Thursday, January 13, 2005

Thursday, January 13, 2005

And I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

I've got that "missing" feeling tonight and I don't know how to fill it.

It's that sort of feeling I've had occasionally when I'm sitting at the dinner table with all my family but still feel like someone is missing. Or the split-second remembrance of a time that never happened. Or the feeling that sits in the pit of my stomach saying that I should be concerned about something, seriously concerned, though I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Strange indeed.

At least we're past the winter solstice. The days can only get longer from here on out. I think that's part of my problem: I was made to thrive on lengthy days of sunlight. It doesn't need to be warm, just sunny. This and the next month always seem to be the easiest times for me to lapse into moodiness. And I'm terribly prone to trends from the past, which seem to be both helpful and detrimental in the same breath.

My favorite habit for this time of year involves taking a two- to three-hour drive out around the farmland near the airport, weaving through the fields on the single lane roads with my camera, while seeing how close I can actually get to the migratory flocks of sandhill cranes without stirring them up.

An old Methodist church usually gets a visit from me along the way too. Found with a friend of mine some five years ago, I never find it locked and is seemingly always the same on the inside. Same poor lightning. Same draftiness. Same moth-ridden hymnals. Same tallies from the service and Sunday Schools from the week before hanging on the wall. It's good to know some things don't change too much.

One of my first memories of Roukas originated in that area too. It was during the minimester period in May, and I had driven my car down a dirt road that ended a half mile or so off the main road at the river's banks. After a few hours of reading, I attempted to leave only to find that my 1986 Mustang's engine wouldn't turn over. So I pulled out a bulky early model cell phone my folks had given me for emergencies (the kind you could use as a weapon now), called the wrecker and then tried to call one of the few people still at school to come get me because the wrecker guy didn't sound all too confident that he could find me. After trying everyone I knew who had a car, I remembered Roukas, who at that time I really only knew as the guy who had called me "Adam" for the first three months of school before someone told him otherwise. I found it amusing so I hadn't corrected him. Roukas was the only person who answered my call that day. He didn't have a car but pledged that he would do his best to find someone who did. And then the phone died. This was 1999, the dark ages, before we thought to carry a phone charger or even use cell phones for more than emergency purposes.

Thinking I might be able to push my car back to the main road where the wrecker might see me, I pushed the car a good halfway back down the road before encountering a slight incline. Not difficult to walk up but enough to stop my forward progress...beside a huge pile of fish cleanings and leftover deer parts. It was hot that day too. Like 95+ degrees hot. So the smell drove me to hike the remainder of the way back to the main road and wait for the wrecker. I had lots of time to think and pray, while losing virtually every drop of moisture from my body. I waited at least two more hours in the heat before the wrecker came and hauled me off to the repair shop.

When I finally got into some air conditioning at the mechanic's, a Bryan student that I barely knew was waiting for me. She told me how Roukas had run into the school's library, asked everyone corporately if they knew who I was, and if so, that I needed a ride from them. Her short account was by far the best part of the day. [Thanks Rouk, if I never thanked you.]

Perhaps this is tonight's dilemma: memories can both purify and corrupt if used improperly. A good memory can quickly become harmful if it triggers discontentment with the present. Meanwhile, remembrance of a trying time can give one greater appreciation for his present circumstances. We can't live in the past, but sometimes that's what we have to draw on for the future. Too often I suppose I feel that I'm waiting on a missing person to eventually appear or for an experience to happen, while still living in the present with my eyes focused ahead.

Yet, this is what faith is...anticipating a time we've only read about, while living responsibly in the present. "Where is the balance?," is the question I keep coming back to.