the face of the waters

I admit without hesitation that I enjoyed the smack of granite air when I walked through the JFK terminal doors yesterday. Back to stone grey sky and dark-coated, grounded figures. Driving through Queens, the bare tree branches were black against the dusk, the playgrounds were abandoned in the cold, the red brake lights of traffic ahead of us on the L.I.E. glittered warmly. I asked the Sikh cab driver, a young careful man with a whispery lilt, how the weather had been and he said, Good good, it is good. But it seems sort of harsh today? I suggested. No no, it is good, he said. It is always good.

I quite agreed.

I can safely say that the tropical wind that blew through the last week of my life, fluttering the trees, clanking the palm leaves, rippling the surface of the swimming pool and whistling past the ropes that held the flapping tarps along the beach was beautiful, but contributed a certain air of distress to my life. Just as the incessant hush of the surf----rushing, rushing, rushing forward but never making progress----agitated, every so slightly, my existence.

I couldn't sleep, I couldn't swim, my attention span was limited. This was more annoying because all the hippies from California basking in the sun seemed unaffected; the guys on kite-boards, leaping like crickets over the reef and waves seemed transcendant in their amazing flight; even my husband had no issues plowing through his 600 page book without the slightest distraction. The children never stopped being delighted. I was surrounded by congregations of people in exaultation. And I was rattled by own disruptions. I wanted to to let go of them. I wanted to join in with the fun.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1.1-1.2) A wind from God swept over the face of the waters----can there be a more beautiful line? And to think that this force is considered, by some, as the Holy Spirit completes it for me. If I ever required a reason to believe in God, it is this passage. But it is 3:15. The children will be home from school soon, and all day I've been wondering this: I believe the Holy Spirit is beautiful and personal, an essence, difficult to articulate. I believe the Spirit is the wind across the water, enticing and reassuring. Yet now here I am, so old, and just beginning to see the disruption that it all brings.

Comments

[chuck]

Well written..keep writing...it's good stuff! CG

[G]

what is it about trees without leaves that new englanders love? the simplicity? the knowing more will grow come spring?