Tonight I went to Atlanta for a non-hockey experience. It was actually a mix of Marta, Chick-fil-a, and the case of the missing Starbucks. There was a moment, though, when we were talking and standing and deliberating outside the ticket window (by the way, what's up with doubling non-student prices!? I mean, I think there should be some sort of "transition" time where people in between college graduation and that lucrative career that enables them to buy a BMW can get a break). While we paused, I looked up at the city and curve of metal and ghostly shades of runaway clouds and residual moisture. My life's not what I expected a few years ago. I'm not disappointed. I was talking with my father about how the abstract, inherent, (dare I say eternal?) desires deep within us are so often connected with the physical entities we create to fufill them. Of course, in our creation we fail to remember that the desires were created first; we also fail to remember our limited perception doesn't take into account how many different possible outlets for our desire exist. If the physical entity of my dreams crumble, that doesn't mean my desires have gone unfulfilled.

Where was I? Ah, right, I was at that place where I can't quite type out what I'm feeling.

Listening to my little compilation of rip-your-heart-out love songs. Among them: Jem's "Falling for You," James Blunt's "I Really Want You," Jump Little Children's "Cathedrals," Johnny Cash's cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind," Damien Rice's "9 Crimes."

I have a pretty good idea of where I would like my career to go, what places I want to travel to next, the sort of people I enjoy being around and who make me feel more happy to be myself. But the thing I want most is to trust that my desires' fulfillment does not rest on how I imagine it to come to pass; it depends on something far mightier than that, something beyond the lights and metal and raindrops. And that brings me peace.

* ¡Warning!*

Sophomoric musings and wandering thoughts ahead.  Please watch your step. 

Thank you.

__________________

Emote. Emotion. Motion. 

 

In my completely invalid (and personalized) definition, it is the irregular and uncontrollable stream of energy that desires nothing more than an escape through piano strings, ballpoint pens, or the hard wooden floor of a dance stage.

 

There is nothing quite like the need to emote.  Emote.

                        Terrible word. 

 

Emote.  E-mote. 

 

It is, I like to think, a desire to mimic G-d as creator.  Some part of us came from eternity yet dwells in a viewpoint that does not understand it (think Ecclesiastes 3).  The part that does desire to return to Echad seeks to create, as creation is His distinct and unique ability.  The part that does not understand the infinite struggles with the reality that we, that I, do not have the potency of soul to create. 

 

A benevolent struggle takes place, but I haven’t ever experienced hatred in that particular pain.  A rarity.  Pain, yet no anger, no fear, no virile animosity.  It is sheer desire straining against the constricting frame of inability.

 

Last week I witnessed stone white trees slipping beneath the opaque surface of lake water.  It was in a shaded area of Red Top Mountain’s Homestead Trail, and the leafy boughs of the dipping trees’ relatives accentuated the moss green of the water.  But it was a mournful, slow descent beneath the water, and while I knew in my conscious logic that the trees had simply fallen, the reality of my imagination struck quite truthfully that the trees had made a terrible decision to suffer their lives to the lake. 

 

A world exists where I forget my pride and my reflection and my self as I see it.  A world exists where an eternity of me meets the finite ancient and youthful aspects of my own fractal self.  I once asked my father why I felt more like myself when I was in nature.  He replied that we came from dust and dirt, and so we are merely recognizing ourselves when we look beyond. 

 

I can understand that.  There is a continuity of physicality that I feel when I am outdoors, out and away from sculpted metal and whirring engines and filtered light.  And when I put my hands on a tree, I guarantee that I feel a heartbeat.  Whether it is my own or not, I really can’t say.

I can hear my father packing and re-packing his small carry-on satchel in the next room.  This last time he forgot his razor, but remembered his toothbrush.  Heaven knows if he will ever decide if he can fit in that extra pair of shoes.  His loyalty to the Carry-On Only rule is unwavering, though, so if they must be left behind, then they must.  He has slowly converted the last of his family to the same strident rules of packing – for the past two summers, we have survived for over a month in six countries with nothing more than wrinkled belongings crammed into those 45” limitations.  My sister is an even greater testament; if you see her collection of spiky black Steve Maddens and purple Coach bags, you can’t help but realize the soul-straining resilience required for her to leave the giant suitcases and minimize to a few tawdry outfits.  Yet abba has convinced her to do so, so she does.

But my father is like that.  Half the time I see him as the efficient patriarch in Cheaper by the Dozen, except missing about ten kids.  The other half, he is spiritual and fluid and contemplative.  Then there are always the collisions of the two when, oddly enough, a mischievously childish personage emerges.  This usually comes about when we play board games, or he’s teasing me about my latest crush, or early in the morning when we’re both up and our philosophic conversations turn dreary. 

He just destroyed me in monopoly.  I stayed in it until he slapped me with over $1,000 in rent, and all I had left was three mortgaged railroads, $17 in fives and ones, and my metal dog game piece that I named Sparky.  He tried to buy Sparky from me in return, but I have my pride.  And he has his victory. 

The game took far too long, so now he’s trying to get everything settled before his early morning flight.  I stayed home from services tonight to spend more time with him.  Tomorrow he goes to visit Maine, but in October he’ll be much, much farther away.  My mother is starting to get nervous and anxious – hardly least because she doesn’t know if she will be going with him.  She paces a great deal, and keeps looking at him like he’s made of chalk, and will disappear with a wayward gust of wind.

I don’t know when I’ll see him again once he goes to Kabul.  I can’t picture him there, not yet.  I don’t know what his apartment will look like.  I can’t picture the faces of the people he will be with, or whom he will teach.  There is a distorted image in my mind, much like looking through the warped beauty of a Bazaine stained glass window, and that is how well I can see his life in a few months.  He is so precious to me – and I’m afraid. 

V'hagen ba-adeinu, v'haser me'aleinu oyev, dever v'cherev v'ra-av v'yagon, v'haseir satan mil'faneinu u-mei-achareinu, uvtzel k'nafecha tastireinu, kee El shom'reinu u-matzileinu atah, kee Kel melech chanun v'rachum atah. 

“Shield us, remove from us foe, plague, sword, famine, and woe; and remove spiritual impediment from before us and behind us and in the shadow of Your wings shelter us.  For G-d who protects and rescues us are You; for G-d, the Gracious and Compassionate King, are You.”  (Hashkiveinu)