Black vultures have been flying in circles over our home on Yale Street North. I see them when I go for a run. I see them when I am mowing the lawn that is still recovering from Hurricane Irma, but God bless Puerto Rico, I won't complain about it here. I see these vultures's white excrement all over my minivan in the street. I lifted a blind to spy on them and found them alighting on a Japanese plum tree to feast. It felt good to know why they were circling, like some guilt had been lifted.
Do you hold guilt in your heart? Do you hear the distant thumping of it under the floor boards? Say you're sorry more often. Cry alone or with someone.
Recently I have begun carpooling to work to minimize my carbon footprint (and save money so I can spend it on frivolous other things like coffee or health insurance). In the time that I normally would be tapping my fingers on the steering wheel to whatever new highly produced song Maroon 5 currently has on the radio, I am listening to my passenger encapsulated in our vehicular confessional box flying over the windswept waters of Tampa Bay with dolphins enjoying consensual and pleasurable sex just beneath.
The conversation we have! We talk about celebrity psychics. I google information debunking them while my coworker drives. She's impressed with Tyler Henry, I'm disgusted. We stop at the airport post office and we run errands. We take the yellow Florida skies for granted and complain about having to do work at work. I think we are confirming to each other that we do have higher aspirations than shooting emails and touching base and hunting down an electronic signature in a "professional office setting" in 2018. People kill themselves for less, I guess. We open up about our families and our struggles and how we found our special person and how we find them difficult from time to time. It seems we find someone so different from ourselves that we couldn't help but love them. This is problematic. So rather than listening to a heavily partisan podcast and grumbling over politics all alone I'm talking about Leah Remini's extensive face work and her dead expression in the early morning and early afternoon. And Scientology of course; so much Scientology. One coworker divulged that due to what her therapist deemed a high moral complex she developed a compulsive disorder where she gets stuck in thoughts of killing those she loves. The more she loves you, the more you are susceptible to be killed in her mind, because she so doesn't want to. I'm reminded of a thorn in our side and blood and water flowing from Jesus' side. "Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid," because Sufjan can't help but relate to a child serial killer. I must say the hyperbole is much less "neat!" with two young boys of my own.
So like looking to the kindness of your parents when they ask you to "Show me where it hurts," lift your shirt and there next to your belly button where you once connected as one body with your mother is a wound still raw and bloodied or maybe a scar. Either way, be vulnerable enough to seek healing.
Jesus, I'm sorry. Holy Ghost, I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. Ash, I'm sorry. Children, I'm sorry. Parents, I'm sorry. Friends, I'm sorry. Family, I'm sorry. Tim, I'm Sorry. Puerto Rico, I'm sorry. Nehemiah, I'm sorry.
