Sweatpants don’t suit me. Never have. But people love them, especially people stuck at home for months freed from fashion standards in workplaces and public spaces. For teleconferencing, a single crisp shirt will do. That one shirt and an absence of anything too personal—handwritten notes, self-help books, a jar of Vaseline on a shelf. Nobody needs to see these. That we can even consider spending half the day half-dressed proves the engines of vanity are being retooled. Consider hair. When the pandemic began, absolutely no one was having their hair cut, not even people who could do it themselves. We were stunned. Any tending of appearance seemed petty and irreverent. Besides, it seemed impossible in our emotional state. These days, the concerns of dressing from head-to-toe have been replaced by a new vanity, one more insidious than before the pandemic. The corner thumbnail of myself in conversation on screen is like the mirror I am lucky to escape from after fixing my hair every morning. This real-time image of myself reflects my reflection to me, and I can’t help but glance… and glance… and… The distraction of wanting to and NOT wanting to see myself at the same time intrudes on conversations and strategy sessions and sincere inquiries of concern for your wellbeing. I can’t hide from my self-aware-self-consciousness anymore. Which makes me ask: what is it for—this concern for appearance and how I show up for the day, for you in that day, even if you will never know what kind of pants I’m wearing? Why get dressed? Why get all the way dressed up, tending the body, donning jewelry and a matching over-shirt, the handprinted one I found with my son when Comic-Con was in town two years ago? I dress up—even now—because I still believe looking my best gives a welcome gift to the world, even the incidental world of UPS delivery drivers and neighbors bringing their garbage bins back from the street. Yes, the world I see every day is small—family-members and the two friends who are germ pod-mates. What do they notice when they see me? They could care less what I look like! They barely notice anything. I do love them, but it’s discouraging. What’s the point of wearing a mini-skirt if no one really sees my legs? Which is the point, of course: I hope to be seen. But not only for the obvious reasons. Colorful clothes and hair held up high with a flame salmon elastic are also a way I express my appreciation for YOU, you who are beautiful however you appear, you whose smile I crave. You who will sometimes smile because of me. I miss your smile. I miss the smiles of my friends, of the familiar folks who work at the drug store, the food market, the dress shop where I used to stop in just to visit with the women, to turn and share the way my garments fall just so, just so for you, my friends, just so to celebrate our life, here, together. Now, there is so little of that. But I keep getting dressed up. I put goo in my hair to draw out the curl. And I miss you. Karen Jessee Please consider leaving a your thoughts below for other readers,
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My mother always whisked at me, stop whining! That’s what they all said, the keening call of my desires unmet at three years old, and four, and five. Perhaps if love had listened, eyes lent for one certain moment, my pleadings would have found their rest, my voice settled like cooling water in our stovetop kettle. Remember the urgency of that whistle? I shrieked like that. These days, I feel like a child again. I pout until I am sick, helpless with rage as I cry out, Deliver us, Lord! Spare us the trial! For some, grief brings tears-- grace restoring balance deep in the blood, bringing temperatures down. But not for me. I am intolerably hot. People say, nothing is wasted with God. The way I’m steaming, I fear I will evaporate into nothingness, leaving no one to whine the necessary complaints, Angel of Death, pass over! Free us, Lord! Losing that voice would be a waste at any age. Karen Jessee ******* Please offer your reflections by leaving a comment below, and invite your friends to visit Search and Know.
