The powers abhor lavender because they are afraid. They have reason to tremble. If we remember that blue veins and red capillaries splash down in the same purple park, we might heal. The abyss knows it is under attack every time opponents erupt in affection. Apocalypse convulses when someone kneels to see if a foe has wet eyes, and both rise together.
Like all liars, the powers carry shakers of truth. Blind the tongue with basil, and children will not know there is spinach in the lasagna. Sprinkle jagged flakes of opinion, and adults will forget that the dinner bell sounds the same under every roof. The powers are correct that our answers do not match. The powers unplug the damaged cord of Kum-ba-Yah, then convince us all the lights are out.
It is true that fast unity provides no nutrition. Real saffron and marjoram distinguish our dishes. If you brush your teeth, you will still taste them. We have all burned the roofs of our mouths. We do not need to burn down the house. We know where we stand. We need to remember where we sit. There are cushions overstuffed enough for red and blue bottoms.
The powers offer thrones, and we are tempted. Their seats are hard enough to change your heart rate. The brocade is gilt with “gotchas.” Everyone in the castle agrees with us. There are no windows or jesters. Conceit comes in cups large enough to swim the backstroke. Wall tapestries are restricted to primary colors. Watercolors have been banished. Watercolors always include purple.
Always, some small animal finds a loose stone in the wall. It may be the feral calico, hand-painted in pastels before she was born. It may be the fox, more orange than red. It may be the skink, more green than blue. The uninvited one gallops among the goblets, shattering glass and mixing the wine. The fever breaks. Erect exclamations curl into commas. This is our chance.
Someone’s cheeks flush magenta. Cerulean tears ripple like reins. When your opponent tells you her mother is ill, you are bereaved of an opponent. Someone may surprise you with a scarf. There are tassels to remind you where you were in the psalter. When “they” make you something with their own hands, there is a severe uptick in the population of “us.”
Healing may wear a fool’s cap. Do not underestimate the pinwheel on top, which catches the light and blinds our guards. Ogres become human in the grocery store more often than the pulpit. We all get overwhelmed in the Cheez-It aisle. We all watch videos of old men holding onto older men so two good men can cross the street. We all want to see aurora borealis in our own improbable latitude.
Lavender creatures are stronger than powers. We can bend so the lighter ones may climb on our backs. We can shoulder the weight of the weird and the one-eyed to build a ladder to the windows. We can weld convictions into carabiners, choosing a better chain.
We can grit our teeth into grappling hooks, waiving our right to disconnect the difficult. We can glue the chipped islands into a continent. The tectonic plates tower with good bread. “Us” is a wide and purple country, unmarked on the authorized map. The powers are afraid.
Are you sure you want to join me out here?
The air is thin, and the risks are dense. You will be called a fool. This is not a hazard but a certainty.
You will regret yourself daily. You will get yourself into thickets that could have been avoided for a lifetime.
You will feel like you’re running out of time. You will feel like you’re impinging on proper people’s time. You will lose the lullaby beat of ordinary time.
Are you sure about this?
Don’t misunderstand me. I can barely restrain my hope that you’ll hop out on the twig beside me. I want you to behold the beauty and the broadlands and the breadth and height and length and depth.
I want you to be my holy kindred spirit. I am doused in disorganized religion, and all it takes to find family is a mystical “maybe.”
You may court fairies in tree knots or patterns in the stars. You may keep Sabbath in the suburbs or sing in street-front tongues. As you ride ancestors’ horses or see the One in a thousand faces, we walk together. If you trust there’s a meaning, take my hand.
Jesus is my everything, but if you have even an inkling of an enchanted universe, we are on the same page of the boundless book.
We know we are not alone, which makes life luscious.
We know we are Love’s offspring, which gives days life.
We know our ache is honest, which makes love bold.
And thrilling.
And inexhaustible.
And extremely hazardous.
Winged with wonder, we can’t help but fly. Loved beyond sense, we sense our purpose. Sent like candles, we entrust ourselves to the Breath.
Are you sure you want to do this?
I’m not sure either of us has a choice. Once we’ve been swept into the net of love, we won’t forget our wings. Released, we are bewildered by our bravery, feeling around for fears that fell out of our pockets.
Once loved, we become lovers. News gets out.
We are the ones who hand out benefits of the doubt like Halloween candy. We are smitten with surly coworkers and mincing aunts, the old men who shouldn’t flirt with us and the new friends who we shouldn’t trust. We cannot miss their light. We cannot knot our tongues when tenderness wants to talk.
We assume the best, and we are and are not wrong. We bumble into caves with torches that were not requested. We confuse the people we’re trying to comfort. We confuse ourselves.
We love our shambolic lives. We find symbolism in seedlings and sonnets in spiderwebs. The supermarket is as sacred as any basilica. We run through torrential rain with pink buckets. We get more than we receive. We overflow.
We ladle our love without making sure there’s enough in the pot for tomorrow. We break off pieces of bread for the great and the ungrateful. We call people out for being outrageously glorious. We call people in.
We get called foolish and childish, impulsive and innocent.
We get exhausted and exasperated.
We get impaled on the sharp end of human nature.
We don’t get to see that our love never returns void.
We do get to see vistas reserved for mystics and tiny birds.
Are you sure you want to join me out here on the ledge?
I’m not known for risk-taking, but this is my essential imprudence.
We’re going to fall. We’re going to fall in love with people and sunsets and glimpses of what weary ones deny is divine.
I would love your company.
