It could have been anything.
Any arrangement of words said or sent
could have done it.
It wasn’t the word “unabashed”
though in a later conversation,
it gave me pause —
How many things have I been abashed about?
What would make my top-ten abashed moments list?
Too many, and those that jump to the fore:
Crying during a routine gynecological exam.
Throwing up Korean barbecue at a bus stop.
Asking a non-pregnant person when the baby was due.
Walking in on my then-boyfriend with his hand up another girl’s shirt.
Exiting the house naked at a party with the expectation of skinny-dipping, and seeing everyone else in swimsuits. And them seeing me.
Wearing the wrong colors to a playoff game. Very wrong colors.
Thinking I was much better at sex than I was, and told so. In the midst.
Choking so hard on an oyster shot I sneezed cocktail sauce for a week.
Sending an obviously unwanted love letter.
Not sending an obviously wanted love letter.
In each of these,
I entered unabashed.
The way the heart opens a bid to the world
is not foolish;
it is the world’s counter-offer
that sucks it into the mire of context,
of taboo, of arbitrariness.
We can accept this counter-offer.
We can also smile with unfolding hands,
push away from the table,
and walk out singing.
— Halsted M. Bernard
5 Comments
I really love you can just take all these wonderful ideas and moments in life and just turn them into such wonderful writing.
Just where was I when all *this* was happening?
I sure hope having to suddenly come up with a “list” isn’t an example of a counter offer! Although I’m pretty sure the swimming suit thing was a lot worse.
This is really, really lovely. How often do you come across something emotionally stirring in a blog? Not often enough …
That beachballs pushed into the turbulence, tempest tossed, can become pies in the sky.
Really fine poem. I’m awake in the middle of the night, trying to make sense of the suicide of a poet teacher of mine, Liam Rector, who took his own life a couple of days ago in NYC. His poetry lasts. Yours will too. And mine. All the lovely words. I had a dream about him the morning after he died, a vivid one, as if he were making a visitation. “This is the first beer I’ve had in 22 years,” I told him, looking at the glass of beer I’d nearly finished. There went 22 years of sobriety, so I woke up relieved it was only a dream, planning to e-mail him, because I knew he had a drinking problem. Several hours later, news of his death. WTF. I have no idea what it means to assert there are no coincidences, but I’m open to learning what this one might possibly mean. Encouragement to continue on in life, a day at a time, clutching AA’s beloved cliches as if hearing them for the very first time. Anyway, your poem gave me an opening, so thanks, and now I can return to bed for some more sleep.