Friday, June 18, 2004
I came home tonight after work like I usually do, around 1 am, and the sky was canopied with a thick cloud cover that bounced the glow of the city back down at me, creating sort of a soft grey light around everything. It made things just seem that much more vivid and peaceful, like inhabiting a memory or walking into the fragment of a dream. It felt kind of stop motion too, as if everything were standing real still so as not to disturb the breeze and scare it away.
I'm a night person. People say things are more intense in the night, like fears and sadness, and that things will look better in the morning. But I find the night simplifies things. Makes the world seem calmer and more manageable. It softens the edges a bit. I don't mind the dark, it makes things more interesting---a little more mysterious.
I walked halfway up the front walk to our porch and stopped. I looked up at the clouds and it was like God was closer at that moment. Closer to earth. I know that God is always there and there is no distance, but at that moment it seemed a little more tangible. Instead of going into the house just then, I walked around to the back yard and put a chair in the middle of the grass. And I sat down, in the middle of my back yard in the middle of the night, and it felt right.
I looked around at the props that our life is filled with scattered about my view, and they weren’t just things, they were vessels holding fragments of our life. The quite swing set reminded me of all the climbing and playing that our kids have done. All the hours that a little body has occupied a swing, content with nothing more than the back and forth motion that was all that it could offer. The toys in the grass, the abandoned kiddy pool, the tranquil patio, all whispered of the joys and life that has occurred there.
And I thought, we’ve been here for 10 years. That’s longer than I have ever stayed anywhere since I left home after graduating high school and moved out of my parent’s house. That’s so dangerous. It means that this place has become a part of us, a part of our history and our family. If we were to every leave, we would be losing more than a roof.
We would be walking away from a personal, historical landmark in our lives.
I'm a night person. People say things are more intense in the night, like fears and sadness, and that things will look better in the morning. But I find the night simplifies things. Makes the world seem calmer and more manageable. It softens the edges a bit. I don't mind the dark, it makes things more interesting---a little more mysterious.
I walked halfway up the front walk to our porch and stopped. I looked up at the clouds and it was like God was closer at that moment. Closer to earth. I know that God is always there and there is no distance, but at that moment it seemed a little more tangible. Instead of going into the house just then, I walked around to the back yard and put a chair in the middle of the grass. And I sat down, in the middle of my back yard in the middle of the night, and it felt right.
I looked around at the props that our life is filled with scattered about my view, and they weren’t just things, they were vessels holding fragments of our life. The quite swing set reminded me of all the climbing and playing that our kids have done. All the hours that a little body has occupied a swing, content with nothing more than the back and forth motion that was all that it could offer. The toys in the grass, the abandoned kiddy pool, the tranquil patio, all whispered of the joys and life that has occurred there.
And I thought, we’ve been here for 10 years. That’s longer than I have ever stayed anywhere since I left home after graduating high school and moved out of my parent’s house. That’s so dangerous. It means that this place has become a part of us, a part of our history and our family. If we were to every leave, we would be losing more than a roof.
We would be walking away from a personal, historical landmark in our lives.
