dualities

this week stretches endlessly behind me, a long and winding road i ended up on, that i finally am able to turn off of.

as a writer, something i challenge myself to do is to conjure up images that exactly correlate with the way my heart is feeling. in mid-summer, when the world feels free, i imagine it as a newly loosed sail, gliding upwards, carried by the wind, secure in its lodging and yet loosed to absorb ocean air.

the beginning of june is the rising of the moon against the blue-ness of 7pm. ice-cream dripping down cones and onto hands. it is thighs sticking to seats (uncomfortable) but summer air rifling through hair.

the mid-december, pre-christmas joy is associated with warmth, sitting by the fire, jazz crackling on the turntable, chianti in a glass (cheap, of course)


the season i'm in now is the fog of 4 am in mid-november.


the first time my sister and i went black friday shopping, we experienced this discomfort first-hand. alarms blared at approximately 3:30 (a mere 4 hours after shut-eye began), and we rolled ourselves out and into a very cold mid-sized vehicle. that morning, my junior's operating license was put to the test as i drove us through a cloud of moisture in the darkness of night, a thick, murky substance hanging over the atmosphere just 2 feet beyond where my lights began. the light reflected back onto our car and in the end, it took us double the amount of time to get to the shopping mall. much of our conversation that morning was dialogue on just how little we could see, how wet the air felt, how odd it was to see the car on the other side of the road only as it was passing ours, never before.

this image is one i've thought about often– the idea that wherever you're going is just beyond sightline, that swathed in darkness (already an uncomfortable predicament without adequate lighting) your circumstances have added the double-threat of unmistakable fog, and what you could cling to  – the yellow stripe down the center of the road, the horizon line, the scenery that you know so well – is covered in an uncommon, uncomfortable atmosphere.

it is a season of suffering and rejoicing, of days that are the very definition of "mixed bags." awaking to the coiled-fear of sadness and blue. falling asleep knowing full well the Lord is fighting for you, advocating for your spirit, surrounding you on all sides. the next day it is reversed. the golden light of morning is soft, bright. it coats everything: the homeless man on 7th and 31st smiles at you. the coffee-cart employee does too. your barista gives you a $5 coffee for $3 instead. but that night, you climb into bed and darkness descends. sleep is a foreign thing, the coiled fear and sadness sits atop your chest, resting against your esophagus, draping itself over your ribcage, clinging to thoughts.

i am processing the duality of this.  that life can be this way. that the one-track days I have grown accustomed to, fully good or fully bad, aren't all there is. that seasons, times aren't always a wash of one feeling, a collection of a certain type of day. but rather, life itself is a petri dish where each cell has been swirled together into one mass-collection of chaos.

but even in this.

in the knotted strings, the cell collections that have lost definition. in the fog/darkness. in that? yes there. he knows each mess, each ingredient of it, individually, as a distinct thing.

i am learning, slowly, surely, a 5mph speed on the way to the destination, that mixed-bag days that you face, each morning, those things, the way you attempt to prepare your heart for one tone and instead hear clamor and clanging and dissonance. in that, yes there, each tone in this chaotic orchestra is planned, his own, a marvelous ingredient intended for a delightful result.

before the beginning of time even! ordained! there!

there is upheaval in my days, the way david's psalms are both morose and life-filling, hopeless and hope-riddled: i am in the middle of muddle. of confusion and clarity. of minor and major chords. i am seeing the blue-gold of mountaintop views at sunrise while  crippling walking through the valley in darkness.

maybe the coiled-fear and the syrupy sweet happiness, together. the darkness and the fog and the light of my front lights reflecting back onto my 5mph moving object, maybe it is that, all those things together, the things that feel like loose threads tangled, those things: aren't they each ordained by him?

and if they are? if this orchestra that strums and hums and throttles within my ribcage is ordained by him, and if each thing he ordains is good, isn't he then, worthy of praise, still?

i want to say "here i am, lord." remember me, please. but, i think the very chaos of my today is a direct correlation, a direct reminder that he does not forget my name, that he knows my days. because after the crippling terrors of 2am pass, the morning dawns bright, and i swear the skies are writing poetry for me.

so, here i am, lord, of that much you already know. god of my every day, abba: you are worthy. the . master of the chaos, the storms, the orchestra. worthy are you.