Keeping Faith

“I only know to marvel now at the savage faith of the secret heart, swelling in its weathered case, refusing to admit that anything has ended.”

I wrote those words years ago in the concluding paragraph of an essay about outrageous hope and defiant optimism and the crazy illusions and delusions that keep so many of us going. In a way, this has been the theme of my life. The guardian of my dreams is a vigilant, stout peasant woman. She stands at the doorway holding a rolling pin to swat away the insidious sadness that is always trying to sneak in, then wipes flour from her hands onto her apron, which is already splattered with tomato sauce, and goes back into the kitchen.

It’s that simple.

But maybe it isn’t simple at all. Maybe it’s wise. An old friend of mine recently told me he is interviewing Chief Oren Lyons for a documentary. Naturally, I became curious, and I read about Chief Oren, who is, among other things, the Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga and Seneca Nations, as well as an author, professor, and advocate of Indigenous and environmental causes. He has much wisdom to share, and the following quote in particular jumped out at me:

“We have to be thankful. That's what we said. Two things were told to us: To be thankful, so those are our ceremonies, ceremonies of thanksgiving. We built nations around it, and you can do that, too. And the other thing they said was enjoy life. That's a rule, a law- enjoy life- you're supposed to.”

What if enjoying life were actually a rule? It’s a rule that makes sense, too. Of what good is it to do otherwise?

And now and then, life is so lavish with its blessings, it is impossible not to be giddy with gratitude. I am just coming down from a few days like that. Days of friends who came bearing gifts of estate sale kimonos and sparkling rings and a bag of books and pickled carrots and birthday cake and very potent garlic dip and hearts to hang from our rearview mirrors and rearview memories that go back across thirty-five years and most of all, a sense of fun and a spirit of yes and all the wisdom and strength and love that has accrued as the decades have washed over them and sculpted their souls and their beautiful hearts. This was our Bike Babe reunion, an unabashed celebration of gratitude. Chris and Lo came from the north in a sort of taco truck RV, and Donna and Teresa drove in from the south in Teresa’s new Honda, which is as close in color as she could find to her periwinkle blue bicycle, and being all together just felt good. I think we may have seemed silly to the casual observer, but silly is a dance light does.

Also, I had a spontaneous text conversation with three family members last week that profoundly affected me. It was a moving, remarkable exchange that could only have happened by chance. We reminisced about painful things from long ago, and somehow we were able to confirm and validate and comfort one another, sort of bearing witness. We each had a different vantage point, but the overall framework was a shared one, and we are haunted by it, and shaped by it one way or another. No one else would really understand. It’s like a language in which we alone are fluent, and sometimes it wants to be spoken. So I guess we didn’t imagine it: we sure went through a lot of loss and trauma and dysfunction in my family of origin. But there was laughter too in this text thread––and the fact that we can laugh is everything to me, as well as the fact that at least a few of us are still here, doing our best, trying to salvage love and good from the whole sad story.

And then, just yesterday, a big surprise: we are suddenly rebooked for flights to England, where we will meet our grandson Felix. We'll be going near the end of August (so soon!) and returning at the end of September (a long visit!) and now that our wish has come true, I'm grateful, of course, and excited, but also apprehensive. Covid, of course. I keep hearing that vaccinated people can transmit the dreaded Delta variant, and I worry about inadvertently bringing harm to some vulnerable being...like Felix. Last night, I dreamed that I had a Covid test, and the guy told me I was "borderline". Borderline? "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I said. For which there was no response.

But I woke up wondering about it. And it occurred to me that I am always borderline. I dwell in borders; I live at an edge. The margins, the quiet ambiguities…these are my habitats. I am sustained by things that are trying to be. I trust in a path that’s beyond what I see.

Yes, there is plenty of bad news. There are also oranges. And pie. Cherry pie, to be precise, which was this morning’s breakfast, and it is almost as good as cold pizza.