The Trembling Alleluia

Hushed, bowed low, reverent. The trembling alleluia.

I don’t know how to be.

I don’t know how to Be.

The past three years of hollowing-become-hallowing has resculpted the landscape of my life, like a river run wild, tearing against embankments and uprooting long-cherished willow trees adorning the edge.

Ravaging, painful and holy, the river. 

I’ve forgotten how to write and how to show up so I guess I’ll just sit here. In what’s true. And I think that is what I needed all along. No flowery language; no mystical prose. Just truth, right now, even wince-worthy truth. 

Like when light falls on everything you held sacred to reveal the truth: that it was nothingness disguised as everythingness, and I fell for it, I did, and I shared it. I shared it with you and you and you as a discovery to delight over, to transform you, to embody.

I’ve learned that on the other side of everything is nothing; it is less than nothing; it ravages and steals and uses you up and leaves you battered, penniless, mostly dead on the outskirts of your living. 

And very much alone.

Yes, I am intense. Yes, a bit savage. 

But soft, so soft. Soft with truth.

Honestly, I don’t know how to untangle it all and so maybe we’ll just sit with it, you and I, and be all awkward and tender for awhile.

—hillary m.