Thursday, June 12, 2014

i choose the light.





Peach House in Kinston, North Carolina

Over Memorial Day weekend, Justin & I managed to marathon-watch the entire Harry Potter series on film. Every time I watch the series as a whole, I'm struck deeply, emotionally, by the epic battle of good & evil, of right & wrong, of light & darkness. The stark contrast of the two always takes me by surprise, & I am always, always subject to what feels like an emotional cleansing of sorts. I am always renewed & refreshed & restored. 

It's easy to remember who has wronged us in this life. It is easy to tether ourselves to firmly-rooted grudges. It is easy to look upon a memory with rolled eyes & a seething, muttered word. It is easy to avoid places that garner feelings of inadequacy, places that remind us of the wrongs that have befallen us at the hand of another. 

But, imagine returning to those places & choosing to see only the light. To see the solid wood frame of a house, peach-hued in color, with a creaking porch & a screened-in swinging door. To pour yourself a styrofoam cup of sweet tea, awaiting the arrival of your not-really-that-good quiche & better-than-you-expected spread of fruit. To sit at a back corner table alone, soaking in only the delightful & painted pastels of your time in this rural, archaic town. To remember only the wondrous routine of rising early, dressing to the nines, & shivering in your office while clutching a steaming cup of black coffee from the kitchen. To call to mind the nervous stomach that preceded adventurous trips home. To remember with a pang of sadness the night you spent distraught in front of the baggage claim, & crying all the way to Kinston from Raleigh. To remember that there can be joy in sadness, because it means you are alive, you are feeling, you are attuned to the importance of every little other life that happens to overlap with yours.

There is comfort in knowing that we, as humans, have a choice. We can choose to be bogged down & loathsome. We can choose to stew in our miseries, to cast blame & proclaim doubt. Or we can choose the other side: we can choose the light. We can choose to brighten another's day, whether or not we feel it necessary. We can lighten another's load, we can smile & that be enough. We can be kind & good & helpful & vivacious. We can choose to be a beacon for others lost at gloomy sea. 

I have the emotional wherewithal to choose the light, & choose the light I will. Every time.

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9 comments:

siddathornton said...

This is really well written and absolutely beautiful.

siddathornton said...

Great post! I try to always choose the light as well! :)

siddathornton said...

This is a wonderful post! I wasn't always someone who would choose light all of the time, and then I realized how much it can drag you down and how much it hurts you when you don't. As soon as I realized that, it was easy. I choose the light too. :)

siddathornton said...

I couldn't have read this post on a better day! I loved this. Choosing the light can not always be easy when the world gets in our way but I believe it is always worth it. Thank you for sharing this! And an entire Harry Potter movie marathon in one weekend?! I am envious and it is now on my bucket list. I watch them often but have never done them all back to back in completion in one weekend.

siddathornton said...

It's definitely not always easy, & it's something that I grapple with often in my life. But I ALWAYS try to choose the light, & I always try to remind myself that there is a definite choice.


And yes, you really need to marathon all of the HP films in a couple days' time. It is so, SO good when watched that way.

siddathornton said...

Thank you! :)


I definitely haven't always been someone to choose the light or err on the positive side of things. But, just like you said, once I realized it was a choice, & once I realized how much better it made my life to be positive, it became an easy choice!

siddathornton said...

Thank you! :)

siddathornton said...

Thank you, my dear! :)

siddathornton said...

You're right - ANY day can be a good day. There are good things in every day, even the worst days. We just have to make that choice, that we're going to zero in on those wonderful, small, lovely things. I haven't seen that movie, but it's now on my to-watch list. I think I'll have Justin move it to the front of our Netflix queue. Thank you for the recommendation, & thank you for the kind words about my post!

the back and forth.

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