swallow’s nest by Kaydance Rice

      vivek jena CC



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swallow’s nest

i sit in a bean bag at youth group as a pastor tells us about the natural consequences god brings. how disobedience will lead to punishment in one way or another. how even for christians, who won’t go to hell, god still understands the concept of karma. i bite on my nails. i check the time on my phone. i count all the ways i have sinned and keep counting after my nana picks me up. 

despite my nana’s relationship with her father being a rocky one, she tends to mythologize his childhood. she talks often about the bravery and hardships he faced after the nazis invaded the netherlands. she talks about how he was only ten and hiding out during air raids. how he and anne frank lived on the same street. she says all these things as if it brings their relationship any type of context — as if it gives a reason for who they both are now. i don’t blame her for this either — it might. i’m not going to pretend that i know cause or effect but what i do know is that nana chews on the inside of her cheek when she lies, no matter how small it is, no matter who it’s to. 

when i’m ten, nana and i play bible trivia on her back porch every week before church. 
    which disciple denied jesus three times?  
    simon-peter
    which didn’t believe he rose? 
    thomas
    which betrayed him first? 
    judas
    how did he die? 
    from shame. 
    how? 
    hanging. 

nana and i sit in the pizza hut parking lot as she tells me i understand god better than the rest of our family. i’m maybe eight at the time so she uses a cousin i’ve never met as an example. she says that after he got divorced, he found god for a while and then lost him again. after the second time, he began to drink until he shot himself in the field behind the high school that summer. she says this is what our family is, and always has been. she says that god’s role in our lives is to stop it from happening. nana says once she retires, she’s going to study theology

every year, nana’s christmas tree is full of birds and crosses. she says when she ascends to heaven, she hopes to grow wings. 

i don’t know how to tell nana i don’t believe in god. nana spends four days a week at church, volunteering. she spends two of those days teaching the homeschooled kids and two of those days in bible studies and sermons. on tuesdays, she provides counseling to local kids who are considering lifestyles outside of god’s way. this means, on tuesdays, my nana tries to convince kids they aren’t really gay. 

my own queerness didn’t come to me as want in the way the other gay kids i know did. for me, queerness was always classified as indifference. i don’t mind kissing girls as much as i don’t mind kissing boys or anyone else for that matter.  according to the bible, wanting things and selfishness is the root of all sins so i decided very early on that’s exactly what i wouldn’t do. i wouldn’t want to kiss anyone, but i would let them kiss me. the bible might then classify this as a type of altruism. nana would likely classify this as being a slut. 

when i was a kid, nana and i would walk through the butterfly gardens and she’d point out the anatomy of each one. she told me about how they interact with the ecosystems and i don’t remember much of it now, but i do remember how big it made the world seem, how big it made her seem. 

nana wanted to be a housewife and after that a painter. nana still paints when she can, and takes pictures when she can’t. her website tagline is to honor god through capturing his creation. and while i’m sure this is the conscious intention, i can’t help but think there’s something deeply human about taking the act of creation into your own hands — proving to god that you too can create the earth and make it more beautiful than he did. this might have been his intention, but i like to imagine nana engaging in sacrilege without knowing it. another act, i guess, that feels deeply human. 

when i’m in sixth grade, nana decides i’ll come with her every wednesday to church. she says there’s a lot i could learn and that i would really benefit from a community like that one. she says the people there will welcome me and they’ll show me god’s real way and even though i already go to a different church, i agree. 

what was eve made from? 
    adam’s rib
    what was adam made from? 
    dust
    what day was he made? 
    six
    what was the original sin? 
    talking to the snake 

even though i don’t believe in god, i still pray every night. i can’t tell if it’s because as a kid, i had god so scared into me he still sticks or if it has something to do with actual faith. most of my prayers start with something along the lines of “if you do this thing, i’ll believe in you again” and of course the thing happens and of course i don’t stop praying and of course i don’t start believing. i like to think god and i have a routine at this point — like we’re playing tag. i don’t think he likes me enough to make me believe, but at least he’s having fun. 

nana gets mad at our family for praying wrong. she says it doesn’t come from the heart and that’s why we don’t do it as much anymore. she calls us casual christians, which is worse than being an atheist. she says you have to be willing to give your life up for god and mean it when you say it. it’s hard to tell if she actually means it either. 

we use a basic family meal prayer and an even more basic bedtime prayer. even after years of shoving the bedtime prayer down my brother’s throat, i couldn’t say it from memory. nana would say this is another piece of family history that will die with her — despite the fact that she hates it whenever we use it. 

artistry is what’s connected nana and i throughout the years. she insists that i’m just like her because of it. she says we’re essentially the same, that we’re unique. she thanks god that i’m someone she can talk to, she was starting to get lonely. 

nana and i are sitting at the beach and i’ve just hit puberty so she’s telling me why i should never trust men. she’s telling me all the betrayals of her ex husband, her father, her step father, every ex boyfriend, every ex “friend”. she’s giving me every piece of evidence she has. i make a joke and tell her i wasn’t planning on it and i immediately want to sink into myself. i can’t tell if she knows this is because i’m gay or because of something more deeply rooted. she doesn’t laugh but nods as if she understands and holds the cross around her neck a bit tighter. 

    how many animals did god have on the ark? 
    2 of each. 
    where did noah find all of them? 
    the earth wasn’t as big yet. 
    how many people were on the ark? 
    noah and his family. 
    where did all the birds go?
    some stayed out, not all the trees were underwater. 
    what bird brought back the olive leaf? 
    the dove.

