Crashing

This is my second attempt at today's blog.  The first was somehow lost when whatever server maintains this blog failed to save my work.  Unaware that the message below the text was telling me that the words I was writing weren't being saved, I hit the "publish post" button and ended up on an "error" page.  I am now paying attention to the message below that tells me the draft is being saved at minute to minute intervals.  Small comfort now, when words written this morning are simply lost, and even the flavor of the message is hard to recall.

I do remember it was raining this morning and I was watching the mountains becoming shrouded in an expanse of gray; ghostly images merely hinting of their presence.  Now, though the rain has stopped, the eastern horizon appears as if there were no mountains there at all,  a monochrome blanket of dull sky is draped from the tops of the trees to infinity it seems.  Appearances, as always, don't adequately reflect reality, for indeed the mountains are still there and their reappearance in fairer atmospheres is as assured as tomorrow's sunrise.

An apt metaphor for me then, this meteorologic phenomenon of clouds, rain, the damp expectancy of water meeting root, forging growth.  Sunshine, that long awaited, deliriously delightful shock of extended daylight is almost maddening in its bright insistence that my heart should be full of its life-giving radiance.  Still, something in me grieves; recent deaths, limitation, the uncanny way life sometimes has of nipping away at happiness.  The somber moods seem far more appropriate when the sharp cries of seagulls appear to come not from the birds but from the curtain of gray through which they thread their own ashen bodies.

Crashing, that drop in energy that follows bad news, that slips in on the heels of dull memory seems appropriate to describe not only a technological failure of a computer, but the hard impact of reality against hope, against belief, against all those illusions that shroud the fact of things like mountains and and storm and darkness.  But what is the illusion?  Is it the cloud or the mountain it hides.  Is it both?  Philosophers and physicists will ponder these questions, as will the minds of those who choose to enter the darker spaces of their own psyches, where there is little clue of the "reality" of things.

The French have a wonderful word for that which is not exactly depression, but rather a vague sadness--"ennui."  They have another word for the state it engenders, "malaise."  Perhaps it is my own French ancestry that finds these words resonate with familiarity in my own life.  I sometimes think I would prefer madness or the manic obsession of other mental illness to this state which is difficult to define, much less to "snap out of" as I was often told.

For many, many years I neglected writing because it could so easily induce this state and I don't like it.  I didn't want to end up as so many writers do, escaping the dull trap of inertia with alcohol or drugs or other diversions.  But not writing is only distraction, another form of diversion that perhaps is less destructive than substance abuse, but destructive no less.  For while writing is a certain form of light torture it is as freeing as soaring above the knotted clouds, it is driving through the rain of life's uncertainty and unfairness and at least giving it words with which to dress it in finer attire.  It is flying through webs of feeling and perception to unmask the vague uneasiness, even brutal suffering, and trying, always trying to speak more clearly that which is sometimes unspeakable.  And as we know with flying, there is always the risk of crashing.

New Beginnings

The first day of the month has always been like a mini New Year's Day to  me. You know, the resolutions, the promises to eat better, exercise, clean up my act, etc.  Life, on the beginning of any given month seems to have bright possibilities, hope for something better and at least a little bit of excitement that I could actually fulfill positive changes in my life.  The end of the month, however, often comes with the disappointment of failing to do so, and a little less resolve for the next day which is of course the start of something new again.

This morning dawned cloudy and raining.  I mistook 7am, which in recent days had been blazing with the bright Alaskan sun, as about 4am and almost went back to sleep.  The mountains to the east have gradually become shrouded in clouds, their peaks a mere ghost image against a white sky.  Typical of Alaskan "summers" this weather is not altogether unwelcome.  The truth is, we need rain, we usually do this time of year.  Our early springs are dry and dusty and the long, sunny days make us almost delirious.  I would suspect that a profound change in our weather which gave us more sunny summer days than rainy ones would perhaps be frightening with the possibility that global warming was preceding at a reckless pace.  Still, I yearn for more sun, as do most Alaskans who live through the anemic light of winter.

Trying to motivate myself to exercise today would have been easier if a steady, light rain was not falling; and as yet, I still have to summon the will and resolve to get on the treadmill.  (I am at least in my workout clothes)  A walk in the rain might be nice you would think, but I live in an industrial area with 18-wheelers passing by my home regularly and all manner of equipment lumbering down the nearby roads.  The drab warehouses offer little contrast to the sky and against this dull backdrop the prospect of a morning walk loses it's appeal.  Evenings are quieter, traffic minimal as commerce and industry slow with the dictates of work day schedules.

But it is a new month and one that is our greatest season of light, that in itself should be celebrated.  We will see the hours of daylight peak this month, but also begin to diminish in its waning days.  June is bittersweet with the relentless cycle of universe turning beginnings and endings.