IN PRAISE OF SIMPLE THINGS

I opened my eyes and there was sunlight. I didn’t even need to rub my eyelids again to wake up to the obvious. Or the miracle. I grabbed my raincoat, zipped it up, and opened the gate for the dogs. They know better than I do how to praise freedom with the body.

The raincoat stays on because days create habits of precaution, building muscle against the unknown—or against sheer delight. Still, I go. Each of us leans on whatever we can. I follow them, their tails disoriented in the wide-open morning. I move along holding onto the ruins of the path. The ground is still slippery with moss that refused to leave. The river has gained personality and lost some of its fury. The tree trunks are marked with dark scars, and the banks have dissolved into mud.

Why are the marks of fury always dark? Why must the banks always be laced so tightly? No one ever said the ladies of old would become less composed if the clasps at their bodices were loosened. No one ever said it was necessary—that the riverbank required restraint.

Forgive me. Perhaps someone did say it.

Perhaps everything has already been said.

I carry lists of phrases, headlines, situations, circling without pause. They weigh down a body that refuses to stick to the asphalt of certainties, that forgets to hold its hands against stone laid upon stone—things meant to survive time and ruin. I no longer want to know everything. Ignorance is still the virtue of dreamers. I no longer want arguments stored away or theories punctuated with the specialized grammar of media discourse. Perhaps I would rather spread ointment on chilblains and wait until I have two healthy hands again—hands to pick lemons or clap in a theater.

I came back with the dogs. Windows open, vacuum humming, bed made, laundry waiting to be hung.

Months ago, just before entering the machine for an MRI—wearing that hospital gown that steals every trace of identity—the technician asked me, “What music would you like to hear during the exam? You can choose.”

And if I die, what do I want to carry in my ears? They say that is the last thing we ask for.

“Beatles!” I blurted. It felt safe—no chance of collapsing from boredom with any of their songs, and always a few anchors in memory to save any doubting soul inside the gown, inside the machine, inside the pain that had brought me there.

So yes, I came back with the dogs. I put Blackbird through the speakers. Stretching the socks—washed somewhere between right side and wrong side—suddenly felt like the most satisfying task I’d had in a long time. How could I ever have held such resentment toward a pair of socks? The raincoat had already gone to its rest; the sun had no intention of fooling fate. Down below, the river kept running, and above it the clouds refused to impose themselves.

I turned up the volume. Let It Be. Don’t Let Me Down. I let them send their refrains out into the open air—anthems for the less cloudy days. The clothesline is full: pants, sweaters, all kinds of fabrics, though dark colors prevail. I’m one of those who doesn’t trust fabrics to miracle detergents meant to hold the color.

All miracles are attempts at containment.

Pain must be allowed to fade. The shouts of social certainties must give way to nobler fibers, without fear that the elastic will one day give out. One must stop being elastic—and stop being rigid (I think this while turning the denim toward the sun).

Chaos has become so normalized, and the evangelization of reason so relentless, that the ordinary passes unnoticed.

When the river fills again with its inner force and spills over its banks, I will remind it that there is no harm in overflowing and returning to its natural course.

The simple things that will never be banal.

Translated by Diniz Borges – PBBI, Fresno State.