It was our final day in Coaldale and I was beginning to panic not so much because we would be leaving early the next morning, returning to a place I haven't been able to breathe in lately, but because whatever I was looking for in these mountains, whatever I was hoping to find hadn't happened yet. My panic was made all the more urgent by the fact that it was extremely overcast, slightly sprinkling, with no sign of letting up anytime soon. Would I really be able to find what I came looking for if I was stuck in a leaky tent for the entire day? I did the only thing I know to do when I'm completely desperate--I prayed. I whispered a short prayer asking that the rain stop, the clouds part, and the sun make a grand entrance. I admitted that I knew this was a lot to ask for in the summer, in the mountains, when rain tends to be an every day experience but I was honest and told God that this was my last day and I needed the sun. Thankfully an hour or so later the clouds moved to the east and the blue sky appeared.
I'll be honest with you. I came to Colorado with some pretty high expectations. I came with a purpose, with an agenda. I came to save myself and I thought if anything could save me it would be waking each morning and falling into deep sleep every night to the roar of a creek as it washed over the rocks. In fact when we arrived Saturday at T's chosen location for our vacation (not my choice) and I realized I wasn't going to get my stream I did something very stereotypically female--I started to cry and yes, I'm embarrassed to admit I even refused to get out of the car. But T heard my explanation and my need and an hour later we did arrive at Coaldale, the place I'd requested we go from the beginning, the place that offered me so much healing last year.
You see I had reached a point to desperation. I had been quickly slipping into that place where you hate your life, it doesn't feel like enough, and you secretly wish for a more Johnny Depp kind of life. You know, a beautiful bohemian kind of life, a life filled with so much individuality no body will ever be able to replace you, a "look at me sitting on the stage at Pace University with James Lipton smoking a cigarette all tattooed and gorgeous looking like a god with my shy smile, my timid confidence, my secrets and mysteries, and my 'god I could just melt in them' chocolate brown eyes"--that kind of life. I was in that very dangerous place of wanting to be anyone but myself. I wanted any life but mine..especially if this other life looked a lot more beautiful and bohemian than mine. There may be worse places to be than this...but not many.
So I packed only the essentials and headed for my beloved stream hoping for salvation and here I was on our final day and I was still feeling shitty. I was still so far into my darkness I was wondering if I'd ever dig myself out. I still wasn't showing up. I felt like a body, empty, no fire, no passion, no life. And that is why I quietly beseeched God to hear my petition and give me one more day of sunshine. I thought if I could just have one more day, one more day of laying in the sun, sitting by the stream, listening to nature's music all around me I might just be able to find what I was looking for.
As a lover of words I firmly believe the right words will come to you exactly when you need them and that if they come a moment too soon chances are you won't hear them, not really, not with that deep heart listening that is so important in life. Last summer I was sitting next to this same stream as I read the final soul-touching pages of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat,Pray,Love--a book that in its own soft way changed my life. Now, on this last day in the mountains, sitting on a rock a mile or so up river from where I wrapped up EPL I was reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, a book many people had insisted, almost begged, I read for a long time (especially my dear Sam). I think I had been avoiding it because I was afraid it was going to be too religious (okay, all of you who have read Lamott's work can laugh at my innocent ignorance). I'd read Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird but they were about parenting and writing and not about faith. Okay that's, not quite true. Parenting and writing have everything in the world to do with faith. I meant faith in a different sense of the word. I was afraid I would read this book and either not relate at all or feel ashamed of my life (again, if you've red this book feel free to chuckle at my misunderstanding of Lamott's message.)
Here I was on the final afternoon of our vacation sitting on an uncomfortable rock (but I didn't care), devouring chapter after chapter (I read the entire book in one afternoon), sometimes laughing out loud, sometimes pausing a moment to cry, and sometimes stopping after profound sentences long enough to make sure what I read truly sunk into my heart and didn't just flit out my ears. I read this book as if it were Mary Oliver's poetry--an irreverent, humorous, not at all about nature, version of Mary Oliver's poetry. I read it like it was the word of God and you know what, I believe it is in its own way. If all scripture is God breathed then this qualifies because it is most assuredly God breathed--again in an irreverent, humorous kind of way.
Last summer as I read the last few paragraphs of EPL I discovered what I wanted more than anything was to love MY life, MY uniqueness, MY individuality. MY poetry, MY beauty. This summer as I laughed and cried my way through Traveling Mercies I discovered what I wanted more than anything was to love MY life, MY uniqueness, MY individuality, MY poetry, My beauty. As I lay there on that rock listening to the music of the river, the birds, the trees, I had a small light-filled moment. I had no idea what Johnny Depp was doing at that very moment but I could say with full confidence that he more than likely wasn't dipping his naked, pudgy toes into the cool water that ran through some of the most majestic mountains in all creation. He probably wasn't napping on a rock in the sun, his freckles screaming from his face, with no make-up and unwashed hair (Okay, I'll give him the unwashed hair. He seems to be the kind who can go a day or two with unwashed hair and not give a damn because there's better things in life to do and who has the time. After all he is a bohemian rocker kinda guy...and I'm such a sucker for that kind.), smelling like a sweet combination of sweat, the smoke from last night's campfire, and the sticky sap from a fallen tree that he spent a good portion of the day sprawled across as if he were reliving a scene from Gone With the Wind and his precious Ashely has just returned from the war and all he wanted to do was press his cheek against his chest, memorize the rhythm of his still beating heart, and thank God for his safe arrival home.
Yes, whatever Johnny Depp, in all his next-to-godliness, was doing it probably wasn't this and in that moment I felt like the lucky one and I wanted more than anything to fall in love with MY life, MY uniqueness, MY individuality, MY beauty, MY poetry...oh, and I wanted hop down to the closest souvenir shop and send him a post card with a picture much like one of the images above that simply said, "Wish You Were Here!"...you know, just to rub it in.
