I gently woke Jack up for school, opening his curtains to welcome the day into his room like I always do. This morning, he shielded his eyes from the sun and I asked if he’d rather me close the curtains again.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’m letting the light move through my soul.”
My family moved every three years or less as I grew up. When we’d gather at dinner and hear the difficult news that we were packing up and growing on somewhere else again, I’d take my little confused body and walk her to something natural. I was allowed to do this, to be alone in softly running streams passing beneath a nearby road or a meadow full of flowers whose petals I could count while I sang songs into the changed air. These songs were full of longing, of sadness, of hope, and of promise for the next chapter. I can look back now and see how fruitful these times were, being in flux, allowed to grieve it before finding my way through it one day at a time. My sisters and I were ushered through these changes with grounded possibility. We saw summer thunderstorms in Missouri, heard a small rumbling avalanche while winter hiking in Utah, witnessed the cacophony of a cicada summer, walked through the thickest pre-hurricane fog in North Carolina, and planted fruit trees in more than one place; though we always left before they bared fruit. We always licked the plate. I was born with a soul that understood how to find promise in anything and two parents who knew themselves well enough to guide each of their three daughters differently, gently nudging us back to ourselves on the occasion that we lost our way.
As a parent myself, I think back on these times and wonder if my dad watched me at eight years old, ankle deep in a stream, mumbling a very sad song through tears. I wonder if he decided to let me find my own way. I’ve always loved coming to him with stories about my life, what’s going on and what I am thinking about. He has been my “manifest your destiny” man, staying on the metaphorical sidewalk until I asked him to walk in the road with me. One breathtaking thing about life and the passing of time is the gained perspective you get. I can see my early life through his eyes now.
John Denver came into my head this morning while I was making the kids breakfast, so I put him on the speaker. Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry. Sunshine on the water looks so lovely. Sunshine almost always makes me high. Music is a portal; suddenly I was dropped into my 18-year-old body the evening that I finished packing my bedroom with things I’d take to college the next day. For some reason my mother and sisters were gone, and I was left to finish packing my room alone while dad finished things up in the kitchen. This time extended into hours, the sky darkened, and as I taped up my last box, I walked slowly into the living room to tell him I was finally done. As I got closer to where I thought he was, I heard this song. It was so loud, it filled the entire house. I hadn’t heard it before, so I stopped and listened. One song turned over; he was repeating this song over and over. The words swelled inside of me. I realized he wasn’t helping me pack because he couldn’t. I turned the corner and found him sitting alone at the computer. The house was completely dark except for the glow of the screen that lit up his face. I saw him singing at the top of his lungs as tears streamed down his face. If I had a day that I could give you, I’d give to you a day just like today. If I had a song that I could sing for you, I’d sing a song to make you feel this way.
In that singular moment, my understanding of him changed. This wonderful man with the spirit of a wonder-full child, this person who had guided me from moment to moment, was feeling. I watched him in silence, and I let my own sadness leave my body. I had held it all together until the moment I watched my own father sitting on a threshold, singing as loudly as he could to let the experience move through him. I realized that we were both mourning an impending loss as I packed my final boxes and mustered up the courage to leave home and become who I was meant to be. In these deeper lived experiences, you want to sprint into a grand open space and scream your feelings into the big sky. Life is so what it is. If we are lucky, we get the chance to feel all the things we can possibly feel and come home to ourselves surrounded by the company of others.
What I mean to say is this. Every year, there is a day when suddenly you wake up and realize that the trees have leaves again; the wind is blowing anew. Isn’t that what seasons are for? To help us remember what surrounds us?
To remind us to wake up and let the light move through our souls?