Looking for space

There's this song I dearly love, a little ditty called "Looking for Space." If any lyric reflects my experience of life, surely it's that poem from the pen of John Denver.

It presents life as a roller coaster. Sometimes you fly like an eagle. Sometimes you're deep in despair. Anybody who has walked the long day's journey into night can relate.

Funny thing, life. I think sometimes that nothing turned out the way I thought it would when I was a lad and dreaming crazy dreams. Then I think that things have turned out better than it would have even had I scripted it.

I don't know. The song talks about things standing still just when you think you're moving. Been there. Done that.

The next line, quite vulnerable, is also quite honest:

I'm afraid 'cause I think they always will.

Why is it the heartache is remembered in Technicolor, while the joy tends to fade to monochrome? I remember the blank look on her face when I told her I loved her. I barely recall a better girl, and a better time, one winter's night in Nashville.

And so it goes. The nightmares seem more real than the dreams.

But, oh, these dreams of mine. I'll never forget the times a few of them came true, even if just for a moment.

They say we'll understand it all in the fullness of time. And that's usually the way of it. I never have forgotten Truman Capote's line about more tears being shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.

I've taken a piece of it all of it with me -- the smiles, the tears, the music and the madness. I told myself years ago that I'd live life to its limit -- loving too much, laughing too often, singing too loud, grabbing for the brass ring every lap around the carousel.

It's a good way. It also makes the tragedy play out in Technicolor.

But I keep going back to the words of that sad John Denver song.

It's a sweet, sweet dream; sometimes I'm almost there...

If there's an answer, it's just that it's just that way.

So it is, especially when you're looking for space, and trying to reach the stars.