Upon a Quiet Night

    Upon A Quiet Night

It’s surreal, this walking upon the earth—jockeying and wrestling with yourself to stake deliberateness, to claim intention, to become something you yearned for, something that once bore fire in your heart. From quiet self-revolution in spaces outgrown, to traversing avenues physical and liminal previously unknown.

It is eerie to sit down upon a quiet night and host the ghosts of traveling souls here no more. To hold the voices and personalities of those once loved and tenderly cared for, now revolving in space somewhere else—off in a distant place without a trace, or crossed over to the world beyond. The residue of loves discovered, or connections tempered, never quite fades.

Upon a quiet night, if still enough, the atoms in space hoist their charge—their beauty bursts in magnificent ways.

The myriad versions of self that became present and possessed your body become strange—variably close in memory. Some farther, some closer. Some buried, some hallowed. Weeks, months, years, decades, summed up by lines you started—little verses, jokes, phrases that held the universe in a handful of words. Friends, memories, things, past-selves shelved for safekeeping. Shelved for a return one day when the fallout settles, or conveniently set down because these verses and chapters no longer fit the story unfolding.

Their value not lost, their binding broke. So much love and heartbreak that made these pages heavy and wet with ink drips free—cascading in black pitter-patters pooling on the floor. The still-developing words of day’s unfolding, devoid of context, form ink-blotted letters in suspended air. Letters, words, sentences, composed in the breeze, hold form for a moment and dissipate with frustrating ease.

The impermanence of things sacred—and small—makes gravity light and vertigo tall. The temperamental companion of changing weight is something felt in your frame, upon your shoulders, in the ease of striking a steady gait. Whether that stride is moving forward or walking away, whether the clomping is augmented by grief, disbelief, unimaginable pain, or something sweet—something warm and deep that hugs your bones—these all will pass. In their stead, a mighty void will be left.

A younger me would have failed to see the legitimacy and reality of certain popular outliers of society. A decade into my first great love—which, like a phoenix, fell to ash—left a mix of scars, stories, and soarings that turned reality upside down. In grief I began to understand how Van Gogh brings a razor to his own ear—an act of agony mistaken for madness, but maybe just a scream for meaning. How brilliant beatnik minds drag upon darkened avenues toward nirvana or to score a quick-fix. How Alice, on a bored riverbank, jumps down a rabbit hole with no particular goal—looking solely to unmoor from monotony.

And so it goes. And so it goes—the human role in dancing with the mighty divine. We try to loosen the anchor from what they call dull, what they call droll, and commute the middle space between humdrum and heaven. Blessed with a kiss of divine fire, we begin to imagine how to make our homes fit for divine passersby—those patron saints of love in common disguise.

The old code of xenia whispers through our walls: prepare the space, light the fire, open the door. Not all gods come crowned in glory—some wear thrift store jackets and speak in riddles. Some are lovers. Some are lessons.

We till and toil the light away for what is necessary to meet the next day with enough. And yet, we make the great duty of work mean much—through falling in love, through deep thoughts and questions that give quakes to Ol’ Olympus, and through enjoying the so-deemed finer things in life.