Saturday, December 03, 2011

For right now, I'm gonna go for a walk along the lake and look for unusual birds like muskovey ducks and golden pheasants. I'll pretend I live on an estate where we collect exotic animals and we have an arboretum full of orchids. We have tea at 4 and dinner at 8 where we dress in tuxedos and evening gowns. There are butlers and servants. I have a dresser who helps with all the hooks and eyes. And I wear my hair in a big floaty pouf with real diamonds on long pins.

You never know if you'll see someone you love again.

Why is it when someone dies, people say that person is with Jesus or is in heaven or both? I don't find that comforting but I guess some people do. Please don't say that about me when I die, okay? Or if you do, be ironic.

Jesus was a guy and heaven is the botanical garden on Oahu near the North Shore. I swam under the waterfall there. They have Buick sized philodendron growing up trees. And tropical plants from SE Asia. Dream flowers. Plants with arms and hands. No cherubs. Not one.

5 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

When I hear someone say that some one who died is in heaven or "a better place" or with Jesus or whateverthefuck, I want to just look at them and say, "How the hell do YOU know?"
I think your idea of heaven is one I could agree on.

beth coyote said...

Thank you for the validation, dear Ms. Moon. I mean, Jesus has his hands full already with all the requests and war and shit.

Radish King said...

I feel the same. A better place than what? Spokane? There is no there there. You never know if you'll see someone you love again. Surely words to live by in the heart places. Every time my son leaves I tell him I love him as a kind of Voodoo net to cover both of our hearts because you never know you just don't. Everything is so fucking fleeting. I would fix your hair and button your dress before you stepped out onto the world's stage.
love,
Rebecca

Wendy Birdseye Pavlus said...

How the"hell" do you know there is not? Ms. Moon? You are better off betting that there is one than betting that there isn't. Thing is whether you believe it or not does not make it true or not. I also understand that Abby's husband was a Pastor and I can pretty much guarantee that she thought there was a heaven.....I am sorry for those who believe in nothing for they have no hope of ever seeing their loved ones again. Thanks, but I prefer to believe....It's called Faith.....

Jaye Ramsey Sutter said...

If by some odd chance you are around when I die please do not say that I died doing something I loved. I did not love being in pain or so feeble minded that I could not understand what was happening to my body. I did not love falling down at the grocery store, book store, Neiman-Marcus, Macy's shopping.

I did not love dying while reading or grading papers.

I did not die loving screaming or being afraid. If I die teaching at the college mid sentence on the NRA--I certainly did not love that.

How could being in the ground with dirt thrown on you "a better place." Whistling passed grave yards. Step over a grave chills and shivers.

I believe in here and now. Faith? I have faith in multiplication tables and fossils and the determination of life renewing itself. I got a lot of faith in psychotherapy and DNA/RNA. Aspirin works but we don't know why. I have faith in man and woman. Even though I see evidence that we throw rocks at the moon or some equivalent of that every day. We are a superstitious lot. No bread and loaves for me.