Author: Susan Manners

Emma

It was magic. Unquestionably.

The timing that is.

The miraculous decision to shave her head at that precise moment. Lobbying her parents with a Powerpoint presentation on the benefits of a hairless head.

A teenaged Bruce Wayne.

A wide-eyed Peter Parker.

Imagine her list: So much cooler. No more shampoo. Money saved. Free-flowing drains.

But what about these?
They’ll listen to the girl without hair.
A modern day Samson in reverse.
And, most urgent:
Please release the magic.

How miraculous that the sheering occurred at the moment it was needed. Mere moments before tragedy struck.

The tragic and magic coexisted on camera for 11 minutes. “I call BS” flowed through tears from the fierce bald-headed girl with an unwavering gaze and ferocious courage.

And the nation listened.

It was magic that the timing was perfect for a hero’s birth.

Then she lead with a devastating “would never” refrain before standing strong, blinking through the pain.

And the excruciating silence.

Silence

Silence

Silence

The courage to be silent.
A superpower.
Pure magic.

A hero was needed and she was born with an electric razor and a kind resilient heart. From mind-numbing tragedy she emerged with a spellbinding look. An unwavering heart.

And razor focus.

She’s hope for our future.

True magic.

March For Our Lives, 1

“…and for fuck’s sake, Congress, please impeach that lunatic” said her sign.

“I love your sign” I called to her. She inched closer.

“But Pence is worse” said another woman standing nearby in the crowd.

3 strangers. Middle aged women. Now temporary friends. A Pence vs Trump debate ensued.

“But these kids. Amazing. I can’t stop crying.” Said the sign woman. On that we all agreed. Unequivocally. Unanimously. Whole-heartedly. With Hope.

March For Our Lives

The parents wearing matching orange shirts with “Enough” blazing across their chests danced to the blasting music (was it Michael Jackson?) in the middle of a crowd of nearly a million people (maybe more) while their preteen daughter with braces and her own matching orange shirt averted her eyes. She pretended to be invisible.

“Yes, we are your parents” the mom said, hugging her daughter while still dancing. The daughter’s crimson face was an embarrassment gauge.

“They are actually really cool” I whispered to the girl. “You’ll know that later.” She looked away. What do I know.

March For Our Lives

Wake up

They’re so late this year.
The cherry blossoms are due but
Barely a bloom and the peak is
Pushed back a month.

The tall handsome ranger just told
Me it’s the first time since 1937
They didn’t follow “the model”
“Of course they didn’t” I say out loud.

Chilled and confused by
The prevailing uncertain sadness
Who knows anymore what “the model” is?
It’s easier now to stay dormant.
Hiding from stresses is easier for all of us
Who are living through this tumult.

Exhaustion combined with endless worry.
Who can blame those burrowing?
There is comfort in the mindless.
“I had to turn it off” they say of the explosion of daily news.

But these kids have sent a rallying cry.
“Enough” they’ve said while still suffering.
Hamilton sings “The Unimaginable”
The saddest lament
The senseless loss of a child

Our children.

Now these kids are embraced by what’s good in our nation.
Millions have listened to their call

To wake up
To listen
To March

Wake up cherry blossoms.
You can’t sit this out.
Your beauty is a buoy in dark water.
Like these unstoppable outspoken kids.
These beautiful kids who will save us.

Just A Game

They swaggered in orange oozing
An air of dismissive nonchalance
A dose of blue bluster
And a few parts valid vanity

But the cruel relentless avalanche
Dropped smothering heaps (in threes)
And a complete breakdown swirled
Into a blow-out of flooding tears

They’ll be labeled overconfident
As the obituaries are drafted
For discounting the nervy upstart
Who (with nothing to lose)
Played with merciless abandon
Trouncing the brash senseless

Picking Sides

Their tragedy opened ancient wounds.
Long ago fossilized in thick lead vaults
(Have you ever seen Napoleon’s tomb?).

Now pain is exhumed as the heat of loss melts
Glaciers’ frigid layers into streaky puddles.
Aqua tears flow into forgotten gullies.

Now it’s knotted stomach and fitful sleep.
Isn’t this the definition of Advent?
Or reclaimed doughy tenderness?
The price of ubiquitous window peering.
“Vicarious pain is real,” said the missing limb.

