This past week has felt so amazing.
I don’t even know why I am trying to describe it except I feel that I need to lest I ever forget about it.
There is this one ungraspable feeling and idea in particular that I want to make a vain attempt at grasping.
First: Courtney and I went to a U2 show at the Rose Bowl on her 21st birthday. At the same time, our dear friend Madison was in labor, and the next day, a new and beautiful little human life was brought into this world to be with our lives.
Welcome to the planet, Sage.
That night, on the eve of Sage’s birth, the halfmoon shown brightly in the dim Los Angeles sky and I knew it was just a perfect night.
It felt magical.
And this “magic” is precisely what I want to ascertain.
For a few good moments I could pause and breathe and know that there was a grand story unfolding all around me. I could just feel it, see it in the eyes of all other people, inhale it in everywhere around me.
It is the feeling of infinity that I have occasionally discerned throughout my life, and it is the best feeling ever.
I can’t quite say where it comes from, but it was like I knew my distinct part in The Greatest Story Ever Told.
And I guess that a piece of me always knows that I am a part of this, but so often I ignore it.
I know that I can feel it, but I cannot exactly hear the narration.
I don’t know the next chapter or page or even the next sentence of this story.
That is a little scary.
Right now I am wondering if maybe I have to write it.
And in facing that, I am tempted to cram as many shallow, trivial things as possible into that gaping story line, just to make it easy; so I don’t fear getting it wrong.
But! sometimes, I can hear the pen: and I know it isn’t mine.
Something is out there and it is guiding all of this. Every coincidence in the story was planned long before by the author; none of it is chance.
And in this feeling I can reach out into eternity, into infinity, into that immeasurable magical brilliance.
For some reason it makes me think of those tucks driving through the long, cold nights in the vast, empty spaces across America. Maybe if you have driven for a long time you will know what I mean. The trucks will drive all night and then into the desert sunrise; across the unending land and into another still day.
They make me feel something I can barely wrap words around.
I guess it's what I mean when I say, "I feel infinite."
But somehow it is more than that, too.
This summer dragged on far, far too long.
And though now some days are still warm I am so glad to feel the bitter cold wind that swept through here this past week.
I sat with Jordi and the newborn Sage as the crisp wind blew outside. I could hear the sound of the freeways sigh along with my sigh, my lungs breathing in, and out and in, keeping me here on Earth and as a part of this story.
She played her guitar softly and I just thought about what it means to be alive.
I love that feeling.
I really do.
The wind comes in at night and brings a change that you weren’t expecting; it brings a life you never thought you had the chance to live until now.
It is when you learn something new that will forever impact how you live your life.
It is understanding love; it is the stars; it is gazing into the night sky and attempting to perceive your own infinitesimal existence.
It is those three perfect notes you hear together which somehow construct a euphoric harmony.
Simple, ubiquitous; yet quietly magnificent.
We rush around and fill our lives with so many busy things, but for me it’s those quiet moments, which I cannot describe, that are worth living for.
When you can take a breath, and know that your soul is alive, and that there is another step beyond this one, and then one more beyond that one, and that the story continues forevermore.
Because the sweetest melody is the one we haven’t heard.
And we all need to keep listening.
