My faith in the inherent goodness of the universe has wavered of late, admittedly by own doubts as to whether it has a compass to dish out the "good" and "bad" occurrences to those with some sort of moral compass. But this past week, something broke in me. That essence that has long given me that meager light when all seemed lost, I squashed it in fury. Too long, I thought, I had believed in goodness, and too long I had reaped no results.
In my own self-pity, I spiraled ever inward, spitting and hissing at my loved ones, cursing my own self-inflicted wounds, wishing for death not of the body, but of the spirit.
I have never been one to believe in signs. Having been raised in the guilt-nurturing culture of the Irish Catholic church, I rapidly developed a loathsome air toward forced Sunday school, geriatric moan fests (aka "mass"), and poorly recited acoustic guitar renditions of white bread church hymns reminded me for the umpteenth time to feel bad for existing. Faith, in my mind, has always been a farse, a lie, a fool's errand.
A conversation with my sister yesterday evening spurred my inner fires, when amidst a flurry of self-pitying diatribes and "fuck you" rants toward all the accoutrements of the modern world I have grown to believe are against me, a silence came upon us and she whispered: "Philly. Don't give up. I need you. You are my rock."
Lingering in my mind were these words, all evening, all morning, and into the following day. I carried them, for they stung me, not with any sense of hurt, but with the real life wake up and stop fucking blaming yourself because other people need you truth that it represented. Faith or no faith, through my sister's words, the universe was reminding me why to stay alive.
And then, on my walk back from the grocery store at sun down, I seemed to tap into some sort of invisible wave of joy and elation. Crossing the street, a young, beautiful Brazilian girl in a tattered brown Volvo jerked to a stop, then accelerated, then jerked again to allow me to pass. I chuckled to myself, and found that she too was laughing. We shared our moment and the light changed.
Down the block, I pondered my brief encounter with a chuckle--the kind where the joy seems almost unfair to share aloud, so you grin and tip your head to your chest to compress it and squeeze it into you for a moment longer.
"Hey!" cried a cholo voice, the thick accented Mexican/East LA accent called out to me.
"Don't you ever lose your sense of humour man."
I stood and watched, a half-cocked smirk, attentive to my newfound street preacher as he gave me a friendly fist jab and took out his earphones. His curled mullet was tucked behind his non-descript backwards ball cap, his teeth were gnarled and yellow from tobacco, but he stood erect and sharp, his eyes never left mine.
"You may get a lot of shit thrown at you man, but you gotta keep your sense of humour. Cause you know man, people will try and wear you down, but if you can sit back and laugh . . . Fuck, man! In thirty years they'll look back and go, "Shit! We threw all that shit and him and he STILL happy?!" That's cause you got it together, man. You know how to laugh. Don't forget it. Love."
He tapped my fist, grinned, and walked off. How a complete stranger could so effortlessly and poignantly tap into the pursuit that has been plaguing me for ages since my arrival into LA, and perhaps into "Adulthood," I do not know. I've never been one to believe in the presence of guardian angels, but today, I met him, and he came in a form I did not expect, at a time I did not expect, in a moment where only in hindsight could I see I needed it most.
Perhaps a little faith is growing in me. There's a goodness out there in this universe, and it's looking out for all of us. Suppose you just have to keep your eyes open to see it.
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