My life is good - really good. The sun shines and warms my face while the air is filled with the scent of spring flowers. The birds sing and chatter outside my window. I have a warm bed that holds me at night. I have a garden that feeds and nourishes me in the summer. My family loves me and I love them. I have more amazing friends than I have ever had in the whole of my life. I spend my time creating art, painting, writing, drawing, and teaching other people how to do the same. I have a husband who is also my friend. I share my world with people and animals, even a lap chicken for heaven's sake. There's nothing like having a spoiled chicken to demonstrate how posh a life is. I have too much food, delicious coffees and wines at my fingertips, and every room of my house is filled with books. I spend my days fulfilling my dreams.
At the same time life is hard - really hard. Sometimes it happens to me, sometimes it happens around me, but it's always there; a darkness that creeps in under the doorways and through gaps in the windows. Two high school boys died, drowned while on a field trip. I didn't know them, and don't know their grieving parents, but I know loss, and I have a heart. I can feel it.
A Reno man was arrested in Marin County in connection with four deaths; a serial killer? And on the East Coast, they too are looking for a serial killer who has been dumping bodies for some time now. Sadly, these sorts are not as rare as we'd all like to believe. I don't know any of those people, but that doesn't mean I don't feel it when there is suffering all around me.
Neither do I know the Japanese people who died in the earthquake, or the tsunami, or who are now dying in the nuclear disaster. But I can feel it all from here.
I have a son in Afghanistan who thinks I was too strict a parent. He blames me for his problems, as grown children often do, and even takes delight in it when things go wrong for me. I have another son who struggles with serious and dangerous addictions. His heart is so good, but his troubles are so big. Not everyone can see him through that cloud of trouble that follows him wherever he goes, and there are enough harsh judgments to go around.
My sons each live on a precipice and I can do nothing. I can't reach out and pull them back. They stand or fall on their own. I taught them everything I knew, gave them everything I could, sacrificed all that I had, but it is so little against such a big world - like a tiny boat in the midst of a roiling ocean.
In one town in Japan the populace prepared for a tsunami. They'd suffered great losses before. A hundred years ago, another tsunami wiped out 90 percent of the population in that region. They learned and they were vigilant. They built a thick concrete wall and made it 30 feet tall. They maintained it and they had drills. They knew what they should do in case of disaster.
And when they had done all they could, the earthquake happened. It sent a 30-foot wave toward their wall. They should've been protected, but they weren't. The earthquake was so severe, so devastating, it lowered the shoreline by three feet. The defenses they diligently built and maintained were useless. The wave went over the top of the wall. In some places it went right through it. The town was again destroyed.
Does it mean that trying is hopeless, that defending ourselves is a worthless endeavor? That can't be true. Life isn't only about despair. There are some things no one can ever tire of. Babies still laugh. Little birds still fledge from the nest and learn to fly. On dark nights, meteors flash through the sky like streaks of silver. These things are still here - little sparks of magic and joy.
Together they walk, hand in hand, beauty and despair. I feel like Alan Paton when he said, "Cry the beloved country for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley, for fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."
There is a hesitation. No beautiful moment stands alone. How can we be filled with joy when we know the world is brimming with so much suffering?
When we are sick, when our hearts are broken, when we don't think we can face another moment - at that instant we may be filled with grief, but a part of the heart still knows that there is love and joy. We have always found a way to laugh through the tears and we will again.
I go on and on trying to find the right words, but Oscar Wilde said it all so perfectly. "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
I feel the darkness all around, but I choose to look up and see the sky.
• Deana Hoover is a Carson City artist who teaches art and creative writing classes through the Brewery Arts Center.