Joan Rippe: My Name is Forgiveness

Joan Rippe is a long time member of the Wednesday morning writing practice group. She splits her time between Santa Cruz and Eugene, Oregon and has spent years traveling and living all over the world. This piece came out of a exercise where we were personifying emotions.

I am very large, yet I move with the steady grace of the Hawaiian sun slipping gently below the crystalline blue horizon. I am broad, especially my lap, and I like to sit cross-legged under my ancient banyan tree so that folks can climb more easily into me. My lap is rarely empty. My name is Forgiveness, and I never turn anyone away.

People often have trouble finding my banyan tree, but once they do they visit regularly. I always welcome guests, who prefer that I rock them gently. If the air is still, I blow a whisper breeze on their cheeks. I always send them away with a plumeria that I pull from behind my left ear. I want them to remember my fragrance so they won’t wait so long to visit me next time.

My visitors often arrive after an arduous hike. There is a simple, flat, white sand trail straight from their hearts to my doorstep, but I find, oddly, that the majority of my guests show up having suffered the long, steep, circuitous mountain trail. They tend to carry enormous overstuffed backpacks, which they inevitably forget, or refuse to take with them, when they depart. Some even arrive sweaty, crawling, on bloody knees. These exhausted souls stay as long as they like, perhaps longer than most, and I think they appreciate our visits more than most by the time they leave. That’s the only advantage I can think of about that mountain trail.

They all tell me stories as we rock quietly, stories full of betrayal or abandonment, humiliation or hate. I listen and I listen, stroking and rocking, allowing the hot words to flow like molten lava. Eventually the heat subsides, the flow stops, and the sharp rock that remains crumbles. Jagged black becomes soft brown, and tiny green ferns grow in the small fissures that appear. That’s usually about when my guests decide it’s time to go. I notice that everyone – absolutely everyone! – takes the gentle white sand path home.

Come tell me your story. I like to listen; I don’t really have stories of my own. Come tell me your story. I will use the rocks in your heart to build my sacred heiau, my temple, and I will bless you with my silky white petals. Drop them, toss them, scatter them, fill your world with them. Then come back when you must. Come tell me your story. My name is Forgiveness, and I never turn anyone away.

Joan says: "My passion for Pacific Islands and my experience of them as deeply peaceful places must have spontaneously given rise to the marriage of forgiveness and the island locale. I was surprised as everyone else when this came out piece came out of a writing practice assignment in class one day."