stop all that carrying on

I vaguely remember my grandmother used to shout something along the lines of, Stop all that carrying on!

You know, when the grandkids were running in and out of her house, letting out her good air, not withholding the weight of the screen door from slamming shut behind them. When grown folks and young folks alike started horsing around, being a menace, getting hotheaded. Bickering, arguing, whining, fussing, shit-talking.

Carrying on. Persisting.

She didn’t want nothing to do with all that foolishness.

Stop all that carrying on, she would reiterate. Like a hymn. Like a proverb. Like a decree. And we listened.

The matriarch is the governing body, after all. No choice but to yield to her order.

No choice but to stop all that carrying on, lest one dare to provoke her indignation.

But those words hold a different weight now, as I have stretched into my years. Holding all this heavy, now. Bearer of these generational wounds. Bag lady.

Sometimes it feels like my grandmother’s spirit is still ushering that command to me:

Stop all that carrying on, meaning let it end with you. Let your wrath bring it to shambles. Let yourself be enraged enough to stop it dead in its tracks. Let the spirit move you, and move you, and move you. Further away from that weight. Deeper into the glory that is you.

You better stop all that carrying on. Let the joy be your holy grail. Let it be your holding. You are a sovereign body. A dwelling place for God. You were never meant to be a container for all that foolishness, for all that waste. Take it now and leave it at the altar — and I do mean leave it. Don’t you go picking that weight back up again. Or that storm will be brewing beneath your skin for a lifetime, and its destruction widespread.

Gone head, child. You fury, you weep, you scream. But you make sure you find God somewhere in all of that. You make sure you get it out your body, it being all that weight. Purge that unwanted matter, unburden yourself, surrender the aching parts of you. And trust that God will reconcile those wounds.

You stop all that carrying on, now. Let it end with you.

This piece is a reimagining, a ways of making meaning, of those words my grandmother articulated so faithfully. Much like the reimagining I wrote around my mother’s words. Sometimes they form themselves into the shape you need most. Hope. Assurance. Peace.