dancing

I remember my Uncle Steve saying once that he disliked having free time if he didn’t have a good book handy.  I feel the same way.  I mean, don’t get me wrong — there is always Dawson’s Creek Season 3, but still.  I usually prefer books.  I’ve been reading a Stephen King book this month for my book club.  Not horror, though, which surprised me.  It’s called 11/22/63 and it’s about a time traveler trying to stop the Kennedy assassination.  And it’s H U G E.  Almost 900 pages.    But I’m really enjoying it and I’m nearly finished.  Yesterday I read this passage and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  The main character had just witnessed something beautiful, something truly good…

“For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you know that the world is barely there at all.  Don’t we all secretly know this?  It’s a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life.   Behind it?  Below it and around it?  Chaos, storms.  Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns.  Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand.  A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”

Something about those lines really resonated with me.  I’ve been thinking about, and longing for some unfettered joy lately; to just be completely and totally happy.  The way that I used to feel sometimes when I was younger.  The older I get, though, the more I see and know, the less often this seems to happen.  I might be completely buoyant and thrilled for one friend while simultaneously weeping with another.  One of my kids is sick while the other is thriving.   Part of my community, my family in Seattle, is in a good season of life right now and we’re walking with them.  And other parts of our family here are in a sorrowful season and we’re walking with them as well.   You get the idea.  It’s good and hard and confusing in equal measure, figuring out how to be both happy and sad simultaneously sometimes.

Anyhow, that excerpt by Stephen King struck a chord.   It seems really depressing to say that happiness, beauty and goodness are always tinged with sorrow, that “horror and loss” always surround it.  But I guess then that the flip side is also true.  There is always beauty and goodness to be found even when we are full sorrow and sadness.    And that’s a good thing.  That’s what keeps us all going, right?  Those good moments, the beautiful things, big or small, that pierce through the drab and darkness that might otherwise take us down.  So I was thinking about all of this last night before drifting off.  And honestly, people, things aren’t at all bad right now.  Remember how I like to be melancholy?  Yeah, this is just more of that.  But I was thinking that no matter how hard things get, regardless of what sadness is surrounding me, I don’t want to lose sight of that stage where the mortals are dancing.   I’ve talked about being a Christian before.   And as a Christ-follower, I am eagerly looking forward to the day when all the other things around that metaphorical Stephen King-stage fall away, the day when everyone is dancing and all things are made new.  Sounds pretty good right about now.

Here are some (mostly) beautiful moments from the last week…

Ok, now to tell you about our Christmas Tree excursion.  Jason thought it would be brilliant to drive up into the mountains to a U-Cut Tree Farm.  You know, with hot cider and farm animals and all that festive cheer.  I agreed that it would be fun if we didn’t have to drive so far with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old eager to get a tree and seriously lacking in the patience department.   I suggested a farm about 20 minutes away, with equal festive-ness, but no mountains.   Save the longer drives for when they are a tad older.  But he was not to be deterred.   He promised brilliance.  He promised the boys would be happy as little elves.   You know where this is going.

Long story short?  We drove.  The boys whined and carried on.  Isaiah was a hot mess 25 minutes in, once the snacks were gone and boredom set in.  I was wedged in between their car seats because J’s mom is in town so she was sitting up front, Isaiah pulling my hair  and Gryffin practicing his “scary roars.”  Jason pulled over about 35 minutes in, tossed me his phone and said in total exasperation “find us something closer!”    I did my best.  I found a farm about 10 miles back, on a little country road, so we turned the car around in the hopes of finding those trees and holiday spirit, stat.    But small tree farms on country lanes don’t open until December…

So we threw some rocks in the river and burned off some steam, Jason told me I had been right (this was painful for him), and then we headed back home, where we bought a tree from the produce stand down the street from our house.