23
when my son was home from college
figuring things out,
and my home was full of my daughter and her friends
painting little paintings,
laughing and creating and listening to Noah Kahan.
it was a good time, y'all.
and after i went to bed, there was finally someone who could stay awake
late enough to be up when she got home.
i'd hear my kids outside my room laughing and talking
teaching each other weird dances and about life.
it's like they did the work for me.
and better than i could've done it myself.
and even though sometimes i'd stick my head out to shush them,
i rarely meant it.
it was like having the little apartment where everyone became a kid again.

can you make a home that stays like that forever?

i plan to find out.

The Four Times I Met God

The first time I found god, I wasn't even looking.  No one told me to look, I just sensed Someone.  When I was a child, if I woke scared in my bed in the middle of the night, I instinctively said, "Help.  Please."  I was addressing someone.  After a minute, I'd call out to my dad to come check on me, but even while I waited, intuitively I was urging someone to help Dad hear me and get there faster.  No one told me to do that.  It wasn't that my parents didn't believe in god, but we weren't the kind of home where someone explained that god was there listening.  That feeling was just in me, and I could never remember at time it hadn't been.  Later in church, god was introduced, but I already knew him.  I'll use the pronoun him for now because that is how I knew god at that time.  That church was low key, low pressure, service-oriented, and loving.  I don't remember ever hearing about Hell or evangelism there.  Whatever I heard fit the god that listened to me in the dark at night when I was scared.

That was my first relationship with god.

The second time I found God, He was different.  He was a Him who needed capital letters.  I found out I had to know Jesus for access to God.  I'd always felt like I could talk to God before this, but evidently, that had been temporary, because I hadn't known better.  I hadn't heard about asking Jesus into my heart, so I did that.  And it was important to know Jesus, so I'd be safe from Satan and Hell.  Prior to that, there was some vague notion of the devil, but never as a real entity to worry about.  I learned that when I was scared in bed or anywhere else, the fear was him or his evil helpers, and the only safety was to call on God to "Bind Satan in the name of Jesus."  So even though God was still loving, a new unseen spiritual world was happening all around me.  It was terrifying, but I thought I was mostly safe because I knew God and Jesus.  Most of my prayers at that age (I'd started journaling them) were repetitious prayers for God's help, for my friends, salvation, and for safety.

The next time I met God, shit got even more real.  I was a young woman.  I found out Satan wasn't so much the problem as was my Original Sin.  Actually, humans had caused all of the existing evil in the world by listening to Satan a long time ago.  Eve listened first, and as a woman, I felt extra shame for this.  The Bible became a really big deal too.  God wanted me to study and accept every word without question.  And I did.  I was good at it.  I was naturally wired to thrive on a team with a mission.  I loved studying, and I loved doing the right thing.  I was such a good girl.  I was as good a girl as I had been as a little child in my bed at night, but I didn't feel like it.  Now I knew I was born filthy.  It was like God had just tolerated me until I finally came around.  I'd had a "grace period" like a temporary hire, but now I was in, and I needed to live accordingly.  So I did.  I did what I thought the Bible required of women.  The men did what they thought it required of them.  The pastors and the deacons and the elders did their assignments.  The women couldn't hold those positions, but we could teach each other and the children, so we did.  And all the time I did it, I enjoyed my work, but it also felt like a losing battle.  Every mistake I made in life was no longer a mistake; it was a sin.  It was a reminder that I'd been born filthy and incapable of any good without Jesus.  This was supposedly the Good News.  But I just felt ashamed.  It felt like God and everyone else had known I was gross before I did.  But I'd gone along happily, unhindered, ignorant. This type of relationship with God lasted over 20 years.  My awareness and shame and anxiety only increased during this period.

The fourth time I'm meeting God is now.  It's been seven years since I left the third way.  The third way was ruining me.  Until recently, I was scared to even say God's name because, although I knew I couldn't continue that relationship the way it was, I couldn't prove the theology wasn't true. I just knew I didn't want my kids or me in it anymore.  And I couldn't risk calling on Him or even physically touching the Bible because I was so susceptible to jumping back in.  It had been my life for so long that I didn't trust myself.

But this time I'm getting to know god cautiously.  I'm making sure god isn't mad if I don't use capital letters.  god isn't.  I'm testing the waters by using non-male pronouns for god.  god doesn't mind.  I'm asking god to confirm that yes, if humans were created by god and in god's image, we must have good in us even as infants.  And I see that good everywhere and in everyone.  And I'm finding out what so many people have said, but that I was scared to believe:  There are many paths to god.  I suspect god is huge, maybe a person, maybe a big pervasive love, maybe just something or someone I can't explain, but definitely the Someone that was listening to me as a scared child calling in the dark.  I'm not sure why god needs to be more.  I think we just thought we needed god to be.

