This turned my Monday around...written by the brilliant Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine.
I'm up here in the attic of the Grey Ghost, the rest of the house is asleep, and I'm looking out the window on an unremarkable morning, stunned. I have found the secret of eternal life. I now know how I want to live and it's so obvious I don't know if I should risk telling you this secret or not, but I will. Before I can talk myself down.
I am going to die.
These few words, if I embrace them, will tell me what I must do with this gift of too-large life I've been given. Oh, but it's so hard to hear. I have to practice.
I am going to die. I, am going to die.
All of us here on this sweet terrain are terminal. I hold these words close and I am free.
I'm thirty-five, so by the law of averages I figure my life is half over. Half of my life is virgin soil, untouched by any plow. Amazing. I was given a garden and I've only tilled up half of it. I was given a day, and the entire night remains intact, unlived. I was given a woman and she is only half undressed. The bottle of wine, half empty. The book, half written.
The desire to write burns in me now like the burning bush Moses encountered in the wilderness: it burns in me always but is not consumed. I want to leave behind some token of gratitude for the time here on earth I was given. I want to tell my version of what it was like to be part of this family we call humanity. I want to say, Hey, I saw that. (Did anyone else?) It's one of the few gifts I can imagine giving to myself. It's one of the few gifts I can imagine giving to others.
Half over? And now life ups the ante and says, I am dimensional and careening and full of surprises. No man or woman knows me. No man or woman knows the day or the hour when the needle lifts from a particular spinning life, when the music ceases quite suddenly to play audibly. All quiet.
In other words, I can't say for sure that I've only travelled half the distance. I may be farther along and further in than I know. So to live a good day is to live that day as if it were my last. This key can unlock the double-bolted door of what it means to be truly alive. Or as my friend Jack is prone to say, It's our last night on earth. Again.
So yes, somedays I flounder and lay about in the mud like a hog on valium. And I don't know why some days are so hard to redeem, to cash in. God looks down and says, This one's on me son. Enjoy. It's the gift of a brand new day or night and you'd think I'd make love to this day and we'd ride off into the sunset together, and I'd lean over and say, I'll never forget you. Ever.
But maybe the day sits yawning out in the car while I'm standing in line at the bank with a fistfull of unpaid bills. Or the wistful new day walks in and her skin is glowing, she's lighting up the whole world and I'm thinking about filing my taxes, one of the cats just threw up, and the answering machine is full, blinking. The day wants to be swept off her feet and sometimes the best I can come up with is surfing the channels in some hotel room, half awake. Or maybe the day whispers, I came all this way for you, and it's a drive-thru for dinner?
But when I hold the given words close, which I do now increasingly, I become a student of life. I am given clues always now, and I try to listen. And the mundane begins to bleed together into a larger sense of purpose which I continue to discover. Somedays I choose wisely, the hours are my lovers and I am heartened. The rest of the time, I forgive myself and try to smile. I am going to die. But I'm also going to live for awhile.
Be inspired. And happy Monday.
