The Conduit

Hate was never mine. Fear and isolation were the omnipresent burdens that were alive the moment the noise of the day quieted. On weeknights and during weekends in my tiny rental cabin, I was forced to sit. My love of cooking and my joy of making a house a home just wouldn’t show up. And I hear my voice as I write this and I know it sounds like depression, which it was, but there was something else that was there too, I just couldn’t think or feel my way to the other side, where it was. Though I was oblivious to its presence and had no idea of its existence at that time, there was something else about to take action in my life, and it was all around me.

Being inside was nearly impossible. I had a screened-in porch that was perfect for sitting in solitude during rainstorms, but the only place where I could reliably feel myself inching away from the permeability of my thoughts was on the dock.

It was summer when I first moved in and I made it a point to always get home in time to watch the sunset. I had no expectations except to sit somewhere where I could be; to sit somewhere where I could breathe. More often than not, especially in the beginning, I would go to my music and put Nuvole Bianche on repeat. I was in no position to have any intention of thoughts or goals during these times, only listening and feeling, listening and feeling, and watching the sun setting over the trees.

The song was six and a half minutes long and I would allow it to reach me every time it played. The melody began with the most beautiful 8 chords of piano I had ever heard, and I breathed and settled there always. Thoughts came as I listened, emotions came as I listened, and even though this state was where vulnerability lived, I did not fear what I knew would come. Instead I allowed myself to experience each moment as it needed to be experienced, because the fluidity of the notes, the crescendos and diminuendos, the free air around me and the water beneath me did not allow them to settle. Without consciously perceiving my motivation, for months I moved to the dock instinctively, for inside the 4 walls of a home I was a victim of fear and isolation, but next to the water, listening to music, I became a conduit.

I didn’t realize how important all those trips to the dock were until I visited again, months after I had moved out. Disconnected by time, I could see that I had found a place where I could breathe, and where my mind was not dulled and saddened by the turn my life had taken. I see the trips to the dock now for what they were, which was an adamant refusal by me to get stuck. Maybe I was stuck at work, and maybe I would be stuck when I left the lake and went back to the cabin. But if only even for an hour every day, there was a spirit inside me that knew that the action of my sitting, and the action of my listening, was moving me towards something that was better.

I don’t recall ruminating about the decision I had made to return to that blissful, hopeful state of mind that I felt as a child, but I see now what that moment did for me. From that moment forward there was a spark inside me, and when I remembered it, when I envisioned it, settled into it and watched myself, innocent and inquisitive, bent over in the grass, I fell in love with this beautiful moment, with this beautiful child. I remembered who I was.