Eshtine

three things

There are three things he could have said. I think of the first as I sit watching the sunset from my back balcony. The sky is framed by the branches and leaves of the maple in the neighbor's yard. The neighbor's yard is packed dirt and their garage is crumbling to nothing. My view is rose and gold sky, trees, bright buildings in the distance; broken windows and half-demolished structures up close. The marks of poverty, ignorance, anger, fear--but I look at it all and think, "I'm falling for you."
And then I imagine him opening the screen door and joining me on the balcony, scrunching down on his haunches to look at it from my angle. We sit in silence for a while. Then he turns and says, "You want to know the secret?"
"Of course," I answer.
He gets up again to saunter back inside, finishing the thought off-handedly. "The secret is to love it as it is, not the way you want it to be."
But you know, he may not have said that at all. Maybe we sat there together, me looking at the bricks scattered everywhere, him looking at me, and maybe I said, "I am trying to love it as it is."
And maybe he shook his head in soft warning. "No--love it for what it could be."
The third possibility occurs to me that night as I'm trying to sleep. Again the imagined voice is clear; he says "If you love it now, as it is, it will become what it could be."
He could have said any of these things or none of them. Am I to be without a reliable guide?