What The Darkness Hides

There's little as deceptive as darkness. A couple of weeks ago, I was driving through a small town in California called Three Rivers. This little place is the gateway to Sequoia National Park. It was an hour before sunrise and still dark as I made my way into Sequoia.

Beyond the limited reach of my headlights, nothing. A vacuum of light, of color, of existence.

But as my car weaved back and forth with the constant curves of the road, I knew something about what was out there, in the blackness, I wish I would remember more often about my life when I can't see, when I'm unsure:

I was surrounded by mountains. By beauty. By so much I couldn't see.

It was simply too dark to make out at the moment. It would have been easy to lull myself into believing there was nothing interesting or worthwhile beyond the gray concrete of the road and the brown dust that bordered it. I could have fooled myself into thinking there was only what I could see.

Darkness does that to us. It tempts us to believe our reality is what we see in our darkest moments--a gaping, black mouth constantly ahead of us, ready to swallow us up.

But if we just keep driving, if we just keep pressing on for a bit...

...we can start to see.

Color begins to crawl across the sky.

Contours begin to take shape.

And with just a faint glow of the sunrise, our hopes and dreams and our vision materialize once again.

When we're driving into the unknown, surrounded by shadow, blinded by obscurity, what if we found the strength and the patience to keep going a little farther--to press on toward daybreak, to let the light illuminate what the darkness intended to hide from us?

We might discover that what's waiting for us on the other side of night was worth the journey and all of its wondering and uncertainty.

Love, And How Little I've Known

This past weekend, I visited my sister Susie in Phoenix. She has pancreatic cancer, and it's wreaking havoc on her body.

Out of everything I could write or say about it, for right now, I only want and am only able to talk about this:

Love, and how little I've known of it.

I spent most of my time in Phoenix with Susie's husband, Mike. If you had asked me a week ago if I loved people well, I would have given some humble version of a "yes," but in my mind would have thought, "Of course I do." Mike has me reconsidering that.

While my sister is in the hospital, he handles everything else--the kids, the bills, the taxes, his work. He goes to visit her in the hospital and holds her hand and no matter how tired he is, he asks in the most gentle voice, "What do you need, baby doll? What can I do?" He gets on the hospital staff when something's not going right--not because he's a jerk, but because it's one of the only things he can control when it comes to this cancer business. He'll do anything, even if it's a tiny thing, to make this better for Susie.

This weekend, I realized that for most of my life, I've only played and splashed around in the shallow end of the pool of love.

Mike has dived into the deep end of love. Submersed himself. He holds his breath there and lets it burn his lungs.

I'm thankful for a guy who loves deeply like he does.

I have so much yet to learn.

Feature photo ©2013 Oscar Cortez

The Songs That Save Us

On Sunday night, I saw one of my favorite bands play in a small bar in Philly.

The band's name? Paper Route.

The show? Blew my mind. (I can't say enough about it, really, so I'll just say this--go listen to them, and if you get the chance, see them live. They do it right.)

I was only a few feet from the stage with a couple of good friends by my side. There's something special that happens when you get to stand in front of a band you've listened to for hours and hours and hear the notes come directly from their fingers and mouths. And when it's so loud it rattles your organs, even better.

That night, as I hoped they would, they played a song that means a lot to me--it's called "Better Life."

In dark times, there are certain songs that save us. Do you know what I mean? There are songs, even whole albums, that speak to us and heal us.

"Better Life" is one of those songs. The Peace of Wild Things is one of those albums.

Through some beautiful stroke of grace, Paper Route intersected my life at just the right time. I'll forever have a deep appreciation for and connection to the band, the album, and that particular song. It came to me in the toughest season I'd ever had and said, "A better life is waiting."

It saved me. It gave me hope when I had little hope. It brought me light when I hadn't seen light for a long time.

I'm sure we all have some songs like this. It's what I love about song--it takes the power of music, combines it with the power of poetry, and creates something with limitless potential to move people. It's been done for who knows how many thousands of years, and it never gets old.

Just before he began the song, the lead singer, J.T., said, "I believe the words of this song today even more than when we first wrote it."

Me too, guys. Me too.

***

Better Life

All this trouble that I know Every swing I take and stone I throw All the bridges that I've burnt All the new ways that I hurt

You gave up and I lost track When you love someone who don't love back It don't matter who's at fault Nothing matters now at all

I might have said too much I might have said too much I won't forget your touch I'm saying too much

A better life is waiting...

And what is done is done Piece together what's been broken Can you ever give up someone? A better life, a better life is waiting

All this fire in my veins From a heart that's trapped in my rib cage Burning through my fingertips Burning everything I kiss

All the memories that you live in Are just another door that I'm closing In a hall that's infinite But at least I can admit

I might have said too much I might have said too much I won't forget your touch I'm saying too much

A better life is waiting...

