Maybe That’s OK

Rain in the night, and still more as day broke. A relief, really; it’s amazing how quickly the ground turned to thirst, cars tailing plumes of dust along the mountain road, the creek low and quiet. Sometimes in the early mornings I ride my bicycle to the top of the mountain and back. I like how the trees – maples, mostly – knit their leafed branches together over the road, forming a tunnel as the climb begins in earnest. I pedal into the tunnel just as the sun is rising, and suddenly everything is dim again, and there I am in the near-dark with my heart in my ears, the birds in morning song, the dry dirt crackling beneath the tires of my old bike.

I realize just now how often I write of early day, and I’m pretty sure why: I think there is something about the break of day that brings one closer to the inner workings of heart and mind, even if only to realize that the inner workings of heart and mind are as cluttered and fumbling as ever. Which I suppose is itself a certain clarity for the truth it speaks.

It is my habit to sit in silence for few minutes upon awakening, in the winter before the wood stove, in the summer perhaps the same, or outside atop one of the large stones that protrudes from the ground at the height of the knoll above our house. I don’t entirely understand the value of this habit; I tried for a while to understand, but have finally (and wisely, I think) given up on the expectation of it even having value. But I continue to do it anyway, mostly even when I don’t much want to, and I sense it is doing something for me, even if I don’t know what “it” is.

Then it occurs to me that maybe it’s nothing. And maybe that’s ok.