Sitting in my office on a Friday afternoon, watching the flames dance around the fireplace, listening to the rain echoing in the courtyard outside, it feels like I’ve been here forever. Like I’m beginning to take root in this old La-Z-Boy recliner.
Considering I’m one of those people who gets depressed when deprived of sunshine, it’s surprising that I’m still sane after the Bay Area’s rainiest rainy season in decades. In the mountains where I live we’ve had 89 inches so far. That’s just nuts.
The wet months are nearly over, but still. You know how it is when you’ve been through a tough ordeal for a long stretch of time. When it gets close to the end you start to get antsy, like you just can’t wait another second for it to end. This feels like that. One more rainy day like today and I just might jump out of my skin.
There’s always been a dark side lurking in the back of my mind. As a kid, I’d lay in bed at night and try to imagine what it would be like to be dead. I got close a few times, but then everything would just fade to black, leaving nothing left to imagine. It was the strangest sensation.
Turns out, it’s impossible for a human mind to process the cessation of its own existence. The only way to do that would be to stop thinking and feeling entirely, but then you couldn’t ponder the notion of death in the first place. It’s a paradox.
Regardless, the notion of never again feeling the sun filter through the branches of the redwood trees as I walk through the woods near my home is almost too sad to bear. That’s sort of what it feels like to me, being cooped up inside staring out at the gloomy world outside.
Our culture treats death like it’s some horrible thing, but the irony is, you have to be alive to feel this lousy. Of course, night will fall, a new day will dawn, and the rain will pass, but still. When suffering people die, we tell their loved ones they’re in a better place. Indeed, they are.
Image credit a.dombrowski via flickr