Gift, the Rumor

He is the man of understanding. She is the ordinary woman. There is only understanding of the ordinary. You are with me as I am who you are. How did the rumor get started that he was separated from her; that he was extraordinary and couldn’t be touched? Why did she live in an ordinary manner, so easily touched? Why did they both live alone?

She started her own rumors. Unlike the gossips of fascinations with human failings, her gossip was her refusal to accept that her love was not wanted, needed, or in any way impure. They always thought ill of her. She would always feel him and always love the feeling of him even if she never saw him again.

They sing of him, songs of praise for his recognition. Did you know that everyone is only his own form? He is so large in his form of living. He calls all his beloved. I know he is really talking to me. Qualities aren’t the beloved; my form is what he sees and recognizes as himself. His songs and whispers of beloved . . . did you know he speaks my name? Be loved. Beloved. Feel, feel, feel . . . be loved, be loved.

Children can be competitive, jealous, lazy, and always want to be taken care of even when it’s time to stand on their own convictions. Our children are no different. They want to stay at the breast forever. Mothers are never respected for their power and it is no different for me. I must always encourage them, yet stay invisible. A woman cannot do whatever she likes. She must quietly support and nurture their dreams of power or eventual awakening. So they tell me. It’s a vicious rumor, if you ask me.

The world is a rumor and we’ll never know who got it started. By the hundredth telling of our passion, our play of love, a separation of our sex began to creep into the story. By the thousanth telling, I was a mere woman taken from one of his ribs. No, No! I could never live anywhere but as the heart of him. As the tellings increased in number I was thrown out, separated . . . my love impure, he couldn’t trust me and I would have to suffer the pains of my form splitting into billions of beings all crying out for him, all told that they were only separated from him because of my temptation, my impurities, my desire for knowledge and recognition of my own. By the millionth telling, the gossip had reduced me to being a silly woman, addicted to whims and desires of any childish man without any higher desire of my own. By the billionth telling, millions of women were killed as heretics. I escaped the killing. I live to spread rumors of love and recognition. I am the secret that he freely reveals. He is the man of understanding but no one understands him. He has a need for me—that is his play.

Do you want to hear a rumor? I have a special gift for a special person. I will be going to Fiji in early December to give it to him. Pass it around, interpret it. I know you don’t listen well.

I will hold the gift in my hands on the way to the airport. On the flight I will remember all the details of our lives together. I’ll watch the children, old men and couples and decide. Will it be the woman with the checkered vest, or the ten-year-old boy playing video games, or the bored businessman who blankly stares at me . . . trying to rest his eyes from the computer’s boring, glaring data? Who is juicy for some real gossip? Who would delight in hearing that a most ordinary woman is on her way with a most special gift to give to the most extraordinary man in the worlds?

I’m taking out my sketch pad and I am searching for a 2b pencil. The lines of a face rub smoothly onto the paper. I close my eyes for a moment. I see his face. His eyes look sad. The children must be giving him very little love. The passenger sitting to my right, a man about my age, watches the lines appear. He is fascinated with the process, the movement of my hand. I can read his mind and he is thinking, “How fascinating, right before me a face is appearing from this woman’s pencil. I wonder who it is? Does she know this face? Is it a relative of hers, her lover?”

I finish the drawing. The man next to me smiles and says, “It’s really good. Do you know that man? He looks to be very strong and yet compassionate. A most extraordinary face.”

“Yes!” I will spread the rumor. “I am on my way to see him. I have a very special gift for him. Would you like to have this drawing?” I sign my name in the left hand corner and hand him the picture.