humanifesto on a narrative otherways
DAUGHTER (CONT'D)
(to father)
Yours isn't the only loss. Who she
was is gone for me, too. What
remains of my daughterhood
swallowed by this fissure between
us.
Op-Ed, her sports underwear exposed, slumps to the floor
beside Little Flame, examines the tear in the dress.
DAUGHTER (CONT'D)
You never feared a thinking
daughter. For this single,
courageous gift I owe you
everything. But I won't sacrifice
myself, and those we love, to your
blinded wandering.
Op-Ed runs her fingers through Little Flame's hair.
LITTLE FLAME DANCER
(to Op-Ed)
Will the men in their rage at their
mortality, in their fear of
loneliness at our inevitable
leaving take us and the earth down
with them?
OP-ED
(up at Father)
We hold you to your long ago
promises to keep tilling the
mystery. Even at this late stage
walk the new ground opening beneath
your feet.
LITTLE FLAME DANCER
The mother I remember would not
have wanted this give away.
CUT TO:
Narratives that encourage speaking gain in value from the act of being circulated. This energetic sharing unearths new matter in dis-covery, not larceny. We can feel the difference, the sparking carbonate air mixing some same as our own energetic endowment. But you can't exactly put your finger on it. A practice of empathetic beholding, eyes wide open on the tender always passing encourages consideration of how we use this energy earthnetted for us. This borrowing.
There's an alchemy to it of uncertain formula. These stories speaking for us. Takes a kind of faith. Mine is that we are capable of living consciously. That we are making the tools to help us travel through. That we can watch our hearts beat holding them at arm's length and simultaneously feel them within our chest in an algebra of love. From Arabic al-jebr, the (science of) reuniting... reunification, bone-setting.
The oldmaps fall ash from our hands. Yet what joy in our tenacious try and offer to the usknowing amassed en mass. We carry in our tellings, and in our bones, all that's come before as the not yet threads out beneath our feet, we the treaders of the Narrative Otherways. Not surefooted, alas. It's light, needs be, twirls heat and comes up altogether. Perhaps this is the ground for a sort of prayer. This marvelous transformation of energy. The best part of Stories.
What is it to stitch a healing?
What narrative exploration will reframe the selfandbrotherandfatherandwomanandother hate so vividly illuminated by stories of the desert religions that underpin our excuses for destruction of earthhome? Arduous work to suture the scars, resist nostalgic returns and let go what's beyond being undone. There are times when all there is to cling to is a refusal to despair. Not all contradictions resolve. Not all friends come home. But there it is, the drama of life.
