Goodnight, (a poem)
"the journey is the destination"
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Goodnight,
I don't like not having someone to say goodnight to.
Who will know I made it through today?
That I'm looking forward to tomorrow?
I don't like not having someone who wants to know what time I go to sleep
noticing that I've chosen not to participate in this day any longer.
I don't like it one bit.
I don’t like wishing I’d created something when I could have.
Who will know I existed on the earth?
That I made some sort of impact?
I don’t like not having something to represent me when I’m gone
proving that I’ve chosen to participate in life while I had it.
I don’t like it one bit.
I don’t like doubting if I’ll ever feel satisfied with life.
Who will know I held peace from time-to-time?
That I felt it fleetingly but truly?
I don’t like not having some light at the end of the tunnel,
guaranteeing that my choices were at least enough.
I don’t like it one bit.
Goodnight,
I wrote the first stanza of this poem almost nine years ago. At the time, I was single, living alone in a studio apartment, and withdrawing from the habitual comfort of being able to text my ex-boyfriend “goodnight”. I found myself trying to go to sleep, sometimes a little scared of the tiny noises that scream out from the corners of an otherwise silent apartment and unable to settle.
Not long after that, I found comfort in the anonymity of single life and vowed to remain alone forever; I imagined myself a forever bachelor and dreamed of lovers that I would keep at arm’s-length.
Soon after that vow, I met my now-husband.
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The second stanza of this poem was written about a year ago, as an attempt to make something “more” of the first. I was in Covid’s initial quarantine and detoxing from the day-to-day of normal life, wondering how I would ever make an impact on the world around me if I were stuck in a personality-less apartment in the prime of my creative life.
Not long after that, I allowed myself to create nothing for awhile. Unburdened by the need to generate something specific, I began a pass through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way; I imagined myself joyful in having created at some point and prayed for happiness without a deadline.
Soon after that prayer, the hunger returned, and Gangletown was born.
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The third stanza of this poem was written an hour ago as a reflection of another beginning. In discussion with a few of my most beloved collaborators today, the theme of finding joy in the process came up. It always comes up. It came up over the weekend too when my dear friend offered the phrase, “the journey is the destination” several times. It is the lesson I have had to learn the most in my life.
Over and over, I am asked to look at the moment of now and love it for what it is.
Rarely does it seem like enough, but, at times, it certainly is.
The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
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