nana and i are hiking down a trail and we come across the carcass of a goose. it looks newly dead, like it just fell to the ground, we imagine all the ways it could have died. we know bird flu has been going around lately. we keep walking and find another one, this one is more visibly aged, with ants all over it. nana asks why it’s always the birds that have to die and i don’t think this is true but nod and agree anyways, like she said something profound.

once, in 8th grade, i was praying in the park and above me were all these bird nests, full of swallows. i prayed to god telling him to prove he was real when a swallow fell to the ground, on its back, with a thud. 

nana never kept her own birds but she always said they were a sign for when god was watching. the louder the bird chirped, the closer god was to you. she kept her backyard filled with seed so that she could make sure the birds would keep coming back. 

nana talks about finding god in her garage after her husband chases her out of the house with a gun. nana screamed on the floor praying to god to prove he’s real until she heard a voice telling her to leave. let me take care of you. she gets into the car and drives off with no gas in the tank. i can’t help but think i would’ve needed more proof but i’m also a skeptic. 

nana has a very specific version of god that could only be truly understood by her. nana’s god while loves you, loves you conditionally. he loves you more when you go to wednesday night church than when you don’t and loves you less if you didn’t spend at least half of your week praying and the other half reading. nana’s god tells you the dresses you look fat in and the ones that made your legs look nice. nana’s god sets you up with boyfriends and takes you on trips to haiti. nana’s god screams at you for hours on end if you ask for too much and makes sure you know how selfish it is to want. nana’s god says you’re his favorite because you know the bible best and eventually you’ll just have to be a good christian and agree to worship him.

   now god lays me down to sleep. i pray my lord, my soul to keep. if i die before i wake,
   god himself, my soul to take. god bless my family, my friends and my pastor and let him
​   be with us until we go to sleep again tomorrow. god bless everyone, and good night. 

in my brother’s version, he says to bless everyone except anyone god doesn’t like. i always assumed god would do that regardless of what i had to say about it. 

nana doesn’t tell many stories about her father after his childhood. she only says her father was cruel, especially to her. she says she doesn’t understand how anyone can be that cruel to their child when they haven’t done anything. she thinks it’s because he’s jealous of her connection to god. she thinks maybe she was just born wrong. 

if i were a different person this is where i would write my coming out story. i would say i sat down with nana some weekend towards the end of the summer so i would know i wouldn’t have to see her again for a while afterwards. i would explain a relationship to queerness that i myself don’t actually understand, i would tell her about its flexibility, how i’ve never liked anyone that much —  regardless of gender. i would tell her that despite being gay, i was still a christian, who knew better than to want. 

of course, i didn’t do any of those things, but maybe i could’ve. 

instead, my version of coming out was cutting all my hair off, dying it blue, and going to arts school. in the last three years since i’ve been here, nana’s visited once and spent the entire time talking about how disgusted she was in the way the students mutilated their bodies. she asks if there’s any way for me to go to church and i say yes, that i go every sunday. we both know this isn’t true but she nods as if it is. she says she knows how strained my soul would be without it. a few weeks later, i got a dvd in the mail with a sermon on it about the necessity for christians to be together.

once, nana described all the ways people deal with their lives. she said some deal with it by ignoring it entirely, other people find an outlet like art or writing, some do drugs, some just get angry like her father did. nana said she deals with it through god, that’s why she believes so hard and so much. she knows she’s centering her life around a coping mechanism, but isn’t that better than having a life not centered at all? 

    how many people? 
    noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives. 
    do you not know how to count? 
    8. 
    how many people died in the flood? 
    all of them. 
    how many? 
    a lot.

nana has a mural in bedroom of what i think is a beach in brazil. after she got it installed, she added hundreds of tiny birds to the skyline. to make it more realistic, she said. 

nana says all sin, while inevitable, must be accounted for — that god understands the concept of karma. that no matter how hard you try, the sin will come and you will be punished thoroughly for it. nana can tell the severity of her sins when she was young because if they weren’t, she wouldn’t have the life she’s come to live now.

i lost god in the park in eighth grade when a swallow fell out of its nest and onto its back. i couldn’t tell what it had broken but it looked like it was having a seizure, it couldn’t stop convulsing back and forth. at first when it fell, i thought the movement was because it couldn’t flip itself back over so i put it on its feet but the shaking continued. i knew once that i had touched the swallow, it would be rejected by the rest of the birds so instead, i prayed. i asked god to keep it alive until someone else could come and save it. i prayed to let the death not be on my hands alone but it still closed its eyes as i dialed the number for the wildlife rescue center. i thanked god for the confirmation, and buried the swallow at the foot of a tree, covered in some leaves. the next day, i came back to the park to find its corpse being eaten by ants. 
    
    why did god send the flood? 
    because the world was full of sin. 
    why was the world full of sin? 
    because god gave humans the option to sin. 
    why did god give humans the option to sin? 
    because god wanted proof that humans loved him.
    did he get that proof? 
    only from noah. 

we’re getting ready for church and i’m brushing my hair out. nana’s telling me how pretty i look with this dress on and i’m choosing to believe her. i have to borrow her shoes because i wasn’t supposed to spend the night and i only have flip flops. she stuffs pieces of tissue in the toes of the flats and asks me to spin around. she smiles at me in the mirror and i can feel the warmth. god, i’ve decided, is just wanting someone to be there. 



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Kaydance Rice is a writer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has been recognized by the Poetry Society of America, Middle West Press, Albion College, and the Alliance of Young Artists and Writers. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in the Taco Bell Quarterly, YoungArts Anthology, Eunoia Review, voicemail poems, and elsewhere. In her free time, Kaydance enjoys playing the viola, rambling about existentialism, and spending time with her plants.