Down the Rabbit Hole

Misery and Faith

The rain outside is pelting my office window. Certainly today's gloom factor weighs in somewhere are 9 on the 1-10 scale of such things. My little dog is sleeping in front of the space heater by my feet. I reach down to pet his soft head occassionally, as if to assure myself he is still there and that the good and gentle elements of my life are still alive and breathing. Not bearing to wade into the pile of stress-producing work on my desk, I've busied myself with seemingly more trivial tasks; looking up the addresses of long lost relatives, reorganizing my purse, filling out the health questionairre for my new doctor. Its been a difficult morning. I woke up this morning cocooned around myself. I drove the sleep off with a hotter than advisable shower and loaded the dog and the latest bills into the car. I put more gas in...again. On the drive to work I was suddenly assaulted by a memory I can scarely recall now. Driving to work under the pelting rain though, it was clear and bright. It was the memory of walking along the sandy path that curled around the Avery Point college campus. It had to be Spring, because though the sun was out and warm against my back, the trees were just beginning to bud and the air was still crisp with a winter not to recently forgotten. I was barefoot and he was dilligently pointing out the little green land mines of goose poop so I could avoid stepping in one. He was walking beside me, as he often did, his lumbering gait keeping him just ahead of me. It was a memory so vivid but so fleeting it left me flondering about, my mind trying to reaccess all the elements but coming up empty. It was from the time before all the darkness, when our lives were still comfortably linked by common threads of friendship, work and an appreciation of the sea and this beautiful, open place. Was it a message? A unexplainable communication from the beyond? And if it was, what was it meant to convey? I am more a daughter of science and matter than one of spirit and faith, but if I were to suspend that instinctual need to have all explained for a moment and just listen to my heart, I think I'd find a message. I think it was a reminder from my dear friend that life is full of small, contented moments and not to lose myself too far in the low and darker ones. The rain will stop and the sun will come out. The grass will get greener and the sea will beckon me again and there will be sweet afternoon walks when all I have to worry about is dodging piles of goose poop and breathing deeply of the ocean air.