Roller Coasters . . .

School starts next week. I am not at all ready for it. These last few weeks of summer break have flown by far too quickly--I have had no time to wind down, to prepare myself for the imminent beginning of the school year. And there are simply too many frustrating and confusing things going on in my life right now, and I feel as though I have no time to sort through them properly.

Last year at this time I was so happy, for the first time in a long time. I was so excited to be starting grad school, so thrilled to be meeting interesting, thoughtful people, so fully content with my life. I was coruscatingly joyful, one year ago.

I would wish to be in that place again. Why is it that most of the time we can't be that happy? I love the feeling that my horizons are opening up, stretching out, out, out, so that I can look up into an infinity of blue sky and know that anything is possible, and that all the possibilities are gorgeous beyond my wildest imaginings.














But most of the time I don't feel that way. Most of the time I feel a quieter type of contentment, a quiet happiness that I get to wake up in Missoula, Montana, every morning, a quiet enjoyment of the mountains, the clear air, the rivers, my friends, my apartment, my place here. And some of the time I am sucked down into darkness, in which there are no horizons, no possibilities, no joy, and my life seems frightening, its circumstances beyond my control.

Are those moments of transcendent joy worth the clinging darkness?

Or is it better to simply live calmly, evenly, with no violent upheavals of emotion?

I have to believe that those moments of joy are worth the darkness.



























They are.