Lark Metaphysics

I don’t know if this happens to you, but I sometimes get a lift without knowing why. That is, I sort of know why, in the sense of being able to describe the circumstance and its effect on me, though I may not know exactly why that particular thing affects me as it does. Last night, after dinner (and a good dinner, too, not consisting of a sandwich or fast food), I was driving to Starbucks. We’d had heavy rain earlier, the pavements were wet, and scraps of gray clouds were racing across a stormy sky. There was a kind of pearly light, for all that the weather was gloomy, which probably came from the reflections off all those wet surfaces. The sky looked manic and wild, as it often does here after a spring rain, and that was the key, I guess: I was suddenly looking at a spring sky rather than a winter sky. There was a feeling of cleanness, as if the rain had washed away not only the remnants of snow, but something more.

It had snowed just the day before, and the roads were so slippery then that I was afraid of an accident on the way to work. Now, suddenly, it was the moment that happens every year—though never in the same way or on the same day—when you suddenly feel things poised to change. The scurrying clouds, the tension in the air that comes with a thunderstorm, the difference in the light—all contributed to a feeling of movement and rebounding life. I could feel my spirits rising simply in response to that sky. I learned the importance of appreciating beauty where you find it a long time ago, but over the last year, I’ve become even more grateful for transcendent moments like this.

When you live in your car, you appreciate sitting under a solid roof and looking out at the rain from a dry place, as I did later in the evening at Starbucks. There were many times last summer when I had to sit up in the car until midnight before it was cool enough to go to sleep, but I was still enchanted by the sight of falling stars—and remembered to make a wish, you’d better believe it—during a meteor shower (for about two seconds, I imagined I was camping, but I couldn’t sustain it). I enjoyed the “nightlife” on whatever street I happened to be parked on: one night, it could be coyotes, the next night, it might be a prowling cat or a pair of opossums. I enjoyed looking at sunrises and the golden-leafed roof created by the autumn trees on one street. Most of the time, car camping is pretty miserable, so those fleeting moments of beauty stand out all the more. When you get a chance to try it, you’ll see what I mean.

This morning, the feeling of well-being persisted. I’m not normally a churchgoer, but I was stopped at a light and noticed a small red-brick church on the corner that I’d passed many times. In the mild sunshine (seemingly brighter and purer than it had been the day before), that little church looked so emblematic of Sunday morning that I wanted to write a story about it. It’s been a while since I had that Sunday morning feeling that’s an amalgam of peacefulness, restfulness, and a sensation of things having been freshly washed, but it was quite pleasant. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate that feeling.

There is a song from the musical Carousel that was sung at high school graduations when I was in school and may be still, for all I know. Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” has the lines: “At the end of a storm is a golden sky / And the sweet silver song of a lark.” I often think of the lark’s song when the sky clears after a storm, though I’ve never heard it. Last night, I could almost hear it. It was like that moment in The Polar Express when the hero boy rings the Christmas bell and senses he’s about to hear it for the first time. I’m not saying that there is any relation at all between this feeling and anything that’s about to happen: I’m only stating that I felt it and was glad I felt it.

Hey, Rodgers and Hammerstein? Songs of a lark? Hero boys and Christmas bells? I get it that it’s not hip and if you happen to be, say, a millennial, this is all hopelessly maudlin. (Maudlin itself being another old-fashioned word.) But if you ever find yourself suddenly on the edge of a dark wood after an extended sojourn within, you may remember reading this and have a different outlook. I’m not saying it’s certain, mind you. But it could happen.

I’m gonna have to say I think the good dinner had something to do with it, too, all those greens and that tilapia starting to course through my system. And then there was the vegan coconut pie . . . But that’s a different story entirely.