almost always, whenever i am going through the throes of life, i begin the task of letting words fall on me. not words to say or to write, but words to listen to.
so while a mr. paul holds his hand in the space between us, amid sink and stove, and says, “you know what happy is? happy is this little finger. happy is using my hands,” i take his words in like bread and butter. and when i saw the stretch of his pinky, i found a bit of happy in my own.
and at the burger joint on the corner of walnut and oakland, a lucky boy tells me about an old man, who after walking out of a restaurant, comes back and says he forgot his cane. lucky boy says, “well if you forgot your cane, you don’t need it.” you. don’t. need. it. the phrase echoed liberation. that is to say, freedom from the crutch. i recall the moment i heard his story, and knew this was somehow for me. it came as a moment of revelation over the strength of my own two feet.
and then when in the dark of the plaza, from the lips of a perfect stranger, a series of poignant remarks fell over me. this man, who i now know as a fifty-something year old mr. michael, says, “The world, it belongs to you.” the declaration in his voice told me how true it was for him, and how true he thought it was for me. he traced his life from age twenty-three and told me, "Be strong," and then added, "I don't know you, but I can tell you've got wisdom beyond your years." and whether i believe the veracity of his statement, it’s there, in those first words, where i am making sense of the world and all its possibilities.
i am a romantic. sometimes i feel that makes me naive. and other times i feel that makes me more brave. i want happy to be found in the work of my hands. i want to feel ease in the distance between what i want and what i have. because what i want is most often not what i have... but hell, i have got to be more damn persistent in committing myself to what i want. Of the same token, i want a contentment for what i do have, because i realize what i have is still the gift and beauty i do not deserve. but to continue in the list of what i want... i want to find the intention of my being lived out in every essence, in mind, body, soul, work, and place. i want an art and craft that marks my existence, a community of people to bear witness to and upon, and the liturgy of daily rhythms to pronounce a life that died well. i want to lead a romantic life.
and i want it all to happen not in the shadow of a man, or a woman. not in the shadow of a family, nor in the shadow of society. because i find the shadow of all of these to be too small. if in any shadow, may it be in the shadow of God, because She is much bigger and much more gracious than the whole of humanity.
“It may be when we no longer know what to
do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which
way to go, we have begun our real journey.” | Wendell Berry
