I stood mesmerized for two and a half hours at the Tragically Hip show last night. Just one of over 20,000 people, leaning over the edge of my front row balcony seat, swaying.
Like many Canadians, I have been somewhat obsessed with Gord Downie's tragic diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, and his radiant light through this tour. It's as if he exposes us to the core of being alive, and while we can't touch it, we reach...so close, so far...ever closer in the yearning.
In the epic "Ahead By A Century," Gord Downie
sings about "illusions of one day casting a golden light." Last night he cast that light, and we were held in it. The power of the twinkling in the stadium was all the more immense against closeness of the dark.
When one is struggling with depression, the veil can lift in moments like this. We can come alive in the places we felt dead. We can twinkle. But we must hold ourselves gently, because these moments are not in fact antidotes to our darkness. They are treasured, powerful moments for potential awakening, but they must be supported by a fuller, more persistent process of healing too. We must be patient. We must be present.
At the end of the concert, singing Grace Too, Gord Downie screamed, "Now!" again and again. "Now! Now! NOW!"
Not "No," but "Now."
That scream is still reverberating inside me.
I am grateful.
*Photo courtesy of Ari Kaplan
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