NATURE SAID

I wish I could say his name.

I’d like to say his name.

If I could know it would make the difference —

I would say his name.

He took a melon ball scooper and scooped the last bits of naïveté encased within my packaging whilst sitting on a bed of tufted pillows, tossing melon balls to people who needed for some reason or another — the balls of melons. To make them into something they wanted to be but didn’t know.

There are people inhabiting this world who take a peculiar liking to melon balls. Who need melon balls. They think they want the melons to be in a ball. It’s wild I tell you. Otherwise these people, they can’t figure out what makes the purpose of a melon so special? They think, who wants to eat sliced melon when it can be scooped into tiny spherical bite-sized balls?

The way I see it there are two ways to think about potentially saying Melon Scooper’s name:

One.

Saying his name outs him. Everyone within earshot will have been properly informed and in doing so, delivers a sliver of poetic justice to the injured. It potentially has the ability to induce a catalytic wave of long-waited healing.

Saying his name additionally saves others from the clearly implicit degradation of melon ball subjugation. Which might be what’s needed. But this is also a gamble. Because saying his name could bring on a mercenary of Minions* and honestly — no offense if you are one or know one — I have nothing intentionally ill-aimed toward minions, for which I apologize profusely if I come off brash or offensive because we can’t always help if one is a minion can we? But I think I’m allergic. To minions. Onions? I can take those all day. Minions? Not so much. Because the way I feel about minions is the way I feel about contagion. Which is basically a disease brought on through transmission. Contact. And I refuse to go down in history as a minion. Which may be fine and dandy for some folk. But me? No way compadre. Too risky. To give so much of your power to one person who has their best interest at heart. Seems foolish.

A minion might argue that the yet-to-be-decided-if-he-will-be-named person does have everyone’s best interest at heart. That he’s selfless. But this is why they are minions. They can’t think and see for themselves and I feel like if I wasn’t meant to see and think for myself — which ultimately I most surely am meant to see and think for myself — because honestly who else is going to know what my best interests are if not me? Or else wouldn’t I have been born a bee? It’s not rocket science, is it?

I admit. I caught the disease. I was so sick in it that it’s a wonder I got out alive. Which is neither here nor there at this conjecture in which we find ourselves. Because if you talk to anyone who has almost died, they’ll tell you they’re lucky to be alive. Even if you don’t genuinely feel that for yourself— person after person, when they hear what has happened to you — will repeatedly tell you to feel that. Lucky. To be alive. So performing like the best puppy at school becomes a thing because you hate disappointing people.

A majority of the time, well-intentioned people don’t know what to say or how to say a thing so they make themselves say the things that should encourage a camper to buck up. It seems like too much work to have to explain you’re not a camper and that not even minutely do you pleasure in the process of voluntarily exposing yourself to the elements in unglamorous ways. Two days max but that’s truly stretching your limits. One is hard enough. It’s an inconvenience to attend a campsite for even just a meal without sleeping over. Honestly what a lot of it comes down to is basically how do people poop in such conditions?

If you are someone who has almost died there’s a pretty decent chance the exchange for life is PTSD. What happens is it’s like being on a train and you miss your stop. Forget to get off. Which causes a big stink for the conductor and all the passengers because trains don’t just stop where they are or start up without a little meandering of will. That’s how coffee got invented for mornings. Trains take a minute or two to stop and start because they carry A LOT. Physics can explain it. And if the train stops suddenly — it and all its passengers will fall off the tracks — and what if your train was somewhere around Big Sur? That would mean falling off a cliff or a towering bridge that looms over some colossal Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style ravine to meet certain utter death. Which would be tragic. There would have to be a hugely atypical amount of public mourning for quite some time. And it’s not one family affected. But hundreds. See how this can cause a big stink?

Also, not dying when you’re supposed to means having to make up for the inconvenience. To a whole chunk of people. On the train, the conductor will lead all the passengers in taking a vote. Like it’s communion. You will be met with fate and the task of exercising due diligence in your new capacity. For example, one could be knighted or dam(n)ed with PTSD. It’s the hand off for not dying with precision or accuracy. Most of the time. But depending on circumstances, it can also come in the form of amputation, straight-up or medically induced comas, memory loss — there are quite many possibilities actually. The thing is that PTSD seems to be the leveler, en vogue, and relevant to the times. Which I can vouch for. PTSD is not the most pleasant baggage to carry. Especially when your train drops you in the wilderness because you missed your station. But what to do? You’re alive. So you live. Go on. Tortured about whether or not to say his name.

You’ve almost zapped everything away with a tin foil hat in your spare time so there’d be no reminder about being sick with the disease — but still, there’s that little bit there that never goes away — and was zapping it away the most effective solution? What if because it’s still there it’s a smoke signal — an indication you should say his name? Not to wipe the slate clean, but because you’ve formulated a hypothesis about the possibility it could be an antidote to alleviating the experience of torture. Especially now that Prince Harry (son of ‘The People’s Princess’) — who having fled Granny’s castle and a newly renovated cottage in the U.K. named after a frog— can be found tapping away traumas through his fingertips and out through his shoulders, elbows crossed at the chest giving himself an uncomfortably voyeuristic and intimate hug, his eyes closed in a 14 million dollar Montecito mansion embedded with a chicken coop named after his son Archie as he showcases himself seemingly unbothered that this scene can be streamed any time of day or night in every possible time zone within range of a WiFi or Hotspot while he prescribes every Apple TV subscriber or Free Trial user who has struggled with mental health to say things that have hurt them out loud. Speaking as though he’s sworn himself to duty — carrying out a pre-destined post of leading the mentally tortured like a woke William Wallace. Which makes me want to either do a keg stand or put on a kilt, paint my face half-blue and yell The Scooper of Melon’s name with my clenched fist raised high in the air, freeing myself from residual torture. No one, I believe, would consciously choose to be tortured. Except for maybe a small group of people with a particular type of amorous appetite. Which is anyone’s prerogative for the taking. Who am I to judge?