Now those crusty lacerations bleed thick fresh
Blood oozing red, raw and open in the new heat.
And dreams touchably vivid in anthropomorphized
Humiliation and sympathetic sadness steep black.

Now I’ve picked sides (my side).
Imagined reasons.
Crafted stories.
But as a wise man said back when my heart was torn out
“The fact that the sympathizers like you better only goes so far.”
So I’m sad for me (or her) all over again.

Craving Grace

The bell ringer persists as sheets of
Filth teem, drenching the drowning
Country in dim shades of indecency.
The party’s advertisement blares:
“Children are expendable”
Childhoods stolen. Long gone.
(Long past so what does it matter?)
Please disregard the acute destruction.
As real tears flood unseen amputations
And wild rage snarls saturated sorrow.
Disoriented raving is appropriate
(No matter what they say).

The bell ringer persists.
A bystander’s empathy dilemma.
Craving Grace with a capital G.
A fistful of loose change poured into the slot.
Coins in a kettle by a ringing bell.
An innocence requiem.
A tiny anointing.

Wonder

6:20 Saturday morning.
Warm bed in the late fall chill.
Pierre meows to come in.
Ignoring him is futile.
I rise, groggy, resolved to return.
Then, a glimmer of splendor.
Our entry glows orange.
Window peering.
A ripe peach burst sky.
A glorious greeting.
Golden sun streaks shift.
A momentary quandary.
(My camera bag is in the car)
Shocking cold bare foot dash.
Plaid flannel rustles.
Damp grass amplifies the chill.
But, the bracing beauty.
A greedy gulp of magic.
Thank you Pierre.

Magic

A beat-up red Toyota passed me as I turned right out of the Smoothy King. It rattled straight for the dead end with resolute intention. A scrubby barrier loomed straight ahead. On the other side a magical place. It’s true. I’ve been there. For a minute I imagined the bespectacled boy determinably pushing his luggage cart straight toward the brick wall. Track 9 3/4. I glanced in the rear view mirror hoping for magic. If the shaky car had disappeared I’d have burst with joy. And hope. 

Silence is Complicity

The theme of my client holiday letter last year was “I didn’t see that coming.”
Or rather, how we respond to “I didn’t see that coming.” My letter told the story of my five-year-old great-niece’s love of wrestling and how when she was pinned by her older and bigger cousin she looked up at her dad in surprised disbelief, saying “I didn’t see that coming!” Then she popped up for round two.

After, I heard from a number of clients with words of agreement and encouragement. But one man sent an email suggesting I exclude “veiled” political statements in the future because there were many like him who “suffered” over the prior 8 years. My sister, the wrestler’s grandmother and an English professor, said “Well it wasn’t very veiled and sheesh who doesn’t feel that way (incredulous)?”

Today I’d like to have a conversation with that man. I’d ask if he still feels vindicated and proud of the president he helped elect. The president whose litany of “last straw” behavior seems so endless that 3-day-old news is a lifetime ago. And every day another transgression perpetuates our great country’s spiral toward an abysmal end. This is an uncharted story in which nuclear war and nazis are on the table. How could we see this coming?

It seems I’ve said almost daily “it can’t get worse than today.” But yesterday was worse. It is unquestionably worse than the child abuse masquerading as a boy-scout speech or the X-rated Access Hollywood tape or the off-handed “fire and fury” threat of nuclear war. That list is endless and so shocking the memories blur in my horror. But yesterday, he excused nazis and white supremacists, saying there are two sides.

He said those who stood bravely against hate, who stood stalwart for what’s right and who clamored for decency were also to blame for the violence. Was he blaming the dead woman for her own violent death? That is our president, showing us again who he is: twisted, vindictive, hateful, small, shameful. My little niece popped up again in my holiday story. Heather Heyer cannot. I mourn for Heather, killed from hate by an evil young man emboldened by the president. I mourn for your country.

We all should have seen this coming. Sadly, I think I did. I just didn’t want to believe it. Now, for those of us who believe in decency and know there is right and wrong, our only choice is to gather the strength to get up again and stand against this evil.

Silence is complicity.