Hoodie
When unexpected news hammers on the door, it’s considered polite to answer. Although unexpected news does not always hammer on the front door; sometimes it pings gently when you open your email. It might literally be the sign for a roadside stop on a long stretch of dusty road. If you’re lucky, it’s a smoky whisper in your ear at a busy dinner table. It can be a regular check-in phone call that runs you right up against some unexpected news and you might spill your morning coffee when the unexpected news reaches your ear.
This is not always a bad thing; some jumpers have served their time and the spill might give you the encouragement to gently let go of something you should have let go of, years ago. Also, spilt coffee is not so bad, it could have been sparkling water up your nose. Now that’s much worse when you have just heard unexpected news. The content of the unexpected news is moot. What matters is that the moot content is unexpected. Strange that it’s so but so it is; and all we can hope for when the unexpected news pounds on the door of our consciousness, is that we’re able to be at least polite enough to answer the door.
Inevitably though, don’t we go straight to the content? asks the Dervish.
I’ve no answer to her question. She’s on point. I’ve only ever been focussed on the content of the unexpected news since it attacked my morning coffee and ruined my favourite hooded jumper. Maybe that should be my favourite hoodie, though this is more a jumper with a hoodie. I am deeply confused.
There is so much to consider about whether this garment which was so very recently attacked without provocation by dark, hot coffee is a jumper or a hoodie. I finally reply.
Her face breaks into a smile and a gently soothing laugh follows; let me give you an A for avoidance and misdirection.” she says.
In gentle kindness, she steers and we meander away from the unexpected news and it’s patently startling effect on me. The admin of life and the admin this admin spans is laid out as a safety net below us as she guides me back to the platform at the edge of the tightrope. All bases are covered from the unseasonal storms on the Highveld of the holy land to an update on the current French unrest about ensuring the fraternity part of the liberty and equality thing they’re supposed to be famous for is not erased by the present government.
Having been kindly reassured, I eventually plunged into the icy depths of the supposedly moot content of the unexpected news and the next hour or so of online conversation was likely very carefully listened to by who knows how many government and private owned surveillance systems.
Or as likely not.
But certainly tagged with the keywords liberty, equality and fraternity and safely filed away for when I next apply for a travel visa. Not that it matters, the unexpected news of any private individual should essentially remain their cross to bear, unless they’re married in community of property, in which case their unexpected news is likely to be doubled in weight, by the burden of sharing everything.
Or so I’ve been told.
(Mis)marriage and surveillance aside, unexpected news almost always arrives in a wedding party, with handmaidens and lecherous elders. I’d like to say that unexpected news tends to favour the company of grief, more than it favours the company of joy. To be fair, as much as the content of unexpected news remains moot, joy does often hustle her way into the wedding party and even if you don’t spot her at first, time will surely reveal her presence when the unexpected news arrives trumpeting at your front door.
Or at the never-used side door in this case.
Still, for all the heavy handedness of the arrival of unexpected news and the inevitable descent into confusion from it’s arrival, unexpected news tends to keep well.
Even without refrigeration.
The good grace of open hearts and minds that encircle one’s life serve as the salt to Life's lemons of unexpected news. They get to work, preserving the best of the unexpected news and turning the sharp, sometimes bitter raw lemon into tasty, almost sweet wedges of joy, through the application of method, time and not an inconsiderable dose of unadulterated love. That’s the not for sale or convenience variety of love, that’s being actively killed off by the GMO commercialised versions that are easily cast aside in favour of pride and other heady virtues so prized by those whose will to succeed subsumes their beings. But fits their forms like gloves and supportive underwear.
‘And therein lies your key to unlock this unexpected news and take from this Pandora’s box, only what serves your growth’, says the Devish.
‘The rest of what accompanies the moot content of your unexpected news, is as you say, moot. Sit with; thank and dismiss ego, pride and attachment from your choices. Then, leap with faith and love. In this case as in little else, free choice is truly freeing; remember the universe is conspiring with you to realise your highest intentions. She’s your safety net, and she’s got your back’ she ends.
Hoodie is a testament that Life is never short of surprises, nor the love you need to bear them.
© Jesh Baker for Oppi Stoep 2023
