How to peel an onion.

Ah, the layers.

In front of me is maybe an inch of visibility- not a whole step- only enough to see that I am probably safe from death or disaster for at least the evening- or maybe until lunch time. Where I am, it is as dark as the Blackbird’s black night.

Today, my thoughts are as empty as blackness. You know that moment in the movies after the bomb has exploded- that strange kind of silence? That is something like the emptiness that I am hearing. There is a ring to it. It is quiet and loud at the same time. It is the panic of the unknown. It is the peace of inevitability.

I’ve tried to control so much; I thought I could do it. Not other people, but the outcome of my own life. The avoidance of pain. Of let down. Of disaster. Sure, the core of control, like that of an onion, is mythical; yet, knowing that makes it no less terrifying to let go of all that I thought I had wrapped up neatly. Holding on. Grasping. And is that something like panic?

I have read books about this, about the virtues of letting go, how beautiful it will be. I’ve known it was time to release that branch I've used to tether myself to the water's safe edge, the only thing keeping me from flying downstream. I remember smiling at the salmon as they hop upstream; silly salmon- you think you can keep that up forever? Let go, the river nudges, gently at first. Sticks and leaves and bubbles fly past at break-neck speeds, toppling over rocks and quickly out of sight.

My enthusiastic faith in the river, in the better life I’ve heard to be found downstream, is replaced with- terror? Something like it. Something immune to rationality, to reality. River: If you don’t let go, the branch will break anyways.

I'm not sure if I let go or if I couldn't hold on anymore. The current hasn’t slowed; I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what the next inch of river brings.

It is dark, and I finally revel in it. The darkness becomes my liberator. I’m not in control; I don’t have to be, and thank God, because I’m exhausted from the misconception. I am seeing the lessons in the darkness. Only in darkness can I surrender to the universe- it is not surrender if I know all of the outcomes, or if I think I do. Only in the darkness can the light find itself.

“Blackbird fly, blackbird fly, into the light of the dark black night.”

I am peeling through the blackness, and I can see the light.