Thursday, February 5, 2015

Aspen, change, Oklahoma

There’s a tale I heard once about the aspen leaf. It seems that in one of the older faiths, the day Christ died, all the earth mourned the loss. The skies rumbled and the veil tore; the sun hid, trees bowed.

All but the aspen. It stood in its place, unmoved and unaffected.


God the Father saw, and touched the aspen’s leaf gently. And ever since that brush with the Divine, the leaves of the aspen tree tremble even when no other tree feels a breeze.


I wear an aspen leaf, given to me by my mother. It’s the only piece of “religious” jewelry I wear. It’s a weighty silver piece, and my fingers tend to find it like a comforting worry stone.


It’s been a reminder to think of my self less and others more. And to remember what we present isn’t always what we intend.

The doctor just called again, with more test results showing nothing wrong with my mom but time and age. As if being functioning and fully present to being bedridden with no bodily control in two years were normal.

My fingers stroke my leaf as I begin to pray. Again. Caught between feeling absolutely unempowered and wondering if I have the right to be afraid of something the doctors seem to think waits for every person.


Wondering if I am being proud and willful by holding to the straw my mom might not die soon. 


It strikes me as odd moving to Oklahoma focuses my thoughts on arrogance and selfishness. It’s a quiet state, full of farmland, Republicans, and the quickest sunsets known to man. Change comes slowly, is warily considered and rarely welcomed.


Internet only fully reached southern Oklahoma a few years ago. And no one blinks when a man to tell a woman she'd be so much prettier if she just smiled. Questions asked about the way things are seem to be taken as questions about why things aren't different, like curiosity were synonymous with change.

As someone who could use some time to adjust to quite a few changes in my life, Oklahoma and I should suit each other like Goths and torn fishnets.

We really don't. But we should.

During a conversation last night, a friend commented I don’t like change. And I was offended, which got me thinking. I realized part of the reason Oklahoma I snag each other's pantyhose is because it's not that we don't like change; we just prefer comfort.


See, in Dallas, I wasn't too anything; like just another tree in the forest, I blended in quite well. I had just enough different kinds of friends to convince myself I was fine as I was. Comfort took the form of familiar foods, expected rules of behavior, even speeding in traffic. I knew where my roots were, and I knew how to take care of myself.

I didn't have to try to be better or more.

But then everything changed. The sky grew dark at noon, my rock started rolling away. And rather than tremble, admit something profound and beyond me happened, I froze.

Resentful, I only saw what I had been cost, what changed without consideration of my comfort.

And I blamed Oklahoma for not being familiar and home, for not being Texas.

But now I tremble with the knowledge I have been touched and my life has been changed.

Thanks be to God.

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