i caught a tiny wisp of the song of the hills, my memory bringing it up before me, the song i was surrounded with. if I had paid more attention when i was younger, perhaps i could recall it now, the very song, for now it is simply a memory without the music.
i had been seeking by a stream, as if its song could heal the hard and brutal things of this life… as if.
a measure of the undersong of these things – the hills, forests, the sound of the running water – offers some hope of healing from the heartless features of this life. it offers some sanity and peace restored because of the cacophonous busyness of everything else, most of it probably not important.
sometimes i am seeking healing, sometimes solace, sometimes maybe even answers, answers to something, answers to unanswerable questions.
but no, these things, places, as beautiful as they are, as musical, though they offer something of quiet, they do not always offer answers. at least not now, not so clearly, not so brazenly, to my tired and throbbing mind. maybe another time.
perhaps they are just a connection to something lost, to a place of silence.
perhaps it’s solely the moment to rest, to pause, to be still and listen to whatever is present in that instance, and not seek out any answers.
why do i think of that which is clearly impossible? some things are not impossible. some things that i bring and toss in the river are not impossible, but highly implausible… things i seek or want, but which are not highly likely. how do we live in a world with so much implausibility? i’m walking on cracked and broken ground, trying not to fall through, and watching dreams drown.
too much doesn’t make sense. i can’t fix it. i can’t fix my own nonsensical stuff. i can’t fix anyone else’s. i can’t fix any of it. i want to fix so many things, but instead find i am helpless and powerless to do so. it is beyond my control.
nothing i do or say can fix the ache of this life. there is an ache, a long, dull, and burning ache. a deep and long-lasting pain. i can’t make it go away. it’s there, as if it belongs to me now. i can’t wish it away. it comes back, again and again, a companion i don’t wish to have.
“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
doing so, Mr. Hemingway.
today’s stars seem dark and dim, unattainable, unreachable. why bother reaching, why bother trying, they shine so dimly. they laugh, they mock…
a mist… a mist falls sometimes here, with a fog, a rolling and chilly fog, near the big lake that looks like an ocean.
fear. it fills me with fear. the cold, the mist, the fog, the immensity.
it’s not tame, not gentle, not mild.
it’s unforgiving, rough, harsh, cold, cruel.
i don’t want to step into that white lusterless, obfuscated abyss. i want to run away.
for what do we struggle for and live for and die for?
don’t tell me the answer.
perhaps i know and don’t know.
just don’t tell me today.
i don’t want to know the answer today. maybe tomorrow. maybe the next day.
sometimes the answer is too much, sometimes it is not enough, sometimes it is the right thing to hear, sometimes i don’t want to know.
today, tonight, and tomorrow night, there are and will be stars in the sky. if our hairs are numbered, and He watches the sparrows, you can bet the stars won’t die either, without His watchful eye on them and us.
today’s stars, whatever they are to you— dim, unattainable, or bright hopeful lights— write about them. write clear and hard. write about the beautiful, and the painful. sometimes, they are both one and the same. sometimes, they are not. seen up close, stars are pretty boring. but from earth, from far away, they sparkle like diamonds. we need that perspective to find the beauty. we need to see it from faraway. up close, we can’t see the reasons, the purpose, the why’s….
i hope your walk among the trees, or in your neighborhood, or wherever you are, will be marked and lit by the beauty of sparkling, hopeful stars. may you be far enough, yet close enough, to see.
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