I can sit in my moments of darkened glory, wishing it all away. I can wish for the absolute erasure of pain bodies collected over the years. I can hope for a clean slate where the moments of yesterday all dissolve into the glorious daylight of today. I can wish to never, ever, hear those demons laughing in my direction again.
But why would I? Why would I wish to forget those beatings that made me an idiot and a wise man all at the same time? Why would I wish to forget the darkness of my suffering? Why would I hope to lose the lessons learned as I fell blind and uncertain of survival in a bed far from my children, my home, my precious island sands? Why would I dishonor the death and destruction I have witnessed and the finality those things have shown me? These things have been gifts and rather than see them as weapons I can use against myself and others I now see them as tools I can use to till vast fields. I can create fertile soil and plant beautiful flowers knowing full well that those seeds will need to survive their own night before their glorious blooming.
They are a part of me. They represent insane setbacks and painful falls but they also prove glorious victories and wondrous risings. Those moments, both the falling and the rising, represent the worst and best of life and the worst and best of me. In the worst these moments attest to the darkness of humanity. In the best these moments represent that remarkable persistence and greatness of a heart that just wanted to live.
I truly doubt that my desire to live could have been expressed without the threats to my life that enlightened it. I believe that the great love I have flowing inside of me would not have been as seen had it not been for the enormity of fear and desolation that caused me to pull it out of my dormant heart. I see both as two sides of life’s powerful pendulum, and as that pendulum swung uninhibited from the extreme darkness it could only return to an extreme light. As is true with any pendulum it drags with it bits of one experience into the other as it moves, often bringing bits of darkness into my light and bits of light into my darkness.
Those bits of light often provide me focus when my soulful night arrives. I often feel cold and alone in that darkness until my heart’s eyes adjust to my surroundings and the stars, those little bits of light dragged into my night, come into view. Then my proverbial ship rights itself and the loving navigator within me can set his sights on a destination truer to my heart.
Isn’t it the master sailor who has experienced the roughest seas? I may carry with me the trauma of harsh storms even onto the calm waters but I will appreciate that calmness. I’ve learned valuable lessons in cyclones caused by lies and fear and although I can still feel the now subtle rocking of my soul’s hull in the calmest seas, it is the calmness that I see. It is her hand on my chest that I feel despite the shaking of my mindquakes. It is love’s caress I know even when the demons begin their laughter. It is the sight of a smile from those I love that emboldens me even in the memory of my blindness. It is walking in life’s domain that enriches me even as the memory of my body being frozen to a hospital bed reminds me of its frailty.
Perhaps I am fortunate to have darkness serve as the canvas on which I allow love to paint its masterpiece. There is nothing like that blackened space to allow the colors of love to jump right out of the scene. I was a child who could not decide for himself what experiences were gifted him. Today, however, I am a man who has lived with scars on his heart and healed with a passion flowing through his veins. I cannot run from darkness when it creeps into my daylight. I face it, embrace it and let the experience flow as the pendulum of life swings. I then accept that darkness and ask it what it must teach me. Being the teacher that it is the darkness stays with me until I have learned the lesson. Then it fades as the pendulum swings toward daylight. I’ve found the darkness simply cannot stay long in the face of a rising Sun.
I cannot apologize, in good conscience, for the passion and the strength that have provided me with not only survival but the awareness of the lessons that have blessed my life. I cannot be honest and apologize for the feelings that course within me as the pendulum swings, nor can I love purely if not accepted fully as it swings in either direction. However, as the master of my ship I can change my focus from the dark skies to the divine suns that dot that canvas. My work is in allowing the dark sky to do its thing while I never, ever, forget the stars that are a gift as well.
“Got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul, and so it goes.“