Building

Why can't I put into words.

How it is more miraculous that a beaver can make a dam.

Than a person can make a sidewalk.

And it doesn't necessarily sound right.

But I think we know.

That it's true.

And that it's a god forsaken shame.

That we're missing it. 

And I know I don't have all the answers.

Or any of them.

But I just want to know,

For what? 

Abilene

I know my grandparent's house. I wake up late, to no one around. As I move into the kitchen, I can hear the pulse and click of bare feet on linoleum. As they press against it and release. How many feet have sounded here, before I imagine. Where many feet learned to step. 

Into the kitchen, I press against the cabinet door, for the catch to release. It springs open. Everything in order. Everything where it has been, since I have known where things have been. 

The kitchen, in unwavering consistency. The arrangements on the cabinets. The cutting board. And when Pepi was alive, even that his breakfast and vitamins. His unboiled egg and pre-toasted toast. In position, in formation. And ready for the morning. 

And so I can barge and amble through this space. Bound from where the coffee is kept and over to the silverware drawer.

The consistency and spartan simplicity. The space, and the quiet.

It takes me aback. Gives me pause.

Have I ever been, this quiet? In my space. In my surroundings.

And surely, I have, when they're found around me.

So to delve deeper.

Have I ever been intentional?

About space. About emptiness.

About necessity.

Or am I just cluttered and burdened and lost. 

Back in the kitchen, working man coffee, in an educated home. Mimi could make money, going grocery shopping. A fighter if ever there was one. This woman waters her lawn in the middle of the night during a drought. Reluctant to miss church on Sunday. She doesn't necessarily like things the way they were, she wants things the way they should be. 

Married at 17, mother to five, and grandmother or great to countless more. Here, at 27, I still receive a Christmas card and a birthday card, both with twenty dollar bills. How she manages this, with more than 25 descendants, having never worked, and now a widow. Well, it's beyond me.

So much of Mimi's story is beyond me. A child of the depression. 

Back across the quiet tiles, a house that my grandfather built. I step outside.

Abilene this morning is cool and clear with a constant breeze. The smells of summer are alive and confused, being this cold in the heart of July. But none the less, sit outside in Texas for more than a minute. Put away your distractions, and your superficial anecdotes. Try and just, be.

And Texas will talk to you.

Out in this yard, where he grew peaches and apples, pecans. Where clothes hang on fishing line between live oaks, and the air smells like red dirt and mesquite.

Like wide green blades of grass, just cut. 

And sun. 

Well

Well, I'm back. And it's easier.

It is, easier.

The coming and the going.

But I don't know.

If it's any better. 

Easier. 

Happier? 

No, just easier. 

And that, in itself, isn't very easy at all. 

Watching

Steve doesn't wonder if I'm ruining my future. He doesn't think about whether I should have a career already, or fret that I haven't married my husband. He just loves me. Without boundaries or restraint. Unconditionally. 

And I often wonder, if God thought we would miss it. 

This sense of humor.

If I am still enough. If I am selfless enough. If I am brave enough.

I can see a glimpse of God behind those eyes. 

Just the smallest taste,

Of being loved for the barest and most broken of reasons.

Just because. 

We are one.

Let's talk about the difficult things. Let's talk about walking blindly in faith. Giving yourself completely to what feels right. About love as the universal language. About learning the ways that we all talk. Joyze's language and Steve's. People who speak English, or creole. People who speak without any words at all. About resting heads on shoulders or hands on chests. About sitting in silence and watching the sunrise. About loving a precious Haitian soul with Down's syndrome. About inside jokes with children you've never heard utter a single word. Let's talk about the kingdom of god. And being a part of it. 

We are marching

Weaving through the market. The rich streets. The heavy air and the scents that burn your nostrils. Everyone is here.

In one turn of a corner, a woman is roasting corn over smoldering charcoals. Beside her a woman sits on an old rusted axle and tugs at a teenager's hair. It's second nature. They engage in a chatty and mildly devilish conversation. Their eyes darting surreptitiously to the left where some men play dominoes and rest their elbows against brick walls, unwavering in their eye contact. The corners of their mouths turn up unnoticeably and their eyes twinkle. 

In a shop to the right there's a barber, and outside his shop stray dogs weave and stumble between legs and machinery. Men are fixing tires. They clang heavy metal batons at the metal centers. Their shoulder blades swell and seize with muscles and sweat pours into their eyes and across their cheekbones. 

Tap taps swerve, and everyone has their own beat, their own rhythm. The street is alive. 

A little further down a man sells newspapers, and beside him are the queen bees. Women in their late sixties, or maybe just their mid forties, because life has been so hard. They sell fruit. They call out to you as you pass. Grabbing the cuff of a pant leg or swatting the behind of a loitering teenager, running and stumbling in between umbrellas, getting in their way, and asking for their attention. The swat is maternal. They are maternal. Everybody is their baby. Everybody is their child. They're squawking and chirping away at eachother and I step inbetween ashy and wrinkled legs. Spread wide, skirts on the pavement, bowls of snapped peas and cabbages in their hands. 

'Bonswa Madame yo'

They break in their debate and chatter for a split second. White hair and squinty eyes. Delicious wrinkled cheeks and toothless smiles.

They make bold eye contact and crack huge grins. Oh, bonswa Cherie. How are you. Not too bad, right? Having a good day? Okay darling, okay, off you go, you're walking, okay, tomorrow if God wills it. 

Real love. True doting. They give themselves freely and genuinely, and just like that, I walk on, and they resume their daily grind. Ever pleasant. Ever comical. Feisty grandmothers and no nonsense saleswomen. 

Wheelbarrows are strewn in a line bearing freshly cut meat, once cool and plump, it  now lays sweating and demoralized, dripping over the sides. Men haggle and large pieces are hacked and carved with grimy machetes. 

A boy walks to the beat of the music playing from his pocketed cell phone. Individually wrapped plastic bags of salt are on his head in a bowl. He doesn't stumble. He doesn't break his stride. His steps are confident and seamless. 

Shoe shiners line up amidst the mechanics and the produce. The ground thick with oil and trash. Streams of soapy water from the man washing a motorcycle just a few feet away. 

And the lotteries. Watching the numbers. Placing their bets. Brightly painted walls and chance. They step out of the barber shop, they crack open sweaty beers with their teeth. They pinch the cheek of a braided-head school girl walking by, or the swaying bottom of a girlfriend demanding to know when they'll be home. 

And it's hot. The sun is ruthless. And it's everywhere. Solace is seldom. I squint as I turn into the sun. The shiny metal parts of the motorcycles. The reflective mirrors on taptaps and chains strung around necks. Everything turns the sun back to me. 

My skin reflects it back to them. 

A single white girl. Hustled through the market. Caught up in a rhythm that isn't of my own device. Walking to a beat I didn't make. 

Hearing the music that I've never heard.

And trying to stay in sync. 

Conversation with a forty-two year old Autistic Haitian.

Hey you, ra. 

Oh, hello Izabel.

What are you doing?

Oh me? I'm here.

But what are you thinking about?

- I don't know. 

What do you mean you don't know, silly, if you're thinking.

But you see, friend.

These thoughts you're talking about are from my head,

And now, my heart is thinking.

You don't know what your heart is thinking?

My head knows the thoughts from the ground. 

But I'm speaking of my heart right now, 

And only God knows what we're talking about.