Darkness

I have spent much of this Advent sitting outside in darkness, wrapped in a blanket, listening, watching. I am not waiting. There is nothing that is needed.

It’s like that time the boys and I went to Medicine Lake summoned by a dream. I expected something to happen there. But nothing did. Nothing.

That nothing is not really that. It is full and rich, like the deep voice that holds the bass chord of life in silence.

My artist self wants to describe it. But how do you capture the nothing that stops me in my tracks, sits me down, and makes me forget who I think I am.

I have tried. I have tried to describe the air before dawn, its whisper, its breath. I have tried to describe the stars and the way they teach me my place in the order of things. I have tried to describe the birds, the colors of dawn, the sound of ocean and the fact that before the sun rises I do not care if it is raining or cold because all I want is the dark.

I have failed every time.

This Advent I have been sitting in darkness. I am supposed to be waiting for the light, but the truth is I like it in the dark. My mind is quiet here. The world is not yet.

The darkness is full.