The Brooklyn Rail

Soft power. It has always given me strength, fortified me, even if I didn’t realize it was there. Flowers. Balloons. Colors. Corduroy. Carpet. Candles. I remember so much talk about being hard. Hard line. Hard body. Straight edge. Edge lord. How edges bound, edges guarantee, edges own. Then what about mutable edges? My edges are soft. My wants are softer.

I’m standing on the edge of the ocean, heartbroken, and I realize that neither this coast nor this moment is defined. And the shell shaped like a crescent moon that I had become so fixated on is gone in a flash, a rush of cold water and foam. My attention is on the edges of the sand. Sand kissed by waves, now. Sand kissed by waves just past. Sand kissed by waves some time before, with edges defined by skeletal bits of seaweed and glass. My sister and I go walking. We look for glass. She collects it and I help. We are looking for a little flicker of blue or green or amber. Glass isn’t sand yet, but it will be. All in good time. It isn’t hard anymore, even though it’s a fragment of its former self. It isn’t broken. It is a softer, slightly muddier version of its former self. It is soft and smooth in your hand. It holds light, it warms it. My sister isn’t hard like she was when we were younger. In fact, she is soft and warmer than ever. I remember the album Room on Fire. There is a line on the second single, “Reptilia”: “The room is on fire while she fixes her hair.” This was my sister. Sometimes we need the fire, and sometimes the fire just happens to us. Its power irrefutable. Its edges undefined.

What is soft power? Soft power is level and a playing field, a map upon which we may expand as our edges lose their sharpness. Porousness grows and we become absorbent. It is a place for fairness, for clear views clearly expressed, for mutualistic relations that benefit all parties or, at least, show consideration for all parties. It is the site for truce. What is the difference between falling down and laying down? Falls happen when gravity chooses its partner to dance with. I prefer to lay. Now I lay me down to see.