But Soft

but soft, what joy

through empty days is wrought

for me

Like an Adult in Pain

"I do not remember where I went, or who I saw there, or what I did on the visits. I only remember the way the mist curled around the buildings while I watched twilight colors get drunk on guitars and concrete and neoned reflections. I do not remember the trip, but the destination is too great to re-imagine into words for you. 

For city lights and hurting people are a grander picture than any artist can capture with camera or pen or paint. A street musician's wild and animalistic smile is more joyful than a Christmas gift-opener's; and life is not confined to those living it well."

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a resolution to live my life like a child, to gape and be amazed by all the things I see, to ask never-ending questions about the things that fascinate me.

Now I feel I must comment on the other side of the way I want to live.

Have you ever seen a movie (or read a book) that was so vivid, so truthful about pain and sin that you suddenly felt inundated with it? As if you were the refugee, the tortured soul, the betrayed victim of war? I've seen (and read) many. Braveheart, Forrest Gump, The Screwtape Letters.

Even some more innocent stories have given me tears over the depth and subtlety of the agony lying beneath the surface. The Princess Bride, The Chronicles of Narnia, and even The Blues Brothers (a comedy) have all shown me something that sobers and hurts me. They've shown me things that have grown me up.

Pain involves a great deal of clarity. Pain is always intent, always exact. Pain does not allow compromise or unpunctuality. Part of being an adult is knowing pain beyond scraped knees and disappointment. It is honesty, perception, and undulled feeling. It is great and wild and chaotic.

For some reason I find myself wanting it. Not the pain itself, necessarily, but the growth, the experience. I want the knowledge, the power, the memory of triumph and failure standing side by side.

I want to be like an adult in pain, knowing that I have seen much and can see more, and unafraid of the crescendo creeping nearer and nearer. I want to gasp at the asphalt and smoggy skies and hold in my arms a hopeless medical case and sing loud into a lonely, lonely canyon. I want to walk straight into a world and not sidestep the beggars lining the streets or step over the litter blocking the pathways.

I want to be a woman unafraid of the pain she's in, holding instead to the suddenly clearer image of her Reason To Live.

(And this is another odd resolution, to be an adult, with more strength and gentle forbearance than I currently have.)

Like a Child in Love

Remember the wide-eyed wonder and simple exclamations? The wows and the pleeeeeaaases and the mouth opened wide and round? Remember when you--a teenager or college student or single mother or creaky grandfather--were a child shopping with your mother, begging her to buy a soda or look at the train a little bit longer?

How long has it been since you gaped in awe at a butterfly fluttering near you or laughed like the bubbly schoolkid you were at some extremely dumb and cliche joke? It's been a long time for me. 

It's strange, really. I see these things, and I love them. I think butterflies are beautiful, and I love puns, even when they get cheesy. But I don't feel them the same way I used to. I want to be struck dumb when I see the wonders instead of taking a picture and exclaiming over the perfection. 

I want to watch, and remember, and tell about it in a hushed, reverent voice that still can't believe the beauty. I want to live this world like a child in love, a child that holds in cupped hands something it is afraid of shattering. I want to be awkwardly awe-ful, and blessedly full of cheeky smiles at such simple, common pleasures as ice cream and leaves blowing down in a shower. 

I want to be like a child wandering through her life, finding beauty in earthworms and the great expanse of sky and city and empty space that surrounds us.

(And this is my odd resolution for now. To be a child, more of a child than I already am.) 

Burning Eyes

"I..." He struggled to answer. "When everything was quiet, I went to the corridor and the curtain in the living room was open just a crack... I could see outside. I watched, only for a few seconds." He had not seen the outside world in twenty-two months.   

There was no anger or reproach.     

It was Papa who spoke.     

"How did it look?"     

Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment.  

 "There were stars," he said. "They burned my eyes." 

-(Markus Zuzak)

Pieces of Today, Nov. 13th 2015

1. The ache of worked muscles and the feeling of sweaty skin.

2. Quoting Shakespeare at the sun as it rises. (But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?) 

3. The feeling of victory when I write a perfectly described sentence.

4. Tears as sad music plays in the background (And I'd tell you that I miss you but I'm sure...it doesn't matter at all.) 

5. Getting a bit creeped out with all the stuff DuoLingo makes me learn to say:

6. Hallelujah, hallelujah! Because remember when I moved in you? The Holy Dove was moving too...and every breath we drew was hallelujah. (I did my best, it wasn't much. I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch.) 

7. The pure, unadulterated joy of contrast between sunshine on skin and dampness on earth-soaked feet.

8. I'm sailing away... so set an open course for the virgin sea. 

9. Lamplight on notebooked scribblings and essayed mythologies and rambling, nonsensical emotions.

10. And as a final note:

Pluviophile

Pluviophile: (n) A lover of rain: one who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days.