Doubt

Sometimes the doubt gets way too close. I don’t mean doubt about whether God exists or whether I’ll become successful in my career or anything specific. I don’t really know what it is that I doubt, actually. I just know that sometimes it gets too close. If I knew what it was, if I could name what it was that I doubted, it would then be even closer, and unendurable. I can never get close enough to recognize it.

I didn’t really stay up on US news while I was away. I thought the Te’o story had something to do with parodying Tim Tebow. I’d heard Armstrong was going to have an interview with Oprah, but I didn’t know any of the details until I got back. It seems like the story of our lives, the thin coating we use to name and conceal the scattered rubbish underneath, has become the essence we are most desperate to preserve. And maybe that’s part of what it is that I’m doubting, the story. I want to believe in other people's stories, the story of the cancer survivor who overcame his disease to become a seven time Tour de France champion, for example. And I fully understand why a college student wants to believe in the pretty picture and nice words that come across his computer screen and iphone. I understand why someone would want to believe that life’s tragedies can be remade as heart-warming made-for-cinema victories, would want to confirm those stories, would value the story more than the actual lived experience, would hide the latter with the former. I can understand why someone would lie to preserve his own story, even a false story, see it as a gift to or from others, would do everything he can to make his story true no matter how false, would yield to what’s much bigger than he is.

I’m not sure what the narrative of my life would be. I kinda know what I would like it to be, and I know it isn’t what I'd like it it to be, but as long as it’s not over, my life I mean, as long it keeps going, I can hold onto the story and maybe the story, or the idea that there is a story, keeps me going. Part of the doubt that sometimes gets too close, that I can never name or see too clearly, is the concern that without the story there would not be anything left to motivate me, that, though the story be not only a small part of me but a part of me that in truth isn’t really a part of me, is all or mostly lie, I could not exist without it. And perhaps the only part of me that is real, that is me, is the doubt, the part of me I can’t bear to get too close to because, if I did, it would be the end of me.

Follow Me

Follow me, love, for this
that my heart lead us always away
as a kiss that just awaits
where by the sun of your eyes we will travel
where we will find us all of our mornings
mouths that open like cathedrals
mosques that call a worldly grace
and songs repeating always the same prayers
and more yet more than we ever might be.

In following, my dear, let that alone be our love and our poetry.