it’s right here.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as brilliance, giant, God, kind, life, plan, sense of wonder, sleeping giant, tip toe, tip toeing, way
I don’t know about you, but well, the stars. How do they do that? How is it that I’ve seen them so many times now–that surely, I must have memorized the way they fan out in the sky above me, but no.
Because there are still nights like this one. When I look up and suddenly it’s as though I’ve never seen them before, their brilliance is so wonderfully shocking to me. And I feel small, the best kind of small; dwarfed by a sense of wonder that reminds me it’s still possible to open my eyes wide.
Maybe even with innocence.
And I don’t know about you, but I think there is a kind of living that feels like a tip-toe, you’re walking so softly, looking so furtively towards the sleeping giant you know is nearby, the one whose name is ambiguously terrible. Bad Things That Might Keep Happening, he calls himself. And it’s like when you watch the kind of movie in which the director realizes that your mind has a way of painting pictures that are powerful. And it’s the kind of power that leaves you breathless, either way, I guess. Bad or good, to be too general about things. And so this director has gotten the idea to leave the very worst parts to your imagination, because what you fear is usually worse than what is.
And I say usually now because I no longer believe that applies to always. At least not for me.
But I don’t want to get to the places I need to go by tip-toeing, afraid of what could be. I think that there is a better way. I think that the giant may or may not be there, but I think that doesn’t really apply to Now anyway.
So I will just dance. And probably jump. And definitely run. And it might even be noticeable and it might even make some noise and it might even wake up a sleeping giant that may or may not be there. But whatever it is I am doing, it will be all in.
Da Vinci said something about how if the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art–and I think that is true about life. And the way we live it can be like art, creating and expressing. Being. Without shame because you’re you. And it’s some kind of masterpiece, I think. Better than what you see in a museum, I know.
And tonight I remembered the day I found out I was officially divorced. It was strange, I am usually the person who can joke about anything, but not this. Not now. I guess I felt more like the joke was on me. And I didn’t know how to reconcile the small girl with blond pig tails I saw in my parents’ framed photos that hang in the kitchen like the best kind of reminder of where I’ve been with the woman who I am now. I didn’t know how to tell her what had happened to her life. I felt like Jo from Little Women, just after finding that her sister had destroyed every one of her essays and stories; the pages and pages of her heart, spelled out in words and punctuation, paragraphs, beginnings, and The End.
I found it very close to impossible to see the difference between what had happened to me and me.
And so I ran into the woods. I walked a very long time and then I found a large and good-natured tree that didn’t seem to mind me crying so hard or the fact that I was using it to sit against. And then I looked down and I saw that I was wearing blue spandex pants and suddenly I was laughing and crying at once; and the tree was probably wondering why he always gets stuck with the crazies. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was considering perhaps not being quite so good natured in the future because that might just make people like me keep walking.
But I was laughing and crying and isn’t that just like life, anyway? Isn’t there the best and the worst and don’t they manage to stand out in the midst of the mundane, just like neon in the eighties but probably a much better idea?
And I think that I got a little glimpse of perspective and more than that, a little glimpse of the fact that some things do not change. Or maybe it’s that they surprise you by embodying whatever it is they are a little more with each year.
Like the stars when you see them and they are the same but even more starlike, if that makes sense.
Like you and me, through the conflict and the resolution and every bridge and chorus in between.
Like God’s plan, too. Getting chiseled away by the days until whoa! it’s right there and how is it that you wondered and stood still, afraid to move because where, God, is the plan in this mess?
It’s right here, he says.
But so are the sleeping giants, you say.
Forget about them, he says; cause, it’s right here–the plan. The stars. Who you are. It’s right here.
being outside makes me think of this.
in Funny Stuff, Thoughts and Feelings
as bottom of the hill, dirt, lightning storm, little stream, loamy, sense, sense of wonder, stream, thought, thunder and lightning
There is a little stream at the bottom of the hill my parents’ house sits atop.
Only right now, the stream is not so little.
I know this because I could hear it rushing by while walking to the door, all of that sound mighty in the darkness. They say that if you lose one sense, the other senses become stronger. Maybe it was like that for me tonight; maybe it is because I couldn’t see so far in the dark that the stream was so wonderfully loud.
But I also know that the stream is no longer little because, well, there was a full on, knock down, drag out thunder and lightning storm this afternoon. In March. And the sky was all, What? And I was all, Um, it’s March. Sorry, but I’m gonna stare.
And the thunder sounded with that kind of peel that makes you wonder if you should stop whatever it is you’re doing for just a second; not even because you want to (though if running is the thing that I am doing, then I probably do, to be honest), but because something that loud should probably get your full attention. Just to be safe. And just to make sure you don’t lose your sense of wonder at the world around you, too.
But the stream.
I guess all of its relatives stopped by. At the same time. And it’s not even like it’s Christmas so most people are prepared for the guests and the cooking and the sharing of the television remote.
Not that I would know much about that.
Ha. That sounds like I don’t share the remote, when the truth is I don’t know how to use the remote, so please, be my guest.
So I could hear the stream bustling about down at the bottom of the hill, trying to find room, scrambling up to the bank, even, to fit all the water in. And it sounded busy, yes, but it also sounded excited. Like the buzz of neon that tells passerby’s when something is OPEN. It’s a little hectic, all lit up like that, but there’s a charge to it too. And then you go in, you see that right mix of people inside, and you’re glad it was open. And suddenly you’re happy to be smooshed with company such as this. It beats spreading out alone, I guess.
And so yeah, I hope the stream is happy for its company. Though they’ll probably be gone by morning; they almost always are.
And then, right before I stepped inside, I saw a rake propped up against the side of the house. And I was filled with a quirky little sense of well-being. I like the thought of living somewhere that requires a rake. I like the thought of the earth being taken care of. I like even the thought of dirt. Dirt that is loamy, which is a word that makes you think of dirt so good, they might serve it in a pretty silver dish, maybe with some whipped cream on top.
And perhaps I will have a loamy birthday cake this year. And since a pale pink is such a pretty contrast to brown, perhaps the icing will be pink and nobody will actually want to eat my cake, it being made out of dirt and all.
So instead, we will pick out the worms from inside. And then my brothers and I will try our luck once more at the Old Fishing Hole, just like I would do when I was not nearly so tall and my hair was not nearly so blonde.
And I will think my birthday is pretty good, as birthdays go.
Though I cannot say the same for the fish we will catch with the worms from the loamy birthday cake nobody will ever eat.
Cause gross, dirt.
