This morning I spent most of two hours steeped in confusion.  It was my Music Theory class at Poel.  My previous understanding of rhythm was obliterated.  It felt like an assault, so deeply not knowing.  Add in my low understanding of Dutch … and there was despair.

My friend Jan sits beside me and does his best to translate but he too was struggling at times, and needed to focus on the teacher’s words.  Jan so much wants to help me.  I’m grateful.

And then …

In the middle of countless “Huh?!” moments, another overwhelm flooded me.  I loved my classmates … all eight of them.  I felt their beauty as they too scribbled notes and sometimes shook their heads within the mystery of music.

The jagged knife and warm bath joined in my mind and what came was truly beyond.   The brightness of life closed my eyes.  So much joy … so much pain.  And the joy was winning.  How can this be?

All nine of us are heroes of the best kind.  Dealing with life’s tumults as best we can.  Trying so hard to understand.

I don’t know how I kept doing the exercises and writing down the concepts.  I was gone … whereabouts unknown.  And accompanied.

***

As we were packing up, I was transported back to another group – a three-week wilderness experience in an Outdoor Education course in Alberta, Canada.  Two teachers and maybe twenty adult students.  We hiked beyond trails, canoed rivers sometimes wild, used our compasses in orienteering exercises to find Point B from Point A.

Some of our time in the mountains was in a group of four.  Hypothermia hit some people hard.  It may be that the actions of the three of us saved the fourth person’s life.

And the teachers definitely saved my life.  What was I doing signing up for a canoe journey and not being able to swim?  My partner and I missed our leader’s signal to pull into a riverside campsite, and there I trembled, facing the huge waves of a rapids.  “I’m dead.”

We were thrown out of our canoe.  I grabbed the gunwale and tried to keep water out of my mouth.  And then there were hands, and me trying to breathe on the shore, and a night full of dark dreams.

Back in town, our last day, and a written exam, since this was a university credit course.  I remember many of the questions being difficult, and me fretting about failing.

And then …

A 1980 overwhelm.  I looked at the faces of young adults furiously writing … and loved them.  I was lifted into the stratosphere of Thank you, my beloveds.  I remembered all the giving and receiving and blessed my friends of the wilds. 

Another period of being gone, of giving thanks for the kindness in us, of wanting all my classmates to be supremely happy.

***

So I reflect

On the gifts I have been given

And those I give