SUNRISE TRUTH

It’s super windy out there tonight. I can hear it sweeping and roaring through the trees in the park. A small part of me wants to run out there in my pyjamas and fling my arms wide to the elements.

Don’t worry. It’s drowned out by the rest of me, which quite likes the warmth, the brightness, and the navy rum hot chocolate of an indoor Sunday night. The only thing sweeping over me will be the folds of the duvet, and Sounds of the Tropical Rainforest Volume 5.

A peculiar day today. You know how some truths are like lightbulb moments that switch on in the dark? Well, it seems others are much more like sunrises. You get a gradual sense that the sky is lightening, there’s a faint band of something bright on the horizon, and all that remains is the dawn, the waiting for the sun to paint the day.

I think I’m discovering a sunrise truth - about myself, I suppose. I sense it, though I can’t articulate it; I feel it, though I can’t see it. It is coming; and I will have to face up to the fact that, well:

I might have lost hope in my dreams.

Through hurt, through disappointment, through confusion, through trying to do the right thing, through laziness perhaps. But there we are. I need to start dreaming again, but it does seem like the most painful of things to do. I’m afraid of dreaming. Maybe I’ll articulate that better one of these days.

Meanwhile, what it turns out I can articulate, is jazz chords! After practising some licks and riffs from a few standards yesterday, I completely forgot to switch my jazz-brain off in church this morning, and ended up introducing the congregation to some funky major 9ths and diminished blue-note piano runs. I don’t think anyone noticed (I hid it well), but I was a bit annoyed that I couldn’t seem to stop doing it. A few people might be ready for Loungeroom Hymns and Swingtime Spiritual Songs, but not all. By no means all.

After that, I went to the Intrepids’ where my sister asked me to give my usual weekly run-down of exactly how my life is going. I gave her the synopsis, and then my nephew wanted to listen to Uncle Matthew FM, an impromptu radio station which now includes News from Around the World (different accents), Grandmum’s Weather Update, and a selection of classic hits chosen by our usual correspondent, Mr Jeremiah Shed, who once again picked Everything is Awesome from The Lego Movie. See? That sounds like much more fun than summarising your life into a weekly soundbite, doesn’t it?

The niblings went home and my Dad wanted to watch Columbo, so I slept through that and then ate Jaffa Cakes. Then I went home myself, trying to work out what the optimum number of Jaffa Cakes might be for a Sunday afternoon. I’m guessing it’s somewhere around n-5, where n = however many I’d eaten.

I don’t think anyone should be worried about me being afraid to dream. It’ll come right, and new things will flicker their way into my heart. I guess it’s a combination of hope and faith, and that sort of wide-eyed ability to look at things as though anything is possible - which, it sort of is. I just need to let go of a load of things and let the dreams rush over me like the sounds of the rainforest, the buffeting wind, and eventually the gentle sun that rises and smiles on the next set of adventures.