I woke up with the lyrics to Patty’s Griffin’s song Nobody’s Cryin’ on my mind. In its sad beauty, it’s one of my all time favorite songs and I know every word, but strangely enough, I couldn’t remember that exact line.
I ended up lying there singing through the entire thing from the beginning, some of the lyrics comfortingly familiar, like reuniting with old friends:
Well a long night turns into a couple long years
Of me walkin’ around, around this trail of tears
Where the very loud voices of my own fears
Is ringin’ and ringin’ in my ears
It says that love is long gone
Every move I make is all wrong
Says you never gave a damn for me
For anything, for anyone
and on and on until I got to the part after “I just have that secret hope” and recollected what it is we do sometimes. Cope.
And it is true that occasionally, for whatever reason, life gets so hard that the most we can do is hunker down and hope to still be here when the trouble passes. I’ve certainly had my own share of heartache in the last few months, so I know of whence I speak. My grandmother gave me a little ceramic box when I was a little girl and on the lid was written, “Happiness, like a butterfly, settles upon us when we least expect it.”
In the same way, without knowing how or why, I’ve found some inner peace and calm in the last week or so. As if grace has alighted on me. I can now see what happens next, and I have things I’ve started to look forward to and dream about and wish for again.
At the same time, one of my dear old friends has just descended into her own long, dark walk, and it leaves me wondering why these things happen. In her case, she lost someone very important to her in a tragic manner a couple weeks ago and in her work is close to coworkers located at an office in Haiti. The terrible tragedy befalling that country is enough, but knowing someone personally and not being able to find out if they’re even alive makes it far, far worse. And in her case, she’s already in so much pain and grief, that one more hit feels like too much to bear.
So I guess I woke up thinking about the fact that sometimes life can be so very hard, but that it can be survived. And I don’t know why sometimes the most existence gives us is barely getting by. Maybe so we appreciate the happiness when it does come? You can’t taste sweet if you haven’t known bitter.
Anyway, I was thinking about Patty’s beautiful song and about how I wanted to find a way to help my friend help herself through this tough period that has just now started. And although I can clearly remember how much pain I’ve been in here and there for the last four months or so, I’ve also had moments that were impossibly beautiful and exhilarating and joyful. And they made the ride survivable somehow.
More than anything I think it’s important in the darkest of times to find a way to celebrate the wonder of being alive, whatever that is for you. And lean on friends. And cope your heart out.
May you dream you are dreaming, in a warm soft bed
And may the voices inside you that fill you with dread
Make the sound of thousands of angels instead
Tonight where you might be laying your head
