Resonance

“If I wasn’t exactly finding the joy in that scenic splendor the way I used to, I was at least ‘resonating’ again, feeling the beauty around me, and curious about what the next line on the map might look like.”

Good or bad, funny or pathetic, I always like to have my own thoughts, it helps to explain why I believe in gay rights and gun ownership, I guess. But the above line, from Neil Peart’s book, Ghost Rider, really has hung around for the last twenty-four hours, almost like a song you can’t get out of your head. Neil was on a motorcycle journey to help him come to terms with the death of his daughter and wife in sixteen months. He had returned to his lake house in Quebec, saw these two rocks jutting out from the water and said to himself, “I still like those two rocks.” Resonance.

As we all know, it can take more than a few rocks in a lake to elevate our disposition. But that isn’t the point and he knew it. What it did though, was give him hope. It gave him encouragement. It wasn’t some epiphany, “Ah! The rocks! Everything will be fine!” Not at all. He would wallow many hours in sorrow and pain; pain of the darkest kind.

But I think this idea of resonating is illuminating. In fact it may be bravery of the most stalwart kind. In your darkest hour: loss, pain, grief, the fortitude to find that one sliver of enlightenment can be daunting. That sliver of enlightenment may not alleviate the darkness, but using it for what it is, a brief glimpse of hope, may damned well bring some salvation. Hope that all is not lost. Hope that something matters, or in this case, hope that something still matters. That with all the sorrow in your world, the things that gave you pleasure in the past are still capable of giving you pleasure in the present or the future. This resonance doesn’t replace pain, it just lets you know that there are things that can still matter; somewhere, sometime.

For Neil, these rocks were a connection. They were a connection to his past and maybe a conduit to his future. But maybe resonance doesn’t have to be something from our past. Maybe sometimes it is something new and unexplored. Something that jumps up when we least expect it and proves to us that life and hope can spring eternal.

I think I know this; keeping my eyes closed is the only one sure way of guaranteeing there will be no resonance in my life. Is that a world any of us want to live in?