If you'd like to receive an email notification of new posts, email me at searchandknow@mindspring.com. Dear God, Sometimes, the impulse to fall face-flat on my bedroom rug overwhelms me. Desire in my belly and thighs brazenly hums its opinion, wants to draw me down until I lie close to you with a body I’m ordinarily too shy to share. It doesn’t escape me how much my embrace might resemble what so many faithful people choose to do on portable prayer rugs facing Mecca, the woman who washes her feet in Anderson Park’s public sink before praying on the sidewalk-- or the families sitting cross-legged on gem-toned carpets inside the Orthodox church at the center of town, sweet-talking you while gilded icons chaperone. These people know how to kneel. They go further, fold onto their rugs until their foreheads touch down in a reverence both body-bold and soft with grace. If I were to start falling for you, I would praise you at home putting my cheek on the floor where I know who I am. But you are everywhere. I might as well lie down anywhere, make a fool of myself in the grocery store, the library, the pharmacy-- anywhere that people go: your holy ground. How is it I can walk above what matters most without a bow, a touch, a blessing? Honestly, If I let myself go, I’d end up prostrate on pavement, lawns, all over town. People would notice. They’d point and gossip and give me a name: The Woman Who Falls in Love with God. But that hasn’t happened yet. When I go to my room this evening, I pray that even the low risk embrace I can give on my rug might transform me into one of your faithful ones. Not just I, but my body wants to know how to love you where you can be found and what to do about the ground. Karen Jessee *********
If you would like to receive notice of new posts, please email me at searchandknow@mindspring.com with Subscribe in the subject line. The prompt for my Tuesday writing group greets us from the table as we enter the room—a pile of shells from the North Carolina shore. I sit down where sand has spread out like fairy dust to bless us, full of the kind of magic we all long for. Carol invites us to choose a shell to sit with, to write about. I know instantly which one I’ll pick. It’s the one she adjusted at the very last moment. Quirky and charismatic, it smiles at me, mouth open wide in a full-faced grin. I smile back, then see its swollen upper lip. The wound protrudes, puffed and shiny, in a prominent bulb of white. I can’t help but worry. Was my shell in a fight? Has it been through some trauma? Has it been bullied? Rejected by a lover? I hate that person! The one who cost this smile its perfection, the one who dared to slam a simple soul to the ocean floor. The audacity! I resent them. My shell shrugs the insult off with a casual spirit of “Live and Let Live.” I’m not so still, so calcium and calm about it. I have been hurt, haven’t I? I’ve been bullied! I’ve been rejected! My lip blooms hot and red like a carnation, at least it has when I’ve walked straight into a doorjamb, as close to hit as I’ve ever been, thank God. Still, the door, like those people who’ve deigned to dis me, truly disappoints me and offends—an opening not at all wide enough for me to enter into and be. How clumsy I am trying to walk through a door that’s so narrow! After slamming into the trim, it’s best to turn around. After rejection, too, it’s best to turn around. “There’s more fish in the sea!”, I’ve heard all my life. My reply? But, I like this fish! It goes well with a split lip. My shell gazes up at me from the table, its mouth open in silent conversation spilling fairy dust words into my notebook. It seems to say, even unwanted parts of us—whatever’s left of a broken heart, a diminished dream of fulfillment in adulthood—even those parts can speak a salty magic, words which bring savor to life, which prompt us, and each other, to turn around and smile. Karen Jessee If you would like to receive notice of new posts by email, please write me at searchandknow@mindspring.com.
When we’re born, we are strung like a piano. Our family does the tuning, whether well or badly. Our strings sound with the resonances of circumstance, of longings and catastrophes, love affairs, learning, and yearning. We warble or clang and clash, life’s fingers wild on the keys. We ring whole with harmony; we drown with dissonance. These strings of where we come from do this-- resonate reflexively without control-- until we discover the felt hammers for ourselves, bringing them down creating our own sound, dampening it with the pedals of self-awareness and self-restraint, muffling or ending unwanted, unconscious vibrations, stabilizing the instrument of who we are. With time, we learn to influence how we are played by life: foot on or off the pedal, hands on or off the keys. Our bodies and brains may be inherited, a family heirloom marked by water stains with ancient strings we’ll never be rid of. But we can learn how to tune, to play songs not heard until now, songs uniquely, freshly us—with melodies and accompaniment we compose ourselves. If you would like to contribute to the reflection and share with other readers, please press on the word "comments" below.
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