Dancing On the Road Together

We mark our journey through life with milestones labeled “Joy” and “Sorrow.”  Our individual paths intersect with the trails of those we meet and become one road with those with whom we choose to share our lives.

People we love, our friends and families, are part of our climbs to the joyful heights.  We push and pull and prod one another to successes, and we celebrate the many wonders of life together—finding our way, discovering the one who shares our daily journey, marveling at our children.  Going this way together makes those peaks of Joy seem so much higher than if we go alone.  We invite others to our celebrations and swell with pride and cheer for those we love in their triumphs and times of Joy.  The road, however, is rarely smooth, nor is it a constant climb to those summits of happiness.

Although the descents into Sorrow are made less terrifying when we have a hand to hold, unlike the bliss of shared Joy, even in a crowd Sorrow is a lonely stop along the way.  Maybe it’s that we want to spare those we love from the pain and heartache, and so we put on a brave face and, whether we stride boldly or go with timorous steps into the darkness, we seem to prefer traveling this part of our path alone.

When enough time has passed that looking back reveals a long journey, it is a good thing to notice those many other roads that intersect with ours.  Sometimes it takes close scrutiny to know that the “one” path that is ours actually bears the footprints of so many who have chosen to go the same way.  Now and then a nearby trail will join ours for quite some time.  Surprisingly, often those intersections come at Sorrow and continue with us in the long climb back out of the depths.

I guess I’m feeling my age today.  The road behind me is now much longer than what lies ahead, I know.  But it’s good to look around and see all those who are accompanying me now.  Even more I am glad to travel for a while with those who are just beginning their journeys.  Hopefully I can help them along, celebrate with them, but most of all, hold them up when their path drops into the shadows of Sorrow.  Usually it is a darkness I recognize.  Maybe I can provide a bit of the light of experience and the strength of perseverance.  I know that when my way tends down, my steps are lighted up again by their hope.

One thing I know, no matter how often the markers of Sorrow have been left behind on my own road, with the help of my many friends and my family, I have always been climbing.

I like Garth Brooks’ song, “The Dance,” and the line, “I could have missed the pain but I'd have had to miss the dance.”  It’s a fun way to travel.

Valentine

Last week the sun struggled to raise the temperature above zero.  The earth slumbered, pulling the white comforter of almost a foot of snow over its head to drown out the howling of the wind.  We worried that Phil would stay in his burrow; refuse to even come out and look for his shadow.  Another Midwestern winter had us all in its grip, only this time it seemed like only Hawaii was avoiding the chill.  We set up a collective whine, pleading for the return of spring.

Today I’m sitting in a pool of sunlight and looking out my window at the front yard’s maple tree.  I can almost see the buds swelling in the warmth.  The forecast is for temperatures to reach almost sixty by mid-week.  Except for the shadowed places and the drifts or accumulated piles, the snow is gone.  Puddles are growing larger by the minute.

I love this annual ritual and can’t imagine living somewhere that the change of seasons isn’t this climatic and climactic shifting, the curtain rising and falling, one act to another, a frantic rearranging of the set.  The symbolism of it has been part of my consciousness as long as I can remember.

Struggle…growth…change…solemnity…jubilation…despair…hopefulness…peace…chaos…rest…exuberance….

The earth continues to remind me that my life is a revolving, evolving change of seasons, but one that stays the same despite the storms, despite the drastic fluctuations, because some things remain constant—sun, rain, hope, love,

you.