Right Here. Right Now.

I’m in my car driving north on I-65 listening to this, “I found God, on the corner of First and Amistad, where the West was all but won, all alone, smoking His last cigarette. I said, “Where you been?” He said, “Ask anything?” I’m thinking that whatever I’m experiencing I should experience to the full and whatever emotions go along with that I should feel completely.

I’ve been writing a lot about loneliness lately. In fact, I’ve been writing about it so much that I think I need to stop. No-one likes a party pooper and that’s kind of what I feel like. But in the same moment I also think that I absolutely must write about it because it’s where I am. Suddenly Miley Cirus is singing about moving mountains and trying to enjoy the climb and I totally know what she, or whoever wrote the song, means. Suddenly I realize that most people probably get that but I never knew it before.

In the lane next to me is a woman driving an SUV and I think she gets it. She knows what this feels like and maybe even more than I do. I am an island but only because I forget that everyone essentially goes through a lot of the same stuff in life. We wouldn’t have words like “lonely” or “happy” or “love” or “awesome” if we all didn’t get what those words were about. We’ve all got associative pictures in our minds that flash like bulbs, brilliantly when words like that are spoken.

A few years ago I spent a few days in one of the most beautiful places in South Africa. I walked along a beach that wasn’t like most beaches. Where the land meets the water is a mass of rocks and boulders. In places the boulders are small enough to be moved by every wave that comes and goes and as the water moves over them a thousand rocks knock against each other and make a wonderful sound that I’ve never heard before or since. There are pathways through the forest and rope bridges connecting one side of a gorge to another. One evening the sun set and the sky turned purple and orange and red. Whenever I think of beauty I get that picture flashing in my head.

Two nights ago I held a girl in my sleep. She wasn’t there and if she had been I wouldn’t have held her. But I want to hold someone and everyone knows what that feels like. The funny thing is that it’s not comforting in any way to know that everyone knows what that feels like. Because I still have to feel it now. And I should because it’s where I am.