Catching Joy in the Breath

Photo: Last night’s full moon from Washington Park, Anacortes.
I felt my brother walking with me in the dark.

“…We may yearn to rest in some small piece of pure humanity, a strip of orchard between river and rock. But our own heart is too vast to be contained there. We can no longer seek it in a place or even an image of a god or an angel.”
End lines of Rilke’s Second Elegy.

This is my last real trip to the cabin. Friends, who are family, were kind enough to drive me here from Vancouver. I would not have wanted this ending to begin alone. There’s a vista from Interstate Five moving north, just before Conway, that always takes my breath for a moment. A hundred islands spread out off the edge of the Skagit Delta. The view reminded me of the Thanksgiving table shared with kin of choice this week. Our horizon served up with so many succulent dishes. Lummi Island is the turkey, Orcas Island the bowl of mashed potatoes, Lopez is the pie. I was in the back seat, behind my friends, feeling so sad and so blessed, even happy. The table is full of so many inner experiences.

This led me to wonder, what is it that catches the breath with joy? When you first spot your beloved at the airport curb. When you sit back and really see the painting you coaxed into the light over a long winter. Or driving away after the last day at a job that was beneath you. I don’t think it is the experience itself that fuels the power of the heart to sigh. The catch of joy in my case comes from an inner landscape. The islands are inside of me every day. The lover at the airport, in my adoring intentions. The paintings come from a dimension that is eternal. The actual objects and experiences are worthy (and loved) in themselves. But they are not the whole story.

As I stepped out of the heater’s hiss and the lantern’s glow of the cabin for the last time I knew that I would never forget the joy and dreams associated with the little home. This was a place for visions shared with a beloved. It became a lonely place with the song of ravens and coyote. And it was a place full of house plans made out of paper and prayers. Most of the intentions were not actually met. And I had to leave. Yet, the home is still inside me. Her hand still can rest on my shoulder as we sleep in the tall June grasses. The raven spinning songs in woodland flutters in my chest. It’s not necessarily about particulars. These things are real dreams. The catch of the breath, the joy of the unexpected moment are inside. And they are too big to be defined.

When I start the old Ford pickup for the last time in this place, I will ride the blue smoke and the turning wheels somewhere else. What do I take with me? Gratitude. Sadness. A little fear? But what I really take is Mystery. There is a joy of feeling every feeling, beyond the judgments about what is good or bad. There will be a new experience from within the rusted cab of the truck lumbering down I-5 toward the city. There will always be home. It just won’t be what I first expected.

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