The Center of Everything

Warning: this is one of those soul-baring posts that can make you feel funny when you read it. (If I can make you uncomfortable, I know I've succeeded). However, if that you’re not in the mood for that, (PLEASE! Make it stop!!) go grab some chocolate and read my post about the Country Stampede. I won’t be offended!   

There’s a book I really like called “The Center of Everything” by Laura Moriarty. Coincidentally to this post, the book is set in Kansas, and the author – Moriarty – lives in Lawrence, Kansas. But I’m not going to talk about the book. I just want to use the title for today’s blog.

I recently moved back to Kansas. It’s Where I Come From.  It’s been a bittersweet homecoming. Last week, I got my Kansas license plate.  I don’t know why, but it seemed significant. As the clerk set the plate on the counter, I actually had to bite my lip to keep the tears out of my eyes. Maybe it felt like wiping out the final outward traces of a former life as the former me. So many changes. So many goodbyes. So many rites of passage, passing by unnoticed, uncelebrated or unlamented by anyone but me. Another shining moment in my life history, to be sure. If a moment shines in the forest and nobody sees it, does it really make enough light to cut through the darkness?

At the nucleus of who I am, there is a light – it is my creative soul. It is the part of me that is not changed by external events. It is the Center of Everything. In my case, there is music that can never be silenced.  It is the constant that drives me forward, over and over, again and again, through the muck and the mire, through the rain and the fire. It’s the lifeline that carries me over the angry sea to the safety of the shore. So I grab onto it and hold on for dear life when the situation calls for it.

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