Hide and Seek


Dear Eugene,

Why write in verse?  Why poetry?

Cos God does that, right from the get go, Genesis words.

Cos things are often gleefully obvious, like the mystery of a tiny smear of berry sauce landed on my t-shirt right at the belly that perplexed me for a good half of yesterday and forgotten soon after my hesitant unsmearing, finally demystified today at 6:58 when for the second time in an hour I laid jam on bread like I did for many yestermorns.  God hides in the Garden, but does it like a child, means to be found.  Peekaboo!

Cos honest emotions are pretty direct and presumptuous about a ready and willing recipient.

Take, say, the story of Mary and Martha.  I don't know how many times I've heard different iteration of a false dichotomy, pitching work against leisure, task-oriented Type-A against relational Type-B, working-my-ass-off-for-my-Lord vs. chillin'-on-the-beach-with-my-best-pal-JC.

Well, it is a short story and there are not too many lines, not too much detail.  Like verse.  A poem.  The set-up swift , trajectory short, and not much comes right down when it comes right down to it.  Things are hiding between the lines, honesty things, obvious things, giggling children.  One True Thing, the storyteller asks, And what's that?

 Mary was humming Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and she was in love.  She was as aware of a Presence as can be and she delighted in Him.  She's very happy about being this happy.  There's no one like him, she said, and I want him for my own.  Soon she walked up to the jukebox, picked a coin out of her long hair and played "They Can't Take That Away From Me."  There's a teacher, those are his words, and here I'm, on fire.  I want this to last.

She met a man, knew not yet he was The Man.  She could have been toiling like Martha, if needed, if necessary.  If only to stay in love.  She would give the world, do anything and everything, to have Jesus, the One True Man.  She's actually Type-A according to latest research.

And that was the story.

Yours, Alex

Comments

  1. KartiniJuly 14, 2018 at 8:27 AM

    Dear Eugene,

    “… she was in love… I want him for my own. Soon she walked up to the jukebox…”

    For a woman to feel loved, it would take much. For a woman of older age to feel loved, it would likely approach mission impossible.

    I am among the subpopulation of those mid-age or older women whose faces, uteruses & memories are fading into obscurity.

    As I write to you now, I cannot see my screen clearly, especially up close. I probably need a second vision test this year. Soon, I may not see the diminishing color & luster of my hair. In melancholy, my skin dangles from gravitational pull, crinkled & coarse like a Komodo dragon in the desert. Slathering more cream or layering the luminescent powder on my skin along with exfoliation to increase cell turnover will not produce any youthful glow beyond the confines of my fantasy. And I am not even comparing myself to the airbrushed, wondrously gleeful mid-age figures on ads. I am simply no longer the vibrant, vigorous Self of youth.

    During peri/post-menopause, the challenge for older women like me to feel in love escalates in intensity. What defines my femininity & essentially fuels my raw emotions & experiences - estrogen - will become exponentially elusive in my mid-age journey towards death. To some tragic extent, I am looking & feeling more like a man: increasing beard-like facial hair, deepening voice & patches of hair loss. Statistically enlightening, the risk of chromosomal birth defects spikes to "1 in 26" among pregnant moms in their mid 40s in contrast to "1 in 385" in early 30s. My potential contribution to the gene pool in this perimenopausal season would be curse according to latest research.

    Yet for me, perhaps the most climatic (or should I say anti-climatic?) phase of aging would be the insidious, subterranean loss of memories. Facts & details meaningful only to me, such as the tiny smear of berry sauce on a friend’s t-shirt at the belly or special dates & places of milestones, are being snuffed out in the darkening recesses of my brain. I cannot even think or imagine with the oceanic expanse of freedom & clarity at this moment when dying neurons & synapses are rampant like an epidemic plague within me. One day, I will not remember to write to you or recognize myself.

    When the jukebox is turned on by desire & poetry floods the room like red wine swirling down the throat, lovers & friends & strangers mingle in humor & hope without the silence of irrevocable, perpetual loss. But stop the music & the dance - chuck the jukebox & the memories of yesteryears when you & I may have been the young lady or lad with admirers in the room - and gaze momentarily without a blink into our own eyes in the mirror before closing them to reimagine ourselves playing hide-and-seek like a child again.

    Peakaboo! In spite of the growing cruelty of aging & losses, I can (re)discover the most ecstatic, lifelong delight in Him. "I want this to last… if only to stay in love… do anything & everything, to have Jesus, the One True Man.”

    Yours, Kate





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