Standing half-naked in the sunlight, I still manage to cover the decades-old bruises left on my heart. Back in the 90’s, I remember listening to Trent Reznor scream, “I wanna fuck you like an animal!” and it was all just a way of getting ‘Closer’ to God. On this particular Sunday morning, God feels far away, so I put on a piece by Reznor and Atticus Ross that was produced over a decade after ‘Closer’. What a difference a decade makes, and now almost another decade has passed beyond that. Still, I stand at the window from time to time, soaking in the sun to feel some sort of warmth in this wayward world, decade after decade after decade. I feel the subtle shift of time. I feel the differences in the years, knowing much of that is simple shifts in perspective and perception. Getting closer to peace within, even as the world grows ever divisive without.
I like this music. It’s calm and tense at once, the way most of us are living each day out. Even at our most peaceful moments, the tension of a country teetering on the brink of collapse does’t fully allow for total release and meditative bliss. All I can do is approach… gently, slowly, in each and every breath. It’s a lovely reminder that life is never fully done, and nothing is ever truly complete. It’s all one continuously flowing stream – we dip in and out of a day, we dip in and out of a lifetime. We do our best, even when it’s all falling down around us, and when I try to sort it out in words, as in this very post, it crumbles in my incapable hands.
Working to embrace the imperfect aspects of life, I strive to make my peace with such failures. I tell myself I’m ok with it, even though it still bothers and worries me. Putting it down here, literally and figuratively, helps a little. I put it down in writing, and then I put it down in my head. The power of acknowledgement is one of those hidden secrets of life that no one ever tells you about – at least no one told me. I only knew the power of writing – of putting thoughts to print or paper – and in a way that was its own acknowledgment. The demon is always less frightening when it can be named, then trapped on a piece of paper or in the confines of a soon-to-be-buried blog post.
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