Transcendent

 

October 26, 2020

 Greetings from a better path,

 There was a day not long ago when I sat down at my desk at work and saw that during my absence I had accumulated nineteen voice mails.  I had no reason to believe they were all messages from admirers who had called only to remind me of my most valuable gifts. In fact, I suspected the darker opposite. 

 The content of the voicemails is of no consequence, the only thing I remember from that day is how I saved the feeling I had when I saw the number, resented it and kept the resentment like a little badge of pride and self-pity.  I knew I would tell others else about it, wallow in that dark feeling.

 I am not proud of this, but it’s worth telling because many of you have whipped yourself in your own way, struggled with the demands of the day and found yourself feel aggrieved, exhausted, and wondering how you might muster the fortitude to do it again the next day. 

 Before men such as I take on our first worry, we are carefree boys whose purpose is to collect moments of happiness.  We would never describe it that way, but it is what we do; we find our friends, we occupy ourselves with what makes things fun, or adventurous, or satisfies a curiosity.  We often invented the moments of happiness out of nothing, rather than allow boredom, that pale gray companion, to hover for a moment.

 As a boy I would often come home with literal collections of my day, things I found that I could put in my pocket, talismans of the adventures, mementos of the page of life I had created.  Some bits of string, interesting stones, a toy I treasured, a bubble gum comic.  The rest was on my skin; the dirt or the scratches or grass stains, or the color the sun had tinted me.  At the end of the day, if you wanted to catalog what my experience was, you would only need look at me or the litter of things I emptied from my pockets.

 It is not a new idea, but time to be reminded, that we are created to know happiness.  When I was a boy, I was given lessons by God as to how to practice for this and became nearly expert at it.  Then, I spent a number of years unlearning every lesson I was gifted with.  With the responsibilities and stresses of being a grown up, the purpose dimmed, became a casualty of ‘real life’.  The natural accumulation of happy moments became relegated to another time, when this was done, that was fixed, this thing accomplished. 

 Finding joy and being a grown up are not mutually exclusive.  Some of you are good at this balance, dealing with the vagaries of your daily responsibilities and throughout the challenges making sure you tend to your own happiness.  Some of you are fantastic at this, and perhaps a few of you, and me, need help.

 At the end of my day I can see what I have collected, see the experiences I have saved, the souvenirs I pocketed from the accumulation of moments that filled my waking hours.  It is a mosaic we make from the little things in our day, and it is how we feel about our life and ourselves. 

 I might remember the day as this; the difficulties, the anxious waiting in traffic, the frustrations, the isolation, the stress, the deadlines, the cynicism, the tedious, the demands of others, and those I make on myself.  This is not the mosaic I would choose for a friend.

 I had forgotten, until a few days ago, where this quote was, written from my friend John Steinbeck.  He says, in my favorite copy of ‘Travels With Charlie’; “There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes it colors and its fire to match the nature of a day, so do I.”

 In this gentle, simple inspiration, I was given a transcendent path.  I was offered a way to lift myself from the ordinary reaction to the world.  The nature of each day is a confluence of the life that comes to us and the life we create, the parts we bring to make it our own experience. 

 I have learned, and forgotten, and am reminded, that I have to create space in my day to put in what I choose, not what is chosen for me.  I need to create habits and opportunities, that allow more moments of joy, of curiosity, of love, of laughter, of friendship. 

 Books and coffee and music and tears and fun and running and nature and moments to think and create.  This is what I will empty from my pockets each night.  I promise.

 There will not be a time in the days left to me that there are not challenges and demands, that there won’t be disappointments, failures, even heartbreak.  But it is still up to me to follow the instruction I was given as a boy; to find the joy in spaces between, to hold that as what was memorable and worthy, and to make that the nature of the day that I match. 

 

 Hope this finds you changing your color and fire,

 

David

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 David Smith