At exactly 7:50 p.m. (according to the clock in Jennifer’s car) on Sunday, October 14, 2007, I was driving west on Interstate 44, quickly approaching Springfield, Missouri. Jennifer was sleeping in the passenger’s seat. Traffic was heavy. I was in a fairly foul mood because I knew that several hours of driving stood between me and my bed, and because I knew that work was waiting for me on Monday morning. I was also sad because we had left Zoie at the veterinary teaching hospital in Columbia a few hours earlier. Leaving her every week is one of the hardest things about her treatment. She is basically frantic from the moment we walk her into the hospital, knowing that our departure, and her abandonment (in her mind) is imminent. It’s obviously impossible to explain to her that it’s for her own benefit, so Jennifer and I just suffer in silence, and hug and kiss her goodbye for a few days. Truly, there is no solace for anyone involved.
Since Jennifer and I have been going to Columbia the past few weeks, I have a moment, sometimes several moments, every Sunday during which, as I did as we were approaching Springfield on October 14, I don’t think I’m going to make it. When I say that I don’t think I’ll make it, I mean at all. Not just on that particular night, I mean make it through Zoie’s treatment, work the next day, or life in general. I think it must be what being depressed is about. I find it a strange sensation. I suppose it’s because driving to Columbia and home every weekend, leaving Zoie, knowing that the radiation may or may not be working, knowing that there are a lot of questions and no good answers, are all very tiring both physically and emotionally.
Sorry; this is not an invitation to my pity party. I mention those things because we all deal with crap. Sure, the crap is different for everyone, as is the level of it, and the frequency. I’m just glad that, as Lucinda Williams puts it, despite the fact that, “Livin’ is full of misery and pain,” most of us, “Keep on walkin’.” That’s not quite so eloquent when written, as it is when she sings and the pain that she conveys is absolute bittersweet joy. Still, the message is the same. The blues, whether sung by Robert Johnson, Bo Diddley, Eric Clapton, or…Lucinda Williams, always make me feel better.
Even without the blues, though, I am, in many ways, particularly blessed because, even in the face of crap, I can almost always find something to appreciate. And when I was driving to Springfield on that Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, it was the moon. Given a choice between the sun and the moon, I’ll pick the moon every time.
On that particular night, it hung low in the sky, just above the city’s skyline. It was still in the crescent phase that marks the beginning of Shawwal on the Islamic Calendar. The moon illusion increased its size so that I could hardly believe how big it was, or how red, or how… unendingly beautiful. Right then and there, I believed that, whatever other reasons there are for the moon’s existence, it was hanging there to glorify the sky above Springfield, to bring beauty to my evening, and to remind me that, no matter what happens, a God, who chose to create something so lovely, must have some other pretty cool stuff up his sleeve.
