The man I want to be like

the ordinary becomes the container for the divine and safely holds what was uncontainable. the transcendent is disclosed in what is wonderfully familiar: bread, wine, fire, ash, earth, water, oil, tears, seeds, songs, feastings and fastings, pains and joys, bodies and thoughts, regressions and transformations.

~gertrude muelller nelson


he doesn't say much, but he says what matters, and tonight we visit the garden because these are the things trent tells me are important. "let's hold hands and walk along each row and see how things are growing," he says, and we're both in our pajamas and we touch palms along the soiled path.

he puts me in the moment, fully alive here, and he breaks me open so i really taste the watermelon and see the way the light makes green our son's eyes and hear the oriole outside our window and hold love in a way that says, i adore you.

we broke up for two years in university, me chasing philosophy's men and all the while missing him, with his farm-boy smile and long legs and his simple way of loving God. this crew-cut kid who'd kissed me hard after six months of holding hands and then, made me a thank-you card from marker and paper, a card tucked into my Bible for it was sacred.

we broke up until the day i saw him in church singing. standing beside a boy no one else liked, for that's the way trent was, the way Jesus said we should be, begging Zacchaeus down from tree because he knew what it felt like to have his lunch money stolen. he sang even though he couldn't carry a tune and his eyes were so fixed on heaven all i could see was the man i wanted to be like. the one who would carry me to God.

and as we walk these garden rows, we leave behind the years of anorexia and medication, the nights of him crying for the bones, the questions and the hard, and we kiss in the strawberry patch, fully here, these fingers tangled, this man and woman growing into one, even as seeds unfurl.





(a repost from the archives, as I've been battling the flu this weekend. love you guys. e.)

*linking with Laura, Michelle, and Jen 

**this week at Imperfect Prose, the prompt is LOVE... won't you join us? 5 pm on Wednesday.