Are You Sure? Talking About Absolutes

What is an absolute, when you use the word as a noun? The online Oxford Learners Dictionaries gives the definition as “an idea or a principle that is believed to be true or valid in any circumstances”.

Depending on your point of view, you may see the world as full of absolutes or relatively free from absolutes.

Politicians, in particular, tend to talk in absolutes in order to get their points across. Since this Tuesday is voting day in the US, I thought a poem dealing with absolutes seemed appropriate.

And…taking a complete tangent

This week’s poem deals with absolutes, but it also deals with traveling while pregnant. To travel in my line of work — to coffee origins –is generally not as glamorous as it sounds, sometime isn’t easy, and is pretty inconvenient when you’re pregnant.

I went to Central America while I was five months pregnant. Second trimester is the easiest part of the pregnancy. The morning sickness period is over, and the “get this thing out of me” phase hasn’t been reached yet. For others, it may have played out differently, but that was my experience.

Of course, I was a lot larger than I wanted to be and not super-comfortable. Plus, there’s no hiding the fact that I was pregnant. I’m only a little over five foot tall. Put a basketball in front of me and you have a good visualization of what I looked like at five months. Don’t ask about the last trimester.

So, I can’t hide that I’m pregnant. I’m traveling around the countryside, going to farms and mills, climbing in and out of SUVs and pick-ups. Men appear out of nowhere to help me get in or out of vehicles. Guys I thought were beggars on the street (and maybe they were) suddenly want to help me walk.

Big news guys: my feet aren’t the inconvenience.

I’m traveling the countryside at the slowest pace possible. Not because driving at fifty miles an hour is a problem. But everyone I travel with is terrified that they will hit a pothole and send me into premature labor. Understandable, because I look a whole lot more than five months pregnant.

Half the people I meet immediately forget my name. They expect to never see me again. Because, woman + pregnancy = stays home with kids.

The other half ask what I plan to do after I quit work. When I tell them I don’t plan to quit, they nod and smile politely. One guy, who looks about a hundred years old, actually pats me on the head, as if to say, “that’s ok honey, you just go ahead and think that for now.”

Three countries, ten days, I have no idea how many farms.

On the positive side: in two airports, I was able to stroll right through to the gate because the security there was afraid the metal detector would harm the baby. But that wouldn’t happen today.

Of course, all this was almost 20 years ago. Things have changed on a lot of fronts. For one, a whole generation of exceedingly well-mannered people have moved on from business to retirement.

I think the newer generation might just pretend not to notice I was pregnant, in an effort to be fair, business-like, and image-blind. Which, in and of itself, would create a whole different set of funny occurrences.

Absolutes

I know the moon is out.
Blocked line of sight can’t negate it.
Wet, dry. Pregnant, not.

All the old men at one finca* and another
patted my five-month belly for luck.
Failure to subtract old from new.

The rope bridge each day sways deeper.
Soon, they’ll stand at the far edge.
The chasm between is inarguable.

Behind that film of clouds
the moon is definitely out.

*finca means farm

If you enjoyed Absolutes

You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.  Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.

As always, comments & opinions welcome.

Have an absolutely great week!