Explosions in the Sky

July 4, 2013

I roll over to cover my ears from the sounds of the explosions in the sky. I know they’re there with pretty colors, or colors I might think were pretty if I hadn’t been awoken to the sound of bombs being dropped outside my bedroom window. I could never understand the tradition, and I just want them to go away. If I have a virtual alien pet that I can talk to, you’d think they could make a silent firework.

Anyways, I promise you didn’t wake me up because the big booms did. I don’t even want to look at them, but they are behind me and echoing on the mountains in front of me that I can’t even see.

In the morning I will go to the beach and honestly, I want to hear a thunderstorm. Because they sound so different on the flat land, rumbling and rolling through the skies. I love how they sound here, but every time I hear them at the ocean I remember how different and wonderful they are there.

But none of it is so forced as these sounds in the sky right now. And I’ll never understand why people would want to hear this shit when saying “Happy Birthday” to America. Every time it gets me about the epitome of why this country isn’t succeeding: celebrating war with the sounds of war. I understand that it is a simple gesture, but I’m just wishing it would all stop right now.

I told you I didn’t want to be alone for the fireworks and I didn’t want to hear them and I wanted to be next to you. That wasn’t for no reason at all. They scare me, just like when I was a little girl, even though I know exactly what they are now. Maybe I just have sensitive ears, or an overly-sensitive heart, but I’m pretty tired of being told that. Perhaps all of you just aren’t sensitive enough. Why would you assume I’m the one that is wrong?

And maybe it will be my downfall and maybe I won’t make it through this all, but I really don’t believe that. I think someone, someday will see the value in my empathy and my openness and my willingness to understand and they will embrace it. And they will see that no matter how much these booming sounds hurt me, I know that they’ll be over soon and that tomorrow there will be beauty. I will be thankful for the ocean and all the vast unknown that is so beyond my understanding of anything that I can’t even begin to comprehend it.

And all that is given is taken away, but all that is taken away is added elsewhere and it provides a stasis that is somehow unstoppable. The rain pours down right now. It runs through my veins and it is the calming sound that I’m willing to hear. The water is all around us. It flows from one place into another and it all leads to the ocean, which is bigger than any land we would ever want to conquer or call our own. We don’t even know what’s out there. And even though we have devices in our hand that can instantly tell us the year that “Mary Poppins” came out or crush candy or send silly pictures of the everyday bizarrities to our friends, we still don’t know what the hell is going on in there.

Personally, I’d like to keep some of the mystery. I love to sit there and ponder it and realize that there is no need to know, except for to know that it is more than I understand and that that is okay and that there is no urgency in the matter because the not knowing is almost part of the fun. It puts me in my place.

My problems and day-to-day life are nothing when you put them against the entire world that lives beyond the shores and beneath the sea. Yes, I don’t understand why you make your choices or how you can leave something that provides a rare human connection in this life. But I can’t hate you, just as I can’t hate the ocean when it destroys peoples’ homes or takes peoples’ lives in its rough waters. It is all just a cycle that will eventually work itself out.

You will figure it out. I hate that for me that I can’t explain it to you and that I can’t have you by my side in this very moment to hold me and keep me warm. But I’ll go on and the tide will rise and fall tomorrow just like it always does. And soon enough I will be hearing the waves crash. But it isn’t really a crash because it isn’t a disaster. They’ll be caressing the shore and just beginning to touch our world. And I will bask in the sunlight and hopefully put all this aside, or put it in its place in my mind so that I can enjoy that one moment.

And the explosions in my mind will go away. And your memories will become just a remarkable thought that may or may not resurface. And I’ll find some shells to remind me that even when something ends there can be a beautiful continuation for some girl who is sad and walking barefoot across your soft sands, with daisies painted on her toes, trying to find her place amoungst the sea shells and the explosions in the sky.

She wants to have her questions all answered at once and in sequential order. But she keeps thinking about the giving and the taking away and how none of us can ever /really/ know, even though we waste so much of our lives trying to. And all she can know is to follow her heart, even if that leads her down paths where it hurts sometimes and even if she gets caught in that rip current that everyone tried to warn her about.

The only way you drown in the ocean is if you try to fight it, or if you get knocked out, which you could never have seen coming in the first place. Up until that last moment, as long as you stay calm, you’ll be part of something bigger than yourself. And that’s a lesson that is equally important in life as it is in death. Because most of the time, you’ll be okay, and even if you aren’t, you’re still okay.

And as long as you can tell yourself that when you lay there in the sun, you’ll be able to appreciate that water and that moment for what it is: fleeting but beautiful, serene but chaotic, uncertain but steady, and a representation of love in its deepest form. And you won’t be afraid of love anymore. You’ll embrace it and be consumed by it and even if you’re all alone, you’ll know that you aren’t. You aren’t alone at all because all that you see around you is real and good and you’re just an itty bitty grain of sand. It’s an opportunity for humility and a chance for solace. That’s not something you come by just every day. And if you don’t recognize it, it will be lost in the sea of tourists and the kids throwing jelly fish at each other and the planes flying banners with advertisements for helicopter rides and drink specials.

But don’t get distracted. That’s part of the experience. If you succumb to it, you’ll never be worse for the wear. And maybe you’ll learn something about yourself. That’s all we can hope to do as we move forward in our lives. We try to open ourselves to more and better. We can and we will if that is what we choose.

And then in the evening, we’ll look up to the night sky. And we won’t be able to see the waves anymore but we can still hear and feel that they are there. All the worry and confusion that swirls you around like a tornado can drift away. You don’t have to speak to one other soul to be connected to anyone and everyone all at once. All you can do is be grateful and present.

So, yes, I wish you’d be there with me. Of course I do. But I can make it on my own, and it doesn’t need to be a struggle. You could enhance my experience, but you can’t take away what would already be there. The only sad thought is that you’re missing out on it too. And that you can’t see what I see, even in silence and with no explanation. Because this doesn’t need one.

I’ll either find an answer or two or realize that some answers are inconsequential. I’ll write pages to myself, telling me it will all be all right, and hopefully believe myself later. This is a bigger picture than you, or I, or anyone else can conceive. So my goal is to be there for every second of that. And take it for myself. And take it for what it is but not more than it is, even though it could be everything.

And the explosions in the sky will stop, sooner or later, so that I can return to dreams of the ocean and the salt water air that I can taste just even thinking about it.

I won’t be sorry for making choices that might be risky. I’ve always been a gambler. But you can always know that the moon will rise and the tides will turn and that everything will change, but in the end it will all stay the same. Your perception is your reality. And I can see the ocean, so clearly, for what it is. So I can’t wait to see it.

I might be lonesome, I make no promises. But I will never let that impede upon those moments and that feeling, and looking out into the great beyond and knowing that I don’t know what is out there, but loving it anyway.

The ocean is deeper than these thoughts could ever go. But you deserve to be there, with or without me, because you need it more than I do. But I need it too. But I don’t need you, you’re just a unexpected value that is added in my life that I’m making my own choices about. And the ocean can’t stop me anymore than you can. It can only add to me and make me better, if for no other reason than to learn from things that I wouldn’t even venture to call mistakes. Because mistakes are what you make of them.  It’s all semantics, really.

And once you choose to respect yourself and your happiness, well, call me naive, but everything will fall into place just as it should be. Nobody can make your choices for you. Even though I’d love to make other peoples’ choices for them (especially yours), I know that mine are all mine to make. I simply think that seeing the ocean has benefits far beyond drinking fruity drinks on the beach and getting caricatures made. And I’ll love my time with or without any of that. I will love who and what I want to love on my own accord. And I’ll always love the ocean.