Softly

In response to

Force Visibility by Solmaz Sharif

Everywhere we went, we went

in pigtails no one could see— ribbon curled by a scissor’s sharp edge, the bumping our cars undertook when hitting those strips along the interstate meant to shake us awake. Everywhere we went horses bucking their riders off, holstered pistols or two Frenchies dancing in black and white in a torn-apart living room, on the big screen our polite cow faces lit softly by New Wave Cinema I will never get into. The soft whir of CONTINUOUS STRIP IMAGERY. What is fascism? A student asked me and can you believe I couldn’t remember the definition? The sonnet, I said. I could’ve said this: our sanctioned twoness. My COVERT pigtails. Driving to the cinema you were yelling This is not yelling you corrected in the car, a tiny amphitheater. I will resolve this I thought and through that RESOLUTION, I will be a stronger compatriot. This is fascism. Dinner party by dinner party, waltz by waltz, weddings ringed by admirers, by old couples who will rise to touch each other publicly. In INTERTHEATER TRAFFIC you were yelling and beside us, briefly a sheriff’s retrofitted bus. Full or empty was impossible to see.

Softly. I am thinking of my toes in the water at Saddlescombe farm. Water doesn’t do it justice, only part of the story. A puddle. A mixture of water and earth, a gravel basin, a cloud of spilled oil floating across the surface, like contours on a map yet glimmering, holding the colours of the sky, of rainbows, within. The solution of earth and water, thinly diluted mud, is soft on my feet, lapping at the tops of my arches, concealing my toes. Behind, with movement, the darker earth stirs, a fertile black-brown; it rises, then is absorbed into the flood and all is fawn again. Soft; soft colour, soft feel. Softly. I stand softly in my bare feet, savouring this puddle, this moment, the rain falling yet softly, slow gathering of drips along my brows, my nose, a soft plop into the puddle, quickly incorporated. Softly. I have to write about my walk that day. Well that’s not strictly true. I feel obliged to. No-one is making me. But there is a hope, an expectation. The walk workshop in exchange for some writing about it. And not just writing, but reading aloud. I am frightened by it. Here I can write, I know what’s expected, feel comfortable with the framework. But there, there is no framework – write whatever you want in relation to your experience of the walk. So much I can feel and say about it – the sensual, the associative – but to write about it? How can I do that? How can I choose what to focus on, what words to use, what sentences for fragments to form, what structure to assemble or use to delineate my parameters? I feel overwhelmed. I want to be able to do it – not the same as wanting to do it or feeling able to do it. Does the word “softly” offer me anything here? Can I hold myself softly in this process; can I hold my experience softly in my mind and see what comes or not? It is okay if I don’t write anything, in theory. Yet it isn’t really for me. I want to give back. I want to have confidence in my abilities, in myself. I want to write and to share and to not judge what I have written, or prejudge it before I have even written it. Where is the balance between self-trust and judgment, discernment? Not everything I write will be interesting, meaningful to me, to others, and not everything I write will be dull and insignificant. How to find the point of balance? How to resolve this?

The air is soft today. Love feels soft today. On the beach this morning I stopped to talk to a woman with a rescue dog. This is Rubble, she said. Rubble had limpid brown eyes flecked with gold, chestnut floppy ears and a speckled brown and white coat. He’s come all the way from a Greek island, she said, from a charity called Healing Paws.

You and I are looking for a dog to rescue.

My dog is an alpha female whose affection is delivered sparingly and only when she chooses. Living alongside her, I learn to love. You keep loving whether or not you receive daily affection in return. My lurcher and I have lived alongside each other (note I do not write ‘together’) for 7 years. I feel I disappoint her constantly. Only when she is running, running, across the savannah, her savannah, the prairie Downs, do I feel she is happy. Oh, and when she’s with my sister’s dog, a scrappy terrier, who treats her with deference, albeit cheeky. Together the two dogs seem joyful.

I could not find hard edges today if I tried. I broke free of the sonnet way back when. I look at my dog and wonder, do you need a mate? Where are you inside? Your soft coat, lying on my soft bedcover, your scratchy basket, the pink checked rug.

You soften me. I am made softer by you. Cocooned by this love I am limpid, transparent, benign. Is this all it takes? Unsanctioned oneness? Without rules.

“ Excuse me, Miss. Would you care for this dance ? This was my standard request when asking an attractive female to join me on the dance floor. It risked a refusal and an embarrassing and ignoble retreat to the herd of young men who had not yet resolved to venture their protective cluster. If their requests were accepted, then partners of any age, could publicly engage in bodily contact. Customarily the Male would embrace his partner and, if competent and self assured, guide her through the prescribed movements of the dance.”

I hold you softly. You whisper softly. Softly breathing on my neck. A light snoring. I remember you this way. Fingers curled around my finger, soft wool around your body. Soft hair, yet to grow into your manicured mane. Soft skin. I hold you, hold this memory of you. A memory of who you used to be, once.

Softly, I tiptoe, trying not to wake you. The day starts too soon, you need your sleep.

I tiptoe on the dirty carpet, where your hair sticks, where your makeup gets smudged, deeper and deeper into the pale fabric of the misguided material under our feet.

Softly, I hold you, muffle your cries. Keep the noise down. Don't want them to hear. They should be happy we still love each other this much, you say. Sure, but they don't understand, they think it's revolting. So let me hide your feelings, with my fingers between your teeth, softly rocking you back and forth, holding on to this dream until it's time to wake up.

The day starts too soon. Life starts too soon. You have just arrived and you are already leaving. Departing. Will I still think of you when you are completely gone? Let me call your name while you are still here. Gently, softly, or yelling. I don't care.