2 people I know, dying. 2 people I know, moving. Countless people I know, restless. Inspired moments, few...or maybe plentiful depending on the perspective.
I suppose everyone in every point in every day in every era deals with these things: a feeling of constant change; fluid motion; tumult. But when it's you and it's your view and your people weathering the storm, it feels novel. And like every storm I've ever seen, renders me powerless but also awestruck. There's something there that I cannot bend to my will. And it can make powerful things seem powerless; bend the strong at the knee; make you rethink everything you thought you knew.
And feel sad.
Maybe that is the greatest noticeable effect of being at a loss for control. I feel genuinely sad and, frankly, I'd rather not. I think I've been conditioned, to a point, to run from sadness. Seems now that that's a shame. Sadness is real; just like pinching myself to remember I'm alive or focusing on every breath to remember each is vital, sadness signals something real. It is not white-washed. It isn't glossed over or frosted with fake smiley-face insistence. Sadness signals life. Just as true joy or love signals life. Sadness is a miner's canary for realness that should be celebrated...that could be celebrated if we weren't so trained to flee from it.
At this point I'm entitled to say I cannot imagine looking the end in its stark reality and accepting it. I have not had the requirement of that consideration although I've watched others stare it down. Everybody loses there. The end will come. It's the meaning that haunts. It's all of the expectations that haunt. But it is not the joy and happiness that haunts. That remains. It will remain. And we are its keepers and protectors.
Where there is sadness, there was also joy. Where there is darkness, there will be light. And we will not just remember but we will carry on and live with as long as we continue to breathe and step one foot in front of the next.
We always are if we can imagine it.
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