And what is done is done Piece together what's been broken Can you ever give up someone? A better life, a better life is waiting

Oh, I know I'm saying too much

Monday Confessional: I Want to Run

You can read the previous Monday Confessional here.

***

Confession: I've been seriously considering a move to the west coast.

Just before 2015 started, I sat down in front of my journal and began to write down all of my hopes and dreams and goals for the year. Some of these goals involve places I want to go (Europe), what I want to do with my money (save more/give more), activities I need to do more (snowboard/rock climb), and how to love people better (don't be an idiot).

Among those items on the list is a question: Is it time for me to go somewhere else?

It's a scary question. It's one that kept popping up for me, and I finally worked up the nerve to write it down.

On a side note, I've found that writing something down, even if it's for my eyes only, makes it so much more real. Terrifyingly real. If I can keep it as a mere thought, it's more like an imaginary creature, say a unicorn, flying around in the land of pretend inside my head. No consequences, no implications--just rainbows and sparkles, and I can make it all disappear with a snap of my fingers. The second I write it down, though, it's like poof! and I'm staring at a real, live unicorn in my room and I'm thinking, "What the heck do I do with this thing?" I don't know the first thing about unicorn care. What do they eat? Do they bite? This unicorn doesn't look as jolly and fun-loving as he did in my head.

And we're back. Ever since I wrote that question down, I've wrestled with it. I've locked arms with it, and I've rolled around in the dirt with it almost every day.

I normally wouldn't share something like this in this space--something that has so many implications for so many people in my life--but the conclusion I've come to is worth putting it out there.

I'm not moving.

Not now, anyway. I'm open to it, like I'm open to a lot of things in my life. As a rule, I'm trying to stop myself from planning and mapping all of it out.

I realized I'm not moving because I discovered what my motivation was. During this process, I shared my bothersome question with two people total. And each person responded with a question of their own: "Why?"

Great. Frickin. Question.

The answer to that question sputtered out of me one night as I tried, and failed, to bring up legitimate reasons. Out of the incoherent fog of my excuses (even the good ones--the weather, the mountains, the beaches, the lifestyle) arose the true, driving force behind this whole ordeal: I was running away from something.

I wanted to escape.

Here's what I know about running--it's much better to run to something than to run from something.

If I ever move, I want to have something on the horizon, something I've fixed my eyes on, something I really desire, and I want to run toward it with everything I have.

I don't want to leave my painting unpainted, leave my song without a resolving chord, leave behind everything and everyone important to me, because I decided to run away from something.

I don't want to run to escape. I want to run right through my challenges. I want to run to love, to hope, to dream, to build.

I can resolve that question in my journal now.

Is it time for me to go elsewhere? No. Not yet. Not while there's still so much to run to here, where I am.

Healing Feels Like

Healing feels like suffering at first. It feels like pain that comes in pulsing waves that sometimes lap over, sometimes crash into the shore.

It looks like wide-open eyes at night when you should have fallen asleep hours ago.

It looks like friends who know the pain is too great to talk or hug away, and so they simply sit and breathe with you.

It sounds like angry questions you ask God even if you don't believe in him.

It sounds like the same song repeating, repeating, repeating as it sings and sews the sutures that barely hold you together.

It feels like sliding down an icy hill which takes you toward something, somewhere new against your will.

It tastes like the tears that swell in your eyes, roll down over your cheekbones, and cascade over your lips.

Healing feels like awkward transitions.

It feels like the itch of scabs that form over your wound that you want to scratch.

It feels like the fear that chains itself to your ankle and makes you wonder if you'll ever be right again.

It looks like the squinting of your eyes when you first leave a dark room and meet the bright, burning embrace of the sun again.

It looks like the mess of pebbles, rocks, and dirt all over the road and sidewalks after the snow melts.

It looks like the indecision on your face when you wonder how you feel when you see or hear or run into him or her or it for the first time in a long time.

It sounds like the wobble of the chuckle that marks the first time you're able to laugh about the situation.

It sounds like the tapping of your fingers on the table, your feet on the linoleum, your heart on your ribcage, because you're antsy and ready to be over this.

It tastes like the tears that still come, though less frequently, as you ask yourself that nagging question...What if?

Healing looks like time.

It looks like days, weeks, months, and maybe years.

It feels at first like the days have stretched into the shoes of centuries and walk ever so slowly toward specks in the horizon.

It feels at some point like the days have shrunk themselves to the size of a hummingbird's wings and beat several times a second.

It sounds like the swell of songbirds signaling the sunrise of a spring you were afraid might never arrive.

It sounds like Amazing Grace but in a language you comprehend for the first time in your life.

It tastes like tears that slide down your face and around the corners of your smiling mouth when you realize how far you've come.

Healing is a mess.

Healing is a fight.

Healing is time, and time, and time.

Healing is coming. Healing we'll find.

***

Feature photo ©2013 Duncan Rawlinson | Flickr