Origin Story

When Adam and Eve went to the world
left the garden
moved residences, changed zip codes
cast out, thrown out, banish'ed. 
The cousins weren't there.

They would have embraced their neighbors, had there been any.
Had there been any, they would have welcomed all
    as they had welcomed every bug, bush and bird in the garden. 
They might have called their neighbor Jo, hiya Jo!
and though that wasn't it, it would take, because Adam and Eve a knack for naming things.
just right.

But they were alone, after getting fired from tending the Garden
They were alone and when we see them
our hearts go out to them
and we want to wrap them in blankets and
say there, there and help them and love them and
show them all that will come.

When we go to them with blankets and cheer
they will know us at once
for any of us here look so much more 

like them 

than anything there did 

  or in the garden
bipedal hominids - family. 

Written September 2012

Farewell!

Please forgive me for turning into the person I sense I will. One who laughs and cries, but also gets very angry. One who doesn't express impatience appropriately. Who's stress engine is set to maximum, and startles at every noise. Frustration to the max. You will find me unbearable. I sense I will move from intense emotion to intense emotion, with never a break, never returning to the quiet cave I realize now I live in. It sounds exhausting. Your friend is turning 15 years old, the worst of the years. May 16 and 17 arrive quickly! I do feel now - I feel with my eyes but I don't cry. I feel with my shoulders, a tightness in my chest, a tenseness in my lips. My breath expresses feeling - I hold it, then let it out with a gasp. I feel in concrete packets, and in a narrower band. But then feelings calm and move away. I'm able to push it all aside. Yesterday I had a taste of it, I think it was stressed out anxiety that I couldn't bear, and I was glad for it to go by the afternoon. Why would I enter a world I can never escape?

But first this Donna wants clarify that *I* care? Perhaps it doesn't matter - that's it will be in the past? Have you seen it my eyes enough times to believe? Will there be some nice memories to cherish, even when I change into someone new? I couldn't have gone this far without you. I prayed for you nearly every day. I committed to myself to be your friend the rest of my life - though I'm sure I didn't meant it to be ending now. You don't have to put up with me, though I hope you do.

You have been such a good friend, Reha. Know that. You have been such a good friend.

Thank you for helping make this The Greatest Summer. Its been fantastically magical. Your influence has helped at many turns. I don't know why your just being you helps me, this Donna, so completely. You have the spirit. You have deliberate calm. You respect me. You act respectfully toward your family. You live life like a working marathon not sprinting too fast, just keeping moving with steady practiced steps. You live the life I was raised to do and I didn't think anyone actually did. But also when you teach there is a part of me that really listens to you. The week you teach of healing, I heal. Many of you one-liners the Spirit uses to pound into my heart: This Is True. When you told me to be nicer to myself that seems to have started a two week dramatic transformation that leads me here, now, saying good bye. You have helped me improve my life to the point that now its time to get difficult again.

The Lord has taken you with me on this little journey. Remember how compelled I said I felt with all those crazy things - that letter from my personalities, getting in your car after your run and having nothing to say? I've trusted you, and forced my way past the socially appropriate conversational boundaries that I know you'd prefer. The Lord has been telling me all summer: I'm making you into something more. If we stay friends, and its a big if that relies heavily on your unending patience, perhaps one blessing is to the chance watch with me. I make note of the nut job you took to the Broadway theater. And we'll see where it goes.