Beautiful Uncertainty

So, today I went for a hike in the bitter cold at Schmeeckle Reserve, entering my happy place where nothing can bring me down.  Sure, the crisp air bit at my cheeks and gusts of wind created snowdrifts to “peril-ize” my path, but it all barely bothered me because I was lost in wonder of the world around me.

This morning was a particularly wondrous one.  The temperatures were bitterly cold (around -8 degrees Fahrenheit), but the sun was shining brightly—almost blindingly so—turning the snow-covered path before me into a shimmering, rainbow road.  I gazed at the beautiful, colorful crystals of light as I continued down the path, both mesmerized and filled with childish wonder. 

When I reached an open, sheltered area on the wood plank bridge to Lake Joanis, I stopped and closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of the sun warming my face from the bitter cold.  In that moment I was filled with such peace, feeling a deep connection to the world around me.  The Sun became a live being, a comforter, who both literally and figuratively shined a whole new light and warmth upon my world.  What was once a world of lifeless drudgery, disharmony, and confusion became a world of such beauty, warmth, and peace.  It truly is amazing how Nature can change our perspectives so deeply…and how the artificiality, structure, and busy-ness of society can turn us into mindless machines who have no time to “stop and smell the roses,” so to speak.

The Earth is such a complex, diverse, bizarre, contradictory, and delightful, but dangerously unpredictable, place.  The unpredictability of Nature is something we humans have the most issue with.  We want certainty in life because of the very fact that we live in a world that lacks certainty.  Nothing is truly certain: weather can change drastically without warning (cold, heat, blizzards, hurricanes, etc…), death can never be predicted and often happens to those we feel do not deserve it, and even the humans around us who we think we are certain about can turn around and change on us and do hurtful things to us.

To compensate for all this uncertainty, we try to create an illusion of certainty with our structured buildings, homes, laws, roads, businesses, and jobs.  Eventually we find a partner and possibly bear children to complete the sense of certainty and security, but the irony is that the more certainty you wrap yourself and the world around you in, the easier it is for that certainty to disappear and be replaced with an abundance of uncertainty that’s enough to paralyze you, a shock to the system.  Once you’re too certain of the world around you, you lose a grip on the true reality: nothing is certain.  So, when uncertainties begin to crowd your world, it’s like being hit in the chest by a ton of bricks.  Everything you believe in becomes questioned.

 I've been giving a lot of thought about uncertainty lately.  As my boyfriend Marshall and I’s relationship continues to progress, I become more and more certain…but I also have a lingering uncertainty.  It’s not the uncertainty of my love for Marshall: that’s one thing I’m completely, unquestionably certain about.  I think that love is one thing we can count on to be certain of in this world.  Once we have fallen in love with someone, that love never truly dies.  The uncertainty I feel is whether Marshall will always be with me, and how I would deal with the possibility of losing him from my life.  I hate to think of this because I honestly thrive on certainty…I don’t really like change unless it’s planned, and I’m definitely not one who likes to take major risks or do dangerous activities.

Yet……

Sometimes I do like uncertainty: taking a chance on romance, the first date, the first kiss, the first love-making…and especially the uncertainty of nature: storms, sunshine, clouds, rain, snow, ice, cold, heat, wind, etc…

Therefore, maybe we secretly, innately thrive for uncertainty, but we are taught to repress it by society and its structure.  That’s probably why I love being out in nature so much—its unpredictable, whimsical weather and its beautiful but dangerous environment and creatures.  Life is meant to be unpredictable, and maybe that’s a good thing because life is truly beautiful, unique, and perhaps even everlasting.