In the Details

I have forgotten Emma's soccer shoes. I thought I had the shoes in the rush to get out the door. I had them in my hand just fifteen before. I know I did. But there is no time before her game to turn around and go home and get them. My husband shakes his head. It appears I have dropped the ball again.

Details, Jennifer. Could you just pay attention to the details?

My feelings are bruised a little, but it is true. I forget to lock doors. I go to the store for milk and forget the milk. I am the mother at school who signs up for class helper on Columbus Day, when there is no school. I am constantly in a frenzy of disorganization. So, I shouldn't have hurt feelings at all. The details escape me.

But, no, I think I should defend myself. I am acutely aware of details. Just not the operational ones.

I am in Wal-mart. While in the paper and plastic isle, perusing the cling wrap, I find myself beside an old man. He is shopping intently for trash bags, tall kitchen size. He is dressed in all black, from his baseball hat to his loafers. Except for his tie. It jumps out at you like crayons spilled on the floor. It is an explosion of primary colors on the black backdrop, hanging out there in the middle of a Wal-mart isle. I wonder what made him choose this particular tie, this tie especially made for trash bag shopping. I select saran wrap, and pass the old man gingerly with my cart. He has a box of trash bags in his hand, reading about what I can only assume is the resiliant quality of the plastic, but he is perfectly comfortable in his audacious tie.

This is something I notice.

Recently, my family and I took an autumn trip to North Carolina, where we visited the Biltmore. It is a monument to what money can create. It stands in the mountains and is as audacious as the old man's tie. It is opulent to a beautiful fault; there is too much to see and take in, especially with three children, one of whom I had to carry throughout the entire tour of the house.

It was the view outside the house, however, that gained my attention. On the smooth stone of the Biltmore clung at least 10 or more ladybugs, just tiny drops on the massive wall. They probably were not aware that they were clinging to such a massive structure visited by thousands because of its perfection.

They were literally just ladybugs thinking they were resting on an ordinary wall.

This is something I notice.

Life, living, is so enormous. It is bursting open with details, tiny pictures of vivid humanity mostly overlooked by the masses. Except for people like me, who forget soccer shoes but never forget an old man's tie.

Just a thought from the Biltmore:

The Same Tattoo

the place is not
important the
crowd seeps into
the weak sepia
sky the ground
bleeds gray and
gravel scrapes
endlessly under
feet it is
all unimportant
but for my hand
resting on this
stone splayed
among dark blood
ladybugs drops
of dotted elegance
attached to a
sheet of granite
solid perfect
but insects don't
care to mar
the surface of
something faultless
he says to me
look at them
they like you no
no wonder since
you have the
same tattoo
which is true
a small blunder
on my back an
almost unconscious
decision permanent
unlike these
scarlett pearls
lining the neck
of this house
they can light
anywhere they
please until the
frost comes

MEET

I am tired. I have been this way for awhile. It is a mind consuming weariness; a pack of worries and responsibilities cinched together by thick ropes and laid across my back. My tiredness is nothing compared to some, and almost disabling compared to others. It is tiredness that we all feel and then will eventually feel again. We are none immune to it. I lay my head against my pillow in a dark room in a night where the sky is run through with flicks of stars. From here, they look minute, but I know they are part of an extraordinary greatness. I consider this, but draw back into something small, my small life in such a big world, where understanding is a little easier. My prayers to God, in this place of smallness, are audible to the walls that surround me, and I wonder how far the reverberations of my voice's sound reach. Do they make it the stars, to the point of enormity and unsatisfied heat, or does God hear them through the tiny, tiny perforations in the night sky, a tiny pulse of words that tell him a story? I just want to meet Him somewhere, it doesn't matter to me, and take off this pack of worries and lay it at His feet. This pillow, this place where I rest, I fear is not the rest I need sometimes.

MEET
me in the
middle where
marbles flipped
by child hands
roll in concentricity
to the core and
disappear without
a scratch across
the ground or
MEET
me at the edge
where I will
turn sharp curves
and right myself
in the pixel light
on the periphery
where borders
between opposites
blur and fade
MEET
me at the
beginning or
end of circles
radiating from
a singular stone
thrown into
the serenity
of a still lake
I do not mind
the place or
time or plane
of orientation
but
all I want
is to
MEET
there where
a reality
erupts from
a place of
crossroads