Semi-Urban Cartography

Modern Magi

The search for meaning on the backdrop of this season seems apropos. I woke up this morning to the same alarm clock (albeit a little later than usual). When I turned on NPR the news discussed oil prices, instability in Afghanistan’s leadership, health care, the job market and a disappointing first year in the Obama administration for African Americans. The world keeps on turning although there is something inherently different about today. We’ve been told it’s there. Told to feel for it. See it in other people’s smiles. Time was we were even convinced that if we’re not aglow with it, we’re something else. We are humbug.

When I was very young, I looked onto the coming hours between nightfall on the 24th and dusk the following day as ethically, almost astrologically apart from the others — this feeling I held strong to and identified with until very recently. The magic feeling survived into my early 30′s, in the glimmer of meaning and deference. Twenty odd years we followed the same course. Nightfall meant Lorraine’s house. Christmas Eve felt like a day when nothing bad could happen. Nothing cynical. One day of the year to thrill in the absence of anguish. Prevailing social currents distract us from the need of winding into a meaningful place. Maybe it’s the steady diet of social work and that experience with the plight of people. Perhaps its knowing that where there is pain, it remains and there is no vacation.

I don’t think that’s entire it though.

Charlie Brown Anticipates Adulthood

I’m going snow shoeing today. In ninety minutes, we’ll depart for Mt. Hood and the clear, cold afternoon unfolding on Trillium Lake. We’ll walk and burn our calves. Perhaps I’ll dig in and find that Irving Berlin moment, those days merry and bright. Perhaps something in the light will hasten the return of that feeling that today has an inherent superiority above all others. I hope so. Lisa will walk astride me. Sometimes she’ll be further up along on her own or next to Carrie. I know she wants this day to mean something too, just like any other day we encounter. She’s not similarly afflicted though. For good or bad, I’ve become one of those people who discover the presence of something when it’s sheer absence makes itself clear. Meaning doesn’t just stand out on its own. It has to emerge.

When all those reasons to be cynical fall away, today’s true meaning may well find itself in some astral form in a snowy field. There has always been some break in the light. A bit of cheer. I don’t know though. I’m hoping for it — sincerely. I don’t go into things with expectations however. Hope is that I don’t dig further into nihilism if it doesn’t and we drive down in the dark as empty as we ascended.