Sunday
evening I landed, I packed and then I stepped away to close
my eyes and breathe deeply. I took a long sip of air slightly chilled
with a cold front passing, warmed with early summer rays and sharp with
a taste of cut grass and dust. I have the perfect amount of quiet
gratitude in my glass of joy.
I
am lost in time again; looking around at a little eclectic community
framed by wild clouds and golden sunset.
And
I remember… I am twenty again, twenty and cold. I hadn't anywhere to go
that night and I was afraid to be found by the one person looking. There
was no one to call and no way to call anyway. I had snow soaked tennis
shoes on, a small stash of squirreled away cash in my pockets and the
sudden inexplicable belief that I would 'will' myself out of the corner I'd
painted myself into.
I
remember this night like it is now; I cup my soul’s hands gently, carefully, around
that night with palms full of humble recognition. That beautiful night I huddled, shaking
and shivering, in the shelter of a covered door entry at a closed grocery
store. I remember a fire born in darkness and determination.
The heat of it burned my heart, my ribs - the inner flames torched my icy
fingers -I would get out of this mess.
I
closed my eyes at that moment on that night and I pictured what this would mean,
how it would taste, what I would be able to do.
I pictured the road trip Dee and I promised each other, I pictured my
identity, I took my fears of water, of heights, of friendship, of roots and I held them to this fire and watched them burn. For hours, alone and un-found, until early dawn, I concentrated on this vision.
I had realized one of my truths, (I have a few now), and this one is a big
one. Maybe an obvious one but that’s the
thing about being young- we all start out not knowing anything.
Truth#4: We forget that both happiness and storms will come and go and pass.
Again and again. Happiness is such a fleeting, painfully fragile, delicate
and wondrous thing. And we forget, as we bask in it's luminous glow, our arms stretched out and up to the welcoming sky, that it will come and go and pass.
Storms, so wild, wicked and dark, as our ship is sinking, ropes lashing in
the wind and unsecured sails perilously unfolding;
we despair and forget. We forget it will pass. That the heavy suffocating rain
will lessen, the clouds will break and the moon will return with stars to guide
the way.
Here is the point; Storms will come all on their own. Sometimes we may mistakenly steer ourselves into
them, sometimes we choose a course that lengthens the duration we ride
through them -but storms will come.
Happiness, while it may seem to 'just happen', happiness is always a choice. Happiness is in our heads. Sometimes
it is a hard choice, one reached for with grasping hands blinded by pain,
loss, or most terribly of all, with regret.
Happiness
was the moment I believed, that night and the nights after, with all I wanted
to be; I believed I could and I would figure out how to get out of that situation. And every happiness since then leaves my mortal beating heart
shaking with thankfulness to the person inside me trying her best, the man standing beside me and all the people around me reaching out with giving hands.
Remember
the light after the storm Reader. Even
if that is all you can do as you hang on to the wheel of your ship, nose into
the wind, the world black and your horizon tumbling, remember the light outside
of the storm.
'Remember the Light after the Storm'
16" X 20 X .75"
Original Art - Oil Pastels/ Acrylic (Sealed to protect against fading/UV)
