Friday, January 23, 2009

"The Shadow Proves The Sunshine"

"Sometimes it takes a storm to really know the light:
the scent of rain, the weight of the clouds pulling down the sky.
Sometimes it takes a storm to know how you feel. . . .
. . .The way a cloud divides sometimes; the clearing and the blue.
I love you." -Fernando Ortega

***

"If only everything was black and white," we've heard it said.

And then the storm rolls in.

Dark. Sooty grey clouds, coating the inside of the sky and riddling the pavement with black spots. Rain-soaked and dismal, the view becomes rather grey.

Grey.

There is no colour so forlorn to me as grey. It drivels and complains and hangs its head; it snuffs out candles in smoldering plumes; it blankets colour leaving it lifeless and dull. I'd much rather darkness come and take me into Blackness completely.

And since Light is far gone and does not promise its return, we start asking for the Darkness-- better go all the way than stay in the middle. Let it thunder! Let it pour! Let it rattle my bones, and soak me through, and succumb to something of movement and invigorating power rather than something with no force, no vibration, no infusion of anything. And the storm comes.

Everything hovers. The air pulses; leaves quiver; every particle seems to tremble. It's awakening! It's enlivening! It's. . . over. And all that falls for days, and days, and days, and days is rain.

Black.

Night is black, and follows the evening storm. It's rumpled and wrinkled, drenched in water, shrivelled like a prune. It's old; it's new. It's clean and cold and. . . dark. And there it is. Black and rain and night; black and rain and night.

And it stays. It stays and waits, and when it sees us tire of day after day of windshield wipers, and wet shopping bags, and frizzy hair, and soggy shoes-- it stays. Dark and rain and night. Even in "day", it's dark and rain and night. No black, but dark.

And grey.

That grey.

That grey. . . turns an odd shade of gold. It hints. Remember light?

Day.


Mmm, day. Day, when we could see clouds as individual puffs, and frosty blue between them, so crisp it looked like it would snap! like a clean sheet hanging out on the line, drying in sunny warm air. Hot sunshine would heat our heads and make us yawn and smile and sleep in hammocks, or stretch out on the prickly grass, or lie down under the trees. Trees that didn't droop with water droplets and annoyingly drip & smudge our glasses, or crack and smash their branches into windows and parked cars. Trees that sway, with that amazingly musical rushing sound, like water in the distance-- but water that is too far away to bring the rain.

Indigo blue and golden sunsets that would blaze over wheat fields, and streams of sunlight that would glisten off the waters and the ice-encrusted trees: Light that pricked its stars in night skies and trickled through my hair like liquid gold when I napped under the open window. How easily we forget and take for granted. How simple and so sweet; so present it is. Light flashes with its own magnificence and yet, most often, sifts and drifts and stays, so understated.

Light.

It splits a cloud and suddenly, we feel like we've been given air. Dismal grey, coal black; every raincloud meets its doom in our minds as soon as one little ray breaks through. Shadows fell too long. Light came back.

I've missed you.

Hope sparks. We shake off the gloom, and tombs are seen as tombs. Life means something; darkness is exposed. What was taken for granted is reposed and returns unexpected. It is proved by the shadow, and shadows are proved by the light. One can finally see-- why didn't we see it before?

I love you.

That's what it was, but it was covered in grey. Light needs its shadows. Love needs its distance. Healing needs its pain.

Hello.

It's a brand new day.


L.E.

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