I am on a long and difficult journey. There are no sign posts and no clear maps. Whether I will find a new world or merely sail off the edge into the abyss remains to be seen. Unlike Columbus’ journey, this is a journey through time and not distance. It is a journey of the mind and of the emotions rather than in the physical world. And even if the journey is successful, there will be no material riches, no spices from the Orient. I cannot even say what will be emblematic of success.
But it is a journey I must undertake. It is a journey I am already on. I post dispatches from time to time–here and elsewhere–but they are mere messages in a bottle–and where they
will come ashore and by whom they will be read is beyond my power to divine. I cannot know if those readers will even understand what they say–or if they will understand what I am trying to say. I know only that anyone on a voyage of discovery is bound as in a geas to report what it is he or she finds and sees.
Some of you have taken–or are on–a similar journey. Others will someday find themselves on this same ocean, though for all that the ocean always looks the same, it never truly is.
Some people will be offended by what I say and do. Some will see it all as a cry for attention–and they may be right. Others will see the political me and see it all as self-serving liberal hubris. And they may be right as well.
None of that matters.
Fifteen months and 11 days ago, I lost my compass, I lost my driving wheel, I lost everything that mattered to me.
Over the last few weeks, I have begun to sift through the ashes of that life. The events of Jane’s final days changed me–left me crippled in ways I forgot I could be crippled–and left me without even the crutches I had crafted in the days before I knew her. The ashes are filled with sharp-edged objects that cut me and leave me bleeding. But in those ashes somewhere is the phoenix of our souls–and if that blood is the price of redemption and resurrection, then I have to be willing to pay it.
People talk about brave deaths. I have, unfortunately, seen too many. But of them all, Jane’s was the bravest. I must now live my life with equal courage and the simple faith that love will find a way.
