Friday, October 25, 2024 10:46 A.M.
Waking up to the alarm you set 12 1/2 hours ago, right before you had your milk and cookies. No wake-ups, not even to go to the bathroom. You get up, use the bathroom and turn on the coffee you prepared the night before, and snuggle back into bed. You'd note the time, but it doesn't really matter, now, does it? It's the sleep that matters, twelve hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep (even if there were a few very-very-strange dreams).
*****
A half-hour later you're up again. You pour yourself a cup of coffee. You slip on a long-sleeve tee 'cause the cabin is chilly. And then--you open the blinds. Sunlight fills the small space, the sunlight of New Boston, Illinois, tiny town of 600 people with no bridge connecting it to your native Iowa, where you've come to lift up your angels and chip away at your demons.
But let's let the coffee cool off first. You take the six steps separating the kitchen counter from the bed and snuggle back in under the covers. And thus begins your retreat weekend in New Boston, Illinois.
*****
Sunday, October 27, 2024 3:18 P.M.
And so we're down to it--the final stretch, the big hurrah, the last gasp. The final three hours or so of retreat weekend, a retreat I've looked forward to for over four months; this 4 nights and 3 days to myself, to stop the sensory assault on my brain, to ever-so-briefly step away from my world of pleasing others, my students and co-workers and bosses and especially my family, so many places to be when all I wanted to do was be: be who I was created to be, be who I was formed to be based on ALL of the experiences I've been blessed to have over 47 years of gracious life; be who I picture myself becoming, based on those things I anticipate myself doing; be who I am; no, be who I is.
*****
Without even turning my head, I can sense the light of the sun twinkling into the corner of my eye; its rays reflect off my pale white thighs. About 2 1/2 hours ago, that sun reached its peak in today's skies: I took a picture just after walking past New Boston's baseball field. Now, that sun is in descent, which means the day is on its way to closure. The closure of the day means the closure of this retreat.
For the last three days, I have assiduously followed the sun. I have (tried) to wake when it wakes, peak when it peaks, peacefully close my retreat work when it settles below the horizon. If the sun were a human, I would have been its stalker; and even now, from my cabin, from which I cannot see the river but in which the sun has dropped below the upper portion of the window frame, I can see in my mind's eye how it shines off the water, so great has my attention to the sun been.
And alas, when it drops below the horizon this last time, two and a half hours from now, I'll write in this journal one last time for this retreat, say a prayer, take a shower, and read something trashy to relax. When the sun is done, I'm done, too.
*****
On only one of these three days did I actually rise as the sun rose. I am, on working days, by force, a morning person; but by nature I am not; and of course, to see the sun rise, one has to rise before it; and since I can't see the sunrise from this cabin, I also had to move.
My alarm rang early. I am a slow riser by nature, and I knew I would need the tie to get up, make coffee, get dressed, and walk the three blocks down to the river.
It was cold, under forty degrees, so I dressed in layers. It was a comfortable walk, though, and I arrived down at the end of the boat ramp just as the sky was starting to lighten. I knew that, from my position, I wouldn't actually see the sun break the horizon: it would be a few minutes later before it broke the the bluff of trees in the distance (God bless compasses built into cell phones). I tried to empty myself of thought and focus on the sight of the inky river water slowly growing blue, the lap of the water on the rocks around me, the early morning birds going about their business.
Before long, I realized that I had calculated my angle just a bit wrong. Just a few feet, really, but what a difference those few feet can make! Not long after my phone notified me of the "official" sunrise, it was clear that the bulk of the light was emanating not from beyond the bluffs, but beyond a very tall tree just to their north, still, at this autumn date, fairly full of leaves. My wait was to be considerably longer than I had anticipated.
I began to grow cold in the shade. I drank coffee to stave off the cold, and felt my belly getting upset. I found it harder to concentrate on the lap of the river on the rocks and its now-blue water. When I turned around to look up at New Boston, I grew resentful that its rooves were bathing in sunlight, and I was not. Still, I hung on.
It must have been between 8:00 and 8:05 when I saw it. It was just a speck between the leaves of my nemesis the tree, but it was astonishingly bright, and my gut told me it was the sun. As I glanced back every thirty seconds or so, the speck was brighter and bigger, and my suspicions were confirmed. Soon, the star was reaching the outer branches, and I could not sustain my eyes in that direction.
But that was not good enough. On this morning, I needed to see the ENTIRE sun hanging in the sky, and feel its rays touch my body. Every minute, it inched further and further up and to the right. By using my left hand to cover the sun itself, I concentrated on the upper end of the tree's branches. I was waiting for total clearance. Finally, at 8:20, there was, for certain, daylight (the word had never been so adequate) between the tree and our star.
I took a couple pictures. I took a long look over the water. I said a prayer. Then I walked back to my cabin.
*****
4:12 P.M.
Fifty-four minutes and a bathroom break have passed since I began writing. I plan to leave the cabin in under ninety minutes for my last stroll along the river, my last Mississippi sunset for--months? years? my lifetime?
I'm not sure why I wrote that whole spiel about the sunrise. It's not very interesting, not even to me. I'm not sure if I just want to remember, or if maybe some part of me thinks there's an insight in there, or if my pen just lost control. Probably, even if the latter is the case, it meant something to me, even if I'm not sure right now what that is.
The town around me is ignorant of how little time remains for me. Ignorant of me, to be more precise, the way I wanted it. Kids play and yell, and Sunday gatherings continue their merriment. Basketballs bounce off gravel and backboards.
I will leave this cabin in about 70 minutes. I will enjoy the river and sunset one last time. I'll come back here, journal, say a prayer, blow out a candle, take a shower, read a trashy book and say good-bye to the day. The retreat will be over.
Tomorrow, I'll go back to Iowa City. But my absence shall not matter--the sun will once again fight its way through those tree limbs, this time a couple minutes later, this time a couple ticks to the south. No, I take that back: the sun never fights. At all. The Earth will just gradually give way to it, whether it's clear, cloudy, rainy, snowy, cold, hot. The sun will shine for however long it's supposed to shine, as much as the sky lets it, and then it will descend, despite my absence, below the horizon, to await the next day.
We're the same. We arise, we shine, we descend. We do it daily, and we do it over a lifetime.
May I be like the sun and not fight it.
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