we don't know what we don't see

I got a new cell phone two weekends ago. My friends had razzed me pretty royally about not having one for a while, because they couldn't understand… why I didn't just go get one.

They didn't understand because they didn't know.

A few years ago, I had a decidedly unhealthy relationship implode. Epically. Right after the big boom, clean-up attempts started. I tried to keep my phone, to just change the number. But the first call I received after the number change was the ex, and thanks to caller ID, the new number just appeared under my name.

After 6 months of running-away-but-not-escaping; receiving a $600 cell phone bill in a single month; I was happy to give it up if it meant I was free.

Then, I just stayed unreachable. It was safer in the beginning, and eventually just became familiar.

Hiding is a form of dying, though, and I didn't see life kept on living without me.

Last month, sitting at a ladies’ retreat so far in the country rope and crosses are acceptable decoration choices, I listened to an AME pastor talk about the last class she attended in seminary called God and the Excluded. In her powerful voice and way, she stumbled for words to describe the Modernist movement.

Researching to write about the topic she’d never heard about, Rev. Ella McDonald struggled to find fellow African-American thinkers or writers discussing the topic. No one she knew, no resource she knew spoke to this thing she faced.

She hadn't seen it, so she didn't know it.

And no one she knew could show her anything different.

So what does a neurotic, (now) wired self-identifying Post-Modernist white girl have in common with an African-American preacher born Southern poor?

Questions. Wrestling with fear. Love of bacon.

We both know we don’t know what we don’t see. And we both know we don’t see a lot.

But somewhere between me wrestling this new fangled social media/Internet thing, and Ella digging through the idea of technology being the conveyor of truth, we see something better and fuller.

We see hope.  

Hope connects two people with only gender in common.

Hope shaves away fear, making the odd whimsical.

Hope encourages friendship.

And that hope unseen does not disappoint.

sparkle

i went out tonight
dinner with friends
in a home
with drinks lined up
like jeweled bottles

conversation
about movies and tech

and for a moment
i sparkled

then i went back home
checking on Mom
in a room
with pill bottles lined up
like pallbearers

conversation
hushed and muted

for a moment
she sparkled

better

i play pretend
flinging questions
like melting snowballs
thinking they 
make me
better
smarter
safe

like i don't know
any better

we waste time
playing games
like we made the world
prancing about
insolent
cynical
empty

like we don't need
any better

she gives words
embracing tension
like thawing winter
knowing hope
scares
promises
seeds

like she's found
something better