The Cliff of Time

March 10, 2023

It’s raining still, this endlessness of rain. I’ve become so accustomed to stepping out into the sunshine, year round, that this restriction stumps me. Being in a prolonged drought was wretched, but all that golden, warm light was pretty nice.

I can’t seem to settle to any one task. If I had an interesting new book I would start that. My jitters are partly due to this unnerving rain, but that’s not the whole story. Remembering the advice to “just breathe” does help. For a few seconds, I am anchored in what, who, and where I am.

Although I sense that a spiritual activity could be beneficial, I’m so inescapably forward-looking, so fervently longing for that which we’ve been promised, that such endeavors feel foreign. I contemplate my shelf of spiritual books, but none whispers, read me. 

Am I supposed to be edgy? Not exactly worried, but alert? In another life, at another time, I might’ve called it battle ready.

I don’t want to be soothed by soporific spiritual adages. “Remember to breathe” is about all the advice along those lines I can take in at the moment.

*****

Shakespeare, as he often does, captures a mood perfectly. While our current multilayered, multidimensional battle for freedom bears little resemblance to the scripted battles of antiquity, the feelings on the night before battle echo between the centuries. Absurd as it sounds—ensconced in my cozy Santa Barbara-area home, I’m hardly an under-armored yeoman bunking on hard ground, knowing I might die tomorrow—I feel an undeniable kinship with those antique soldiers.

Am I capable of embodying “hard-favour’d rage”? Will there be a need to passionately and vigorously defend our home, our soil?

Anything seems possible. It’s frequently said that only a few people on the planet know what’s in store, have looked through their magic glasses and seen the true future and upcoming events.

And yet…and yet. I don’t have magic glasses or special privileges, but I know: we cannot forever be waiting and waiting. There will come a time when we are at the very edge of the diving board, and tumble over it we shall, whether we’re nudged from behind or we push off with our own full strength and exhilaration. One way or another, we’re going to fall over this cliff of time.

I take one deliberate breath. The cat purrs on my lap. The rain continues endlessly.

Perhaps I shall puzzle my way through a few scenes of Henry V. Shakespeare stumped me in college, and I still find it daunting. But almost like music, I can absorb the feeling through words even if they don’t quite make sense to me. 

The last act of our current drama has yet to be scripted, for in the fluidity of time, surely nothing is cast in stone. I keep what faith I can, hunkered in my metaphorical bunker, breathe deeply, and exhale the prayer for good to prevail soon, soon, soon.