So what happens after you sail into the
sunset? For a month, more often than not,
I sailed into the sunset on a regular basis.
I was the star of my life, not the quirky sidekick. Every night I slept deeply and well, tired
the way full days and real living makes you tired. I had my Odyssey and I arrived in Fort
Lauderdale after a month at sea more truly myself than I have been in years,
maybe more than I ever have been. I
understood at the end of that journey, that joy has always been my birthright,
though I had forgotten. I was meant to
laugh. I was meant to be happy. Who knew I had such reserves of joy in me?
Of course, the thing about odysseys is
that they, by their natures, end. At
least that’s what I always thought. You
come home you’re your adventures, whether they take ten minutes or ten years, and
take up daily life again. Odysseus, the
quintessential odyssey-ier did. That’s
what we did too, Bryan and I. Once in
Fort Lauderdale, we began the task of establishing our life together. There was no more some day and soon. Some day was here, now, and we were called to
live it.
Everyday life is filled with mundane
tasks. It is by its very nature, both
grand and small, extraordinary and ordinary.
Life can hold these kind of polarities with a grace we humans only dream
of. It is grateful as we sometimes
neglect to be, joyous as we sometimes forget to be. Life makes no distinctions between mundane
and miraculous. It celebrates both. We, or lest I be accused of gross
generalizations, me, I tend to focus on the amazing and take the ordinary for
granted. At least that’s how I had spent
the last 52 years.
We did what people do, make eye appointments,
order glasses, get a mailbox, a storage unit.
We got our bearings in this new town, found places we liked to eat and
places we didn’t. At the end of the day
we sat in the cockpit and watched the sunset, talking, making plans,
remembering, dreaming, doing all those simple and wonderful things people do
every day. And one day, I can’t tell you
exactly when, I looked up at the sunset unfolding and realized every day, even
these ‘mundane,’ dock-bound days, was an adventure, and every sunset, the fairytale
sunset the hero and heroine ride into toward their happily ever after.
They are a state of mind, odysseys and
adventures, as much as they are miles traveled and the unknown
encountered. Sitting in the cockpit of
Susurru watching another day end in the glorious show which is the gift of
every nightfall, just as the rosy-fingered dawn is the gift given at the start
of every day, it struck me, my great ‘a-ha,’ that each of these was just as
marvelous and magical as those sunsets and sunrises offshore. This was the secret I knew once upon a time
but had forgotten. That I wasn’t living
every day of my old life, that I death and fallow seemed preferable to life, was
my fault as much as anyone else’s. Life
hadn’t betrayed me; I had betrayed life.
New love reminds me how precious every day
is. It’s love’s particular gift, but his
gift too, Bryan’s. Old love might have
done the same, had he and I kept ourselves fresh, remembered with grace and
gratitude the blessings of material existence, the sweet and the bitter, the
bitter and the sweet. I see old loves
strong still, which gives me hope this can last – this thrill, this thrum, this
tingling, stirring of life, of hope, of yes, and yes, and always yes.
Flying back to Sacramento to see my
daughter, I sat next to a woman just on the other edge of 40. She was returning from two weeks in Europe
with her son, coming home to her second family, two boys, seven and nine. She asked me my story and I told her about my
leap, my life on the water, the new love which has brought me back to alive and
hope. “Good for you,” she said. “Good for you at your age. Not everyone would be that brave.” I wasn’t really sure how to reply. I don’t feel that old and I’m thinking maybe
we’re never too old to chose to be vital and alive, to say yes to life, to
live, to the next day and the next. The
alternative is fallow, dead, or worse, living death, and despite the current
zombie craze, there’s nothing enviable in that state. No, it’s never too late to seek a newer
world. Every day can be an odyssey and an
adventure if we cultivate that particular frame of mind called ‘living.’
No comments:
Post a Comment