Saturday 27 June 2020

Missouri

Missouri, I love you. I come back here and eat pickled okra, sit in humid summer nights watching fireflies converse in the twilight and admire how life springs forth from every corner. I learned the dances of nature here, the intensity of seasons and the fecundity of imagination.

And also I am never going to live in a state with just one abortion provider, and the Trumpista delusions are literally killing you. Watching this sad spectacle detracts beauty from the rest and keeps you low. 

I remember in university—far, far away from here—when I argued that most poor, rural people didn't primarily wish for development to whisk them off to urban abodes, but rather diminish their suffering at home. I was slightly too articulate and rich-passing for anyone to think my words came from a place of knowing.

Yet, here we are. I sit on the porch, and contemplate the delights and pains of a simple life and a different world.

Riding that exotic tightrope of independence and self-delusion, we push out our own space in life until we are swallowed by the noise of cicadas and fragility of our own existence. Show me, if you will, the secrets of decay and renewal that remain intertwined in my heart, hopeful and fearful all the same.