I am awake in the dark before dawn, listening to the wind and the waves in a river town just outside New Bern, North Carolina.
The Neuse River is like a mirror, reflecting the light of the sun, and I am writing and waiting for the sun to rise. When it does, light will lift out from behind my left shoulder, escaping from the east, just like it did yesterday and the day before.
I am in awe of how, without fail, the sun pours out to paint itself a portrait upon the river’s shimmering surface.
I am tired. Many different kinds of tired. Work tired, mother tired, idea tired, bone tired, spirit tired. A cup of coffee sounds nice, and I wonder where I might find the best local brew. I love coffee, but only drink it on occasion. I mostly drink herbal teas because I prefer the medicinal uses they offer. Like the dried hibiscus in my mug, seeped to soothe the inflammation and infection in my body.
We are here on Minnesott Beach for five days, with the sight and sound of the ocean right outside our backdoor. It reminds me of my time in Cabo, Mexico, sleeping with the door open and letting the waves lull me with their song.
I will never get enough of moments like this one. Moments when the worries of the world are whisked away, altogether eclipsed by escaping to some otherworldly destination. I am a dreamer, a traveler, a wanderer of the highest degree. My grandmother once said I never stay in one place long enough for the grass beneath my feet to grow.
She’s right.
I am always off and gone. And when I am not, I am wanting to be. I am always dreaming and planning and thinking of being in far off places, hours beyond my reach. It’s like there is a magnet in my soul, pulling me out to soar and see the world.
And, yet, there is this song, by Jesús Adrián Romero. I listen to it loop without end. The rhythm whisks me away and I am in love with the lyrics. I sing it in Spanish:
Te busqué (I looked for you)
Y ahí, en lo simple, te encontré (And there, in the simple, I found you)
En el aroma del café (In the aroma of coffee)
En un verso, en una flor (In a verse, in a flower)Y eso que (So what)
Yo le di vueltas al mundo entero (I went around the whole world)
Te hallé en el canto del aguacero (I found you in the song of the downpour)
Y donde se mete el sol (And where the sun sets)Y al darme cuenta que (And when I found that)
Tu compañía (Your company)
Era mi pan de cada día (Is my daily bread)
Contigo me quedé (I stayed with you)
Y tú (And you)
Eres el mar, y yo la arena (You are the sea, and I am the sand)
Tú eres la llama que enciende la leña (You are the flame that lights the wood)
Que da luz a mi interior (That gives light to my interior)Y así (And so)
Como la luna y las mareas (Like the moon and the tides)
Tú eres el ritmo que sin falta me lleva (You are the rhythm that without fail takes me)
A vivir, realmente a vivir (To live, really to live)
I feel like a songbird when I play “Luna y Marea” as I hum and sing along. I feel light and free. I feel romanced.
The song takes my tired away, reminds me of all the simple things that take my spirit-tired away. It captivates me, enrapturing me, yet again, to remember the miracle of being loved by such Mystery.
Creator, his love is not like ours.
Neither is his strength or the perseverance of his pursuit for the ones he loves.
The sun is awake in the sky now, and soon the sons who make me mother-tired will be awake, too. There is never enough silence, never enough scenery, never enough seconds in the day, never enough sleep to take away my tired.
So maybe café is the cure, endless cups of sweetened slow pour. It just might be that I can and should and will come alive through the seemingly simple, those split seconds in the day—a chapter read here and there, bubbles with the boys, platefuls with pistachios and fruit, tree shadows dancing in the light, the call of birds, a whispered prayer.
The present
is a present
presenting itself
with gifts of goodness,
gifts of God,
of his presence.
The little one whose name means Sky is awake now. He sits outside with me, sitting under a cerulean sky, watching the wind and the waves.
I am awake now, too. Not taken by the tired, but by the rhythm that without fail takes me to live.
Really to live.