Last night some friends and I listened to boring music with voices as instruments and we talked about the people who were stolen from us, and the songs that they had taken with them. “I want to play this song or that song”, we said, “but I can’t because of her or him or this time or that”, we said. But it wasn’t sad. There are new songs, and for us in the room, songs that we now have together, and our heartbeats’ are still the same as our mothers’ and someone said, “summer follows spring follows winter follows fall. And not because the world is stuck on a track, but because each day God decides what day He will delight in.”
This morning I was able to take the comforter off, but last night’s conversations were still draped around me. But this wasn’t sad because “rich” and “sad” are not the same, and thinking is rich. I walked down the stairs so that I could go outside and find something.
I didn’t find it in the first place that I looked, or the second, but on the third try I found a jacket that someone had lost. The jacket looked warm, comfortable, and familiar. It looked warmer than any of the jackets that I've owned, and It looked like a jacket that loved and was loved. I slid my arms down its' sleeves and buttoned it tightly around my waist, hoping to feel as its' owner had---but the jacket wasn't for me. It fit who it loved. And as I took it off, the seams ripped and tore. I immediately hated my lust, cursed my selfishness, and wished very badly that I could put it back on the shoulders that it surely missed. I felt like a thief and a killer and all of my grief couldn't repair. But out of the ripping and tearing fell a note.
The note is short and magical, but written in Times New Roman font and on a sheet of computer-paper. At the bottom, after the part where it says “love”, was my name. But when I handed the letter to a friend, her name was written where mine had been, and then as it was passed around it showed the name of he/she who held the letter. Some of us said, “This isn’t from me, it couldn’t be…could it?” and others of us said, “From me? Yes. By me? No”. And here’s what the note said:
Dear, I Am
I’m sorry. Help. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Help. Thank You. I love. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love. I’m sorry. I’m loved. Thank You.
Love,
It took one guy ten seconds to read the note, a girl fifteen minutes, her sister an hour, and so on. The words, other than the signature, don’t change—but extending invisibly from the lines that say, “I’m sorry”, “Help”, “Thank You”, and “I love”, are words like “for”, “with”, and places like “Lamb Mountain”, “the lake”, “the dump”, and names like _____, and _______, and_____________, and ___, and___, and ________, and____, and______, and_____, and____, and_____, and _____, and_____, and_____, and________,_____, and _______, and__________, and ___, and___, and ________, and____, and______, and_____, and____, and_____, and _____, and_____, and_____, and______,_____, and _______, and_______, and______, and ___, and___, and ________, and____, and______, and_____, and____, and_____, and _____, and_____, and_____, and________.
The page is empty now. We wrote this note and we're writing again. Look for the love notes in the things that we've lost. Breath, look, find.
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