How many times have you watched a father laugh to hear that when he's just caught his two-year-old daughter after throwing her in the air and catching her a hundred times, or a mother after her five-year-old son swims across the pool to her for the 23rd time in the same afternoon? The joy seems to be not in the fleeting seconds in the air or the water, but in the anticipation of doing it over and over again.
Like little children, we tend to live in the "between" places. We remember yesterday, hope for tomorrow, and often forget about today. As a child, I counted the days until summer. As a teen, I gazed up at a starry sky, dreaming of first love. Three times, I counted the days until I could officially cross the stage and flip the tassel to the opposite side of the mortarboard. I anxiously watched my belly grow centimeter by centimeter—once...twice...three times until my little ones entered the world, wailing and squinting at the cruel light. Then I both anticipated and dreaded the day each would take their first steps and encounter the dangers of a vertical world. (Little did I know my youngest would run instead of walk.)
As an aspiring writer, I dream of the day my first book contract will arrive in the mail and my gift will be "validated," even as I remind myself what Anne Lamott said about that whole thing. My 12-year-old girl counts the days until she's a teenager, while my baby girl counts the minutes until she can giggle and whisper secrets with her best friend again. My raggedy son dreams of a record deal...and also of the day he can have guns tattooed on his biceps without his mother's permission. My husband and I longed for the time when we could have a date night again, and now wonder if there'll ever be one summer night when all three are home in their own beds at the same time. We anxiously count our pennies while we worry about sending raggedy boy to college. There is always something to dream of or dread. Strangely, it often passes when we're not even looking, because we're already thinking about the next big thing.
We always want just a little more. When you've finished redecorating the living room, the family room looks mysteriously shabby. Upon returning from one vacation, you are on the internet planning your next. Your pride in your promotion at work quickly turns to desire for your really big break when your budget so easily adjusts to the raise.
I used to buy the theory that if you weren't living for today, you were somehow living wrong. You've seen the chain email that relentlessly winds its way around the internet, haven't you?
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. (Author unknown)
Oh, I agree we should strive to live life to its fullest and not waste another minute regretting what's happened or worrying about what hasn't. We should hug, bake bread, and take time to admire the ladybugs, and how many people have expressed regret over not taking the time to say what they should have said while they could have said it?
But, you know, I have recently decided that life is meant to be lived in between. More than one person has penned lines to the same effect. The only solo I ever sang said it perfectly, and I didn't even realize it at the time because I was so hopelessly nervous, worrying that I'd pass out before I finished. In "Reaching," songwriter Carolyn Arends wrote:
The more we learn the more we know
We don't know anything
But still it seems a tragic fate
Living with this quiet ache
The constant strain for what remains
Just out of reach
Can't you just relate to that? But then, at the end of her song, Arends tells us:
We are reaching for the future
We are reaching for the past
And no matter what we have we reach for more
We are desperate to discover
What is just beyond our grasp
But maybe that's what heaven is for
Folk singer/songwriter David Wilcox takes it even further by hoping when he gets to "Someday Soon," there's still a bit wrapped up with a red ribbon:
Now if heaven is perfection
I'll get my deepest questions answered
Like a child tears into presents
To a Christmas tune
But in that big hall,
Let there be a bright red ribbon
That stays wrapped around the mystery
Of Someday Soon
Someday Soon made a promise I will follow
Someday Soon is why I try
Someday Soon told me:
"Take this cup of empty hope
Up to the well that's dry
Where there's just enough of
Someday Soon to satisfy"
So, on those days when I'm feeling a little blue, aching with that nervous sense of anticipation...of what might be, I try to remind myself that we are here on earth to live in between, and the things we truly seek lie just on the other side of Someday Soon, right where they belong.
This story was inspired by this month's Blogging for Books contest at Faster Than Kudzu, the blog of Joshilyn Jackson, author of gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia.
3 comments:
Alrighty then, I'm humbled. What a beautiful piece, and how perfectly you have expressed that feeling we all have of anticipating the next thing. I think that's what keeps us going - I wonder if those who feel hopeless don't have that "next thing" to anticipate or dread. Even dread is better than nothing . . . And man, I hadn't thought of that song in years. I found myself singing along as I read the words. One of my favorites that I've ever sung as well. Thanks for calling up the memory.
I *LOVE* that song by Carolyn Arends. I also love her song "We've Been Waiting For You." Makes me cry *every* time. She wrote it after she gave birth to her son.
I always thought "living in between" was somehow wrong, too. Thanks for your insight. I feel better now. :)
Beautiful post, beautifully written. Thanks for the reminder.
Mere
PS Love David Wilcox - I had to go listen to that very song. :)
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