My granddaughter The Queen is an ethical genius. Oh, she’s doing the regular things nine-month-olds do—galloping all over the place like some midget pony and poking her nose into everything and pulling lamps and shit over because our house is not (yet) kid-proof (again). If she has any concept of the word ‘no’ she either does not have the accompanying impulse control and/or has already started that ’screw you I’m gonna do what I want’ response that will come to full and open expression in her teen years, until she learns to mask it with subtlety. It’s not this that makes her an ethical genius.
What makes her an ethical genius is that she’s already sharing, even without being asked. She came down with her first cold last week and shared it with Grandpa and undoubtedly a host of others, though I don’t really care about the others, only myself, because I’ve felt like I’m possessed by Sigourney Weaver’s alien, a little monster inside that periodically and unpredictably breaks out in paroxysms (verily) of hacking, sneezing, spitting, and drooling, and it ain’t gonna be over ’til it’s over, bubba. It’s real irritating, making laughing a physically risky endeavor and, oh yeah, stopping the liturgy for just a little spell yesterday, whereupon I realized, alas too late, what an invisible treat I was handing out to especially the geezers at communion, ‘the body of christ and the aliens of The Queen given to you.’ There ain’t nothin’ holy ‘bout sneezing into the communion cups. I at least had the smarts to back out of the Thanksgiving service later in the day.
My darling declares ‘It’s your own damn fault’ in her godlike way, as if it took Sinai to reveal that, as if fixing the blame cures it. But I, like (New Testament) Paul, am not ashamed. I lack impulse control, specially when it comes to love. So when The Queen showed up with that veritable niagara of snot pouring forth out of her nose down over lips and chin I kissed her in spite of it. I should say: I kissed her through it, sharing and tasting her snot, later on thinking, ‘the snot kiss. what a great image of god’. Marvelous metaphor.
Stupid practice, though. Next time, darlin’, I’ll kiss your ass before I’ll kiss your snot. In the meantime I’m sharing your misery and thinking of the ancient poetry that comes up in the church around this time of the year ‘by his wounds we are healed’ and wondering if that has anything to do with a snot kiss. The old widows over at church tell me how lonely it is not being touched; the old men don’t mention it. Sometimes the only hugs these people get are in church. No wonder they spend so long passing the peace.
And the maid o’ the mist smiles behind the everlasting flow.
Snot kisses heal.
