finding the lost chord......

I spent a day getting lost on purpose. Getting lost on purpose frees you...........strips you of the bag of rocks you've accumulated and have made you feel bogged down weary. It allows you to carry only what you need for the journey.....yourself. For me, it seems like its the only way to search for a lost chord needed to recapture the harmony. I knew it was missing, however I didn't even know what it sounded like. Perhaps I had never heard it all on it's own.

I let my feet take on the prayer.......one which began without the parameter of words or phrases.........just a pounding of the pavement, a rhythm of my movement, a cadence to help me release unhelpful energy and to replace it with preferred focus. I was in search of that one lonely chord lost in the cacophonic noise called busy anxious life.

And so I began with one determined step after another.....with no clear direction.......with an uncertain destination.....with hope that my prize would be at the end of my untangling. It's not a comfortable feeling. But Pip's message played in my head...... growth does not reside in a place called comfortable. And when the journey is full of fraughtful curves and unknown curbs, when the brain is churning unfinished, unclear, unresolved worries you can either sit in the puddle of inertia or get lost on purpose. I chose the latter.......

Getting lost on purpose is driven by an intuitive pull fed by a sense of curiosity, similar to the urge one has to continue reading a mystery book. As much as you want to flip from the beginning right to the end, in order to grasp the meaning, in order to know how it all unfolds, you have to take the time to use your intuition to pick up the cues, to guide your senses through the process. Sometimes it takes a much longer time than one day to solve the mystery of the lost chord when there's a need to unclench before the untangling can occur.

Eyes wide, ears alert..........possibilities open........I walked lost in a sea of unknown faces, in a relatively unfamiliar city where the daily rhythms were unattached to me. I let myself move into a flow of others.........strangers who offered me anonymity to regain the silence inside needed to tune in. I felt insignificantly small as I walked along soaking in the architecture, the history, the beat. No one seemed to notice me and I was fine with that knowing I could make myself be noticed if I needed to. There was a sense of security in my steps as I wondered what she would sound like, my lost chord.

Every now and then, I would stop to take notice of the people and the places..........faces with their own stories behind their facades..........places with intricate deliberate designs etched on the exteriors. I wondered what was on the inside of the people and the places.....what stories could they share? Sometimes, I stopped to take photos which allowed me to catch a breath snapshot. Sometimes I would decide to walk through the doors to peak inside where more beauty would be revealed. Grandiose, elegant, awe striking............

I liked the solitude in the crowd of ebb and flow strangers. I began to listen to my own thoughts as they passed through me, one untangling at a time. I began to feel an unfurling of limbs, a stretching of muscles, a letting go of the burdening rocks which had been so heavy to carry. I could feel a lightness as I exerted energy to move forward. This motivated me to keep going. This motivated my curious mind, knowing that if I just kept going, the lost chord would perhaps find me. Would I know when I heard it? Would I recognize that it was my own or would it feel like someone elses? Would I have to share this chord with others, or would it be uniquely mine?

It was mid afternoon. Save for a few quick stops to listen in places I kind of expected to hear something, I had been walking for nonstop for over 4 hours. I found myself in front of a smallish church (in comparison to the grandiose elegance of St. Pauls just up the road. The intuitive pull tugged on me as I stepped out of the hurried city and into this small cathedral, through a heavy wooden door.

Right away I found myself in silent comfort, pulled by the aroma of the wooden pews, the light filtering onto the brocade of worship, the colour cascading all around me. I was pulled right into it's reverence. No sound, except my own steps.

As I walked through the entrance and into the main body of the cathedral, I saw to my right a person sitting hunched over on a wooden chair completely covered in their outergear.....hood pulled up to hide the face. In front of this person were two bags. Their sole possessions possibly? My heart opened in empathy looking down at this crumpled person, broken by life, exhausted by their journey to find their own chord. I didn't even know the sex of the person.........all I could see was a shape....the outer shell of a sleeping feeling human being who escaped into the cathedral for respite and nourishment.

I wanted to touch the human being......put my hand on their knee......to let them know they weren't alone..........I wanted to reach out to them and see if they needed anything. While I was standing there beside him or her pondering it all, I heard something very faint. It was the softest plink, like a waterdrop on porcelain. plink.

plink.

I decided to leave the person in silence, realizing it was presumptuous of me to even think that I could help them. I realized that perhaps it was the other way around. Their presence helped me......helped me find focus. I then heard the sound again......plink.........like a raindrop falling into a birdbath.

I moved up the middle aisle, quietly opened the door of one of the middle pews and slid in. Though I was the only one sitting in the pews, I chose the middle. It felt right to be surrounded on all sides by a balance. Behind me slept the unmoving crumpled soul whom I could feel. I wasn't alone. We weren't alone. The air was thin with a presence I hadn't felt in a long time.

I heard it again.............a soft, faint plink which felt like it had touched me on the top of my head....a dewdrop of light emanating from above..........warming and seeping into my skin.....inviting me to gaze upwards.

plink.

It was then that I realized what the lost chord sounded like. It sounded like peace. As I looked up at the beauty I was sitting below, the peaceful chord reached my lips and left a tinge of salt. Peace and salt.

My feet settled, my soul felt less tangled...... I bowed my head like the crumpled person behind me to let the lost chord touch the back of my neck and shoulders while I sat inside the words of a prayer.....one which included a plink or two of my own tears.

The dome of St. Dunstan's church, on Fleet Street. It is the "home" of writers. I wasn't aware of this until I read the brochure I picked up on my way back out onto the busy street.