There is something so... simple about this journey.
I mean, there are of course a variety of very complicated decisions surrounding my safety, and exhaustion, and food supply, sure. But there is something more basic than that.
At some points throughout the day, I find myself looking not at the road ahead, but at all that surrounds me. The Texas brush comes together on occasion to form a picture I don’t quite have the time to examine, as if weaving together stories I have to leave before discovering the grand conclusion. Or all the leaves left on the trees, as if winter had forgotten to tell them it was time to go. The cold wind blows in my face in competition with my friend, the sun, who tries to warm me on my merry way.
There was this feeling that hit today, after I had stopped this leg of the journey. The blood was pumping through my veins, and my heart had only just begun to calm down. I stood in the cold, and began to walk to a small clearing to set up my tent. An emotion came over me of simple accomplishment, as if I had won some sort of competition against my own weakness. The air smelled fresher. The sound of a nearby creek babbled louder, with a song more pronounced. I felt so... alive.
Is this what joy feels like, I wonder? This pure, unadulterated fascination with the world? It feels like a happiness that cannot be stopped, yet one that I have managed to lose more often than gain. I seem to normally be pulled back into the real world, swerving to dodge from some tumbleweed or roadkill, unbeautiful things that remind me of my quest. Unbeautiful things that remind me of the pain of my quest.
There seems to be something to that word, “unadulterated.” It seems that one reaches “adulthood” when they finally experience something heartbreaking. We often say, “they had to grow up fast,” as if tragedy removes the potential for a child to enjoy childhood. That adultery of what it means to experience joy seems to be found in that sort of tragedy. Even falling in love, when one manages to experience that joy, is set up with the expectation of betrayal occurring. It is seen as simply an inevitability of adult life. Adulthood is set up as antagonistic to joy.
I don’t mean to confuse the etymology of adult and adultery, which come from different languages entirely. But whether or not we intended it to, the philosophy of our language illustrates how we really think. Joy is an emotion you feel until you are betrayed, and then you know better.
But can that even be true? Or that simply a lie we tell ourselves to allow our own complacency to set in? It seems as though joy is something that is not easy to attain. I don’t know how often I have felt it in the past. I know it has come when I am falling in love, and look at the girl beside me, sharing no words, but a smile that communicates the world. And I know it has come while playing songs of praise and truth on little Rosie, as our voices come together in sweet harmony.
But those joys have not been the same as I had when I was a child. As a child, I seemed to be made happy and sad on a wild whim, distracted just as much as I am now by the necessity of making more mud pies or defending my sand castle with deeper moats. My joy then was found in running, and flying kites, and attempting my best at forming some sort of music. Maybe joy was just as difficult to find then as it is now, but I didn’t have to look then--it simply came to me.
So joy is perhaps more than just the impulses of childhood.
I wonder if true joy requires the sort of pain that adulthood prescribes. In that way, the sound of a ukulele, perhaps, is the essence of joy. In it is not just the simple sound of a happy bunch of strings. The sound is happy, yes, but it is clear when you listen that that happiness rests on the back of some tragedy. The ukulele’s song is a scarred one, with a past story that she won’t quite let you know. Instead, she sings her song, as if the song itself brings her healing. And there, I think, is joy.
The joy of healing lets Rosie and her ukulele siblings perform for us the song of all people. It is a song that is broken, and yet striving towards happiness; hurt, but on the verge of something so much greater than has ever come before. I am amazed on the one hand at how many people now purchase ukuleles and begin to learn to play. But on the other, I think it is because these people recognize that the ukulele can speak in a way our society tells us we cannot, and admit things we all want to hide.
Rosie can scream to the world: I was beaten by someone who claimed to love me. But now, I love me. And I will heal.
She can declare with authority: I was betrayed by someone who claimed to love me. But now, I love myself. And I will heal.
Her little strings pronounce: I was abandoned by someone who claimed to love me. But now, I love myself. And I will heal.
And to those who still suffer by being beaten, she will sing. To those who have been betrayed, she will sing. To those who have been abandoned, she will sing. But that song comes not just from her, as powerful as her story might be. Instead, it comes from the very heart of God.
In that song, there is a healing. I think that song is joy.
Day 3: Nineteen hundred and sixty-three miles to home. But maybe only a few more miles to me.
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