It only took the touch of his heel to appease the hungry waves. As the water swallowed him up, calf then thigh, then all he was, Jonah could feel the sea relax, satisfied and sated. Down he plunged and the light began to fade. Water rushed into his nose and filled his ears. Down he fell, not trying to swim, but surrendering to the inevitable. Irony sparked in the deepening gloom. Here in the rush of water, the pull of water, the weight of water, Jonah finally appreciated the omnipresence of the divine. He would drown in the Lord, become one with the will of God. Perhaps he should have gone to Nineveh straightaway, but wasn’t this so much better. Down below, a dark shape twisted out of the shadows. Something glinted silvery in the last of the dying light. As the darkness within darkness came rapidly closer, Jonah closed his eyes and drifted to sleep. (Inspired by the story of Jonah and the Great Fish.)
In early summer the central Missouri hills are a green and rolling sea, crashing against the floodplains in leafy swells; tossing my car about like driftwood on the ocean. I had come to the hills to escape the noise of the city, the stress of the job, the frustrations of the day-to-day. Somewhere in the sustained quiet of a country night, I hoped to rebuild my depleted energies and regroup for the next foray into responsibility. For 48 hours, I intended to be lazy and whim-driven. I would sip wine with lunch and get completely lost in a good book. I would spend time in the sun and walk until my muscles ached. For two days, I would recapture the easy smile and the unforced laugh. For two days, my life was my own and the world was a beautiful place.
View of the fountain at The Conservatory in Augusta, Missouri
When immersed in the luxury of free time, I like to delude myself that if I could live my whole life the way I live my vacation, I would never be stressed or angry. My stomach wouldn’t cramp when the phone rang and my insomnia would slouch out the door, leaving no forwarding address. Being adrift in a sea of self-determination would be a pleasure cruise that never ended and my golden years would be spent sipping pina coladas and contemplating the sunset.
Like that’s going happen.
I am a worrier of long standing. Looking at photos of myself as a little girl, I see the same anxiety-pinched forehead that still greets me in the mirror each day. In fact I think of myself as a pinched-person, someone who lives in perpetual mid-flinch, wearing a life that feels two sizes too small. This cramped disposition affords me a special affinity for the ancient prophet, Jonah. Here was a guy so crabbed and cranky, he couldn’t join the celebration when an entire city dodged annihilation. Even his Boss was bemused.
Like Jonah I sometimes tend to get lost in the weeds, fretting over the health of one shriveled beanstalk and ignoring the profusion of the garden. Though he covered a lot of territory in his travels, Jonah’s perspective never stretched farther than the end of his nose. By focusing on his anger, he missed the miraculous. During times of stress, I’ve caught myself mistaking my point of view for the general consensus and projecting my personal disappointments on the world at large. I forget that where I see chaos, others see opportunities; where I see clouds covering the sun, others see the promise of rain. My little vacation in May gave me a chance to catch my breath and reorient. Ironically, two days of solitude reminded me how broad is the horizon and how varied is the view. I came home with the desire to live every day with a vacation outlook and not let the grindstone become my only vista. To paraphrase John Cage, “(my) intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life (I’m) living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.” Wide Awake by Katy Perry
Being Dorothy 