There is a Crack in Everything...

Born of a Conversation between Friends

I've had few contacts with people over the last 5 months, one with a really super interesting, strangely wonderful and creative woman who moved into a house across the street a year or two ago. One day about a month ago, she invited me to come over to her backyard and have tea, socially distanced and all that.  So, I went and we sat outside about 8 feet apart in her very rough but evocative yard and talked about lots of interesting things, and then I returned to isolation where I have remained ever since.  It was very strange not to pursue the relationship because we enjoyed talking to each other and have remarkably similar pasts and experiences. 

However it feels like a continuous thread of connection will never really develop there because the world has changed, the immediate circumstance makes it impossible, and the clock is ticking for people our age. There's just an irony about it that stops my mind. You can't make new old friends. And even if you lean in that direction, the situation, the world, the whole thing is different now.  Everything seemed so safe when we were young, when we just went and did and stayed or left.  Now, even if we wanted to go, we can't really -- can't eat the food, can't sleep, body parts hurt, driving is dangerous, blah blah blah. We have crossed  into the "old lady" room.  

Old age and perhaps even this age of our world does not seem to be a time to 'gain' anything, even new friends. It is the sloughing off of everything, one increment at a time. What we are experiencing is not only "old lady room", nor only experienced by the aged. We are in whatever room this is where civilization as we know it may be sliding off the planet and into the debris pile of past civilizations. So we cannot even be philosophical about our lives, as old folks are pictured as being. We are busy fighting to stay alive - even though maybe, we'd just as soon not, we are living our 'golden years' in an Orwellian nightmare. 

So, it seems we have only one possibility which is to face the fact that the Light is to be found where we choose to look to find it. This is my confession and the discipline I want to impose upon myself: To find the light deliberately every day - even just a crack worth.  As Leonard Cohen wrote about cracks, that's how the light gets in.  So I look for the cracks where the light gets in every day. Regardless of dark times, I look for the crack, however small, nonetheless, because I know it is there. It has revealed itself too many times in similar situations. 

Small lights, like yesterday when my neighbor Judy pointed out the flock of cedar waxwings (my very favorite bird) cleaning the ornamental crab apples off the trees just outside my door. Dearest little 3 inch 'batman' birds (just look at their faces*). They fly in, with at least 20 friends who twitter and chirp as they clean the tree. 

So far I am basically okay and extremely fortunate really, given the horrors being faced by people just up the road. Children, old people, cats and dogs, birds, fire fighters, schools, stores, houses, barns, you name it. Maybe there is some way I can help, at least after the air is breathable. I am conscious that they are out in air that is not breathable and that really weighs on my heart, especially knowing I can't go out in it. So I send a prayer of gratitude for those who lived through and are currently living through equally horrible times, even here in our very same land. Now hard times are here again, with everyone wondering how the hell to live through it and then how to recover. 

Just now a bird came to my water dish outside and took a bath right in front of me, fluttering wings and sputtering, sprinkling water, like a Hallelujah of beak and feathers to show me light enough for today. And my heart took flight a bit, too. Sorry for that cliche, but, it's actually true. 

Reach out to a friend today, stay safe and be as strong as you can. God knows.

Patricia and S.P.