“I see you’re frustrated when I cry
I’m finding out how sacred as time goes by
Process, purify
I am lighter, much lighter
Look at my eyes and cry with me…
Let it all out, it’s meant to be
Tears are our medicine…
I see you’re frustrated
Yeah, you don’t cry
You’re finding out how sacred as time goes by
Process… purify
You’ll feel lighter, much lighter
Look at my eyes and cry with me…
Let it all out, it’s meant to be
Tears are our medicine”
I cry easily these days. My heart fills and overflows when I least expect it. I find tears streaming down my cheeks when songs I listened to the day after Rafa’s death come up on the collective playlist; when I read some random paragraph in a book that touches me in a certain way; when I am simply witnessing a near stranger lingering with love and intention over the candle on their birthday cake. Something about this yellow leaf floating slowly down toward the pond right now stirs a mixture of melancholy, acceptance, peacefulness and finality in me. It seems only fitting for these times we are living in. There’s a whiff of the “end of days” in the air. Can you smell it?
I used to love that old R.E.M. tune “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” You know the one:
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine
Some weeks ago, I started singing those lines in my head. Apart from the chorus, the rest of the song is a rapid rattling off of what seems – at times – to be nonsense and at other moments, profound political commentary. That’s what life has felt like these past three months: crazy, intense things happening too quickly to even fathom ‘keeping up’ with them. Flying around the world from one continent to the next with fleeting days at home between trips.
There have been many things to write about and I have composed the first lines of more than one post in my mind. But, the beginning of the year seems to be the time that “In the Name of Rafa” hibernates. And that’s okay (at least that’s what I keep trying to make myself believe).
In the Name of Rafa 