05.07.04

So--the new design.

There are certain places that I can go whenever life seems unusually difficult, or empty, or whatever, that remind me that it really is going to be okay.

Lake Powell is one of those places. Every year we go as a family. I can�t really describe it unless you have been there, but picture the majesty of the Grand Canyon filled with cool water.

I have a ritual that I perform at some point during every trip. I�ll take a jet ski (yes, we are spoiled) or a canoe out away from the houseboat and the people. I�ll ride out across the vast reflective water until I come up to one of those huge, sheer, massive cliffs--ancient stone walls that meet the lake at a perfect right angle. Jumping into the water, I�ll swim up to that solid stone and just reach out and place my palm flat against its grainy smoothness. Looking up, there are hundreds of feet of rock stretching up to meet the sky, towering above me. Looking down into the water, past my feet, I�ll try to picture the hundreds of feet of that same flat stone extending down through the murky water below. The rock beneath my hand radiates warmth collected from the sun. There is no noise except the gentle lull of the water against the cliffs and my hushed breathing.

At that moment, I can feel my own nothingness in the universe like a jolt through my being. But rather than terrify me or make me feel small, in that moment I feel intense clarity and strength.

Those walls, those cliffs, have been standing for countless millennia. They have stood firm and still while we have been busy conquering lands, blowing each other up, and paying taxes. Those stones�they know. And when I touch them, when I feel their enduring strength beneath my hand, I know too. I know that it really will be all right. That no matter what we do to each other here on earth, stones will stand. They seem to whisper to me that they are stronger than we are. That there will be places on this earth that will continue to shelter, to grow, to endure no matter how bad or ugly things get. That no matter how many mistakes I make, or how things fall apart around me, there will be places like this to return to for refuge.

The world seems a mess sometimes. We may destroy until the cities are in ruins and the skies are black with ash. But there will be enough of the human spirit to endure. I have complete faith in that.

J and I won�t be going on that trip this year. J has his boards review the week we always go, and combined with that and summer school and various ten-year high school reunions, we are booked.

I�ll miss it. It reminds me that there is more to life than just wake up, drive to work, sit at my desk, drive home and get ready to start all over again. That stretching out hundreds and thousands of miles in any direction from where I sit, there is life going on. That there is strength and endurance. There is hope behind pain, and faith behind despair. There is always something beautiful to overcome the ugliness and hate.

Remember that.

before ~ after