Because of this fourth meeting, I am finally able to look forward to many more.

the carolers

everywhere we sat, the carolers followed
to sing into your face
to sing into the side of your head
to sing and sing about snow falling 

on the baby jesus.
someone at the brewery had decided

it would be an amenity
to have four art students move around the taproom 
singing gustily and creating atmosphere
and boy, did they.
the atmosphere of no escape.
we sat three different places before
realizing that they too were on the move.
finally we went outside to the deserted firepit for quiet,
but guess who was finally on break.
they greeted us warmly as they approached with their beers.
i felt you tense at the sight of their smiling faces
"Oh don't worry," they assured us, and we 

laughed a little embarrassed because maybe our faces

had given us away.
but just as your shoulders unhunched they said,
"we are fast drinkers and will get right back to business
as soon as we finish these."
and then we couldn't leave because we'd been offered 
the gift of a lifetime
special for us - the lonely people at the firepit 
suffering in all that quiet with no music except 

the sweet crackle of the fire and each other's company.
The leader sat down his empty glass and picked up
a two inch binder.
"So, what would you like to hear?"
The sound of your retreating footsteps?
Your eyes were so big and strained that it was the
moment I realized that an introvert really is different 
from an extrovert.
I don't remember what they sang, just that it was long

and they sang in that fancy professional way no 

commoners can join in.
And they didn't want us to join them anyway.

this was a gift.
No one inside was receiving such a treasure.
I mean, except us, when we'd been inside ten minutes ago.
As they finished the last clear bright note,
he said, "We are thinking about also doing weddings and parties.  I think there's a big gap that needs filling."
"Mmmm" you murmured swiping your hand across

your sweaty upper lip.
We thanked them and referenced restrooms.
As we got back inside and sat down, me laughing,
you recovering,
I didn't have the heart to tell you that out of the corner

of my eye, i could see the family behind you beckoning to the carolers and waving dollar bills. 

 

the tree women

this morning i went back to my trees,
a small clump of nature carved into a business park.

tiny woods but they do the trick 

even within sight of a strip mall.

oddly, i don't mind a strip mall;
sometimes "sprawl" just means "people nearby."

and if you turn to face the woods, you have 

nature-y solitude, and when you turn around again,

you can head to Big Lots to buy a welcome mat.

i'm not sure whether the trees were left there
or planted for aesthetics,
but does it really matter?.
what matters, is they stand together.
today I named them Sisters,
because they're females, I can feel it.
each beautiful in her own way.
one at a permanent lean like the friend who listens hard,

leaning into your experience, bearing your burden with you.

another one's bark is burnt and peeling, she's weathered so much 

yet still stands strong.
her neighbor, a short oak, leaves springing out, 

is lively and alert, 

ever the extrovert watching 

for any chance of a party.
they are all still wearing their leaves, even in autumn
which seems cocky of them in a fun way.
now that I think about it, the grove seems too established 

to have been planted recently,
some are older than others, which is how women 

should live in a village.
the older and the younger reminding each other 

of wisdom and fun
trading it back and forth, 

laughing as they learn.
I stood there feeling at home,
speaking to them and thinking I'd known for awhile 

that were I a tree nymph,
the world would make more sense.
I was content at first enjoying them, 

but eventually wanted them to speak and be sentient,
wanting for a moment to be the kind of person 

who believes nature speaks outright

then feeling disappointed in myself 

because I don't know exactly how it works.
but the disappointment passed quickly, because 

something is going on there,
something beyond the tangible and stationary.
I saw, and that matters.
I see with my heart that this place is special,
something meant for me that maybe I uncovered--
and it's no small thing to begin to believe 

I am not passive in this world.
five years ago, I came to the trees thinking of women 

as fairies who might flit among the strong trunks.
That's a lovely image, but now I see us as the trees themselves.
something has changed in me.
I felt it in my feet planted solid on the ground, 

straightening my shoulders
and turning my face up into the mist,
following my sisters' lead. 

Now I've returned and see there is room

for some of the trees to be men living and sharing with us.
The past fear has mostly faded, and I don't want my son to miss it.

But for today, I will take my daughter, a lithe little tree in her own right,

to play a sport with her peers.
I will watch them move and play and work,
laughing and smiling,
noticing and encouraging each other even in the missed shots
a totally communal experience,
a part of that little grove in their own way.

daily prompt: Exile

who put you out here, little wanderer?
it wasn't god.
no one sent you away, and everyone wants you back.
come home, come home to
remember who you are,
who you were
who you love
and who you long to be.
we miss you.