Dying in waves all feathers and wax floating apart, the sun always greater than the miracle of flying itself. Is it not enough just to fly?
There is no way of living life other than here, now and present. All else is dreaming of was and will be.
Tomorrow dangling like a carrot, promising better. Effort shimmering on brow, an ache in your knees and burn in your belly. Success donned by those not waiting to want but chasing life bigger than little for the applause of the faceless watchers whispering hushed fancies, impressed by all that you could become. Like a lover carried on a symphony, tangled in dreams and desire, tomorrow speaks a language so much more alluring than today buried in its mundane repetition and drudgery.
“For another day, I’d give anything.” I hear those words amidst the dying often cutting through regret and the reversal of the worth of a day piled into years. But not all long in regret. Some just want another day lived like the other days behind lived so well. Just one more. Working for a hospice, I observe death with certain regularity. Almost every time I sit with a patient coming closer to the realization of death nearer, I hear those words wishing for more time, another trip, evening shared on the porch or experience together. In two years, I’ve never listened to someone offer a trade for more money, promotion, accomplishment or accolades. Always another day lost in simplicity, in life little.
From there, in the hearing of their wanting words, clarity finds me.
There is a lust in my heart for tomorrow, a day warm and comfortable, when my name soars above the story and out of the chaos hovering in the day now. And in that lust, life grows much bigger than little.
“What if you never reach the lover, Tomorrow?” I hear that echoing sentiment threading through my thoughts sewing worth into every stitch that pulls today and tomorrow closer. Burden is what the lover becomes overshadowing now and blurring the lines of what matters in the minutes and hours lived in the only guaranteed time given, now.
Nothing exists outside of here except memories and want. The screaming kids do. So does the pile of laundry and the stories told and smiles stolen before bedtime. The job and the desk that you set at, the neighbors who live at a waving, not handshaking distance do too, but I miss them often in the hustle of life bigger.
Life bigger than twenty four hours, always. Ahead. Behind. Bigger.
What’s discovered in a gazed life bigger than little are problems standing impenetrable, bigger than life. It’s a farsighted want rooted intrinsic in the construct of life always almost lived. One more reach, another late meeting, another deadline honored holy above all else needing attention. Life leans forward, unbalanced and shallow.
The soil erodes unattended when the little important things are neglected. Tomorrow will come in all its glory and you will be there when you are faithful to the smallness of today, ready for all that tomorrow brings.
I want the bending fidelity of Job, the blemished honesty of David, the limp of Jacob to live deeply now in both the blessing and curse. The lover, Tomorrow, will find me. She was made for me as she was for them, too.
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So I’m telling myself a few things often to size and resize life littler.
NOT A HURRIED PACE but a being; embracing whatever comes with the day. I’ve learned to pray one prayer in my waking, “Father, thank you for all this day holds.”
UNTIE THOSE THINGS UNIMPORTANT and learn value in what really is important and irreplaceable; writing assignments for projects and my book and blog posts have been delayed and at the mercy of family. I’d burn every book someday written by me for another chance to watch my daughters smile honestly.
VALUE YOURSELF LESS IMPORTANT in your pursuit of the day; involve others in your life and dreams and pursuit; One of the greatest personal exercises on help and humility was a survey I recently sent out to a few of those who have been close to me asking them to comment on what they see my strengths, weaknesses, inadequacies and shortcomings to be. The longing for tomorrow was crowding our togetherness today.
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What does life littler than big look like to you? Gaze upon it and grab it.
