Boring Rainbow

Written both the day after the election, and the day after that.

As I write this, Bereceuse plays on the stereo and my palms are caressed by the perfume of bay leaves.

I hurt my hand a week ago and had this thought to add three bay leaves to my brace; a thought that I ignored willingly.

And yet it persisted.

I’d pull the clothes out of the dryer and yelp with pain and three bay leaves would come to mind.

I’d help my child and three bay leaves.

Three bay leaves.

Finally, to appease this tsunami of a thought that wouldn’t leave me, I put one dried, crisp, uncomfortable bay leaf in my brace, against the side of my palm, and wore it like that for a day.

That leaf was the seed of inspiration, making me ask my child for my phone back to look up bay leaves and sprains…

Well, I guess that was a divine message, as bay leaves are an excellent aide for muscle sprains, strains, arthritis, etc. They help tone down inflammation, and they heal.

So I slipped in the other two leaves, feeling a fool both ways. They softened, and the oils did decided to do something, if only to adopt my skin for fragrance, and make me smell like the hot wind of Sonoma and childhood memories.

I knew last night and this morning that the wonder and darling of many hopes and dreams wouldn’t win the race. I knew it for two reasons:

First, the REM song It’s the End of the World and We Know It came to mind out of nowhere, and when music comes, I listen. So I knew.

And then the dreams. I dreamt that she was there and I comforted her. And then she sought out an old friend. And then she was gone. The feeling was almost as if she were a child and I was tending to her hair, which is an incredibly intimate, mothering, and loving act. And then her absence was heavy. Her absence was present.

And I woke up in that and already knew the results.

An interesting sea change, as I pick up this tiny letter a day later, is that there is an acceptance among my friends and I. Last time the feelings were so rebellious. And this time, they’re simply a stone thrown in water.

We all know that we will have to continue toward virtues, toward right and wrong, toward carrying the weight of rightdoings.

We all know that we’re powerful and helpless, both.

And we simply have to carry on.

Many, many beauties lost, including so many lives squandered in the service of righteous men, and yet we carry on.

I do believe in God-timing and I am hoping, beyond hope, for any good yet to unveil itself. I will be waiting with baited breath.

Waiting. Expecting. Hoping. Seeing. Being.