Songs For Your Day

It’s a strange feeling, really, for a guy who has spent a good 80-90% of his life if not wandering, wanting to wander–to have finally closed on my own house, to have moved my small apartment of belongings into a place that I plan to spend at least the next 5 to 10 years of my life.

Wanderlust of the sort that I and a good portion of my friends have (a couple of whom also write for this blog) is at once a wonder and a torment. It keeps us sharp and alert, always looking around to see the things around us, and most especially to see the things that most would see as trivial, we see as miracle.

But, it also keeps our minds loud, spinning, at times like a playful top, and others more like a whirlpool. We’ve ruined relationships with our whirling–at times, we’ve ruined ourselves. I’m not sure that you ever grow out of it; like I’ve written before, I think there are still hints of my wanderlust in the relative life of minimalism I lead. I used to be able to fit all that I own in a sedan, just in case I needed to make a break.

Sounds a bit overly dramatic, I suppose, and I suppose, it’s because it was. There was a time I never thought I’d settle in somewhere, and now I have a mortage payment, and I am marrying a wonder of a girl in just a few months. My mind still spins sometimes–I constantly beg for instances of good in the world, sometimes I ask Jesus or whoever to come back soon and fix everything, sometimes I just have a hard time with memories that I’d rather not carry so much weight.

The first chance I got to play music at the new house, all I could think of was the refrain of Sufjan’s “Majesty Snowbird”:

Don’t stop, don’t break
You can delight because you have a place
Quiet room, I need you now

I spun my finger around the dial of my iPod, and pressed play. I looked around, saw the dust of the remodeling still hanging in the sunlight, sat down on the floor, and listened to the house breathing around me, growing lungs, a beating heart, wrinkle upon wrinkle of new memories making a home. Something I was never sure I’d find.

-christopher earl.