Spending Love Like It Grows on Trees

Jill Cooper is a bright soul I met recently when she did the 5 Day in Ojai. She just sent me this, and I have my favorite lines.... I'll let you find yours!

Worthiness is a Given (note from Lola: I'd call it Spending Love Like It Grows on Trees)

by Jill Cooper

The woman used to step out
 of her morning skin
and dress in protective layers 
of scratchy fear, and a hat of scathe, 
She lived in a perpetual kind of shock, 
even before the bad thing she knew
was sure to happen, happened. 
She felt prepared, that way. 
Prepared for what might, no, what
would certainly, go wrong.

She wore sturdy shoes, in order to kick 
annoying people. Those shoes had a stacked 
sort of heel to absorb the various shudders
the world forced upon her. She hid
her eye-rolls, not particularly well, since
she was good with words, but tried, 
with cool sunglasses, and a syrupy voice.
From that sweet voice shot hot streams
of venom

several times a day, 
to prove she was not so naive as 
to not have noticed how messed up
the world was. At home, she used only
her fork as the weapon, pushing it
hard across the plate, so that people 
would wonder if she was displeased
with them, or at some other mysterious
force (they did deserve it, for 
the record.) 

Then one day she grew bored of it all. She
wanted her head to stop hurting
and to stop minding so much when things broke. 
She wanted to laugh, without sarcasm, 
and to just see, what if love were mostly
a verb.

She wanted peace, at least, inside, she thought.
(You'll want to know that she had been
a pacifist and had even written
some important articles about war and the
futility of violence.) But it dawned on her that day
she was on her own, a type of battle on a body. 
How could one expect whole countries to stop
fighting, she thought, if individuals
had not even made a truce
yet with themselves and those around them?

Change was easier than expected. It was a decision.

So she left her morning skin on 
that strange new day
and dressed only in a layer of something that
breathed.
Something good for a party.

Suddenly, all the features of the world's face
 she recognized as those of a great
 magician.

And she rested in her new eyes.

Not being religious, she asked for grace,
 to see if it was free
for anyone.

And grace, not being religious either, 
came to her, arms wide open,  laughing 
and loving her, soothing and talking
softly to  her. 
She cried  a few things out- 
mostly about the past - but she no longer 
treasured it like a badge of identity. Grace being
a genie, turned her past into a purple geode. 
They set it in the windowsill, next to
the houseplants.

They have travelled together so happily ever after, 
now, staying up late kissing, 
gambling on peace, decorating the house,
drinking up the joy of world,
and spending love 
like it grows on trees.
 
By Jill Cooper