Words

 Last night was one of those where I did not get much sleep. I have these types of nights, long stretches where I lay there awake with hundreds of words all marching around in my head. The sound of their tiny feet stomping through the garden of my mind all seeking to be heard, all seeking a way out of the cave they have dwelt in for so long. I keep thinking that I have something to say, something that is of importance and yet when the light of day dawns it is truly all an illusion.  This morning in that gray, early light of the predawn, I watched as the objects in the bedroom began to slowly transform from the various shades of dark, into their individual colors. That slow process of becoming clearer, with a clarity that marked these things as individuals each with their own purpose. Their borders becoming sharp and defined, the gray shadows slowly solidifying, congealing like jello to become real. In that early light I rolled over to hold my wife, to feel her softness, to drink in her scent, to feel comfort as those words and shapes continued their odyssey, seeking a place to be heard and to be seen. 

 Soon enough the light becomes brilliant, the dog needs walking, our lives need to be lived. We cannot escape the undeniable life we live, yet I hold on to her for just a bit longer, my heart filled with a different light. Soon enough these words will find their way out, they will escape to be read, to be heard, it is as inevitable as the light of dawn. I hold on because this is my anchor, it is the grounding that I need with love being the chain that holds us together. The words might crash and burn as they enter the atmosphere but this love strengthens in the struggles, in that daily living.

 In all of this, in my deepest dreams, in my fractured imagination, strangely I feel no fear, no anxiety. Light is all around even in that darkest of nights, there is still a glimmer that guides the wanderer, the fool seeking to be heard in a vast wasteland. Am I that fool, that hopelessly romantic wanderer, armed only with words or am I delusional, wasting whatever time I have left in this journey? Time has its own way of creating the ground upon which we walk, above or below we all travel the same paths, straining to see the light, yearning to hear those words, to feel the connectedness of love. It’s by grace, yes that mystery that still haunts my every move. Grace, my words cannot even begin to illuminate that mystery, it is still in the shadows, in that early gray dawn of my mind, ever present, ever elusive, always a gift.