Finding Religion…this earth, oh my!

We’ve landed in Santa Fe for a few days (and a breather from the pace of the road.)

Spent yesterday under the surface, way way down in Carlsbad Caverns.  Holy Shit (sorry Pauline and Marsha!)

A soul shattering experience, in the sense that reality turns upside down and sideways…how do you make sense of the spaces that are apparently underneath us, as we live, breathe, eat, in the sunshine, there it is…total darkness, few living things, rock mountains forming in slow slow drips from the groundwater above.  I’ve finally concluded that there is no sense to be made of it.  Just accept.

Donald Antrim, a writer I’ve just discovered through his brilliant commencement speech published in The New Yorker (so, now, it’s time to buy all of his books) sums up the necessity of this Leap I’ve taken, my “Cliff Dive”:

“I hope that you will be faced with difficult choices and decisions, trials that won’t undo you, but that will drive you toward reflection and understanding. Trust that your fears will sometimes tell you about your desires. You will see that you can survive the terror that comes with growth and change, with vulnerability and risk. Depend on others.”

And, for those of you who are also writers, you know this is also why we choose to write, and that this is our perennial state of being:  Bartheleme’s “Unknowing.”  Terrifying and blissful.