Light

The ravine was deep- a depth which you could see in the light of day, but it was the dead of night, and Thea Goddard could not see the bottom.

Thea’s day had started like any other, 6 am wake up, cup of coffee, off to the gym. She showered and made her way to the day job, which had also been like any other day. Afterward she set to working on her book, something she desperately wanted to finish but often the words wouldn’t come. Thea imagined a life where she was paid to write. Not because of any kind of status or money to it, but because she believed stories could be powerful and uplifting. Stories can provide hope. More than anything Thea wanted to spread that light to others, something her parents had always told her she could’t help but do. They had even named her after the goddess of light.

A couple of hours had passed and the words still weren’t coming, at least not the words she wanted. She wanted so desperately to write something uplifting but the only words coming were dark. The thought of her name and her parents were painful. Painful because neither parent was here anymore. Thea’s mother had died many years ago when she was a girl, but Thea’s father had passed just 18 months ago- during the pandemic. He had already been unwell and his body just could not fight the disease. As she thought of her parents and listened to the darkly melodic album she had chosen, she began to think of everything that was wrong. Wrong in her life. Wrong with the world. Everything. She began to feel her powerlessness… She jumped up immediately and exclaimed: “Nope! I’m not doing this.” She grabbed her phone and texted a couple of friends inquiring what they were up to. She dumped out the half-finished glass of wine she had poured and heated the kettle to French-press a cup of decaf. She waited, hoped, for her friends to respond.

She sipped her coffee and fought off the thoughts. She knew they were all true and all untrue at the same time. Her therapist had invited her to explore that duality but also to remember thoughts and feelings pass, feel them, process them, and let them go. “Okay,” she said aloud to her apartment, “time for a walk.” She grabbed her headphones, her keys, her favorite leather jacket- which had always made her feel cool- and walked out the door.

Thea was now driving. The walk hadn’t worked. She always felt better moving, going somewhere, even if that somewhere had no real destination. She loved to drive. She put the top down on the old clunker of a car which had been her father’s retirement project, something he would never get to, and let the cool night breeze flow through her dark cocoa-brown hair. She was driving away from the city, its glow dissipating in the rear view mirror.

She hadn’t planned it but ended up at the ravine. It was roughly 20 miles outside the city and had a beautiful view in the day time, but at night it was desolate and there wasn’t much to see. The car sat still, clanking and cooling as Thea got up, threw her headphones at the passenger seat, and exited the car, leaving the door open. She walked toward the ravine’s edge. Alone, in the dark, the thoughts built and built and with each step they got heavier and heavier. All the hatred in the world, her dreams which seemed so impossible, and now both of her parents… She stood on the precipice, peering down, her heart which had been racing as she approached, slowed as the darkness of her thoughts met the blackness of the pit and as a single tear dripped from the corner of her left eye one lone lightning bug flew right up to her. It flickered about her face before deciding to land right on her nose. Thea’s eyes welled and she moved a finger toward her nose creating a pathway for her new friend. The tiny, bright, insect moved to her hand and she held it there for just a few seconds before it took flight once again. Thea’s tears flowed freely now and she laughed, really laughed, for the first time in what seemed years. She couldn’t help but remember the meaning of her name as the tiny light disappeared into the night. She remembered a poem her late mother had written: “It is all for nothing. All you do means nothing. We will live. We will die. Your time matters not. ~ It is all for not one thing, But many. All you do means not one thing, But many. We live, Because we will die. Your time matters.” And Thea Goddard got in her car and drove home- she now had the words to write.