Lovely, Dark and Deep

At my bi-annual eye appointment with my eye surgeon last week, Dr. C tested my eye movements. As usual, my left eye wouldn’t move left, and I whined, "I work on the every day!" 

The doctor said to me and the intern in the room: “Yep. Once that sixth nerve is dead, it doesn’t do anything.”

I’m part dead. I write a lot about how alive I am and how happy I am about it, and that's true, but it’s also true that I’m part dead, just not all the way. I think about this partial death when I consider that I need to sleep fifteen hours a day. If I were fully alive, I’d be doing things I love to do (other than sleeping) with more of my day. There’d be more time. Of course, time was the issue before my tumors, too. In fact, I remember one of the poems I wrote when I was in high school:

Too much to do,

Too little time:

The complaint of

a day, a year, a life.

I must have been 15 or 16 years old when I wrote that, but already I was fatigued by all I was trying to do and be: such an anxious child (with an undiagnosed thyroid disease, blood disorder, and brain tumor).

I grew into an anxious adult who slept a lot and whose conditions were gradually diagnosed. Now at the end of the day, I count the number of hours I slept that day: fifteen. This number of hours makes me think of the call to life in Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep

Each time I count those hours, I re-hear something I heard someone say once, a sentiment I’ve heard and thought often: “There will be plenty of time for sleep once I’m dead.”

Am I wasting my life with all this sleep? Or is all this sleep making my life more whole?

These questions whirl, and it’s breathing and art that settle me down. Last week, my friends Pam and Allyson played a house concert that people from our church had purchased at an auction. I love the joy of their music, the sweetness as Allyson looks at Pam to keep in sync, the loveliness of their harmonies. These harmonies make me feel the world is in tune. Even when the song is hard, the harmonies make something beautiful of the pain. Just listen to one of the songs they sang, “No Hard Feelings” by The Avitt Brothers 

 When my body won't hold me anymore 

And it finally lets me free
Will I be ready?
When my feet won't walk another mile
And my lips give their last kiss goodbye
Will my hands be steady?

When I lay down my fears
My hopes and my doubts
The rings on my fingers
And the keys to my house
With no hard feelings

When the sun hangs low in the west
And the light in my chest
Won't be kept held at bay any longer
When the jealousy fades away
And it's ash and dust for cash and lust
And it's just hallelujah
And love in thoughts and love in the words
Love in the songs they sing in the church
And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven't done
Much good for anyone
Kept me afraid and cold
With so much to have and hold

Mmh
When my body won't hold me anymore
And it finally lets me free
Where will I go?
Will the trade winds take me south
Through Georgia grain or tropical rain
Or snow from the heavens?

Will I join with the ocean blue
Or run into the savior true
And shake hands laughing
And walk through the night
Straight to the light
Holding the love I've known in my life
And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven't done
Much good for anyone
Kept me afraid and cold
With so much to have and hold
Under the curving sky
I'm finally learning why
It matters for me and you
To say it and mean it too
For life and its loveliness
And all of its ugliness
Good as it's been to me
I have no enemies
I have no enemies
I have no enemies
I have no enemies

Yep. I think my life is like that, too. Even when the song is hard, the harmonies make something beautiful of the pain.