Rise Up

I recently had one of those spells that boiled me dryer than granny’s oatmeal.  On second thought, dry seems an unfair characterization as I was actually on my knees with my face in the carpet weeping.  I couldn’t stop crying.  OK, I couldn’t stop sobbing.  And I don’t mean that I’m-gonna-let-myself-cry-this-out-just-let-it-go-a-bit kind of crying, I mean keening.  I was wailing, and every time I tried to pull it back in, I capsized again into a ragged maw of tsunami emotion.

That mouth was hungry too, and dark.  I know it wanted to wolf me down like movie popcorn.  I could smell the carrion stuck in its teeth, very, “The better to eat you with, my dear,” and smug, gluttonous confidence.

It thought me easy prey, and that was fair, my posture was an alter call parody made for Saturday Night Live.  All I needed was a really big, bad blonde wig.  My mascara was already running Rorschach tracks down my face.  My nose gets really arrogant during a spell too, like it’s got some kind of unspoken competition going with my eyeballs.  Who knew they were hysteria rivals.  Like if my nose could talk, it would say to my eyes, “Sure, you get all the camera shots and that mirror-of-the-soul press, but I drip snog faster than you can rain tears.”  Even my poor nose knows we’ve been socialized to romanticize tears and abhor snots.

This spell, however, was a snotty, moist, noisy and ridiculously cathartic affair.  I had hit the wall of my limits again and paid the price with precious human saline.

Sniff.

I think a good spell clears out the psyche like a regular fiber regimen aids digestion.  I also believe there is an emotional equivalent to constipation.  The daily pace of family machines layers stress, frustration, conflict and anxiety like a crazy Salvador Dali canvas.  I can’t exactly tell you why my pocket watch or my heart melted over the ledge of hope that afternoon, but the baffled king composed Hallelujah!  The persistence of memory!  The mercy of Grace!

The Holy Dove was moving too!

Even on my face, amid process, as my Lord of Song so lovingly does, yesterday, today and tomorrow, I must accept myself as and where I am in order to keep moving.

Face in the carpet, I heard only one mild request, extended in a most gentle, but somewhat amused Spirit.

“Rise up.  I know where you are and I know that bugs you.  There’s a difference between being broken and having a broken Hallelujah.  You’re not broken.  You’re my Baby Girl.  I love you.  I hear you.  Rise up.”

In that moment, standing up was entirely actionable.

Standing up is movement.

Standing up for something… well, now, that’s Revolution.

I’ll stand before the Lord of Song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.