OBSCURA MUTABILIS
and the dark and night of the soul
Reflections on becoming.
a peek of a series I am working on
4.4.25
LOVE LETTER TO THE OPEN ROAD
I think somewhere in a past life I sold my soul to the smell of gasoline and hot asphalt. I’m convinced it was prophetic. I don’t fly much anymore, I don’t know if we humans are really meant to be up there.
Lately, I’ve come to share a great deal of time with the liminal spaces of life—somewhere between here and there, who I am to who I want to become, one city to another, and the complex later stage of grief after heartbreak and loss. The space where the grief lingers, like the scent of someone that still remains hours after they’ve gone.
I’ve come to know that there is no map to life. No second star to the right and straight off to success. But.
There is the hot and humid august wind kissing your face with the windows down.
There’s the hidden gulch and the secret hot spring you never would have found if you didn’t take that wrong turn.
There’s one hand on the wheel, and the other in the hand of the person you love.
There’s the seedy motels you stay in when the mountain pass is closed and there’s no way back until the storm passes.
There’s the orange glow of the mountain as the sun is about to set.
The stars that light the night sky when you’re parked in the desert and smoking a joint on the roof of your car.
There’s the song that comes on that used to mean something, but now just is. The intrusive thoughts that keep you from remembering how you got to where you are.
The drifting.
For the quiet moments of clarity, the singing at the top of your lungs to ABBA in the middle of nowhere Nevada.
For the sun that blazes overhead with the nearest gas station 150 miles away.
For the tears shed with Bonnie Raitt after the person you thought you’d spend the foreseeable future with tells you they can’t do it anymore.
For the moment you reach the divide, and you look down on the other side, top of the world.
For the overpass or giant tree that provides shelter from the storm.
Thank you for holding me.
To the sweet souls that you meet along the way.
The Good Samaritan who helps you with your flat.
The camp host who takes you to his favorite swimming hole.
The woman at the campsite next to you who reads you her favorite passage from the Bible, with emphasis on the importance of our care for the earth.
To the backpackers and trail faeries you run into time and time again, who share a meal, an ibuprofen, a fire, or an unknown path with you.
Thank you.
There’s an indecisiveness in me that acts a lot like the tides of the ocean. That’s when I know that perhaps it’s time to spend some time taking the scenic route. Perhaps I just need to drive (or walk) into that mountainous horizon, and see what’s on the other side, and discover a part of myself I didn’t know was there.
Thank you for being a lover that I can always come back to with arms outstretched.
Thank you for being a mirror, a guide, a mentor, a gentle reminder of the impermanence of life and the magic of unknowing.
kleenex
These photos were taken 2 years apart today.
The first one in a hotel in Utah. The second a bathtub in Chicago.
I’ve cried in the likes of hotel rooms and bathtubs.
Crying in the bath is particularly convenient.
No mess and easy to submerge and emerge, face anew. Voilà.
Cars. I’ve cried in so many cars.
Bars. A few of those too.
Most recently holding a very strong piña colada, across from a friend.
People need to cry more, You know?
I’m going to keep crying, I tell you.
And one day, the tears of which I’ve mourned so deeply will run dry.
Undoubtably I’ll have something or someone else to cry about because alas, It’s me, the sap.
I cry at the simplest of things now,
but I also see the beauty in the smallest things too.
That’s the thing about being sensitive.
Ugly crying on the subway. I’m talking snot.
Crying about the fact that all that love just wasn’t enough.
The woman across from me is curious,
I can tell.
Who wouldn’t be, I guess.
Let it out, she says.
Let it out.