Two.

We had a President once. A President of the United States of America. He wasn’t the greatest President. I didn’t think so. For lists of reasons. The shape of his mouth for example. I think a hefty portion felt or continue to feel as much. Not necessarily about the shape of his mouth, but for the lists of reasons I cannot waste energy on. It’s exhausting to think about the multitude of ways in which a nation within and beyond its borders has been harmed. It makes progress appear dire and spiraling into despair is all too easy. Gaggles of others jumped quite happily onto this President’s band wagon. It was a thing. They really liked him. Which was surprising. I suppose the world is simply a meeting hall filled with different others who like all kinds of different things. I mean melon balls!

Recovering from almost dying gives you a lot of time on your hands. You’re liable to not move so hot either. Because almost dying takes approximately seventy-five to ninety percent of the life from you. It makes getting back to a normal place of functioning and working in a job equal to people filing tax extensions. You can understand one another. Relating to other people always feels like a saving grace.

One thing I did when people were working at jobs was watch The View. A talk show on TV with different women who bring their varied views to a literal table where they hash out current events. The table is shaped like a sideways half moon and Whoopi Goldberg is one of the co-hosts. Whoopi would never bring herself to say said President’s name out loud. She would always say, “You know who,” or something to that end. Her reasoning being she could not affiliate his name with the Presidency. I get that. A President of a nation should at the very least, not be a complete hole. Of any kind.

Then there is Lady Gaga. Alternatively, Stefani Germonatta. Who shared her story of being raped by a music producer then dropped off puking and pregnant in front of her parent’s house. Which is terrible. She refuses to say his name, expressing her desire to not face or come across this perpetrator ever in her life again. She acknowledges the validity of the #MeToo movement and says she simply is not comfortable with naming him.

Their stances stir wonder — is Melon Baller even worth mentioning due to negligence? Atrocious acts? Heinous moral crimes? Or could it be I am self-protecting by not naming Melon Ball Head because that is exactly what my health and sanity need? Who wants to invite disease back into their life, right?

So this is the conundrum: I don’t feel either way — certain yet. When I was a kid I developed a love for Oprah. I would come home from school, watch an episode of the Jetsons, and Oprah would be on right after at 4 o’clock. I liked her. I have not attended the Church of Oprah, but I can get down with her. I used to always wonder what her funeral would be like. And Madonna’s. I think I always anticipated grand and epic proportions. For both. But Oprah’s more. Way more. Oprah said, if you don’t know — then don’t do anything. So that means I’m not going to do anything. About finalizing where I stand on naming or not naming him. Right now. It’s all TBD.

I can and will say this about why the disease almost took me:

I was young. Young for what I know now. But I was also kind of old. I mean not really, but I wasn’t a kid. Except I think things happen in your wiring when you lift heavy items before you’re ready. So even though I wasn’t a kid — in many ways I still was. I didn’t know better. I was alone. I didn’t have a Mama. And I needed one. I needed someone to replace her. Not literally, but I needed my mom back. I didn’t understand how to mentally take care of myself without her. She was Naloxone for someone who felt a little bit different. She raised me up. From dying. Made me feel like who I was mattered. Even when people didn’t get me or I couldn’t get them.

Then appeared a wolf in turtleneck clothing — melon baller strapped at his waist — scooped all the melon right out from under me. Told me to keep it secret. Over and over. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing because wolves in turtlenecks say they know what is best. For me. It is my obligation. To trust. Him. Remember, don’t tell. Anyone. Even when as a result of your secrecy, you develop a deadly chronic stress condition to bide you and pass the time. It is a price. A payment. For being chosen. Special. He could see it he said. The unseen. Believers believe. I tried, I did. Unfortunately, conforming is not my forté.

Melon Ball Scooper, Wolf in a Turtleneck, no matter! A super power is a super power and if this guy told me he could see things the layman couldn’t see — well then, “Hallelujah and Praise the Lord!” — because what a stroke of luck! I’d pretend I could believe, no matter! Block out the void with sheep’s clothing. Because if he could see what was unseen maybe he could take the place of my mother after all — the only one who truly saw what others failed to see — me.

On your own without your mother, linger depths of despair by the fathoms. You were born with wild nature. To grow through dark muddy cracks. In your own way. This is the thing your mother understood and knew how to cultivate. As any gifted, well-observed horticulturist would know to do.

You aren’t a bee. And he is not a queen. He is a drone. A drone who won’t die. Drones are supposed to die. That’s the law. They die.

There needs to be a memo:

You cannot

be a drone

and not die.

It’s the law.

_________________________

*Minions here have no affiliation with the semi-adorable creatures associated with Universal City Studios, LLC. The minions mentioned here are of their own special breed.