Braiding

by Li-Young Lee

1.
We two sit on our bed,
you between my legs, your back to me, your head
slightly bowed, that I may brush and braid
your hair. My father
did this for my mother,
just as I do for you. One hand
holds the hem of your hair, the other
works the brush. Both hands climb
as the strokes grow
longer, until I use not only my wrists,
but my arms, then my shoulders, my whole body
rocking in a rower's rhythm, a lover's
even time, as the tangles are undone,
and brush and bare hand run the thick,
fluent length of your hair, whose wintery scent
comes, a faint, human musk.

2.
Last night the room was so cold
I dreamed we were in Pittsburgh again, where winter
persisted and we fell asleep in the last seat
of the 71 Negley, dark mornings going to work.
How I wish we didn't hate those years
while we lived them.
Those were days of books,
days of silences stacked high
as the ceiling of that great, dim hall
where we studied. I remember
the thick oak tabletops, how cool
they felt against my face
when I lay my head down and slept.

3.
How long your hair has grown.
Gradually, December.

4.
There will come a day
one of us will have to imagine this: you
after your bath, cross legged on the bed, sleepy, patient
while I braid your hair.

5.
Here, what's made, these braids, unmakes
itself in time, and must be made
again, within and against
time. So I braid
your hair each day.
My fingers gather, measure hair,
hook, pull and twist hair and hair.
Deft, quick they plait,
weave articulate lock and lock, to make
and make these braids, which point
the direction of my going, of all our continuous going.
And though whats made does not abide,
my making is steadfast, and, beside, there is a making
of which this making-in-time is just a part,
a making which abides
beyond the hands which rise in the combing,
the hands which fall in the braiding,
trailing hair in each stage of its unbraiding.

6.
Love, how the hours accumulate. Uncountable.
The trees grow tall, some people walk away
and diminish forever.
The damp pewter days slip around without warning
and we cross over one year and one year.


***

I love this poem. I love how reading it actually feels like braiding hair. I have always found verse 4 peculiar because of its similarity to verse 1. In verse 1 the speaker describes a scene that in verse 4 he says we have to imagine as though it didn't already happen in verse 1. But it dawned on me that verse 4 repeats verse 1 in the same way that braiding strokes repeat each other. There is also a "coming 'round again" feel to these two verses that reminds me of how each bunch of hair in a braid wraps around the other two and disappears behind, before showing up on the other side. I also want to point out a part from verse 5 because it sounds so cool, and the rhythm is really reminiscent of braiding,

So I braid
your hair each day.
My fingers gather, measure hair,
hook, pull and twist hair and hair.
Deft, quick they plait,
weave articulate lock and lock, to make
and make these braids

I love how I get the feel of braiding from the very structure of the poem.


Verse 5 is my favorite, and I think the most pertinent to my question.

And though whats made does not abide,
my making is steadfast, and, beside, there is a making
of which this making-in-time is just a part,
a making which abides
beyond the hands which rise in the combing,
the hands which fall in the braiding,
trailing hair in each stage of its unbraiding.

I am mostly struck by the lines, "There is a making of which this making in time is just a part. . ." So, our making seems to be a part of a larger, more permanent creation. I suppose the speaker could just mean that the braiding is one of the activities that builds the relationship being described. But a relationship exists in time, just like braiding does. So, if the braiding and the relationship are of the same kind, because they both exist in time, then they are both "part" of the "making which abides". And this "making which abides" seems to be something more eternal than anything made in time. At least that is how I am understanding "abides". I am so intrigued by the idea that our making is a part of another kind of making; a making that exist beyond the lifetime of our materials, and beyond the short time in which we are busy making. I wonder if the abiding creation is an echo or record of what we have made, or if our creation is a childish rendition of something more pure and archetypal. I don't have an answer yet.

I also wanted to just muse a bit on the speaker's "steadfast" braiding. There seems to be something important about repeatedly re-making something even though there is an abiding aspect to our creations. Maybe it is just important to us, because it is the aspect we can see.

I wonder which is more real, the aspect that abides or the aspect we can see.

The Velveteen Rabbit: All Saints Day or, "Does it hurt to become Real?"

I had to bring this lovely book



back to the library some weeks ago. But, for the Eve of All Saints Day, I wanted to share one more passage which for me is a poignant picture of our relationship to sainthood:


"When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand" . . .

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and loosing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. he wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.

***

I love this passage because I have the same reaction as the Rabbit! I don't want to have to give anything up or become ugly for the sake of Realness! And yet, on some level, I also know that our reaction means that we are still in the category of "those who don't understand".

For, wouldn't "Realness", when it comes to man, be "Sanctification"? To be a Real man is to be free of all that comes from our fallen nature. Wouldn't a Real man be able to happily give up all those meaningless externals to be truly alive through the power of the love of God?

It seems almost as though the more we strive toward sainthood, the more we understand what we are striving toward. But that means that we have to start without quite understanding what it is we are gaining when we give up our vanities! I so often find myself in the same position as the Rabbit. I long for sainthood, but really does it have to be so uncomfortable? Do I really have to give up my fine fur and my eyes and everything I take pride in in order to become a saint?

Of course I do.

Or, at least be willing to.

Becoming Real is a process of allowing yourself to be loved and changed. And who better to let change us than God?


And so from Saints
Agatha (Francisco de Zurbaran, 1630-33 Oil on canvas)
Apollonia
Fidelis of Sigmaringen
Peter of Verona, and
Erasmus (Dieric the Elder Bouts, c.1458, Oil on wood)







I ask your prayers that we be as brave as you at facing the pain of becoming Real.

Happy Halloween!

The Velveteen Rabbit

Of course, in contemplating the realness of toys, I couldn't help but think of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.



(I was amazed to rediscover the subtitle . . . )



I ordered it at my local library and eagerly waited to be notified of its arrival. I sat in horrendous traffic at 4:45pm hoping and hoping that the library didn't close at 5:00. I dashed in, only to discover that I couldn't find my name on the pile of reserved books. Luckily, that was only because my reserved book was over-sized and, thus, it was on the over-sized book shelf and not filed alphabetically. With book in hand, I made it quite easily home to read. . .



"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, . . . "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made, " said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. . . . once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

****

Is it only children that can make things real? The Skin Horse seems to imply that realness must come from the love of a child. It would seem from my previous post that children certainly have a specific way of making things real. The immediacy of the imaginative relationship clearly makes the toy real to the child in the moment. But even in my own experience the realness imparted to a toy in childhood lingers on into adulthood. Here, I think it is important to introduce my bear, Rar-Ray.



Rar-Ray is not really a bear. He is a wolf in grandma's clothing, although the clothing is long gone. He didn't spend much time wearing those clothes, anyway. Mostly he wore an old diaper cover that my mom didn't need anymore. He wasn't even really my bear. Rar-Ray was given to my younger brother when he was born, but being that my brother was too small to take care of Rar-Ray, I quickly stepped in to take charge. I gave him his name. I decided he was a bear. I loved him until his fur looked like canned tuna fish and his eyes fell out. I don't really remember the games we played, but I certainly did my job, and it is just as the Skin Horse says, "It lasts for always".

It is so interesting to me that even as an adult I can recognize that realness was imparted even though it may be the case that adults cannot impart that realness. I think it is also interesting that in the example of my relationship to Rose, even in the midst of loosing the ability to impart realness it wasn't the toy's realness that was in question, it was only the knowledge of how to interact with that realness that was missing.